We are so far behind on our blogs…we are now in Madrid…so I will attempt to catch up with our posts.

We finally slept in and it was all I thought it would be including thunder storms, wind and rain and hey that makes a perfect recipe for sleep.

So it wasn’t the best beach day, but we didn’t let that discourage us…we marched out onto the beach with the rain and wind and we stuck our feet in and damn it was cold…so that was that. We did a bit of exploring, ate a nice dinner and then saw a free Flamenco show at the hotel. It was different from the show in Barcelona, but still good. Before the show we listened to what I would call a Spanish polka band that sometimes threw in some bad American music. There was no one under 50 on the dance floor which made great people watching.

Oh and I forgot to mention the flamenco dancers picked people from the audience to dance with them and they of course picked Peter…funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Marion actually has the video and I hope she posts it….freaking funny. If you don’t know already Peter hates to dance.

We spent the last night hanging out talking and drinking vino, beer and something Marion mixed together.

The next day = Travel day

Our last morning in Fuengirola and we found out all the bull fights are on Sunday….what a bad time to travel. I would have loved to see a bull fight.

We had originally planned to head to Africa, but it wound up being to expensive to get to our destination and too time consuming….so we are off to Madrid.

We took a long ass train to Madrid, but it included dinner this time with free alcohol and a movie in Spanish…hahah.

Made it to Madrid at 10pm and found a place to stay….lugged our big bags around the city for an hour trying to find it and now we are here and all is good.

Adios for now…

Alarm Clock + 5:30am → Not happy + A Long Day

We wake up extremely too early today, we needed to catch a bus at 6:20 for an excursion to Granada. It wasn’t that bad, we just slept a few hours on the bus and arrived in Granada around 9:30. After a quick mini-tour by the guide, we ended up having a few hours of “free” time to explore until we were to meet back for our tour of the Alhambra Palace.

First things first…

Coffee and Churros! These things are at the top of the dough nut scale. Up there with beignets and of course your standard crispy creme. They fry up some bread, serve it to you along with a cup of warm chocolate sauce, then you dig your churro in the sauce, and enjoy its cholesterol filled goodness.

Second things second… (noone ever says that, so I figured I would)

A stroll through the market, much like any other market, a bunch of people all selling the same trinkity things for almost the same inflated prices. This one complete with your standard fare gypsies trying to con you out of whatever they can. The trick here is they “hand” you a twig of some sort, then tell you that you have to buy it. By “hand”, I mean they forcefully place it into your hand. They almost got Eli, but we arrived just in time to shoo them away.

third things…ok, nevermind that

With a bit more time to kill, we searched for something else to do before the big visit to the palace. I picked up a pamphlet from a TI (tourist information) and we were on our way to the Arabic Bath Al Andalus. This was a pretty amazing place, mainly because the sun was shining through it’s old school sky lights. We must have taken 100 pictures inside just trying to capture the beauty of the atmosphere inside. The price was also just right… Free. Gotta love that.

Continuing on tours of the great palaces of Europe, we board the bus for a quick jaunt of the mountain to the Alhambra Palace. History lesson here. Neat place, one creepy detail is that throughout the whole palace the walls are inscribed 9000 times with the words: “Only Allah is victorious”. One important part of Muslim architecture is that they use long reflecting pools to add to the already unique building structure. Of course, what palace would be complete without its amazing gardens to surround it, this one had just that. Unfortunately, we get separated from our tour group here (because it was actually 1 tour guide doing 2 groups, one in English and one in German). We ended up doing on own tour of the garden area and met our group back at the entrance for our departure back. Sleepy time on the bus again.

Back in Fuengirola…

Dinner @ an an Italian place on the beach. A “cute old man” (as per eli) was our waiter and he was very friendly, he actually ended up giving us all a free glass of wine after dinner. Then after we paid, a mini short of peach schnapps. Back to the hotel where we finished another bottle of wine, and watched the moon and the beach drift us into to our beds.

And now… a long overdo WTF:

Sorry for typing up another book….

Finally we arrived at midnight in Malaga. We took a cab to Fuengirola to a hotel called Las Pyramides. It was about a 30 minute cab ride to the hotel.

We were meeting my mom’s friend Marion (well our friend too). She surprised us by booking a room for 4 nights as a birthday present and booked two excursions to surrounding areas. Holy moly, what a birthday present, and what a relaxing surprise. The hotel was super nice. We’ve been staying in small pensions and hostals that are decent, but not like this hotel. Our view is of the ocean and well, I think we may be spoiled after this visit.

We headed off to dreamland…

Day 1 – Excursion to Ronda

We had to get up, eat breakfast and leave for 7:20am. Woo that’s early. We had a long, beautiful bus ride along the coast and through mountains where we caught glimpses of Africa and Gibraltar.

We started our tour at the Ronda Plaza De Torros, or bullfighting ring. It’s one of the oldest stone bull fighting rings in the world. There we learned the history of how one becomes a bull fighter (you have to be related to someone who once was a bull fighter, then you have to say you want to be a bull fighter at an early age, and then train for a very long time….including watching bulls and learning the form of a bull fighter). Also, to become a bull fighter you have to be good looking….that’s what our tour guide said…I kid you not. We also learned that at the end of a bull fight if the bull fighter is given both ears and tail of the bull…he did the best job he could have done with his bull fighting skills. If he gets nothing he sucked.

Next we went to a church that was once Arab, Jewish and then Christian. We could see the different architecture changes over time….pretty cool.

Our tour guide also told us the name Christopher is common in Ronda since the town’s patron Saint is Saint Christopher the protector of travelers. I guess I’m protected since my last name is Christopher.

After the church visit we were free to explore on our own and found many interesting sights.

Some history of Ronda; the city began as an Arab community that was protected by a 90 meter deep gorge. It was impenetrable until 1485 when Christians invaded the town. Ronda still has its Moorish style with whitewashed houses, tiled entrances and nice wooden doors.

I took so many pics in this city and none do it justice.

We returned from Ronda and Peter and I looked for a laundry mat to do clothes (it has been a while since we cleaned our clothes….not in the sink at least). We found a place where a nice man did our clothes for us, so we went to grab a beer. This is where Marion told us how tapas got started in Spain. There are so many fruit flies (or gnats) people use to use old food…cheese, bread etc. to cover their drinks so the bugs wouldn’t get in…hence the word tapas….and with that history in mind we went on a search for tapas and found a place. We learned of the “system” as the lady at the restaurant called it. She brought out tapa after tapa and we grabbed what we wanted or declined until the next food run and ate. We collected sticks that were in each tapa and that was how we paid at the end. Some sticks were more expensive than others. We had so many tapas it’s hard to say what we ate. We even had dessert tapas.

With full bellies we crashed…because the next day we had to get up for another excursion, this time to Granada that left at 6:20am….eeeek.

I hate that saying….not sure why I used it.

Ok…12 hour journey that turned into an adventure. Spain is on strike now….seems to be a trickle effect…so we had to jump off a few trains and figure out others ways to travel. We met an awesome couple named Ezra and Derrick from Singapore who shared two bottles of vino with us. The couple was celebrating Ezra’s 60th birthday. I hope Peter and I are like Ezra and Derrick when we are 60. One thing about trains you meet so many people.

Arrival in Barcelona…ate, explored…slept. Well…we tried too. Our hotel has paper thin walls and it’s right on a noisy street.

Day 1….
Barcelona has a street called the Ramblas…this is equivalent to any major tourist street/market in any city (like the French market in New Orleans, or Pike Place in Seattle), but with some exciting twists. They have a ton of interesting performers that come to life if you pay them (of course). Also, there are tons of flower shops and pet stores. They sell everything from small turkeys (game hens I think they are called…not sure), pigeons, ferrets, fish, turtles, chickens, ducks, roosters, bunnies, some weird jumpy creatures that looked like Peter’s mom (heehee). Parrots….hamsters. Basically if you brought any small kid by this market, they would want everything. Although I think some of the pets are sold as food…seriously.

We spent most of the day walking around exploring. We mainly stayed close to the beaches….ahhh. We also checked out the casino….they made a picture of us, scanned our passports and made us sign something. Lots of security for a not so great casino.

We also tried a ton of tapas….our favorite was called the bomb which consisted of meat and bread….imagine a hush puppy, with meat and special hot sauce….it was yummy. We also had fried crawfish, but it still had it’s head on.,,,hmm, but it was yummy. The other tapas were pretty normal…meat on a stick etc.

Peter will now talk about day two…

Well thanks Eli, continuing on…

Barcelona is a medium sized city (1.5 million if I remember correctly), so it’s quite spaced out…. With this in mind we decided to take one of the hop-on, hop-off buses to try and see more of the city in a shorter time span. Bad idea. We wait 15 minutes to buy a ticket, then we waited 45 minutes just to get on a bus, but then, when we’re finally about to get on the next bus, none show up for 5 minutes….10 minutes…15…20…then we see the reason… A protest is coming and blocking all traffic (a protest against transportation)… Excellent. So, we are shuffled off to the next stop (a 15 minute walk) where we wait another 20 minutes to get on a bus…. Sigh. After all this waiting, we make our way around the city up to see the old grounds from the 1992 Olympics that were held here. O… that reminds me, EVERY place we go, they are working on the major buildings (painting, restoring, etc…) so we end up looking at half the building under scaffolds, which, aren’t very visually appealing. I guess coming in the off-season has some consequences. Sorry for the tangent, umm, Olympic stadium was undergoing some renovation, so we wandered around some more, hopped back on the bus, and headed back to town.

Museum time…

We visited 2 here in Barcelona, the Picasso museum, and the City history museum. Picasso was pretty interesting, many works from his early years and a lot of his work while he was in school. Tired of typing… back to you Eli…

The history museum was also pretty interesting. You take an elevator down into a basement where you find ancient ruins of the city. There you get to walk through the many different histories of the city. You can view a 3d example of how the city once looked and it’s deterioration to its current state.

Now for the food. We decided to eat more tapas which included more bombs and other things that were yummy. I dared Peter to eat a giant jalapeno…but he couldn’t do it. We only had wine as a chaser. Water is more expensive than beer or wine…what are you gonna do?

We decided at the last minute to see a Flamenco show. This was awesome….four dancers, three singers, some clappers and three guitarists….it was a symphony of emotion and sound. The costumes were great and the show made me want to get up and dance. Peter was even ready to dance (heehee). We have some video and will try to post part of the show.

Ok…bedtime….Peter had to put lotion on my bug bites… they keep growing and I keep scratching. I think I may have to go to the doctor.

Departure of Barcelona

Our train left at 9:30am….only problem is there was a hole on the train track. Not sure how that happens, but they stuck us on a bus and sent us to some small town where we took another train. Met a dude named Rupert, who is a travel writer and photographer. He’s going to Madrid to stay in a 5 star hotel and write about it….lucky man.

We made it to Madrid where we missed our next train because of the hole in Barcelona. Also the train people have gone on strike here…so we have to wait 5 hours to take the next train to the town of our destination, Malaga, where we will meet my mom’s friend Marion. She rocks. We won’t be arriving until midnight and we’re not actually staying in Malaga…it’s a small town south of Malaga called Fuengirola. So as of now we are not sure how we will get there. Maybe we’ll hitch hike. Hmmm the adventure of transportation continues.

Nice is under a tropical storm warning…Well, not really, its just a cold front moving through, but the winds are really blowing shit around. Today is our relaxing day, we sleep in till about 10:30 (latest yet) and strolled down to the waterfront, which is where we met up with up friend the wind. Seriously, it was like a hurricane was coming through. It started to rain, so we popped into one of the “casinos”, which was hardly that. This one basically consisted of about 50 slot machines and a bunch of cracked out looking people getting their gambling fix. I cashed a whopping 10 euros into tokens, and we tried our luck. I hit a monster 25 euro on a spin and we walked out 20 euros up… I know, such big gamblers we are. We got lunch and grabbed an afternoon showing of Michael Clayton. I know, watching a movie on a trip to europe?? We needed a break from being tourists, and my feet were happy to not have any work to do for an hour and a half.

We’re off to Barcelona on a 12 hour journey that starts at 5:30 tomorrow morning.

So we managed to get up at 6:30am to make it to the Uffizi Gallery before we left Florence. I’ve never been up that early to go to a museum. The gallery contains work like the Birth of Venus from Boticelli, work from Rapael, Leonardo (the Annunciation), Rubens, Titen, Caravaggio and more. There are a handful of extremely famous paintings and Peter had never seen or heard of some. Peter is totally museumed out…so we will take a break in the next city.

We decided to stop in Nice, France for the night….so off we went. The only problem is France is on strike, so they dropped us off at the border. At the border we had to find another train. We met a nice man named Rob on the train and we drank vino together on the way to Nice. At least we made it to our destination….he never made it to his in Marseilles. The best quote from him all night was, “11 year old boys are gaseous.” We were talking about people who fart in public.

When we arrived we had no idea where to stay and we couldn’t find a pay phone, so we just walked and finally found a cheap hotel. The night guy didn’t think we were American. He said we were polite and we don’t look like Americans. We are getting that a lot and I’m still not sure what Americans look like.

We took off to explore the city and to use some wifi to look up the next train to Barcelona. The French seem to be pretty smart about WIFI….everything is secure. We found WIFI in the most unlikely place….McDonald’s….hahahh yeah. It’s free in you buy something…so we bought a coke. They really do have a Royal with Cheese….heheheh.

Nice is pretty interesting at night. It’s right on the Mediterranean.. I can’t wait to see it in the day.

The bed in the hotel is an actual full sized bed and not two twins pushed together. It’s nice. BTW I got bitten all over in Florence. It can’t be bed bugs since Peter is fine. I’m not sure what the hell it is….mosquitoes? But it looks like tiny bee stings….aahahahahhh.

So Peter called the wrong stop for Florence and there we were on the very faaaaaaaaaar end of town. We managed to find our way back to the train station and jumped on another train in the right direction.

As soon as we got there I was eager to visit old places I had been the last time I was in Florence…and man have things changed. The Pensione I stayed at for two months is now a hotel and there are other new additions to the town. Plus, it’s full of tourists like Venice was.

Peter and I walked around and then had a big meal and a bottle of wine then headed back in order to get up early to hit museums.

Day one…
We started at the Accademia which houses the famous David and other important works of art. We also visited the music museum which was pretty interesting.

After that we stopped for Gelati….of course we have to try all flavors before leaving Italy. Next we stopped at the Dumo….Florence’s gothic cathedral with the last judgment painted on the ceiling (this was pretty sweet….a pic is included below). Then we went to the Palazza Pitti. The palace showcased the royal apartments, their art collection with stuff from Raphael, Rembrandt, Titian, Rubens and more (pretty nice collection). Peter also let a few rip during this museum walk….quite embarrassing but no one said anything….I didn’t wait around to catch a whiff or anything else….this happened about three times with crowds around…..shish.

The entire museum was a long walk and we were basically done with art for the day. That’s when I had the brilliant idea to hike to the top of the Piazzale Michelangelo. It wasn’t so bad since we have buns of steel, but Peter was tired so I had to stop and wait for him. Check out the pic…luckily there was a gelati stand at the top (heehee).

We hiked down and searched for a quick dinner (dinner the night before was a little expensive) and we stopped for a quick beer at a place that charged us $5.50 euro a pint. Yeah that pretty much sucked, so we bought a bottle of wine and food and headed back to the hotel. We have a reservation tomorrow morning for a museum at 8:15am…..I don’t think I’ve ever gotten up that early for a museum.

Currently Peter is snoring.

Our last day in rome consisted of sleeping in (8:30 lol), breakfast on the rooftop, and a stroll through central Rome. We started at the base of the Spanish steps, climbed up them, took some pictures, then back down again! They weren’t too impressive. We cruised down through some of the main shopping areas to the Piazza Venezia which is the location of the Victor Emmanuel monument, a pretty ginormous structure. This is the location of my run in with the Italian Polizia. Ok, it wasn’t much of a run in, but I got a whistle blown at me for trying to go some place I shouldn’t. Twice actually, the first time as a quick warning that I didn’t really realize was directed at me, the second whistle (a long, get the hell back or I’ll beat you with this billy club kinda whistle) finally got my attention and I retreated. Following a deluge of more pictures, we walked back to get our bags, lunch, and a 1:15 train.

The train is again where I type this message, and as I peer out the window at the Italian countryside filled with old little towns built atop hillsides, grape vines that are just past harvest (they are starting to turn yellow and to die off for the winter), I also noticed that the powerline poles are painted the colors of the Italian flag. Neat.

Just an additional note about the Vatican Museum… I don’t think I’ve seen so many people waiting in a line, nor have I ever seen some many people crammed into a building. It was quite strange, the museum has probably 100,000 “specimens” to look at, supposedly the most expensive collection in the world, and nobody was really stopping to look at anything. It was as if everyone was being corralled through to see the finale, the Sistine chapel. The whole time the only signs you see are “Cappela Sistine —>”. The museum almost makes you think that’s the only thing in there, and people are just following everyone in front of them like cattle, not really looking at anything, just wanting to get to the chapel. Sad kinda.

WTF:

Our butts and legs hurt. I think we walked too much the first day in Rome.

Breakfast rocked….we got a bag of food…yogurt, an apple, juice, a croissant, a dessert thingy, coffee and water. If I ever come back to Rome ….I’m staying here.
I saw Kevin the priest at breakfast and he apologized for being preachy the night before, but then launched into another tirade. Not sure if his conversations are practice for his church one day, but man he’s exhausting.

Enough about that…the day was going to be dedicated to getting into the Vatican museum….even if we have to cut into line.

The museum opened at10am and we were in line at 9:30 (the metro took forever to drop us off….It was rush hour combined with everyone going to the Vatican….a ten minute ride turned into 30 minutes and the Metro was completely packed….lets just say I’m glad I put deodorant on….arms pits were everywhere).

The line was around the block at the Vatican museum and when I say around the block….these are really long blocks….from beginning to end it took about ten minutes to walk….or more. So Peter and I waited, but then got impatient It would have probably took about three hours to get in. Peter went for a walk and about 20 minutes later I joined him at the beginning of the line and we went into the museum…I know we suck, but we had to do it….hahhaha no one noticed…well except one lady who wasn’t too happy.

The museum was sweet…I’ve been before but I couldn’t remember everything. We saw the Sistine chapel, statues, and lots of modern paintings from artists like Dali, Moore and Lawrence to name a few. We saw frescos from Raphael and Michelangelo, a painting from Leonardo (that wasn’t finished) and a painting from my favorite painter Caravaggio. I was most surprised with the modern art collection that existed in the museum. No one else paid much attention, but I couldn’t believe some of the stuff the Vatican has collected. I think we spent about 4 hours in the museum.

We stopped at the hostel to “go to the bathroom” and Peter and I feel asleep for a few hours…..not sure how that happened, but I guess we needed it.

We decided to check out one more museum before the pasta party…..we headed to the National museum which houses the greatest collection of ancient Roman art…..so it consisted of lots of statues, frescos and mosaics. One cool thing about this museum is they recreated some artwork that would have existed in homes or in temples and you can walk into this setting. Also, there’s a mummy and a coin and jewelry collection. The best part about this museum was a private party with a symphony ran though a sound check….so we got to hear music while we strolled around, and since it was almost closing time, we basically had the museum to ourselves.

Ok…we made it to the pasta party where we met a bunch of Canadians that have been traveling around for a year helping out missions across the world (they attend a bible college in Canada), so of course my friend the priest took a liking to them instantly and in an hour he was talking to them about the church etc. and kept talking all night. Peter, myself and a woman from Denmark decided to create our own conversation. Apparently they were discussing the church and bible until 1am. Our Russian friends had had enough bible talk so they stayed away.

By the way one of the Russian friends named Dennis (his real name is Denise…apparently that’s common with Russian names) speaks 5 languages fluently and he’s learning Arabic. He can converse with us fine in English, I witnessed him speak flawless Italian, German and Russian to others. Shish…..we exchanged e-mail addresses and invited him to visit Seattle. He’s attending school in a PHD program in Minnesota and is out here doing a presentation.

Peter and Dennis…

The view from our hostel

We made it a short night and headed off to dreamland. The pasta and drinks were yummy.

I’m not sure what’s happening but my klutziness has increased. Maybe vacation does it to you, but literally I have had near death experiences through tripping over my own feet. One trip I flew in the air a few feet….it was pretty impressive. I’m not sure which parent I get this from….but whoever it is…blarg.

Eli

We finally arrived and checked into our hostel. Apparently our hostel is known for spaghetti parties and free wine and sangria on the roof top. So we dropped off our things and made our way to the roof where we meet some Russians and we became fast friends over a bottle of vino.

Day 1 …
We deiced to purchase a Roma pass that included transportation on the metro and free, or discounted museums. The Roman metro is pretty easy.

We went to the Vatican and tried to go to the Vatican museum….but the line was around the block, we nixed that idea and went into St. Peter’s. I had forgotten how big the church really is. The last time I was in Rome was 11 years ago (I mentioned earlier it was 9, but no it’s 11…damn I feel old) . Peter was quite impressed. One thing I missed the last time I was here was the statue of St. Peter. People waited in line to rub his foot for good luck. Pretty funny if you ask me.

Next we went to the colosseum which again I had to be reminded that it’s 2,000 years old. I never actually made it in the colosseum last time I was in Rome, so this time we paid to go in. After the colosseum we went to the cappuccino crypt (bones of more than 4,000 monks are decorated in eerie ways), the Pantheon (which I would love to stand in the next time it rains, there’s an opening on the ceiling that lets rain in, 4 drains exist on the ground level). We then stopped at the Trevi fountain and then some church close by. Some many churches exist here. I think we got lost at one point (of course) and we tasted some gelato and made it back to the hostel for the spaghetti party.

Ok so seriously this hostel rocks. Free pasta and they bring out a big vat of vino and a big vat of sangria. Our Russian friends joined us and also a new older man named Kevin. He turned out to be an American studying for the priest hood here in Rome. He’s almost done, but isn’t sure what parish he will be able to reside in. He became pretty preachy as the night went on and I had to bring up the issue with gay marriage with him and I seemed to open the can of worms so to say. People started to get upset because he monopolized the night with religious preaching, but he was nice. He gave me a holy medal to wear. He says I owe it to myself to be reacquainted with the Catholic religion. Hmmm.

I was up all night blowing my nose. I think the neighbors hate me; I think Peter is getting use to it.

Eli