1/30/05

We walked around Dublin today. We saw the temple bar area and christs chruch cathedral and O'connell street where there are statues of Irish leaders such as Daniel O'Connel, charles Parnell and James Larkin. Also there on O'Connell street is an unbelievebaly tall spire that marks the center of the city.
By pure chance we literally ran into 2 people who had stayed in our rom in the Galway hostel. They stayed in our room on seprate occasions. We ran into them within a 5 minute span of time. We didnt know that either of them had planned to be there. Small world. We got some groceries and trekked back to our new hostel. We like this hostel better because 1 it is cleaner 2 it is smaller 3 is has a better kitchen 4 it is not located directly next to a disco/bar that has music pumping right next to our hostel until 4 am. 5 it is half the price of the hostel from last night. Many good things! They have cable too mmm... MTV. We are in a 12 bed dorm but only one other guy is in the room so it is almost like we have privacy. Or as close to privacy as we can get these days. We cant wait for spring so that we can camp again! :)

1/29/05

We awoke late and had pancakes again to use up our syrup. yummy Mark, one of the cool guys that works and lives at the hostel, thought Ang's towel was someone else's and put it in the washer and dryer. So we had to wait for the towel to be laundered before we left. We walked with Chris, Jemma and Bev to the small Galway outdoor market. Nice stuff but like I said it was very small. Once the towel was done we gathered our gear and made our way to the bus station. Yesterday we had tried to get our bus tickets online but the website wasn't operating correctly. We went up to the ticket office and the girl working there told us that the tickets would be about 3.50€ more than the internet price. So we walked to an internet place and got our ticket online for much less. Definitely worth our time and effort. So we got on the 2:30p bus to Dublin. We got into Dublin around 6pm. We found our hostel, Litton Lane Hostel, which used to be a recording studio for the likes of U2 and Elvis Costello and Sinead Oconnor. Too bad they forgot to clean the place before they turned it into a hostel. The place was sort of gross. A place to sleep nonetheless. We walked around the city and found another cheaper and cleaner hostel for the next couple of days. Then we went back to the hostel and made some phone calls, watched some tv and went to bed. Bigger beds was a plus I must say. I will value a full sized bed soo very much when we get back home.

1-28-05

We decided to stay in Galway another day. I'm still not sure I like this city, but I do like the people who run and are staying at our hostel. They have been very welcoming now. Everyone here is going through the same things we are, ie looking for/working jobs so they can continue to travel in Europe. We tried to go back to the University to use their free internet but we needed a log in today so the jig is up with that. So we walked across the river, over a bridge actually hehe, and found the cheapest internet we could. 2€/hour I wish we had the capital to start our own internet business. We could be making all sorts of scratch. We went to the grocery store and ran into Chris, Jemma and Chris's friend, Bev while there. So we walked back to the hostel with them. They are very nice people and we enjoy hanging out with them. They have been travelling even longer than us. We watched Whale Rider. Ang had seen it before but it was terrific for a third time.

1-27-05

We had pancakes and maple flavored syrup for breakfast and watched the movie The Golden Child with Eddie Murphy cuz Caleb had never seen it before. We went to the University in Galway to use Free Internet so a bunch of you probably heard from us finally. After we walked around the city to get a feel for it. WE went to a couple of second-hand stores looking for a towel for Caleb cuz he lost his somewhere between Cork and here. First I found a cool pair of brown cords for 4euro! woo hoo On the way to the last secondhand store these two super drunk Irish guys (it is early afternoon for god's sake) stopped us an asked if we were Americans. We lied and said we were Canadian cuz we just didn't feel like getting into a political debate midday with drunkards. No good could come of it. We found a new towel for Caleb downtown. Then we went back to the hostel to make lunch/dinner. Later we watched the movie, The Transporter. It was an ok movie. We just relaxed and hung out with the other hostelers during the night.

1-26-05 Happy Australian Day!

Marie-Josee left early this morning to go back to Germany. I was sad to say good bye because she is such a sweetheart and when you are travelling like this and meet new people that are really cool, you become close so quickly and then must say goodbye again. We will go visit her when we go back to Germany tho. We had gotten several recommendation to check out Galway for a place to find jobs and hole up for awhile. So we hopped on a bus around 11:25a and did just that. When we got to Limerick the guy that had been sitting alone in the back of the bus had to get off at the Limerick stop. So as we were nearing the bus station the guy gets up from his seat, comes over to us where we are seated and says straightfaced, "This town is called HELL!...No, I am serious." And then justs walks away to the front of the bus. Very spooky. Caleb said he could see why when he got off the bus in Limerick to go to the bathroom. He said the station was really dirty and scary. He didn't want to touch the ground with his feet even. He said it look lik a carpet of cigarette butts. He was glad he didn't have to touch anything in thebus station bathroom. They had some "technical difficulties" with our bus so we had to move ourselves and all our gear from under the bus to a new bus. They got back on the road about 45-50 minutes later than expected so we got to Galway later than expected. We found our new Hostel without too much trouble. This hostel is a bit different because 95% of the people staying there and 100% of the staff live there long term. So it is more like communal living. Rachel, a girl from Australia, was having her birthday. Everyone who lived there was making a dish for dinner to share. However we didn't discover this until after we had gone shopping for food and began preparing our pizza. We did get to try all the desserts, including birthday cake. Mmmmm I sort of felt like an outsider since most everyone lives here full time and have established relationships and are very tight knit. We are also the only Americans staying here. We have to explain/defend our political point of view at least once or twice a day. Good thing we are not Bush supporters or we would get even more flack than we already do. Everyone hung out until late partying for Rachel's birthday and Australian day.

1-25-05

Yesterday was sort of a superficial sightseeing day of Cork so today we took more photos of the major sites. Such as St Finbarr's Cathedral, Parliament Bridge, National Monument, Grande Parade and St Patrick's Street. Marie-Josee came with us until about 3:45pm then she went shopping for Irish stuff and Caleb and I met our new friend, Ann. Ann is absolutely hilarious and so very nice. She is just grand:) We had met Ann in Madrid at Barbieri Hostel. She has just moved to Cork and is staying in her friend, Francis', house. So we went to the house to prepare and eat dinner and hang out Irish style. hehe Ann made this amazing meal from scratch! Falafels, a mint yoghurt sauce, millet with garlic and onions and fresh bakery bread with fresh cut tomatoes to top it all off. It was grand. We rolled the falafels and helped Ann fry them. We got to meet Francis and her 17 month old baby girl, Earan, and the Earan's father, Allan that lives around the corner from Ann and Francis. Earan is a gorgeous child. Ang has been exhausted all week so we walked back to the hostel with Ann and said goodbye and went to bed.

1\24\05

Today we explored the city a little bit, then we went to see a movie(million dollar baby) We explored the city a bit more before going to the hostel. We sat and talked a long while with mary jose(a girl we met from kelarny) We cooked a fantastic dinner of curry chicken on a bed of rice. We went to an irish pub(the thirsty scholar) to listen to traditional irish music for a few hours.

1\23\05

(caleb)
Last night we were invited to go mountian climbing with a group of people. We decided to go with them. We started climbing at about 10:45. We started out and gained a couple hundred meters in just a few minutes. We walked up to a lake and took a small break. From there we crossed a bog. Everyones shoes got wet, and those without waterproof ones got wet feet as well. We climbed, taking breaks every 20-30 minutes witil the first peak. It was an amazing view and there we took a break for lunch. It was a strange feeling because the rocks and grass were covered with a crust of ice, but the sun was shining so it was warm at the same time. By this time we were so high that the clouds were forming right in front of us. It is hard to discribe this next part but we could see the clounds flowing in two different directions at the same time, the clounds that were flowing over top of one of the mountian peaks in front of us were flowing south while the clouds that were just being formed flowed north.
After lunch we started hiking towards the summit, luckily we had a guide because we could only see a few meters ahead of us. We finally made our way to the summit and had a small celebration. At first we were disappointed because we could only see the inside of a cloud, but the cloud soon blew over and it seemed like we could see the entire country. We started back down and just then we saw 2 guys running up the mountian in just t-shirts and running shorts. We were baffled because we were freezing with our coats, hats, and, gloves on. Halfway down the mountian we witnessed a clear mountian sunset. We crossed the bog again and everyones feet got wet once again. We finished the trek at 6:30 and the leader of the group was nice enough to give us a 2 hour ride to cork. He dropped us off right in front of our next hostel.

1\22\05

(caleb) hike, hike, hike, that is the theme for today. First, we hiked though the golf course and we saw at least 30 deer. They were not even scared. We walked all the way from the hostel to ross castle. On the way to the castle the footpath was flooded with about 5 inches of water so angies feet got wet. When we arrived at the castle we discovered that it was closed, but it was still very cool on the outside. Once there we met a nice lady from new jersey. She was there with her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. They were nice enough to give us a ride to torc falls. The falls were amazing and we hiked all the way up to the top of them and from there had an amazing view. Kelly, christine, and permot gave us another ride to the muckross house and grounds. From there we walked to Muckross abby. It is a wonderful place. It feels nice just to be there. It was indiscribebly beautiful and very sureal. In the middle of these abby runis was a dree. It must be a very old tree because the abby is from the 15th century and the tree is still there. It looks like a tree that faries would live in. I appreciated that you can completely woalk through the entire runes, unlike a lot of other places in europe. It was almost hard to imagine that it was once a place where people came to love and worship out in the middle of the forrest.
We walked back into town and on the way we walked past a deer farm. We made it almost all the way to the hostel, but it was raining and we had walked all day so we stopped at a gas station and I met an irishman. He gave us a ride the rest of the way to the hostel. He was really nice but I think that he had a little to much to drink.

1\21\05

The adventure started right away this morning. Thank goodness that we packed everything last night because we barly had enough time to get dressed, go the the bathroom, take the sheets off the bed, eat breakfast, check out and catch the bus to the train station to catch the bus to the airport. We had to literally run down the city bus that goes to the train station. I had to stand in front of the bus to stop him because the bus had already passed our stop. There was no way I was going to miss that because it was 7:10AM and our airport shuttle left from the Hauptvahnhof at 7:30. We would have been late if we had missed it.
The flight went off without a hitch. Once we arrivec at kerry airport, we had to take another shuddle bus(stupid ryanair) from there to killarney. We were dropped off downtown, but our hostel was 3.5 miles from there. We had no cash for a taxi after the shuddle ride into town and the cash machine that worked with our card was out of order so we hiked to the hostel with all of our gear in tow. We ended up taking a very scenic route up a hill to Agidoe. We werent sure we were going the right way so we asked a couple of friendly locals for guidance, which they were happy to give, with a smile and a joke even! Everyone is so friendly here. Once at our hostel we dumped our gear and headed back into town to get food cuz this host4el has a professonal style kitchen! We ended up hitchinking into and back from town for the food. Both of the people that picked us up were foreigners that now live in Ireland. Both women. The 1st one from russia and the 2nd from portugal. I guess they know what it is like to be in a strange place traveling and needing a bit of help. I made chicken alfredo with pasta. It turned out quite good! I met my roommate(the dorms are split here) She is origonally from Quebec but is living as an aupere for an 11 y/old girl in germany, near Sarbruken. She offerend to have us stay with her and her family when we go back to germany. We had icecream for desssert because there is a freezer accessible to guests in the hostel. it was yummy! we listened to some irish radio station playing hiphop and rap. There was no censorship of the songs. That makes us realize just how censored everything in the US is. Very dishearting since we are suppost to have freedom of speech in our democracy.

1\20\05

After wondering Frankfurt we set our sights on gathering the ingredients for supper, we bought gnocchi(potato pasta), ham (very expencive ham too, 7.37€ for 10 slices holy pig!) from the open air market, fresh bread from the bakery up the street, and an augratin sauce. The only thing I had to make all this in is our 5€ hotpot. And it is tiny so I had to be creative. With some onion I had bought in austria(for .10!) Caleb said that it was excellent. We made dinner in our hostel room and ate right there. Simple but good. 2 people from brazil and 3 people from taiwan sayed in our room tonight. Very cool people.
We have to get up at 6:30 AM tomorrow mornind to catch a 7:30 bus to the hahn airport. 1 hr and 40 minutes away from hahn airport(damn you ryan air!) so we packed everything before we went to bed.

1\20\05

Just as aside to this episode, we emplore those who read this blog to FEEL FREE TO MAKE Comments, hint hint hehe We really appreciate hearing from those at home and those we have met along the way. It warms our hearts greatly. Thanks ahead of time:)

Frankfurt is our oyster today. Not much to see here tho that is Free. We have basically walked around the city aimlessly and still bumped into the major sites. Dumb luck I guess. The weather was better when we started out this morning. It almost felt like spring in temp, but it has been very overcast all day. We leave for Ireland tomorrow! wooohooo Rootootootoo too Blarney! Wish us the luck of the irish in finding accomodations and a job. Ryanair only flies into secondary airports so we are not quite sure where we will be landing or how we will get to Cork, but isnt that part of the joy of travelling...or at least we tell ourselves that. haha

1\19\05

We awoke a bit earlier today. Must catch a train at 9:44 am to Frankfurt. It was snowing this morning as we walked to the Hauptbahnaof. The first snow to fall on us since arriving here in Europe. We picked up some fresh bakerz weissbrot and some meat and cheese for our train ride. On the train from Nurnberg to the Hanau we met this amazing woman that lives in Wurzberg. She runs a film festival and music program for childrn in Wurzburg. She lives 1\2 in wurzburg and the oghter half the time in Nurnberg to take care of her 92 y\o father. I think that she is an angel :)
In Wurzburg someone left their luggage in the passageway to the Polizei boarded the train and searched it thoroughly. We werent sure that we would catch our next train on time because there was only 10 minutes inbetween for us to transfer. But we ended up making our connection in Hanau to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. It took us like 2 hours to find our hostel. We finally took a bus that dropped us off about 50 meters away from it. Man those packs of ours are Heaaaavy when we carry them for longer than 5 minutes. We have even dumped and had stuff stolen and not bought a thing to add to the weight. It is one of the great mysteries of travelling-backpacking. hehe The hostel is like a prison sort of. It is the largest hostel in Germany apparently. hundreds of rooms. we played some cards while we watched some German tv, of only 10% did we understand. We went to bed early cuz travel days really take it out of you.

1\18\05

At 1:30am we are awoken by the lights being turned on and the gzy from the front desk says we have to come downstairs and talk to the police.. The psycho guy from the tv room had called the police after the hostel management had tried to kick him out of the hostel for what we had seen. So we get downstairs, half asleep and bewildered, and at first I arrived alone and the crazy guy was tying to tell me why he had made the film and rambling incoherently. I was scared. So the police split us up and began questioning me about what ocurred. They then explained that there had been nothing done that was technically against the law, but they were going to escort the guy out of the hostel and he would not be allowed back ever. The police let us go and we went back to our room. Totally surreal experience. Both Caleb and I felt unsettled after that. Then we went back to bed. In the morning we said adios to Antonio and wished him happy travels. Then we did som laundry by hand and took showers. Then we hit the town of Munich. We saw the Glockenspiel (not in action because it only goes off at 11 and 12 and we missed both), the Neue and Alte Rathhaus. The Frauen kirche, St Lukas and manz more churches, the Residenz and another castle. We had an awesom buffet lunch at this german pub-restaurant. The food was sooooo good. We walked alng the river and then went to the Hofbräuhaus! MMmmmmmm great beer. Caleb had the HB Dunkles bier and I had the rußn bier (very sweet and yummy). We played cards and tried to converse with this old German dude most to no avail. Much effort was made on each side. ARound 6 pm the Bavarian oompa loompa band started to play and it made me so happy I cried. hehe Caleb got us ths hugemungous German style pretzel that tasted heavenly and it made Caleb cry. They even gave us 2 kinds of mustard to go with it. HB rules! We went to the internet and then returned to the hostel. We chatted with Wiebke, a nice german girl from Leipzig for a bit and then crashed.

1\17\05

On the road again...to Salzburg, Austria. At least that was the travel plan. We saw a lot more snow todaz and it is getting colder the farther north we go, of course. Lots of beautiful mountains and castles and churches pop up now and again along our way. Austria is much cheaper than Switzerland. Except coffee. Coffee gets more expensive the farther we go north. Speaking of java...we stopped somewhere in Austria to get some coffee and eat some lunch. This is when Antonio tells us he has changed his travel plans, unbeknownst to us, and will no longer be going to Dublin on the 20th (flying from Frankfurt like us). This changed things radically for us because we had already purchased plane tickets for the 21st departing from Frankfurt! So we quickly had to decide what course we would take. Ultimately we decided to be dropped off in Munich, Germany, spend a couple dayz there and then catch a ride to Frankfurt somehow. Upon arriving in Munich we found our hostel and then went to the Hauptbahnhof to research train tickets and look for internet. Our initial train ticket search gave us lots and lots of expensive options. Not good for us. So Caleb got into the ticket service line to see if there was a less expensive option. We decided to think about our options and do interneting first. On our way out of the train station a guy ran forcefully into Caleb, knocking him back, and then tried to pick his left coat pocket. Luckily nothing was in his pocket to steal, but it made both of us soooo angry. Caleb pushed the guy back and asked him what he thought he was doing. The guy just stared blankly back and didnt answer. he looked like a junkie. we should have just notified the police right away, but we were simply stunned that someone would have the gall to do that again. We walked to the internet station and while i checked email, updated the blog, ect Caleb went back to the train station to buy the tix to Frankfurt. Then we walked back to the hostel to make dinner. After finishing dinner preparations (mmm yummz frankfurters and great german bread mmmm) we heard the Star Wars theme blaring from the TV in the adjoining common room. We saw that there was a guy laying on the couch in there watching the tv. As I sat down I said hi to the guy and smiled, trying to be friendly. He jsut rose up a bit verz slowly and got a bit closer to my face and stared at us menaceingly. He looked crazy in the eyes. Then I looked at the tv screen expecting to see star wars but instead there was a picture of Julia Roberts. So we assumed that the guy had changed the channel to a Julia Roberts movie. ok but the longer we watched we realized that it wasnt a movie at all. this guy was just looking at a still photo of Julia Roberts. Then the picture switched to another photo of a nude looking female model. then I look over and he had his hands in his pants and is moving them around. yikes! Psycho! So I say to caleb, lets go eat somewhere else. So we moved to the first floor lounge. When Caleb went to the front desk to buy a beer (more than 10 kinds of good german beer!) he casuallz mentioned what had happened upstairs. We didnt complain reallz or ask for anything to be done. The front desk guy came over to us about 10 minutes later and offered to buy calebs next beer for free! because of the "incident" upstairs. cool. We figured that was the end of it... After caleb had his frei beer we went to bed.

1\16\05

Up and away, we are on our waz to switzerland. The french countryside is lined with a crust of sparkling frost. The mountains started at the border of France and continued on thru Switzerland. We arrived in Zurich around 5pm and the search was on for our hostel. We stayed at City Backpacker Hostel right downtown Zurich. We got a 4 person mixed dorm, but only Caleb, Antonio and I stayed there so it was like having a private room. Antonio took a nap and Caleb and I went on a search for food and to see a bit of the city. It was Sunday so by that time many things had closed. We walked up and down the Hauptbahnhof strasse and finally Caleb, in German no less, asked these two gzys where to find a supermarkt.We were both excited because thez answered us in German and we actually understood! It turned out that the onlzy markets open were in the main Zurich train station (called the Hauptbahnhof). There was a mini mall in the basement floors of the Hauptbahnhof. soi we procured ourselves some vittles and returned to the hostel to make dinner. Then we did laundry and fell into bed because I was exhausted!

1\15\05

We decided to stay an extra day in Lyon because we all likeit some much. We statrted out the day bz going to the cathetral. It was like most other gothic cathedrials we have seen except it has a strange machine in it. It was called horologie. It was built in the 1300's. After the french revolution thez redid the outside with new zears, but the machenery is all origonal and it still works perfectly. I iddnt understand exactlz what it did, but I can tell you it had somthing to di with the constellations and time. The date on the touside was correct and the last time on the face is 2016. We road the giant farris wheel, which was amazing and went shopping. Angie found some boots that she wanted, but I told her to wait until we get ot Progue becaus things will be much cheaper there. We pieck up some fresh market potatos, borccli, onions, zuchinni, garlic, and chicken breasts. I dont know whz but thez have much better tasting ingredents here. we spent the evening relaxing and drinking french wine, and conversing with fellow travelers. Angie went on a trek around the city with a buch of french people and saw the Basilica. They all spoke french and it was very cold.

1\14\05

8:30 AM
"hey Antoni, wake up its 8:30" "Oh my god!" Antoni runs out to the car and when he comes back he said that the meter checking person was already there and was readz to hand out a ticket. Whew, close call.
Driving was foggy at first, but eventually cleared up to reval the beautful french countryside. There were orchards and moundians. I never realized the amount of forrestes in southern france. We stopped for coffee in a little village. The people were verz friendlz. Antoni bought some wine. From there we made our way to Lyon. The first hotel we checked was full so we called the second place in the book. it was a hostel on the side of a hill. The dorms were seprate sex but the view was amazing! We went out with a group fro the hostel. We went to an irish pub. We decided to leave at 12:15, we didnt have a map but we thought that it would be no problem to get back. Our friend Zosuke(from Japan), Angie and I walked around trying to find the hostel for 2 hours.

1\13\05

(caleb)
We were up brigtht and early at 4:30 AM and were on the road bz 5, we made our way to northern spain and stopped for lunch in Donos tia saint sebastian. The beach was beautiful, the giant waves came crashing into the boulder sized rocks set in place to protect the beach. The ocean spray must have been 20 feet high. In the middle of the city a river floed out into the sea. It was amazing to see the water emptz into the sea and at the same time watch giant waves pummel the river bed. After a quick coffee we were back on the road. This time to france. It was mz first time seeing france in daylight. we drove to Lourdes to see the cave where the virgen mary appeared and the giant church built in honor of it. There is also a castle built upon a large bluff, it was amazing. From there we made a marathon run to Toulouce. There we got a hotel room and went in search of food. We found a pizza joint and were considering getting some with this morrocan guz came and started speaking a mixture of french and broken english to us. He was quite obouslz drund out of nis mind. He was acting kind of weird and started hugging us and sazing how cool wer were. Antoni had been using the super expencive internet and so we went back to see if Antoni wanted pizza, and to get away from the guy. Antoni said that pizza would be fine and when we came back, the pizza lady had called the cops because of the weird guz. We ended up ordering take out and having pizza and tea at the hotel. The hotel manager said that the car would be fine until 8 AM when they started checking the meeters.

1\12\05

(caleb)
Today we went back to the egytian temple because we wanted to see the inside. It was very interesting. It was filled with egzptian artifacts that had been moved from egzpt. Our toal for the day was to find free enternet. so we made our way to the madrid library. With some simple spanish words and with the help of someone who knew english we were able to get our madrid librarz cards and use the internet for free, woo hoo! We used the remainder of the daz to relax and rest of ofr the next leg of our journey. Tomorrow we are going on a road trip with our friend Antony.

update

sorry we have not updated in so long, we are supertraveling right now and trying to pack it all in. we will try to update within the next couple of days. we have been to france and switzerland, austria, and now we are in germany! woo hoo

1/11/05

Took it easy today. We went with our new hostel buddy, Doug, from Kentucky, to find internet. Then picked up food at the mercado and DIA for lunch and dinner. I made chicken fried rice for lunch and pasta with bolognese sauce for dinner. We met many new people at the hostel today. We watched the remake of Texas Chainsaw Masacre with Doug and Christophe. Even though Renee zallweger and Matthew McConaghey are in it, it was pretty boring. We don´t recommend it. We went out for drinks and some dancing with Sara, from Denmark, Christophe, Jann from Switzerland and Caleb and I. It was fun. We went to a club called "Why Not?". It is primarily a gay bar, since Chueca is the "gay" area of town. Good times had by all. Then we went to another bar called Monna Lisa over by Puerta del Sol with christophe and Jann. We were back at the hostel by 3:15am.

1/10/05

(caleb)
Today is my birthday yay!
Today we went to the cathedral. It was much brighter then several others in spain. Right away when you walk in there is a navitity scene that is behind glass. It is minitures like dolls but some of them are animated. Inside the art is cheerier just like the whole feel of the place. Next, we went to the palice where they were changing the guards in full uniform. We picked up a lemon tort cake and the "L" in lemon looked like an "S" so everyone was asking if my name was Simon. We had american style burittos for my birthday dinner and everyone in the hostel that was there sang happy birthday to me. Like always we met lots of new people and said a lot of good byes.

1/9/05

(caleb)
We got up early and found out that we could stay in the hostel until 12pm. we decided to visit the Alcazar only one block away from the hostel. We walked in and saw that it cost 3 euro to visit. When we first walked in Rick and I said "it better get better than this!" Well, it did. It is huge, it took me 20 minutes to walk around the parimeter. Like most buildings here in spain, it was built over when the christians took over. At one point when I was walking by myself I thought that I must be walking on a other planet. There are tons of orange and lemon trees but while we were walking around it was about 40 degrees F. There is so much history here, but the artifacts they have are amazing. At times it feels like a musium. there are lots of tapestries from the 1700 and before. From there we easily packed up the car and headed for Madrid. The traffic moves fairly quickly on the interstate type roads. There are very few semis on the road so traffic moves well even around big cities. It feels like we are driving fast because we are driving 140k/hr. I have been driving the whole time because the woman at the casr rental place said that there could be only one driver. It is comforable driving most of the time, the only thing is that I have to huntch down slighty because the mini van that we are driving really is mini. We drove to the airport because we KNOW that the car rental place will be open. When we goet to the airport and find the AVIS office to check in the car the total is 85€ more then we were quoted in Toledo. Woah, wait we didnt get a copy of the contract. And we dont get a discount for bringing the car back a whole day early. When we got to the place to pay for the car he tells us that he cannot split the bill onto two cards. "it is impossible" was what we were told. He said if you dont like it call the customer service number. Bummer, but live and learn. We checked into our old stomping ground in Madrid and then walked Rick to check into his hostel. His hostel was very nice, it was just like a hotel. And the man at the front desk seemed very helpful. We got lucky and got a 4 person room all to ourselves.

1/8/05

Out of Tarifa and into Sevilla. We passed thru Cadiz. Man, am I glad we didn´t go there as we had planned. It didn´t look as nice as I had imagined and not anymore warm than most Spanish towns. We got to tSevilla without incident. We parked the car and wandered thru the Maria Luisa Park to get to the Tourish Info Office, however it was closed, sort of, when we got there. Abandoned would be a better word actually. The building was open, but covered in dust and pamphlets and maps and magazines and mail just laying about. The bathroom was even open. It was the weirdest thing. So we continued to walk further into downtown Sevilla. A nice girl from Oregon saw how lost we looked and graciously gave us directions to the Tourist Office and all the other places we were looking for. Thank god for her! From there we haphazzardly found our hostel for the night, Hostal Picasso. When we walked in the funniest thing happened. The center of the reception has an open ceiling up to the roof. There are plants hanging all up and down this skylight area. When we walked in the maid was watering all the plants so it looked and felt like it was raining inside the building. It was funny. There was FREE parking next to the hostal but only one free space. So while the guys went back to where we parked the car to move it next to our hostal I stayed and guarded the open spot. There was another old guy standing there guarding the parking spots. Apparently he is the parking manager, unofficially of course as most things are in the south of Spain and Italy, and said we must pay him money to be the parking spots guardian. We gave him a euro just to satisfy him. We went to see the Sevilla Cathedral and the adjoining Giralda Tower which was very close to our hostal. It is immense and overpowering! Christopher Columbus is buried there as a side note. Pretty impressive grave too. Originally a muslim mosque, the Christians overtook Sevilla eventually and decided they needed to build something bigger and better and Gothic so they went right ahead and did it. The Cathedral is in fact in the Guiness Book of World records for the Church with the most square Meters (23,500 sq meters). You can climb the 22 plus flights to the top of the Tower. Quite a view. I was taking photos like every 5 steps. By then we were all pretty hungry so we found food and lots of post Christmas sales at the stores. I got a super cute girly pink top for only 2.90euro!!! I was so proud.

1/7/04

Today we went to the finally open post office to send home some more accumulated and not needed stuff. Then did a little shopping because there were huge sales going on. We got on the twisty road down the mountian and I got really car sick again. It was beautiful none the less. We drove past the Rock of Gibralter and Algeciras. We got sunny but bery windy Tarifa early afternoon. It is a very small beach town, but not an excessive number of sites to see. We got to see a gorgeous sunset on the long beach. Both Rick and us dropped off our laundry. The most expencive laundry I have ever done or I should say have had done by someone else(11.20€) The german guy, Chris that runs the lavanderia(laundrymat) with his wife and daughter also run an adventure company. They lead hikes, rock climbing, tennis and other stuff. He was really nice, to bad that we didnt get a discount on our laundry. To cut costs Caleb and I decided to sleep in the car overnight while rick stayed in the hostal on the main drag. We found a good spot to park right next to the beach by a bunch of caravans. Once parked we met another nice german guy named Herric. He and his wife, who was from france and their baby were traveling all over spain for 5 weeks. There was a lighthouse within sight that shone brightly on our car but caleb hung things in the windows to block out the light. We slept pretty well since the car is much bigger then the one on Ibiza.

1/6/05

Today is explore Ronda day. Rick needed his coffee fix so we hunge at a cafe for a bit. Then we set out for the older muslim part of town called cal ciudad. On the way we saw Alameda del Tajo park- great views and the Plaza de Toros- where we saw Ronda´s elegand and very old bullring. Apparently this bullring has seen some of the most important events in bullfighting history. Next we saw Punte Nuevo(new bridge) that spans El Tajo to Plaza de Espana and was completed in 1793. Hemingway apparently wrote about Ronda during the civil war in spain. I guess the "Fascists" were beat up and forced to run a gauntlet and weather they were dead or alive at the end they were thrown over the cliff by this bridge. Brutal! cant we just all get along? We continued on thru the older part of town and stopped to tour the Palacio de Mondragon. We considered moving on from ronda at this point but we were not able to check out of our pension so late. So we lunched and went back out to see what we could see. We saw several chruches and the older bridge Punte Viejo(1616). Caleb and I hiked down the cliff side to get a better view of the new bridge and some photos.

1/5/05

We checked out of our hostel and got on the road pretty much right away in the morning. We drove straight for the Sierra Nevada Mountian range. As we drove through the mountians we would stop in the little towns and see what we could see. The view was breathtaking. Rick got a piece of pottery and caleb got some figs at a mountian road side cermics shop. We discovered a super cool cave on the way up too! Caleb really dug it. On the way down the range we picked up a hitchhiker hippie dude. His name was Pavel and he was originally from Czech republic. He is living in a hoppie commune up in the mountians. He smelled, lets say, less then fresh. We dropped him in one of the larger mountian towns so he could get groceries. We got gas and found an orange orchard selling huge bags of oranges and lemons for 2€! So we got a bag of oranges. I got SUPER car sick on the way down the range so the ride down was not so fun for me. Next, we drove to Nerja, a seaside resort town for mostly british and german tourists. It was very beautiful, but not a lot to see besides the "terrace of europe"which looks out into the cliffside and meditteranean sea. We ate lunch there and a burger/icecream joint, it was delish-! The best Pistachio icecream yet. We comtunued our drive past Malage and Marbella and then back into the mountians to reach our destination, Ronda. Old and new Ronda stand either side of the 100 meter deep El Tajo gorge in the beautiful Serra de Ronda Mountian range. There were tons of people in the streets when we arrived. We parked the car and found our pension and walked downtown to see what all the hubub was all about because people were whisling and chearing. Crowds were beginning to dissapate and go home. We returned to the hostel, made sandwiches for dinner and turned in for the night.

1/4/05

We decided to see the Alhambra today. Rick is sick with with a sore throat so we stopped by the pharmacy on the way there. Rick got some spray and some pills of some sort.
The Alhambra is a fortress from the 9th century. Its red frotress towers and walls appear plain, but whats inside is FAR from plain. The Sierra Nevada mountan range isnt a bad backdrop. The nasrid emirs of the 13th and 14th centurys turned it into a fortress/palace complex adjoined by a small town, of which only ruins remain. Even of their bathrooms! The General live Gardens and Palacio Nazaries were the two best things about it. I wish we could have our wedding there because it would have been a perfect backdrop. The Islamic decorative art is so intricate. Very beautiful. We didnt actually see it until after lunch because so many people had tickets today. I can only imagine how busy it is during the regular season. I can understand why though, it is one of the most amazing places we have seen so far! Seeing all of the Alahambra took us most of the day. We walked around and took photos until after dark(thanks to rick´s digital cam) It was a great day, I got shoes for my wedding today! They are moroccan and so cool! Caleb is a sweetie melette :)

1/3/05

We rented a car today, we drove from Toledo to Granada! It was fun, spanish roads are a little different, but they are fine once you get uste to them.
Granada was a little overwhelming at first with the fast streets and the narrow lanes but our hostel was only several hundred feet from the Alhambra. We made a reservation for a triple but the lady gave it away because she said that she didnt know if we were coming(we told her that we were going to be there by 6 but we got there before 5, go figure) but we got two rooms for 2€ less so it ended up being okey. The lady was nice and she sort of spoke english.

1/2/05

We had a nice walk into the more modern part of town and found some markets there. We got some bread and cheese and after our long walk we went back and had tuna and cheese on bread. After lunch we headed for the Jewish quarter and a search for El Grecos house, which we never found. We did a visit a synagogue for 1.50€ Not much in there. We came to a cathedrial where a nun was selling sweets. We bought a box of cookies from her and she blessed us.

1/1/05

Happy 2005!
...8am
We gathered our extreamly hungover selves together and raggedly woeked our way to the train station in madrid. Upon arriving in the main station, Atocha, we had a little trouble figuring out how to get a train ticket to Toledo. We were directed to a second ticket office. You were directed to get a number and wait until your turn(like the DMV). However the numbers on the ticket screen didnt change in 15 minutes. Finally the man selling tickets called for those with destination of toledo. Caleb rushed up to the counter and pusehd his way to the front(thats how they do it in spain) All the man handed caleb was a piece of paper with 2 stamps and some typing on it and he said hurry! The train was leaving in 4 minutes! So we ran through the train station to our gate and get up to the bottom of the stairs just as the train pulls up. TONS of people are waiting to get into it(not in a line but in just a large mob) So we push our way through and get on the train and of course there is no seats within the first couple of cars so we start moving through the train with our packs that wack both sides of the seat. When a train first starts moving there are people that walk in both directions(bathroom, looking for seats) so we had to practally sit on peoples laps for others to get around us. but we ended up finding 2 seats together where we could fit our stuff and once she hit the seat Angie crashed. She was so tired that it was comfortable for her to lay on her own lap! The countryside was wonderful, rolling hills with little villages on the hilltops. The tall grass is brown and it sort of looks like new mexico. It looks like it would be very warm out but it is about 40 degrees F.
Once we reached the end of the line(in the middle of nowhere spain) we looked at each other confused. I asked a young woman "Toledo aqui" and she says "Si! Toledo a autobuseo!" So we had to get onto a bus to take us to Toledo the rest of the way. After a 10-15 min bus ride we were dropped off across the river from the center of toledo. We decided that since we didnt know what bus to take or where it would take us that we would walk to the hotel since it was only 2 blocks from the cathedral, and we were sure that we could see where that was.
2 hours and 15 minutes later we find the hostel with a warm greeting from the refreshed Rick.
We were so happy to put our packs down and Rick asked us "what do you want to do first" and we both replied "eat!" After the meal we went sightseeing. We walked down to the Puente de san Martin and back. It is a really cool bridge first built in the 8th century-rebuilt in the 13th century after a flood washed it out. Rick and I(caleb) walked to find a market for some supper. We didnt find any open markets but we did find a falafel place that was only 3€. Angie slept right after eating and Rick and I stayed up and played cards until 11.