Barcelona

The bus ride to Barcelona wasn't quite as bad as I had expected, but it was still pretty bad. The seats are tiny which makes sleeping hard and the air-conditioner was making the bus smell like cat poo for a while. The people sitting in front of us were playing music on their phone out loud, with no headphones for the first 15 minutes of the trip and the man to our left was playing Indian music so loud on his headphones that you could plainly hear the singers' warbling wails. But despite that, we made it to Barcelona without going insane. The city was ridiculously hot! We wandered around trying to find the nearby metro when a man wearing serial-killer glasses stopped and asked us if we needed help. Don't ask me what serial-killer glasses look like because I'm not sure – you'd know them if you saw them. He actually turned out to be really nice though. Well, nice to us. Maybe he has some poor soul locked in his basement as I type this. One never does know! But he showed us where the Metro was, which was awesome because I think we might have been wandering around sweating our sanity out for at least an hour. By the time we got to the hotel we were completely drenched in sweat anyways. The back of my shirt was disgusting, and our hotel room was just as hot inside as it was outside! God help us. It was very small with no air-conditioning and just an all around miserable place to be. I don't know how people can survive there in the summer without an AC. We barely survived three days! Chuck and I headed out for a few groceries and not too long after Robyn showed up and joined us. The night was pretty boring, although we did meet some Austrian girls who were also staying there. Turned out one was from Graz, which is where Robyn had just been studying in the music program she was in! Small world. We also got in trouble for using the stove to cook our ramen. So sad to have a stove so close, yet so far. It was tough to fall asleep because the window was open in an attempt to get some cool air in the room. I don't think there is any cool air in Barcelona anywhere. We were all wearing as little clothes as was decently possible (although it was rather indecent none-the-less) and we still sweated our...well, you know what I'm saying.

We tried to explore some of the city on the 20th. First we went to an area called Gracia. There were economical decorations strung up in the square and a lot of kids running around have a grand time. When I say economical, I mean that they used colored plastic cups and different colored individual-sized coffee creamers to decorate. It was actually a really creative set-up! The event was Fiesta Mayor de Gracia which, as far as I can tell is an old celebration that entails decorating all the neighborhood streets in a big competition, having parades, and putting on performances. It was very cool, with children running around playing in a hose and adults standing around chatting and looking very jovial. Continuing on, we saw a little market and a few other squares with statues in them. We reached our goal when we finally came upon the Sagrada Familia. It's a big church designed by the local celebrity architect: Gaudi. It was a strange creation, looking like something of a cross between Disney World and a gothic cathedral. Robyn read up on it and found that construction began in 1882 and is still going on to this day. The place is not yet complete! It's strange building and I'm not sure that I really like it to be honest. But certainly an interesting sight. La Rambla was our next stop. It's basically the main tourist street in Barcelona. Not only is it packed with shoppers and sight-seers, it was also lined with quite a few impressive street performers. There were two people dressed in incredible gargoyle costumes, a Count Dracula looking lady, a Roman general, two lovely fairies, a completely gold woman, and more. They're some of the best street performers I've seen. And what busy, tourist street would be complete without people trying to sell things as well. The main items for sale were fans (which we actually bought two of) and these really annoying noise-makers. It's a little thing that goes in your mouth and I guess you just blow through it and it makes a high-pitched squeaking noise that is very annoying. It sounds like a dog toy. And the way they advertise them is to stand around looking very nonchalant and squeak loudly at you as you pass by. So everywhere you go there's some schmuck squakking at you. I feel bad for any parent suckered into buying that for their kids. One of the coolest places we found along La Rambla was a huge market. It was so colorful and lively! Packed full of fruits, nuts, candies, candied fruit, fruit drinks, sausages, meat, cheese, bread, fish, and a few other things. It was a great place to wander around and have a fruit lunch on the go, or just to look at it all. So vibrant! Robyn got some tasty coconut while we were there. We wandered away from La Rambla to find lunch. We ended up at a decently priced little cafe/cafeteria that was okay but nothing special. We walked to the beach next. It was packed! There was barely any space to set down a towel. It was like but we managed to squeeze in and take a swim. The water was really nice, I have to admit. And it was a new experience for me to see so many topless women wandering around the beach. That's the European way to enjoy the beach! We didn't join in ourselves though. After a quick swim we made a few more stops and ended up back at the hotel pretty exhausted from our day. It was a hot, and sweaty, sunburn-y day. We saw some decent sites, found a good market, but the general atmosphere was a little hellish. However, we somehow still found the energy to go out again after our bread, chorizo, and cheese dinner. One of Barcelona's famous sights is its musical fountain which “dances” to a 10 minute segment of music with lights and spraying water every 30 minutes. It's a pretty good show, although Chuck thinks the Bellagio water show is better. If you stand close enough you can feel little droplets of water now and again when the fountain does a particulary big spray. And there's one section of perfectly useable grass that is left abandoned by the spectators because one of the jets of water sprays completely too far and soaks the area. I liked the musical fountain show. Once again, bedtime was horrible. I think the other people staying at the hotel must have thought us very strange. We resorted to leaving the door to our room open as we lounged around in our underwear, trying to cool down. It was so hot!



Robyn suggested that the next day we should get out of the city and go to one of the beaches nearby. She found a promising sounding place called Sant Pol de Mar that's about an hour north of Barcelona. But before heading up there we went back to that awesome market on La Rambla for lunch. We got fruit, salami, cheese, and bread for a picnic style lunch. Robyn also got some fried baby octopus on a stick, I got some fritters, and Chuck got an awesome organic burrito. We found a place near the market to spread out the sheet we had ganked from the hotel for the day and set out the food. All was going well until a bird pooed on Chuck's foot. Then I felt some splashes on my own foot and we decided the picnic was over. Stupid birds... The train ride to Sant Pol was pretty as it ran along the Mediterranean coast the whole way. When we got off the train in Sant Pol we were practically standing on the beach. The water was a lovely shade of translucent blue-green with gentle, lapping waves, and the sand was a coarse pebbly consistency. Chuck had read that there is a nude part to the beach and after he found it we all headed over there. I mean, when in Rome right?? Robyn and I chose to just go topless, but Chuck went the whole nine yards! Of course, it's strange at first but you get used to it fairly quickly. And it definitely helped that there were quite a few people around us that were bearing it all as well. The water was great! Just cool enough that it's chilly to get in, but nice once you're in for a few moments. We just sat around on the beach for about three hours enjoying the sunshine and waves. The sun getting lower in the sky, we packed up and headed back to Barcelona. Back at La Rambla again we searched for a piercing parlor Robyn had researched online. It seems getting piercings is the thing to do on vacation because Robyn now wanted to get one. About 10 minutes after walking into the piercing shop we walked back out with Robyn's new piercing: a teardrop surface piercing. It looks really good on her too! Makes me want another one, hehe. We walked around a bit looking for a cheap place to eat, which we did not find. Instead we had just a few tapas - not enough to fill us up all the way, but enough to keep us satisfied. It was good food, I have to admit, and we even got a free order of patas (or steak fries) on accident. The language barrier led our server to believe that we had not gotten our fries yet, when in fact we had. We tried to tell him but we just couldn't communicate properly, so we ate them!



We left Barcelona on the 22nd and it was a truly frustrating experience. Barcelona has two metro systems run by two separate companies, but they are all listed on Metro maps together, as though they are the same. Our trip to the train station required that we switch trains, and the only option was that we take one company's line, then other. That required that we spend €4.20 a person just getting to the train station. And to top it off, the machine Robyn used to get tickets on the second Metro ate her money and gave no ticket in return. We had to wait while the machine attendant ever so slowly helped another woman get her change from another machine before lazily strolling over to get us back our change. It was so frustrating! The whole experience only re-enforced how glad I was to be leaving Barcelona. On the bright side, the tickets to our next destination were pretty cheap compared to the rest of Europe.

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Granada

Oh Granada. It was so sad to leave such a lovely place. I have to say that it has become my favorite place we've been to so far, but let me start at the beginning. We took a full train from Madrid to Malaga and then jumped on a two hour €10 bus to Granada. We took another bus into the heart of the town and checked in to the hotel. By the time we got to out hotel we were already thinking that the town had a nice feel and look, so first impressions were good. After settling in we decided it was time to find a grocery store (pretty much always the first thing we do in a new city). We asked the lady at the front desk and managed to figure each other out despite the fat that she spoke only a very little English and Chuck only a little Spanish. In fact, we discovered that mostly no one speaks English in Granada which was actually kind of nice. The front-desk lady tells us that grocery stores are closed that day due to a festival that was going on. I'm still not sure what the festival was, but we went out to look for something anyways. It was very hot outside and the sun was incredibly intense. We sweated out butts off as we walked around some little back streets trying to find an open shop. About 90% of all the stores that lined the streets were closed! It was pretty amazing - almost had a ghost-town feel. We walked by a couple of fancy, old-looking buildings before coming upon one of the local points of pride: the cathedral. It's a big, gorgeous place that glows a beautiful golden color in the setting sun. It's surrounded on all sides by other buildings which makes getting a nice photo of it a bit hard, but I tried to get a few anyways. Around the cathedral were a lot of restaurants and little shops that were actually open. Of course, they were expensive places geared towards tourists, but we got a soda to take the edge off the heat. Between the buildings are narrow alleys lined with small shops packed full of bright and colorful scarves, shoes, pants, skirts, statues, hookahs, jewelry, etc. The goods are set up not only inside the shops, but also on trays and in baskets set in the alley-way. Above the alley are hung colorful squares of fabric to keep out the blazing sun. It has a very Moroccan feel, which makes sense as Morocco is actually not that far from Granada. It's just a two hour ride to the coast and a short ferry boat across the water to get there. After exploring the alleys we headed back to the hotel for a few hours break before our next adventure: tapas. We had to wait until after 8:00 PM before searching for tapas bars because in Spain dinner-time doesn't start until after then. We very hungrily went in search of tapas and were happy to find we were right next to a street filled with bars. Perhaps I should describe tapas, in case you don't know what they are. Actually, I'm still not exactly sure what makes something a "tapas" as opposed to it being an appetizer or small meal, but I'll describe what we've experienced with tapas. In most tapas bars in Granada, when you order a €2.00 beer, along with it you'll get an appetizer-sized food of some sort. It may be a ham and cheese sandwich with fries, or a pasta salad, or spinach dip, or chorizo on bread, or any other type of food they feel like making. Some places just surprise you with what you get and others have a list of tapas that you can choose from. The food is typically "bar food" quality, but the fact that it comes for free with your €2.00 beer makes it awesome. Of course, some places charge more, but we avoided those ones. And tapas don't work the same everywhere either. In larger cities you'll find tapas restaurants that charge for each tapas. At places like that you have a menu and order the tapas you want - it doesn't come with your drink for free. In that case it feels more like you're ordering a bunch of small appetizers. We liked the Granada style tapas!

On the 16th we stayed in the hotel until about 2:00 PM because most places don't seem to open until around that time. We went back to the cathedral to try and find a good restaurant to eat at around there. We ended up at a place called Cafe au Lait after a lot of searching - it turned out to be a good choice. They had a "meal deal" for €9.50 that included a drink, bread, first course, second course, and dessert. Deals like this are really common throughout all of Spain. Chuck said that lunch is the most important meal in Spain, so I suppose that's why they offer all sorts of good deals on it. I really enjoyed the first course which was melon con jamon, or honey dew melon and prosciutto. It sounds a bit strange at first, but the sweet melon with the salty ham was delicious! Yum. We sat outside on the terrace where we were politely approached a few times to be offered bootleg watches and bootleg CDs, and at one point a man playing a recorder did a little performance and then came around asking for donations. We didn't give him anything yet he still thanked us and said he hoped we had a nice time in Granada! A polite beggar?? What is this?? I was amazed. And the next time we saw him we did give him money. To be fair, he wasn't really a beggar per say, he did offer a skill for which he was asking compensation. I can much appreciate that than people who sit next to a train station with their hands out. After lunch we walked around some of those alleys again and then retired to the hotel for our siesta break. After 8:00 PM we went out for tapas again. This time we went to another part of town looking for a particular place that Chuck had read about online. We found it and were upset to see a sign on the door stating that they were closed for vacation until September! We went back to the area we were at the night before and tried a different bar. They ended up being expensive and not very nice so we went back to the place we were at the night before. About three beers and tapas later we headed back to the hotel for the night. I remember loving the feel of the place as we were walking around. In one area there were a few families all enjoying the after-effects of a good meal with good conversation while the children ran around playing in a public water fountain. It just had such an authentic feel to it - it was really lovely. I felt like we were seeing the real lives of people who just wanted good company after a hard days work with no pretenses.



The next day was rough because we woke up at about 6:00 AM to get tickets into La Alhambra. We left the hotel at 7:00 AM and the sun was just rising, luckily. That meant we could avoid the afternoon heat while we dragged ourselves up the hill to the entrance of the palace complex. The hill was really steep, too, so I was very grateful! At one point I collapsed onto a bench and told Chuck that I just couldn't go on any further. About three minutes later I was okay though and we made it the rest of the way. By the time we got there (about 7:40 AM) there was already a decent line waiting. Once the ticket office opened at 8:00 AM it still took about one and a half hours to get our tickets. I read online that they typically sell out by 10:00 AM in the summer, so I was glad we got there when we did. Once inside you're free to wander the 600 year old, Moorish built palace fortress. Well, you're almost free to wander. There is the Palacios Nazaríes that you can only visit during your scheduled time, ours being 10:00 AM. We got to stand in another line to get in there, along with all the other people who had 10:00 AM "appointments." Inside the palace was really beautiful though. The walls were intricately carved with small, repeating patterns, sometimes highlighted here and there with old, fading colors. Some walls were tiled with colorful geometric patterns. There were numerous Taj-Mahal-shaped windows that looked out onto the rolling hillside landscape of Granada. Other windows of the same shape weren't fully open, but were carved with hundreds of small holes making a lovely silhouette when the light shies through. There were a number of perfectly still algae-green ponds, fed by the gentle trickle of nearby, small fountains built into the ground. The style of the place was so different than anything we had seen so far. Although it wasn't filled with fancy old furniture, huge chandeliers, or painted ceilings it was really special. The rest of the complex wasn't as elaborate as the palace, but it still had some nice areas. The Alcazaba had the feel of a fortress with it's high walls and lookout towers. The Generalife was similar to the palace with carved walls and ponds, it just wasn't as extensive. All around the Alhambra were little channels for flowing water. Some would flow down small sets of stairs while others would flow along the hand rail of a stairway. And the place had a lot of wild cats. In fact, all of Granada had wild cats and kittens. They were so cute! But, of course, they won't let you anywhere near them. So after wearing ourselves out at La Alhambra we stopped at one of the many kebap places on the road back to the hotel. It was just about the best kebap I've ever had! It was stuffed with curried chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, grated carrots, grated beets, and white sauce, all mixed up inside the pita shell. Man it was good! We slept while we digested those and woke up in time for our favorite Granada activity: tapas. We went to the restaurant we had lunch at the previous day, Cafe au Lait, and tried their tapas. Unfortunately they weren't very exciting so we moved on quickly. We ended up at what turned out to be a gay tapas bar. It had the best tapas we'd had, in my opinion. There was a delicious spinach dip and they had a great pasta salad. The bartender was a rather butch woman, but with a great smile and attitude. I felt more comfortable in that bar than any of the others we'd been to! Although the one we went to our first night was really good too. We actually met two girls while there - one British and one Italian. We heard one of them ordering in English right next to us at the bar and Chuck was brave enough to start up a conversation. It turned out that the British girl was from London and lived very near to Kensington where we had stayed while we were "living" there. Small world!



The 18th turned out to be a stress-fest because we realized we didn't have a way to get to Barcelona yet. We ran around the city to the train station where we were told there were no more trains available to Barcelona for when we wanted to go. So next we went to the bus station and settled on a 13 hour overnight train that left that very night. It certainly wasn't ideal, but we bought tickets. So we had our last tapas that night and sadly made our way to the bus station to take the long bus ride to Barcelona.

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Madrid

The train ride to Madrid was another overnight one, but at least this time we boarded at 11:00 PM instead of 3:00 AM. The first half of the trip was on a train that seemed right out of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. The seats were old and reminded me a bit of a dentists' chair. They had a large footrest that popped out from the front (but couldn't actually hold the weight of the feet without drooping 6 inches) and the seat itself could be reclined to about a 45 degree angle. Of course this puts the top of you head practically in the lap of the random stranger seated behind you. One little, old Italian woman apparently did not like this and at about 2:00 AM woke up half the train with her disapproval. The people sitting right behind us had a one year old baby who they sang to sleep for about 45 minutes. It was very sweet and the songs were in French so it was neat to listen to. Little did they know, they weren't just singing their kid to sleep, but me as well. At 7:00 AM we arrived at the border of Spain where the French border control fellas popped out of nowhere (like the Agents from the Matrix) to make sure no one was trying to... well, trying to leave illegally? I'm not exactly sure. But there was an unlucky young couple on the train that they took an interest in. After a few minutes of discussion they asked them to "Please step off of the train" with them. The poor guys face did a double take when he was asked to step off, but they did. Our train continued on into Spain without them! Poor guys. First thing i noticed when we got into the Madrid train station was that it felt like America. I'm not even sure why, but it felt more like Amrica than any place we've been yet. And the metro system in Madrid is one of the best in Europe that we've seen. We ended up at our hotel with pretty much no problems and took a rest. Our hotel, although a decent place in a decent area, is right next to hooker-corner. To get to the hotel you have pass by a corner where there are usually about 7-10 prostitutes gathered at a time. Sometimes you'll see a man hanging around, looking as though he's probably cheking out the goods. I don't know where they take their Johns, but luckily we never saw anything more seedy than the ladies hanging around in their skimpy outfits. But it never felt dangerous - just a little awkward and humorous. So we passed them on by to go out for an afternoon snack: bocata de calamares, or a calamari sandwich. The place we chose to eat at ended up being a rather unpleasant experience as the staff was constantly giving us the evil eye. I felt like I had spat on a statue of their god or soemthing. All I wanted was to give them my money for their sandwich! The sandwich itself was pretty good, although it could have been jazzed up a bit with a nicer roll. So that was a sad introduction to Madrid dining for us.



On the 12th we headed out to see a few sights and get train tickets for our next stop: Malaga. We saw the Opera House, Royal Palace, and a lovely park before we reached the station. Chuck managed to communicate well with the lady at the ticket counter, despite the fact that she didn't speak English at all. He's pretty good with his Spanish! Walking around Madrid at that time of day (or honestly, anytime that the sun is above the horizon) is miserable! It is so hot! It's like Las Vegas heat and just goes right into your bones. I much prefer Florida heat, and I was sure to make sure that Chuck knew exactly how I felt all day. We saw Plaza Mayor and then finally found a little place to eat that looked more like a local bar than a tourist trap. We got a couple of tapas and beers and cooled off from the heat for a while. My shrimp (or gambas) were served fully intact and I wasn't quite sure what the etiquette on eating shrimp in Spain is. I Just ripped off the heads and peeled the body, but maybe I'm supposed to... eat the brains or something, bleg. When we got our bill the bartender poured us two free shots of a sweet, greenish alcohol! I have no idea why - did he just like us? Is it something they do for everyone? Do they give free shots to tourists? Either way, it was really nice of him and made for a much nicer experience than the sandwich place from the night before. After that we grabbed some food from the grocery store and stayed in the rest of the day. So hot!



I have to admit, the rest of our Madrid trip was pretty boring. We stayed inside most of the next day, but we did get out in the evening. I really wanted to make sure we tried a good paella while we were there so I did some research and found a place that seemed to have some good reviews. We had to wait until 8:00 PM to go out, because Madrid's dinner scene doesn't get started until then. It's that whole siesta thing, right? Everything shuts down around 3:00 PM and opens again after 8:00 PM. So we went to La Paella and had a seat. We tried our best to order and speak in Spanish, while our waitress did her best to use English. The paella, although expensive, was really good, and very pretty when it comes out of the kitchen. When it's ready they bring it to your table still in the dish its cooked in for approval, and if approved they serve it onto plates for you. I wonder if anyone ever says "No, no good." What do they do with it?? We got a seafood paella which had mussels, clams, large red shrimp (they were huge), and other bits of fish. It was tasty! I'm going to have to make paella sometime when this trip is over. Or when I have a kitchen again at least. While we were walking back to the hotel after dinner we realized that Madrid comes alive at night. Don't get me wrong, it's very alive during the day, but at night everyone is all glammed-up in sequins, short skirts, and high heels, ready to go out partying. The downside is that you see the effects of too much partying on the sidewalks the next morning. More than once did we see little, chunky piles of vomit on the sidewalk. Pretty disgusting.



Our last day in Madrid we managed to get out for lunch. Chuck found a place online that looked good, but when we arrived we decided it was too expensive and that another place we had just passed would be perfect. So we took a seat and ordered the lunch meal deal. It was €9.50 for a drink, bread, starter, main, and dessert. That's a really great deal! I would normally expect that much food to cost €18.00 or more. Chuck's starter was arroz negro - rice mixed with squid ink and calamari. Sounds weird as an American, but really very tasty. I got gazpacho, which I had heard of but couldn't remember what it was. It was a yummy, tomato based, cold soup that came with chopped veggies that I could toss in. And for the main course Chuck got a carne platter that came with five different small portions of meat, while I got a ham steak. And dessert was ice cream and a tiramisu flan. Good stuff! Now I'm getting hungry... After lunch we decided we'd better find a place to stay in our next destination: Malaga. After looking at places to stay in Malaga we decided we couldn't afford to stay in Malaga, let alone find a room that was available when we needed it. So we changed our plans a bit and decided Granada would be a nice alternative. We'll take the train to Malaga, then hop and €10 bus to Granada and hopefully it will all work out. Let me tell you, it can get incredibly frustrating to try and find places to stay while on the road and on such short notice. We looked for hours and hours before finally deciding on where to stay. It's very reliving, though, to know that it's taken care of!

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