Starting up Fotodump Friday for Europe

Okay, we now have enough photos we haven't posted on our blog to continue with fotodump friday!  Hooray!

Katie:

These advertisements were all over Spain.  Americans are known to the world by the size of their food.

This awesome astronomy park in Valencia but we didn't figure out what this cage was for.

A building with damage from the Blitz.  Really cool bit of history.

This guy was at Carnival in London.

Outside of our hostel in Windemere, England.  Makes me think of fairies and hobbits and the such.

A lot of the public walking paths in England were through private farmland so the fences were to keep sheep and cows and horses in their pens.

Andy:

I think this was up near Mont Juic in Barcelona. La Sagrada de Familia in the distance.

Katie and Laura!

One of the many cool buildings at the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia.

Upgraded "do not enter" sign.

Parliament.

View from the terrace at the Windemere YHA.

Back to Madrid and on to the United Kingdom

Our last full day in Spain was spent traveling back to Madrid by bus and exploring just a bit more of the city. Katie wanted to see Caixa Forum where there is a hanging garden on the side of a building so we made a brief stop by there and then headed on to Reina Sofia. On our first fuzzy day in Madrid our tour guide told us that some of the museums in Madrid have free hours every day or certain days of the week. Reina Sofia is free between 7 and 9 at night so we spent two hours browsing heaps of Picasso and Salvador Dali works. We took pictures of some of our favorites as you will see below. Picasso's largest work, Guernica, is on display at Reina Sofia but we weren't allowed to take pictures of it. Dinner on the last night consisted of mainly leftovers - pizza, bread and cream cheese, crackers, yoghurt and clementines.

The next day we woke up at the crack of dawn to see Laura to the subway station so she could catch her earlier flight. Katie and I went back to sleep for a few hours before checking out of the hostel and heading to airport ourselves. Our British Airways flight from Madrid to London was comfortable and uneventful. Unfortunately immigration at Heathrow took around an hour (as I'm assuming it usually does?). We made our way to the correct tube stop for our hostel but then preceded to walk a mile or two in the wrong direction away from our hostel (we do this from time to time, for fun I suppose). The rest of the day was spent recovering at the hostel in Shepherd's Bush.

Valencia

Due to our general drunkenness from the night before, we rushed out of the hostel to catch our bus.  Unfortunately, Andy did not leave the hostel with everything but didn't realize until 10 minutes before our bus to Valencia was about to leave.  This lead to Laura and I leaving on the bus and Andy catching some nebulous later bus to meet us in Valencia to allow him to pick up half of his belongings from the hostel.
In the end Andy caught the next bus out to Valencia, and was only 2 hours behind Laura and I.  We checked into our hostel, went grocery shopping, made dinner and relaxed/recovered for the night.

The next morning we headed to the beach for several hours.  It was sunny and warm and everything you expect from mediterranean beaches.

For a late lunch we made frozen pizza back at the hostel then checked out the City of Arts and Sciences.  It is a very large complex of modern buildings and we spent a couple hours just wandering around.

Then we started our own walking tour of Valencia, following the Lonely Planet guide.  We stopped by:
-Torres Sorrenos, the old gate into the city

-Plaza with fountain of Neptune and an old church

-Post Office

Around 9pm it was proper dinner time so we headed to El Rall, a restaurant recommended by the hostel.  It was amazing.  We shared Paella Valencia, a pitcher of Sangria, and sat by this little square where a guy and his guitar entertained the people eating outside.

Big day 2 in Barcelona

After buying our bus tickets to Valencia, we decided to follow the walking tour in our Lonely Planet starting with the Arc de Triumf.

• The Palau de la Musica - free parts impressive but too expensive to tour
• Museu Picasso - got lost trying to find and planned on entering it when it was free (after 3pm) but forgot to go back
• Eglesia de Santa Maria del Mar - huge gothic cathedral, which was closed

Jesus raising the roof on Eglesia de Santa Maria del Mar

• Roman wall - leftover from the time when Barcelona was encapsulated by a wall

• Placa Reial - a shady square with a fountain and lamppost by Gaudi, a famous modernist architect from the early 1900's

•  Casa Batillo - an amazing building designed by Gaudi. The inside also looked amazing from pictures, but way too expensive to tour on a budget.

• La Sagrada Familia - Barcelona's amazing church, designed by Gaudi.  Construction was started in 1909 and won't be completed for another 10 or 20 years.

Our pictures aren't great, so look it up online

That night we switched hostels to one right off of La Rambla.  Dinner was again pasta but we decided to try and go out for drinks and enjoy the nightlife.  Our first attempt started at 10 pm and most of the outdoor cafes required you to eat as well as drink.  But we ended up walking to this cool statue and took pictures.

Attempt two started with us getting a recommendation from our hostel, the Oveja Negra (black sheep).  It took us 45 minutes to find due to not following the directions closely enough, but was worth the perseverance.  It is tucked away on a side street and inside had exposed brick walls and wooden bench tables.  A pitcher of Sangria cost us 12 Euro.

We ended up meeting Adam and Paul from northeast England and they took us to 2 more bars and lots of drinks later before we insisted on going back to our hostel in order to catch our 10 am bus to Valencia.

Paul on the left, Adam on the right.

First day in Barcelona

We left Madrid on bus for Barcelona.  The bus took 8 hours and we bought a crappy lunch before leaving (they don't understand what sandwiches are supposed to be).  Driving through the countryside, it looks like a lot of Spain is rocky and dusty and not very green.  We also saw huge numbers of windmills along the way.

Once we got to Barcelona it took us an hour or so to find our way from the bus station to the metro station to our hostel.  Luckily when we got off the metro, we met two girls who were headed to the same hostel as us and lead us there.  Both girls were from the US (Iowa) but one was living in NY and the other just finished grad school.  We didn't check into our hostel until 11:30pm but had to go out and get food.
Reception told us about a place that was open that wasn't too far away and we ended up having semi-amazing food (partially because we were starving).

Random statues on Montjuic

a very weird installation at the free museum

The next day we went to the grocery store to stock up on meals and snacks for the next couple of days.  Our plan for the day was to explore Montjuic, which is an area of Barcelona on the top of a mountain.  The cable car to Montjuic is included in the price of a metro ticket, which is pretty awesome.  Once there we wandered around random outdoor statues, went into a free museum with no english subtitles, past the 1992 Olympic stadium, and took a cable car up to the top of a castle/fort.

The castle had amazing views of the harbor and all of Barcelona and we spent a couple hours exploring it.
For dinner we made pasta, had a bottle of wine, and cookies for dessert.

Zombie(s) in Madrid

Stand up, stretch, take a deep breath, and whatever you do, DON'T PANIC.

Here we go. Part two of The Big Trip, or Hopefully the Food is More Like What We're Used To, or At Least the Languages Use the Roman Alphabet.

After a lovely month and half back in the US visiting friends and family (and family, and family, and family) we're back on the road.  Our flight left Boston around 6PM eastern time and landed in Madrid around 7AM. This flight was not very well coordinated with the Andy Bourassa School of Slumber. 7AM in Madrid is 1AM on the east coast of the US, right about my bedtime. As you have probably guessed, I didn't sleep on the plane - more on that later.

We (eventually) met up with Katie's sister Laura at the airport and made our way to the hostel. It was too early to check in so we stored our bags and noticed a "free" walking tour of the city that was leaving in less than an hour, cool! This also happened to be the day that The Pope was coming to Madrid. Wicked.
The group from our hostel met up with groups from a few other hostels and eventually congregated at Puerta del Sol with our British tour guide Harriet. For about three hours we made our way around the city stopping at major landmarks and hearing what Harriet had to say. These stops also included: sleeping standing up, sleeping while walking, sleeping while squatting and the ever so popular, sleeping while sweating. But in all seriousness it was a lovely tour, Harriet was wonderful and the Madridian sites are beautiful. I can only imagine how much better it would be if experienced while awake and with less of an emphasis on throngs of people manically preparing to see the pope.

 Harriet, our guide

After the tour we were quite hungry (and exhausted) so we wandered around our hostel and ended up going into the first restaurant that some schmuck off the street suggested (poor choice). A lot of the restaurants have a Menú de Día that is basically a set menu where you have a couple of choices for each course and pay a fixed price. Course one was paella for me and Laura and cold tomato soup for Katie. Course two was scallops for Katie and Laura and chicken for me. The scallops ended up being a steak so I gave Katie my chicken and took her steak. Now I'm not much of a steak aficionado, but I can tell you that it was definitely one of the top three worst steaks I have ever had. Onward! Course three was dessert. I had a mediocre flan type thing and Katie and Laura had bread pudding. The meal also included a glass of sangria each and some bread. This was probably the worst meal we will have had while in Spain, but it nourished us. Oh yea, and this was all 10 euros each.

The view from our hostel room

After lunch/dinner we went back to the hostel, had naps and woke up in time for the hostel's free sangria and games night. We spent an hour or two playing king's cup and flip cup with other people staying at the hostel.