Blake's Blog

So i've returned to work and Spain & Italy are just a blurry memory. I did want to capture the end of our trip if nothing else for my own memory.

After leaving the running of the bulls behind in pamplona, we finished up our trip in Madrid. After sleeping in 10 different hostels over 12 different nights, and after walking dozens of kilometers, we arrived in Madrid ready to relax... that said, we spent the first day touring the royal palace, a bunch of other architecturally brilliant old places, going to the Prado Museum and ending the day in the Retiro park. On our first relaxing day in Madrid we only walked 7-10 miles.
By Madrid day 2, we were ready to take it easy. We tried to catch a train to toledo without luck... in Italy the trains weren't exactly on time and we missed a lot of connections... in Spain the trains ran exactly on time, but the waiting line to buy a ticket was 2 hours long. We liked our train experience in Italy much better.

Day 3 we caught church in Spain and zipped off to the airport. 17 hours and 4 cramped legs later, we landed at LAX ready for the work week to begin. What a trip!

We're still working on getting all the pictures pulled together, but here's the link to the current photo album.

We ended the day in a differ way and place than we started the day. Our plan was to get up late, see a few museums in Barcelona and then catch the night train to Madrid. Plans change.

MONDAY
The first thing we noticed and most prevalent feature of the city of Barcelona is the resurgence of the mullet--a hairstyle generally reserved for honkys and doublewides. There was a guy on the plane with us that had a mullet. We thought he was an isolated case of tacky Spanish WT, but as we got into the city, we realized that 1 in 10 people have mullets. Disturbing.

We had no idea what Spain had to offer when we arrived, but we lucked out and had a roommate from Argentina who had the whole day planned. Her name was Elenora, but we renamed her Marta because we liked the name better. With Marta we went to the Sagrada Familia church and the Park of Guell ("go home tourist" sign, mega escalators & mosaic dragon). After lunch, we went to Montjuic--an area developed to support the Barcelona Olympic games when they came through. We took the tram to the top of the hill where we found a castle, a great view of the city and some Austrailian girls that we ended up running into about 10 more times during the day.
We ended the day by going to the park/zoo, rowing in a rowboat, seeing the arc de triumph, grabbing dinner and walking the promenade area. It was a good way to see the city. Thanks to Marta for planning the day for us.

TUESDAY
Today was kind of a take it easy day. We spent the morning sleeping in and changing hostels. We went to the train station and worked on arrangements to get us to Madrid in a day or two. In the afternoon we spent a short while at the beach. We went to the local public beach, but we found that European swimwear is quite a bit less modest than the compartatively modest suits sported by people on Malibu beaches. What was supposed to be a full day at the beach turned into a much shorter visit. We ended up spending the afternoon at the maratime museum instead and really enjoyed seeing the old ships and the boat building process. It is the end of the day, and we came back to the hostel for a nap and then on to dinner for the evening. It was a little more relaxing day and we saw a lot--perhaps a bit more than we'd hoped.

VENICE 2 SPAIN

Trying to see all of Italy in one week and trying to see all of Venice in 2 hours (today) is like trying to cram 2 liters of soda into a 12 oz can--filled to more than overflowing.

We started the day by catching an early train from Ferrarra, the coolest town in Italy, with the intent to arrive in Venice with a full day to see the city of canals. Of course, our bad luck with trains is consistent... there was a bomb scare at one of the stations, so they had to reroute us to another region delaying is by several hours. While we waited we met a cool local couple. The misses was ~50 year old, white gal originally from the British colonies in Zimbabwee; however, she had lived in Los Angeles for 15 yrs and had retired to Italy-she has a daughter living in Thousand Oaks. She and her companion helped us understand the bomb scare and for extra credit they explained that there was a metro strike about to start. Finally, they provided some tour pointers for Venice.

We ended up having time to run up and down a few streets in Venice, take a few pictures with water in the background (just so it looks like we were really there) and eat a tourist-special lasagna meal. We wrapped up the day by proving our travel nimbleness--we caught a boat to the train station, then to the bus, then to the plane. We landed in Spain and were on a bus again to the metro then to our hostel. Talk about a variety of transportation methods... ever seen "trains, planes, and automobiles?" yeah, same thing, but we won't be sleeping in the same bed.

We ended the day by eating some chicken at KFC then hit the sack with our German and Argentine roomies-same room, different sacks.

From dinner, we grabbed a Gelato, walked across one of the town squares where they used to kill people during the inquisition and walked up to a lookout over the city. We spent the walk talking about gas prices, motorcycles, and culture of italy. Because Patrick is well educated and could help us understand (in english) some of the things we've seen in italy, our evening with him was a highlight of the trip.

This morning, we got up early, helped Patrick move some things, grabbed breakfast and headed out the door. We barely made it to the train and caught the train up to Bologna. After a quick lunch, we caught a connecting train to a little town called Ferrarra.

Ferrarra has been the highlight of the trip so far. It is a little town that barely showed up on the map. We dropped in because it is expensive staying the night in Venice. We found a beautiful town with tons of green space and bike trails that ran throughout. The student hostel we stayed at rented bikes and we spent the evening riding around the city. I haven't been on my bike for months due to a shoulder injury, so I think half of the thrill was just being out on the bike again. Anyhow, this was the most surprising stop along the way and really a diamond in the rough.

SAN GIMIGNANO
This was an incredible town in the middle of Tuscany. It is very small, old midieval town in the middle of vineyardville. We went to a museum about torture through the ages. It turned our stomachs. The visit was short and focused on enjoying the view.

POGGIBONSI

On our way to San Gimignano we both fell asleep on the bus. We awoke in such a stupor that we thought we'd arrived at San Gwhatever and disembarked the bus in a ghost town called Poggibonsi. Only noteworthy points worth mention were that ALL the town observes the siesta, there was an iron artwork in the town center (I am ironman), and we found an open supermarket and played with the plastic gloves in the produce section again.

We were told that Siena was a mini-Florence which may just mean that it is all the tourists packed into a smaller town. What we found was a pretty cool medieval town with narrow stone streets and an interesting main square. The main square looked like a massive drainage area in front of a church. Aparently the town is known for its horse racing/rodeos. While we were in town some of the fans marched through town cheering on their favorite horses by waving flags, and singing along to a drummer--everyone wore scarves with baby binkies tied on the ends. It was like a pep rally for a horse race-interesting. Other memories include:
+Gloves in produce dept.
+Post office with trainee
+Woman who refused to move her car.
+Turtle, duck, fish pond

I think I could write a whole blog called "trouble with trains". We left Naples early and caught a train up through Rome along the coast. The train driver took his own sweet time and our train was delayed for our connection to Siena. Luckily we had a smelly, heavy set teenager and a nun (who later we found stole our lunch bread) to keep us company. We ended up catching a local train instead of the express. It took us right to Florence in 5 hours instead of the 2 hours we'd hoped to spend. Though it was a little too long, I don't mind trains. Nice place to sleep and the train toilets empty directly onto the tracks and create an interesting sucking feeling while you use them-a sensation you don't get much at home.

It was dusk by the time we made it to Florence. René's family friend lives in the city and he offered to let us stay with him. It turns out he owns bed and breakfast and a whole apt building. He is renting a whole floor out to an art school but they haven't moved in so he let us have the whole floor. It is 8-9 huge rooms and 3 bathrooms. We've stayed out of Patrick's hair and it has been paradise for us. The first night we washed our laundry (although we started it too late and got kicked out of the laundry mat, so we had to dry everything at Patrick's house on a makeshift clothesline. We spent the night catching up from the week.

We started the next day by walking right out of Patrick's front door to the main church and dome of some saint. We climbed the dome which put us high above the city and had some sweet views. The hike was so high that our legs were quivering and we were covered in pints of sweat well before 10.

We spent the rest of the day hiking around Florence seeing some of the local attractions and people watching. By the afternoon our legs were so sore we just caught local busses and rode around town.

In the evening we walked through some famous garden, crossed some famous bridge and ate dinner at a restaurant called santu espiritu. The whole time we agreed that Florence would be better spent with lovers and is not the best destination for a dude adventure.

A few other memory triggers:
+Street vendors running from Godzilla
+Left a message for the operator instead of Patrick
+KKK meeting
+Scary Egyptian statue
+6€ cokes
+Egyptian oblisks
+Tourist markup/tip
+Speedbump sign and speedbump woman
+benardos' steps

Need to update with the following:
Hostels in Naples-lots of cute girls as roommates--renè's favorite!
1.50 tren to pompeii and back
Showers in hostel
Girl on the train
Best pizza in world is in Naples
Lunch on the train (salami and bread hold the bread because a nun stole it out from under our noses when we were in the train car)
Then gypsy cab ride with stupid brothers
Surprise with a hostel planned
Room to ourselves Pompeii-
stepping stones and cross walks, counters with holes in them, lots of tourists but no your bus, huge, untouched wonders
Underground tram
Naples-julieta,
political protest,
old town stunk,
another night at the hostel,
town shuts down at 9.
At elmos, big building like a train station, castles, walked a ton.

Roman soldiers and colleauim
Speak louder doesn't help us
110 degree hostles.
No pictures in train terminal in Rome
Adapting to timezones. I only know one schedule. My body is very resilient.
Got to the station and they couldn't understand our Italian.
Check in at a restaurant
Gelstos Room was totally on lock down. Could have bought air condi, but that would have been the cost of the whole night stay
Pantheon mcdonalds
Cartoon maps
Dinner in Brooklyn
Vatican tour-cutting in line for a tour,
sistern chapel,
Jet lag the first day-pushing ourselvescolleauim, pantheon, Spanish steps, inescapable castle, discussion about why they have castles, forum, churches, your of real government bldg, trevi fountain, bathed in a few fountains, popes piazza, dinner in Brooklyn, stumbled home in a sleepy stupor
Statue of liberty inside st Peters, piazza nova, Catacombs and got lost
Hostel move then transferred, then cancelled, then late train to Naples