Brief Update...

Hey all,
We've been spending the last few days up North in the Basque region of Spain, more specifically, the city of San Sebastian -- also called Donostia, depending on with whom you are speaking. Allow me explain: the País Vasco region of Spain is one of the three regions in the country that has its own language they prefer to use instead of Spanish. In fact, if a certain percentage of the Basque population had things their way, they wouldn't even be part of Spain, and instead form its own little nation.

The city of San Sebastian is much smaller than Barcelona and located right on the water -- a nice break from the big city. Since it's so close to France, we've noticed a good number of French vacationers in addition to the myriad of other Europeans walking around the narrow pedestrian streets of the old town, soaking up the sun on the beaches, and enjoying gelato and coffee at the many local cafes -- pretty much the same activities that we've been doing the last few days. Tomorrow we're off to Madrid to hit up another big city, wish us luck in Spain's capital! Hasta luego!

Photos:

Barcelona y San Sebastian

Gx3

Remember that one time last November when I wrote about going to Barcelona? That time there was only G (as in Godfrey) running around the city. Now I'm back there again, but this time the G power has tripled with the arrival of two fantastic individuals -- yes, that's right, I'm finally getting to see my parents after more than 8 months of being a continent and an ocean away!

My parents arrived in Barcy (don't know if that's an official nickname for the city, just mine) yesterday morning, and after packing all my wordly junk into a couple of backpacks and a monster suitcase and dragging it through some trains and airports and subways, I joined them too. (sidenote: I'm sure I looked absolutely ridiculous and many people judged me, thinking I was some dumb tourist who packed her entire closet for a two week European vacation. NO PEOPLE, this is actually everything I own thankyouverymuch. I'm a little self conscious about the whole thing, if you couldn't tell already...)

Anyway, enough ranting and on to more exciting topics. Like updating you about what we did today, the first full day of our trip.

Well, first we walked from our comfy little apartment Mom so cleverly reserved online to La Plaza Catalunya, one of the main squares in the city center -- actually a bit of a walk, especially since we took a rather indirect route in getting there. After taking a moment to orient ourselves/drink some cafe con leches on the plaza, we hit up the following areas:

1) Las Ramblas
Las Ramblas is a big bustling street dominated by hordes of wandering pedestrians, creepily costumed street entertainers, street vendors offering to sell you various things -- postcards, newspapers, maps, flowers, parakeets. You know, the usual. Lots of things just kind of to look at, but not much that makes you want to stop and spend a lot of time observing.

2) Barri Gotica
The Gothic Neighborhood. True to its name, has a lot of Gothic architecture and a lot of pedestrian only streets and alleyways. It's also where the Cathedral of Barcelona is located (see #3) and where Mom got pooped on by a bird.

3) Cathedral of Barcelona
Probably the main reason we went in the cathedral is because it has a restroom where shat-upon Mom was able to clean up her hair a bit. I mean, it's a cool cathedral, has really ornate altars, a pretty interior patio with geese, a sarcophagus of a 13 year old martyr from back when the Romans were hanging out in Spain... but I think if you asked her, Mom would still say the best part was that bathroom.

4) Picasso Museum
Next up on the list was the Picasso Museum, also in the Gothic part of town. I had been there before, so I don't really have a whole lot to say about it -- there's a lot of cool artwork there, I'd say the majority of the pieces are from earlier on in his career (i.e. pre-Cubism), so there's actually a lot less crazy abstract looking things than you might imagine. Also, since it was Sunday and after 3pm, we got in for free (yesss!) but then again, so did the other 100+ tourists who were waiting in line ahead of us. So much for thinking we were being clever tourists for knowing which hours the museum is free of charge...

5) La Pedrera
Our last stop for the day, La Pedrera is a building designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí. It was originally designed to be an apartment building, but of course, Gaudí designed it with his usual flair (lots of shapes from nature, a perfect compromise of practical functionality and mind-blowing aesthetics) so now it's mainly just another stop on the tourist trail. Again, this is somewhere I had been on my first trip, but surprisingly, I enjoyed it even more the second time around. Gaudí's work is just so incredibly unique and interesting to look at.

After all that, we trekked on back to the apartment -- a full day of walking and sight-seeing (not to mention jet lag for 2/3 of us) has left us pretty tired!

Well, that's all for now -- further entries and pictures will follow in the next few days, so stay tuned...

Un Viajito Más

Hey all! So I'm a bit belated on getting this post and its accompanying photos up, but now that I'm officially unemployed, living at the beach, and have literally no responsibilities, I'm finding it much too difficult to do anything that might have any chance o being categorized as "productive".

Anyway, last week I took way too many buses and 1 train to see a bit more of the Iberian Peninsula before I head over to Barcelona in a couple of days to meet my parents!!!! On this trip I made it to Santiago de Compostela, Fisterra, Porto and Lisbon. I started out the journey alone, but met a few really great people at the hostels I stayed at along the way! I was glad that I did because I'm finding more and more that I get really bored and unmotivated to do anything at all if I'm just by myself, even if I am in a really cool place surrounded by a lot of cool things!

I'll give you all a quick summary of the places and then post some pics, as per usual:

Santiago de Compostela: Santiago's a small town with a huge reputation, located up North in the region of Spain called Galicia (right on top of Portugal). It's the end of a long journey taken by many pilgrims who start their journey near the Spain/France boarder and essentially walk across the entire country along the path called el Camino de Santiago. Many people do it for spiritual and/or religious reasons, but it's also popular with a lot of adventure travelers just because it is a really arduous journey and you get to see a ton of really great landscape.

Galicia itself is absolutely gorgeous -- all of its vegetation is clearly on steroids. There are lots of trees, plants, shrubs, etc all really green and all very dense. Unfortunately, the reason behind its aforementioned greenness is because is RAINS LIKE CRAZY there. I never went anywhere without my raincoat and had to hang up my clothes every night so they could dry, but I figure I probably deserve a little torrential downpour in my life, since I've been avoiding it for so long.

While in Santiago, I also went to an even smaller town nearby called Fisterra. In some places I saw it written as "Finisterra", which I actually like better because the name then explains what it essentially is: el "Fin de Tierra" or the "End of Earth". It's the western-most point in all of Europe and, for some pilgrims, the true end of the Camino. There's not really a whole lot to do there, but I walked from the town center where the bus dropped me off out to the lighthouse that marks the "true" end of the Camino. I thought it was pretty cool and the sun even made a rare (temporary) appearance so that I could take some decent pictures!


Porto: Porto's located in Northern Portugal right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and next to the Douro River. It's a nice old town with interesting old architecture and lots of bodegas that produce port wine. My new German friend Manuela and I took a tour at one of the bodegas, partially for the free samples at the end, partially to avoid becoming human sponges by absorbing all of the Porto rainfall. Unfortunately for me, we went later on in the afternoon and there was only one more tour happening that day -- presented in German. Fortunately, Manuela obligingly translated everything for me and I still got to see the wine cellars and try some Sandeman port at the end of our journey.

After a couple of rainy days in Porto, it was time to go further south to Lisbon....


Lisbon is Portugal's capital and really old a overall a pretty great city. Lots of things like castles (okay I actually just visited the one), more interesting architecture, and LOTS of azulejos, or decorative blue tiling found on many walls throughout the city. I really enjoyed just walking around the streets randomly looking at things that I happened upon and then ducking in a cafe for something cool to drink when I got too unbearably hot (which happened to happen a lot, especially in the afternoons... I was constantly sweating). It is also really hilly there, so I walked up and down a lot and got some great views of the city and the water. Interestingly, what with the city being close to water, its use of trams/trolleys as public transport aforementioned hilliness and a certain bridge, it reminded me some of San Francisco... I'll let you guys be the judge though, so make sure to check out the pics!

Galicia y Portugal