Madrid 2

So here it is - our final blog. I still think blog's are useless, but here goes.

We arrived in Madrid yesterday evening. Dropped the car off at Avis at the Atocha train station with little fanfare. We've been renting cars and tooling around Europe for eight years now and have never had even a scratch on a car. I guess we've been lucky since some of the streets are narrower than my outstretched arms. Kind of longish arms if I had them, but, suffice it to say the streets are tight.

We proceded to use the Metro to get to our hotel. It was easy to find where we needed to go but was a pain in the butt lugging our junk around up and down countless staircases. They don't seem to have many escalators in their system here. Much to my delight, when we got to the hotel we discovered a McDonald's right across the street. Again, let me reiterate, I think it's just plug. You know, food you eat just to get by on. In our case it was late and we didn't want to go searching for a place to eat.

Yesterday morning we got up just in the nick of time to hustle downstairs for breakfast which was included in our room rate. It was good. First time I've actually had a meal that would be considered breakfast since we left. Most days we got up late, no breakfast was included in our room rate and I would just tell myself that I was too close to lunch to bother eating anything breakfasty so I should just hold out for lunch at the omnipresent McDonald's at the center of wherever it was that we would be that day. I think the McDonald's corporation won't let one of their stores be opened in a European city unless it is close enough to throw a rock and land it either in the main plaza or hit the front door of some important monument. I don't know if McDonald's is in China yet but it wouldn't surprise me if the first one is in the Forbidden City...

Anyways, we had breakfast then went to the Prado Museum just a few blocks away. I'd been there once before some 12 years ago or so thus it was all pretty fresh to me. I just remember it being home to many a respected painting. There was a great exhibit on Picasso detailing his work over some time to produce his own version of Velasquez's Las Meninas. It's a brilliant Picassoesque version of what many would argue is the greatest painting ever produced. Anyhow, it was all a thrill. We spent many hours inside the museum finally emerging both of us with a tired and wobbly set of "museum legs". Anneka wanted to head back to the hotel and I wanted to go to...

Duh.

I just found out that Anneka wrote about all this yesterday. Oops.

So! Today we got up, again in time for breakfast. Afterwords we headed off to the Palacio Real - the Royal Palace. Our guide book says it's the third largest after Versailles in Paris and Schonbrun in Vienna. It's contemporary with both of those other two so they all share a lot of similarities. Long, long hallways and literally thousands (2000 in this one) of rooms only a handfull of which tourists ever see. I asked a worker there what they did with the other 1950 Royally unused rooms 300 years ago and they said they had absolutely no idea. It was amazing as usual - until we got to the severely Rococco styled rooms. Honestly I though I was going to vomit. There were a couple of rooms that were so swirly and golden that your eyes couldn't even focus. Anneka had asked why the current King and Queen of Spain don't reside there today and when we entered those rooms I think she got her answer. They'd appear permanently seasick anytime they were ever seen if they did.

Following the palace we toured the Royal Pharmacy. That was cool as we'd never seen one of those. Imagine room after room and shelf after shelf of jars and vats of plants you'd never heard of. If the king ever got sick his in-house "Pfizer" would just whip up a recipe of select bark, dirt and stones and all would be well. After the Pharmacy we went to the Armory. We're always amazed at the intricacy of many of the suits of armor on display at the castles and palaces we visit. Some appear very functional while others are clearly for show. I always wonder silently just how many suits of armor does one king need? It's not like the dudes ever gonna use it. Not like in olden days when the king might actually find himself out on the battle field wielding his sword. It seems like they'd have a nifty, and extremely pricey suit of armor made just to wear it and have a portrait painted of them. Today it seemed like King Ferdinand II had a hundred or more. And the swords those guys had to carry. Some are ceremonial and easy to distinguish as such since even Conan the Barbarian couldn't hoist them much less some coddled, anemic, prissy17th century king. Others look clearly useful yet again they leave you wondering how someone would actually wield them for anything longer than five minutes before literally drooping it to the ground in agony. The dang things look so heavy!... And among the oddities to modern man with the armor and the swords go the early guns. Any gun you see in a palace is one probably more for ceremony than anything else. but those too, how did they hold them and actually shoot them? There isn't even a semblance of a "pistol grip" on them so I envision one of these mini canons being shot and having the shooter take one in the gut as the gun kicks violently backwards out of their hands since they're like guns in the form of a stick.

Following all things royal we trotted off to the Reina Sofia museum, home to Guernica by Pablo Picasso. This painting is easily a national symbol in Spain and is displayed beautifully in this top tier museum. The museum also houses such other distinguished artists as Joan Miro, Mark Rothko, Salvador Dali and others.

Dali was one wierd duck, man.

But Guernica was tops. When you understand the history behind the painting it makes it so relevant when you actually see it. Plus it's huge! The thing is like 15' tall and some 30' wide. It makes you wonder how he ever got it out of his studio. Anneka did much better in the Reina Sofia than I thought given 98% of what she saw was artists she'd never heard of. We both had a great time but we eventually reached our art saturation point and took off. We found dinner at the local TGI Friday's in town alleviating us completely of the culinary uncertainty we both hate as we search for somewhere to eat. And, evening done, Europe trip done, bags packed here we sit. It's late and we're tired and tomorrow will be a rude awakening as we attempt to get up at seven to have a bite to eat before catching the bus to the airport.

It's been a blessing to be here as it is each time we come. We are sad to leave but anxious to get home to our friends and family and to our routines - so, we are ready to go.

Adios, as they say here in Spain!

Chris and Anneka

Madrid

Today was our first day in Madrid. We spent most of the day at the Prado museum. Full of over 3000 paintings it was big. Lots of Goya's paintings and they had an exibit with a bunch of Picasso's on loan. Both hometown boys to Spain. Chris is at another art gallery (I was arted out) the one Chris is at, Thyssen-bornesumthin' museum, is full of impressionist paintings. I came back to the hotel to check email and upload some pictures. Our hotel is kind of funny with some great extra's like a stereo with CD player which came in handy last night as Chris wanted to listen to Harry Potter and will again tonight (we may finish it after all.) It also has free mini bar which we quickly drained the water, fanta and coke (we left the beer) and they restock it for free everyday. The funniest feature though is we also have adjustable beds, yes the beds go up and down like hospital beds so we can sit up and watch TV. We are mostly glad to get free breakfast though as none of our other hotel's had breakfast so that's nice. Tonight we are going to go out and do a walking tour of Madrid. We will post some pictures too.

Enjoy.

Segovia

Yesterday we first spent the morning doing laundry.... finally we found a laundry mat as they are few and far between in Spain. We then spent an hour shopping in Salamanca for olive oil and sandals. Chris had wanted some sandals here and we found a little shop that hand makes them so we each bought a pair. There are also olive trees everywhere in Spain so I wanted to get some olive oil to bring home as it's pretty cheap here so we picked up 2 bottles. Lets hope they don't break on the way home.

Anyway we then set off for Segovia and arrived in the late afternoon. We first toured the cathedral. They are all starting to look the same though and it's getting hard to distinguish which one was which as I look back on them. We then toured the local castle and walked down the hill to a large roman aquaduct. It's pretty cool to see it in the middle of town. We found dinner at an "american grill" it was a lot like TGI fridays and was a welcome treat as it was something from home.

Today we drove a few miles south and toured El Escorial another palace of Spain's Kings and queens. It was very plain though. Chris said it looked more like a prison then castle. We then set off for the summer palace, La Granja which was built more in a french Versailles style. We got there an hour before they closed and toured it quickly. We then went out to the gardens which were very much like versailles. Lots of fountains, flowers and trimmed shrubs. We liked the gardens the most and spent a few hours walking through them. They were also setting up for a concert outside in the gardens as the Pet Shop boys are performing for free on Saturday night. Too bad we will miss it. It would be cool to see them, unfortunately we will be in Madrid. The drive over the hills from El Escorial to La Granja was amazing culminating at 5800 feet, roughly with a one lift ski resort. We never knew you could snow ski within a half hour drive of Madrid.

It was then a 40 min drive into Madrid where we just checked in and got dinner at McDonalds cause it's so late. Anyway until next time.

Anneka

Salamanca

Wow, what a day. We were in Toledo this morning and had planned on staying basically two full days there. But, having seen the major sights we opted to leave a day early and drive about three hours to Salamanca.

Toledo was great. Hot, but great. We paid something like twelve bucks to get into the Cathedral there and it was well worth the money. The Sacristy had portraits of all the Cardinals of Toledo back to the first one supposedly from the year 105, according to date below the portrait. There was then a jump up to something like the year 355 or something like that and all the portraits between the first and those somewhere in the 1400's were all done, obviously, after the fact, by one artist. Humorously they all looked heiroglyphic (sp?) in a way since the artist had no real way of knowing exactly what they looked like so they were all painted, some 50 or so, using one of three basic poses and all wore sort of the same outfits. From about the late 1500's or so is where they all started to appear distinctive and it was a fascinating "look" into the past. You could see the change in vestment as time went on and in hair styles and such. I though it was thoroughly amazing. I think Anneka just saw it as a bunch of pictures of dudes long dead and gone. One interesting artifact is that the Cardinals, upon their deaths, have their hats suspended from a cable from a certain part of the Cathedral literally until that hat decays into oblivion. There were only a few up there and I think the oldest one was only from the 1970's or something. I would have thought they'd last longer.

I´'m at an internet café and this Spanish keyboard is driving me nuts!¿ Keys are in weird places and some do crazy Spanish things¡!¡!¿?¿?¿?¿ (there's a string of right side up and upside down question marks and exclamation points here in case they doesn't show up in the blog when read on computers that speak English...)

Anyways, I got up early this morning, 10am - that's early for us on this trip, and headed out to snap some pictures, stroll and explore while Anneka soaked up the sights of the insides of her eyelids for a while longer. We checked out at noon, bought some churros and headed off to Salamanca. I'd bought some art earlier that morning and halfway out of town I convinced Anneka that I needed another two pieces from the same artist to complete a "set", so we turned around and headed back. After that we loaded up with a couple more churros, popped Harry Potter in the CD player and took off again.

I found the drive to be rather spectacular. In part due to the amazing granite outcroppings mixed with a strange type of local pine tree forest we'd driven through, similar to Cochise Stronghold in southern Arizona in a way, as well as the curvy nature of the small road we were on that kept me in a racecar driver fantasy land the entire time. Driving at the speed limit of course... Our car is a Turbo Opel Vectra. It too, as have been our rentals in the past, is very peppy.

Anyways, the drive was nice and if I have one regret its that we're only like 6 CD's into what must be a 15 or 16 CD set for the complete Harry Potter book six so we'll never finish the cursed thing and it has definitely peaked my curiosity.

So, here we are in Salamanca. What an amazing little place. When we arrived we found out that nearly everything is shut down as today is some holiday of sorts. I don't know, perhaps a Spanish "Pioneer day" or something. This was only a problem since we wanted to wash some clothes and the only Coin-op Laudromat in THIS half of Spain was closed for the day. We've neede to do the laundry for some time but it's not "typical" to have a laundromat here. Thankfully due to the laudry fiasco we had at our first hotel in Barcelona we have plenty of undies but I swear if I take these shorts off now they'll walk themselves back to the hotel on their own...

Thankfully two of the most important sights in the city were still open in spite of the holiday. The two churches they call the "Old" and the "New" Catherdrals. The new is free and the old costs about seven bucks a head to get into.

Wow! They were eye popping and made me so gratefull we'd decided to come. The new Catherdral was constructed, as are many over several decades, even centuries and is a mix of style from Gothic to Baroque. The old, however is pure Romanesque and was a sight to behold! I guess I can do this too - ¡ or this ¿ or this ç or this ñ. Sorry

Anyhow the old Cathedral was simply amazing! There were fantatic frescoes in unparalleled states of preservation that were like portals on a time long gone by. The depictions of the clothes and buildings in the frescoes show, as if in an 900 year old photograph, exactly what life looked like. It makes perfect sense, they painted only what they saw and knew.

The University of Salamanca, historically, is one of the oldest in Europe and was at the top of the heap in the early 1300's. It got it's start rather inauspiciously from when students and local teachers would gather in a side chapel off the cloister there in the old church to study together. From those humble beginnings arose one of the greatest institutions of learning in history.

Our entry ticket also included a self guided tour of interior and exterior balconies in both Catherdrals and was certainly the icing on the cake for this kid. Following a famous earthquake in Lisbon in like 1755 or something many parts of the buildings were destabilized, none more however than the area were these balconies are. So, the interior passage ways and spiral staircases were filled in to add additional support to the buildings. Only recently, in like the last ten years I think, did they finally excavate those passages and open up these areas for exploration. So, the lighting inside was exquisite and the newly restored, vaulted rooms were filled with centuries of liturgical trinkets, documents and other found objects in beatiful display cases with heavenly choral, instrumental and gregorian chant music reverberating off the walls. I sat in this one room for like half an hour and listened to this ten minute loop of music play over and over again. It was inspiring.

Anyways after that gratifying experience we found an Italian restaurant and had a great meal. This after a meal last night that tied with the one in Cor... Córdoba, as being the nastiest on the trip. So, Anneka was flush with great food, I was flush with great sights and we were both very content. What a great day. We took in the significantly cooler night air during a "paseo" that seemed to bring all of Salamanca's residents out with us. The monuments are all lit up beautifully and except that I smell like I haven't bathed in weeks and desperately need a shower, I'd stay up longer to explore some more.

Later,

Chris, and from the comfy confines of her bed right now I'm sure, Anneka

Toledo

Today we drove from Granada to Toledo. It took us just over 4 hours and arrived in Toledo in the early afternoon. Again it's very toasty out but we bought a big bottle of water and headed out. We first sought out lunch which was of course at McDonalds. I think we have had McDonalds every day for lunch for the last 7-8 days. We both know it's getting old but Spain doesn't have many options for lunch unless you want a long sit down big meal and we are always on the go so we can get out and see the sights.

On our way out from McDonalds we stepped into the plaza and who did we see????? Our hero (at least my hearo) Rick Steves the travel writer whose guide books we have used for the last 8 years of European travel. Every other American over here carries his books and he happened to be here in Toledo doing guidebook research. He was nice enough to stop and talk to us and take a picture. Yee Haw! See it posted and what are the chances that we would run into him. We had met him once before when he came to the Salt Lake City Library downtown and lectured and I got his autograph there. Now I've got a picture to boot! We just like his travel style, it's down to earth and features the kind of things we like to see.

Anyway after our brush with Rick we headed over to Cathedral. Another big one in Spain. No famous people are burried here other then the local cardinals but it was still cool to see. We then just wandered the streets until dinnertime. Although it was 9:00pm the restaurants wern't serving dinner yet, so we hung out in the plaza and starting talking to a couple from Canada about our travels. We ended up talking to them for over an hour then headed off to get dinner. So far we haven't been real impressed with Spanish food. Tonight was no exception. We went to a restaurant that had no one in it. (that should have been a warning sign) Then we had to order from the fixed menu which included the appetizer and dessert. Not wanting to leave as their only customer we obliged and ordered a steak for Chris and Chicken for me. It also came with Paella (rice dish with chicken bits) and Gazpacho which reminded us both of airplane food. Needless to say it wasn't our best dinner. Oh well there is always McDonalds tomorrow!

We were going to stay 2 nights in Toledo but found we pretty much covered everything today so tomorrow we are going to head out to a town called Salamanca. Not originally on our planned itinerary but it looks cool and they have a laundry mat. Something we've been looking for the last few days. It's a good thing too because tomorrow would be our last day in clean clothes. :)

Till our next stop.

Granada

We've had a full day in Granada. We arrived Saturday afternoon after trapesing around the city trying to find out hotel for 45 min's. We are right on the main drag here close to the major sights. We checked in, dumped our stuff and headed out to tour the Cathedral. This one houses the tomb's of the famous Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand. Their tomb's made out of the white Carrara Italian marble and is massive. Also included near their tomb is her crown, scepter and the king's sword. As well as some of her personal art collection. We then stepped into the cathedral. It has massive columns and again several chapels but the interior was painted white so it is much brighter inside then most cathedrals. Outside the cathedral we wandered through some old silk merchant stalls which now sell tourist trinkets or as chris called it Morrocan Tijuana junk. They all sold the same items. I could have gotten a nice gypsie outfit with sparkely attachments but Chris wouldn't let me :). It wouldn't look too flattering at social events and would draw all the wrong types of attention. We then hiked up the hill for about 20 minutes to St. NIcholas church which had a fine veiw of the Alhambra. President Clinton brought his family up here once for the view and for some dinner a local place with the same outstanding view. Yee haw.

Then the rest of the evening we wandered through some of the streets and got dinner. We've been eating late every night. Usually around 11pm or later and it's 1am or so when we get to bed. The Spanish stay up very late but I think we have adjusted. So far we haven't eaten too much "Spanish" food. We tried Tapas one night in Barcelona which was ok but most of it is seafood and as most of you know we don't do seafood. So it's been a lot of McDonalds and so-so italian pizza and pasta. I haven't seen the churro's and chocolate yet. Not sure I'd want them anyways since who wants hot, thick chocolate when it's 110 degrees outside. Chris said he saw some in Barcelona but maybe in Madrid we will get some if there's some ultra unusual cool spell, like temps in the 50's or something. Not real big on the ice cream here either. I think we buy water more then anything because it's so hot. We go through several bottles a day.

Sunday morning we headed up to tour the Alhabra, a Moorish palace. We had made our reservation to see it a few months ago as it's very popular and they only admit 8000 people a day in. Our scheduled time was 11:30 so we got there about 10:30 this morning and wandered the grounds before going in. Once in the palace we toured the various rooms and court yards. It had a lot of wood carvings, arabic scripts carved in stone and cool archways. It was taken over in the Reconquista and Queen Isabel took up residence here when she was in power. In the grand hall Christopher Columbus made his pitch to Queen Isabel for her to finance his journey to the new world and she agreed.

We toured through the fort on the grounds which had some great views of the city then decided to head back to the hotel for a late lunch (at the McDonalds next door) and write our blog here until it cool's off then tonight we will head back up the hill to the Alhambra again and tour the Kings gardens.

Will post some pictures of the Alhambra later. Tomorrow we head for Toledo about 4 hours drive north. At least we have Harry Potter book 6 on CD to listen to in the car to help pass the time.

Later,

Anneka and Chris

Sevilla, Cordoba, Rhonda & Arcos Con't

Sorry for the long pause in writing in... my computer battery died and the hotel we are now at in had a converter so we could charge it up. Hopefully it will last the rest of the trip.

Right now we are in Granada, last post we were in Seville. It's about 4pm here and very hot so I came back to the hotel to write in and Chris is braving the heat and out wandering.

When we were in Seville, we toured the Cathedral, 3rd largest in Europe behind St Peters in Rome #1 and St. Paul's in London #2. Which housed I think I said before Christopher Columbus's tomb. Then there were the many chapel's inside as well as the treasury which included spains most valuable crown some 11,000 jewels but somehow we couldn't find it and think maybe it wasn't on display. Then Chris climbed the bell tower while I waited down below. It was too long and hot of a climb for me. While he was up there the bells went off and as you can imagine spooked him pretty good. We then headed over to the Alcazar or "Royal palace". This had the usual king and queen's apartments but built in Moorish style. It had several courtyards, pools and fountains. It was also here that Christopher Columbus reported back to Queen Isabel about his journeys to the new world. Late that afternoon we headed out on the road north to a town called Cordoba.

We arrived in the early evening. most everything was closed so we wandered around the town and got dinner at a pizzeria. Unfortunately it was the worst Italian we ever had. Even Prego in a jar was more authentic then what we had. Oh well... Thursday morning we got up and toured the Mezquita which was first a Christian church then it was "Mosque-ized" under the control of the North
African Moor's then turned in a cathedral following the Reconquista of the 1400's. Most of it still looked like a mosque except for the christian chapel built in the middle of it with it's choir seats and pulpit. The Islamic carvings throughout were amazing and there were horseshoe archways all over.

We then quickly toured a small 1 room Synagogue from the early 1500's before heading out. 5 miles outside of town is an excavation site called the Madinat al-Zahra. Once a palace from 929 A.D. it's been partially excavated over the last 100 years. Right now it's only 10% uncovered. It's like a Moorish Pompeii... It was hard to navigate as it is mostly a maze of foundations and a few arches here and there.

We then got back in the car and drove to a small hill town called Arcos.

About a 2 hour drive south Arcos is tiny with 40,000 people in the main town and like 13 in the old town section. It had very narrow streets which made for some tense navigating. We meandered our way up the 1 way donkey cart roads with the car mirrors folded in to prevent scraping. Thankfully the streets are for the most part one-way since they are really barely wide enough for a scooter much less a car and definitely not two cars going in opposite directions. The walls of all the buildings wear the scars of many an encounter with vehicles of all types from the past several decades. Our hotel was perched on top of the hill on a cliff. We are staying at one of the historic Parador's here which is a goverment project to turn old historic buildings into hotel's. This one was once a former palace of a govenor. It's cool and all until our guide book tells of a time about ten years ago that a room in the hotel full on fell off into the gorge. Not the news you want as you eat breakfast in their restaurant with a "view" of the gorge that's a mere 15 feet away out these mondo picture windows. Needless to say I was looking for cracks in the tile floor as we ate... We took the town tour around sunset, saw the church and a few streets as that is all there is to see and took in the views. We found dinner at a local restaurant serving lots of "game" meats. Luckily they had cow meat so we naturally chose that over the fowl, deer and other critters I didn't even know you could eat.

Friday morning we headed out again for another hill town called Ronda. It was only about an hour away. Again we stayed at a parador hotel which was perched on top of a gorge with great views of the steep canyon below. This hotel is however just a new modern structure and not a historic palace. It was very nice though, one of our nicest hotels yet and I got a great rate on it for being under 30 :). This hotel also had a pool which was cool as it gave us a break from the heat. When we first arrived we toured the bull ring which is the oldest in Spain. It's still used today but they only have bull fights during the festival times. We then walked through the old town to get nice and hot then went back to the hotel and jumped in the pool and relaxed for a few hours. That evening we went out again and toured the cathedral and a small moorish palace.

Friday morning Chris jumped in the pool again before we had to check out we then headed on to Granada about another 2 hour drive east.

More later, perhaps sooner than you think.

Sevilla, Cordoba and Rhonda

Picking up where we left off, we finished up our tour of Sevilla with a tour of the Cathedral and the Alcazar which is like a palace. The cathedral housed the tomb of christopher collumbus which was cool to see. The Alcazar was a big empty palace with lots of cool courtyards and fountains and water features which is very much needed with all the heat. After Sevilla we drove on to Cordoba about an hour north. There we just wandered around the old town that night as much of the sights were closed. On Wednesday we toured the Mezquita which is a Mosque turned cathedral. The mosque part that still exists in parts was cool to see as this is some of the first islamic things we have seen.

Barcelona to Seville

No blogging yesterday, didn't have time. In the morning we went up to Mont Juic, home of the 92 summer Olympics. It was crazy to see the plaza's and buildings that you vaguely remember from the games. The building where they held the gymnastics competition was called Palau Sant Jordi and I can hear Bob Costas' voice saying that in my head to this day. Anneka wasn't feeling well and with temps in the 90's and humidity in the 75% range we headed back to the hotel for her to rest. I went out and farted around some more. When we got back to the hotel though we had a bit of an issue with the housekeeper. When we travel it's common for us to use the bags that the hotels provide for laundry service to seperate our clean clothes from our dirty ones without ever having any intention that the hotel actually DO our laundry for us. Well, they snagged our bag and did about a dozen individual articles of clothes and the bill was $72!! Needless to say I whipped out my best "I aint payin' for that!" Spanish and laid down the law with them. Anywho we bid a fond farewell to Barcelona and headed to the airport for a flight on Iberia air to Sevilla. The flight was delayed by an hour but we eventually left and arrived mid day in Sevilla.

I went out and checked out the historic center of Sevilla since Anneka was again a little under the weather. It was hotter then crap and at times I thought I was going to melt. I think I was one of only a handfull of hardy souls daring enough to be out exploring in the heat.

Anneka was feeling much better tonight to we headed back into the historic center for the "paseo". Had dinner and gawked at the well lit Cathedral, the 3rd largest in all of Christendom - behind only St's Peter in Rome and Paul's in London. Tomorrow we'll head back to the area to actually go in the Cathedral since it was closed today. Also we'll hit the Alcazar, the King's residence designed with a heavy Moorish influence. We'll also pick up our rental car, the zippier the better, and in the early evening we'll take off for Cordoba.

My Spanish is coming along fine. Although this Spanish "theta" lisp thing is driving me nuts. It's as if they're taking perfectly understandable Spanish and tweeking it just enough to confuse me. Nevertheless I've not been duped yet.

Barcelona July 16, 2006

Hi everyone we made it to Barcelona yesterday. Although once again our luggage did not. Same as last year but this time we were more prepared. At least we had one bag with a few changes of clothes and our toiletries and the bag arrived tonight so we are all set. We arrived early Saturday morning and the hotel didn't have our room ready yet so we farted around until we nearly found a park bench to sleep on. Its very humid and hot here. Wouldn't you know it were here when Spain is having a heat wave, and if you call it a heat wave in spain you know it's hot. Today was about 95 degrees and 70% humidity. We visited the Picasso museum where the largest collection of Picasso's is housed in Spain. It was amazing to see his progression and that he painted "normal" stuff at one point in his life. Anneka took a siesta in the afternoon while Chris did what he does best and wandered around aimlessly, taking wall art pictures. Breakfast was at McDonalds but since they don't have breakfast foods that meant a big mac was in order. Anneka says it even though it was at 11:30am it still qualified as breakfast since it was the first meal of the day. Tonight we wandered over to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia Cathedral and took some pictures. It's basically looks likes it made out of ice cream that is melting slowly. Were surprised someone at the planning commission hasn't said "hurry up" as it's had cranes up since the 1920's. Casa Batllo is just around the block from our hotel and it's one crazy piece of architecture. What would you think if your architect showed up and wanted to build you a house in the form of a dragon. What does that say about his patron, they actually let him... They stay up till all hours of the night here. We had dinner at 11:00pm and our restaurant was packed. Tapas seem like a good idea but they are mostly seafood so we haven't had too many but tonight tried some potatoes, chicken and steak. The steak tapas were good once we picked the blood sausage out of the center. Tomorrow we are going to Mont Juic, home of the 1992 summer Olympics. Attached are a few pictures amoung them Chris trying to dance the local "Sardana". He got one step into it then got lost. There is also a picture of the Ramblas. A big pedestrian friendly thouroghfare full of tacky trinket shops and weird street performers. Well it's 2:00 am and time to go to bed.

Spain July 2006

2 days left before we leave for spain. Some pre trip thoughts about this trip, Chris speaks Spanish so that will be helpful, we've never spoken the language in our travels before but then the Euro's speak such good english you really don't need to. Next.... Ham - in all my reading about spain it seems ham is the official meat of this country. I have a feeling we will be eating lots of Ham. Speaking of eating. I've also read that they have a dessert called Churro's and Chocolate. Which is Churro's (of course) dipped in hot chocolate but has the consistancy of Pudding. Sounds good to me and I'm sure I'll be having one of these every day. Been looking at the weather charts and it looks like it's going to be toasty in Spain. 90's to 100's. Chris say's we will just have to eat lots of ice cream and get lots of soda pop. The Spanish close everything down from 1-4pm everyday for siesta so that may be a good time for us to go back to the hotel and cool off and hang by the pool if they have one. Lastly late dinners, I've been reading that many restaurants don't open until 10:00pm or later. Spanish eat around midnight. Should be interesting. Maybe McDonalds will be open earlier. I'll write more when we get there on Saturday morning.