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melee - leroy and melissa

leroy and melissa No more boards. No more rotations. No more pagers. We are done with med school, and we're out to see the world. Six continents. 14 countries. 9 languages. 54,417 air miles. 2 travelers. One! We are keeping this travel blog mainly as a travel diary for ourselves, but we also want to share our trip with family and friends. It's better than an interminable slide show at the end of the trip, right? We hope the travel blog becomes a great way for you guys to keep in touch with us (and to procrastinate)!

02/13-02/21 - Salvador, Brasil
02/22-03/02 - Buenos Aires, Argentina
03/02-03/09 - Santiago, Chile
03/10-03/19 - Stanford, CA, USA (Match!)
03/21-03/26 - Melbourne, Australia
03/26-04/09 - Manila and Boracay, Philippines
04/09-04/16 - HCMC and Mekong Delta, Vietnam
04/16-04/23 - Bangkok and Krabi, Thailand
04/23-04/28 - Dubai, United Arab Emirates via Hong Kong
04/28-05/02 - London, United Kingdom
05/03-05/09 - Cairo, Egypt (Meli goes to Orlando for a conference)
05/09-05/20 - Paris, France (05/16-05/18: Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
05/21-05/22 - Athens, Greece
05/22-05/31 - Madrid, Marbella, and Sevilla, Spain
05/31-06/05 - Toronto, Canada
06/05-06/16 - L.A. and Bay Area, CA, USA
06/16---->? - Graduation and moving to L.A.



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Joined on: February 12th 2007
Last Login: July 23rd 2008

Blog Entries: 101
Photos: 2259
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Blogs & Travel Journals

by melee, order by Date newest first.

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So here we are… 6 continents… 16 countries… 105 blog entries… 2262 posted photos… 15,389 page views… 174 comments… 16 people meeting us along the way… 1 guest blogger… 5 host families… and 113 days later. This was the perfect trip to take at the perfect time. When else will we be fresh off an engagement, on the verge of starting our careers, with four months of free time? In the middle of the world trip, we came back to Cali for Match Day to find out our fate and were ecstatic to get our #1 choices. As the trip comes [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 6 Comment(s) | 1 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 368 words | [diary=167496] | 2007-08-08 05:30:35


The 100th blog should be about Antarctica, the seventh continent on our must-do list (and usually on everyone’s list when trying to recall all seven land masses). It should include mesmerizing photos of sheets of ice that seem to go on forever. Or maybe of Polar bears drowning, but that would be the Arctic, wouldn’t it? Well, we’re closer to the Polar bears anyway. Our centennial entry is one that comes full circle… full circle to North America and the Miami AA airport lounge we have affectionately dubbed “This is Not a Nightclub.” Full circle to family and friends north of [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 3 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1579 words | [diary=164619] | 2007-08-08 17:03:39


Gaztambide 39
Gaztambide 39
Meli at her old pad
Madrid Then and Now I’ve already dedicated so much of this blog to the deep affection that I have for this city. It’s a hard city to get to know, I think, much like Los Angeles. It is not as friendly as Rio de Janeiro, nor as beautiful. Brasil is easy to love. I don’t even have to try when hosting guests in Rio. But Madrid - how do you show someone that such an austere city filled with brusque madrileños is a down-to-earth and do-what-you-feel town you can’t help but be mad about? I don’t know, to be honest. It’s [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 1 Comment(s) | 5 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1962 words | [diary=163529] | 2007-08-08 06:16:53

Arco de Moncloa
IES Madrid
Common Area and former Bar Chema

El Oso y Madroño
El Oso y Madroño
In Puerta del Sol, this is the symbol of Madrid and also a popular meeting spot.
Altaria in Reverse We are at Estación Santa Justa with half an hour before our 9:25 Altaria train. Leroy had toast and jam at the hotel café, and I munch on a chapata de tortilla (bocadillo/baguette with tortilla española) at the station. On the train, I make the horrible realization that our seats have us facing backwards for the 3.5-hour journey. No, no, no! This is not good for motion sick people like me, who can’t go backwards in vehicles nor read on them. I convince myself that I’ll fall asleep soon enough, and some small part of me also wants [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 1 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 2017 words | [diary=163528] | 2007-08-08 06:19:08


Café Leviés
Café Leviés
Moonshine? Naw, it's legal. They have their own label to boot.
The Wok is The Bomb We have a full day to spend in Sevilla, but having seen the sights, eaten tapas, drank cañas and txakolí, and gone to a soccer match, there’s really not much left but flamenco. The museum for flamenco does not seem as interesting as seeing a show, so we make reservations for the 10:30pm show at La Casa de la Memoria in the center of town. Now what? Feed the belly! I can get full on tapas, but I don’t think Leroy can, so we go to Plaza Nervión, which is a shopping center near the stadium. [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 3 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1181 words | [diary=163526] | 2007-08-08 06:24:12

Café Leviés
Flamenco Action Shot

La Catedral y La Giralda de Sevilla
La Catedral y La Giralda de Sevilla
An interesting mix, don't you think? A little Islam here, a little Christian there...
Bus to Sevilla We leave our La Quinta refuge a little after 8am. Adiós, Heavenly Bed. Adiós, balcony view. Adiós, almendras Marconi. Adiós, Marqués de Riscal. We take a taxi to San Pedro de Alcántara, the nearest station. It’s not really a station. It’s more like a curb, with a ticket kiosk nearby. We buy our tickets for about €14 each and wait on the sidewalk for our 9:10am bus. We are entertained by the police who have pulled over a group of teenagers and seem to be searching every cranny of their car. They’re even turning their pockets inside out. [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 1 Comment(s) | 40 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 2758 words | [diary=163525] | 2007-08-08 06:29:30

On the road to Sevilla
El Tropezón III
El Tropezón III

The rain in Spain...
The rain in Spain...
doesn't just fall in the plain...
Trapped in La Quinta We try to enjoy some sun this morning, but it gets cool quite quickly and we retreat back to our hotel room where it’s warmer. The Costa del Sol has some amazing beach weather most of the time, but both times I’ve been in Marbella (this time and 10 years ago), it has been cloudy and rainy. No worries, though, because our room is a refuge that I don’t mind spending the whole day in. This will be a luxury pretty soon. Our plan today is to take a cab to Puerto Banús, which is closer than [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 3 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1064 words | [diary=163524] | 2007-08-08 06:31:25

The rain in Spain...
The rain in Spain...

Marbella, the way we see it
Marbella, the way we see it
Pretend it's time-lapse photography.
There is nothing to say for today. We ordered much of the same food for lunch and continued writing and posting pictures - or did you not notice that there were almost 10 blogs posted during our stay in Marbella? We read books. Leroy is now reading Barack Obama’s book, and I am reading some less than good novels that I pilfered from Bett’s Paris apartment. First there was “Which Brings Me to You” by Steve Almond and Juliana Baggot, which is a quick read but easily forgotten, and now there is “Good Grief” by Lolly Winston, which I give the [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 7 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 513 words | [diary=162151] | 2007-08-08 06:32:21

Marbella, the way we see it
Marbella, the way we see it
Marbella, the way we see it

The Westin
The Westin
The view from our refuge in Marbella
We’re Going to Marbella Brekkie is take-out from VIPS eaten at the hotel and then we are back on the metro to Atocha RENFE to catch our Talgo 200 train to Málaga. I buy some tortillas españolas and bread to take with us on our 3.5-hour trip. Málaga is near Marbella and is the closest airport and major train station; once there, we’ll have to catch a bus to Marbella and then a taxi to our hotel. I chose Marbella because it’s a beach town and (mainly) because we can stay at the Westin La Quinta Resort for three nights using [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 8 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 711 words | [diary=162024] | 2007-08-08 06:34:47

The Best Shower Ever!
Marbella
More Mediterranean in Marbella

Museo del Jamón
Museo del Jamón
A museum you can eat! Lots of legs of jamón ibérico de bellota, aka jamón serrano (Spanish cured ham).
Breakfast at VIPS and the best Brazilian wax ever We have breakfast at VIPS, which is a chain of stores and restaurants that holds a special place in my heart. Not only because it was one of the only spots back in the day where we could get an American breakfast, but also because they sold great wines on the cheap. Ahh, VIPS, how many times did you come through with the late-night grub? And that sparkling red wine that we had in the summer of 1997 during my last week in Madrid and that lovely pasta dinner we all cooked [View Full Entry]

melee - leroy and melissa | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 1 Comment(s) | 24 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1493 words | [diary=162023] | 2007-08-08 06:35:54

Plaza Mayor
Plaza Mayor
Plaza Mayor



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