melee
leroy and melissa Joined: February 12th 2007
Logged in: August 3rd 2010
Logged in: August 3rd 2010
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.
Travel Blog Posts
Zero Gravity
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 to an end, there is still more celebrating to do. We just found a two bedroom condo across the street from the hospital where we will both be doing our internships. Moving day is tomorrow. ... read more
The Drake Hotel
Note: The Canada blogs have been rewritten and reposted due to requests for anonymity. Hush yo mouf As our vacation winds down, you’ll notice that we are spending more time relaxing and less time exploring. Some will call it traveler’s fatigue. I call it conserving energy for residency. Meli’s aunt kicks off brekkie by making us grilled cheese sandwiches, then prosciutto and cheese panini. Knowing that we have a long day and night ahead of us, I cross the street for dried mango and Red Bull. In all out Pinay fashion, Meli’s aunt keeps the food coming, topping brekkie with tortellini al panna for lunch with white wine and Canadian Ice Wine (a digestif). Meli chooses to sleep for most of the day as jet lag is working her like a part time job. I pass ... read more
Niagara Falls
Note: The Canada blogs have been rewritten and reposted due to requests for anonymity. Ahhh Sunday! The perfect day to sleep in, particularly on the last leg of your four-month vacation and round-the-world trip. So why in heavens am I up at 5:30am again??? It is what it is. I check craigslist for apartments and do other online errands, then crawl into bed to try to get more shuteye with no success. When the house is astir, I get up and join them for pancakes and eggs before we make a late morning departure for the Falls. Niagara Falls I have never seen it, so this trip is mainly for my benefit. My aunt has seen it many times and Leroy has been here once or twice before. I’m a little dubious, however, because I visited ... read more
Stress Relief
Note: The Canada blogs have been rewritten and reposted due to requests for anonymity. Walk of Shame We drive back through Toronto’s downtown in the bright light of an early Saturday morning. The CN Tower, having been unlit the night before save for a few blinking red lights, is fully visible now. My friend Andrea, who lives here, climbed 150 flights of stairs to the top of this tower for a wildlife charity this year. Staring at the “world's tallest freestanding structure on land,” which stands 553.33 meters (1815 ft 5 in) high, all I have to say is you go, girl, feel the burn. The apartment is quiet as we unlock the door, but I’m sure our hostess knows we’ve come home at an hour fit for her wild days in Rome. We get up ... read more
Putting it out there!
Note: The Canada blogs have been rewritten and reposted due to requests for anonymity. Welcome to Canadia! I refuse to let jet-lag get the best of me, so I will myself to stay in bed until 10am. Meli is not as successful, waking up at 5am. She blogs, checks e-mail, renews health insurance, all the things one does at 5am after going to bed at 2am. Big Screen TV Time The ladies have business to take care of this morning. I bashfully opt out, preferring to stay in to watch TV and play Risk. I get the full run down before they leave: these are the movie channels, tuna salad in the fridge, ice cream in the freezer, oatmeal here, cake there, bottled water up, fruit down. I think I got it all. A biography on ... read more
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 the border. Madrid At quarter to 9am, we are already on the Madrid metro, ready for two line changes, which translate to carrying our bags up and down a few short stairs at each station. ... read more
May 30th 2007
Gaztambide 39
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 not by taking them to the Prado (main museum) or El Retiro (akin to Central Park for Madrid). Things have certainly changed since I was here 10 years ago - the metro is expanding, the ... read more
El Oso y Madroño
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 to see if I can handle it. You always have to test yourself a little bit, right? Once the train gets moving, the invisible vise on my head squeezes and I focus on breathing. I ... read more
Café Leviés
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. The food court has three tabernas, a TGI Friday’s, McDonald’s, a Mexican restaurant, and The Wok, a chain of pan-Asian eateries. “Noodles or rice!” Leroy demands, so we go to The Wok and take advantage ... read more
May 27th 2007
La Catedral y La Giralda de Sevilla
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. The teens are smoking cigarettes through the whole thing - I guess one cannot be denied a smoke, eh? Using their cell phones, they call people, but I can’t understand what they’re saying. Then, more ... read more
