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Published: June 17th 2009
Welcome again, as we join you from the blistering hot streets of Rome. We apologize that it has been so long since our last entry, however, we have been struck by some unforseen computer problems, yet again. So, we will continue where we left off... arriving in Seville, Spain.
We arrived sometime in the afternoon and, as always, made our way to the hostel first thing. We were pleasantly surprised at the area our hostel was in and by the hostel itself. The neighborhood was a maze of winding, narrow streets with small shops and cafés on either side of you. Lyndsay was especially excited because we were in more of a shopper-friendly district than ever before. The hostel was great, as it was more like a hotel, despite its rickity beds and TINY rooms. It also had a lovely rooftop terrace where we could, and trust us, we did, lounge in one of three hammocks, or have dinner at the tables. Our room was the only one on the roof itself, which was nice to be away from the loud hallways, but it also meant that we had the hottest room in the building.
We had 3 days
in Seville which were, for the most part, evenly divided between sightseeing and lounging. Our first day of sightseeing started with the Seville Cathedral, the third largest cathedral in the world which also houses the tomb of Christopher Columbus. We went in early that morning to beat the crowds and ended up arriving just before mass. This (apparently, as we did not know at this point that we would have had to pay after mass) allowed us free entrance into the church, but did not allow us to take any pictures. We gathered from one of the security guards that we would be allowed to take pictures after mass, but not before. Since Lyndsay REALLY wanted a picture of the Christopher Columbus tomb, we decided that we would come back the next day. So, we did just that, but to our surprise, now had to pay to enter this particular "House of God". This, to us, seems like an absolute sham. We have no problem making voluntary donations, but we do have a problem when a church charges admission. Since Sarah and I are both students (haha), we only had to pay €2, but Lyndsay, on the other hand, had
to pay a whopping €8! Insanity!
The other sights that we saw in Seville were the Torre del Oro, a former military watchtower built in the 13th century and the Real Alcazar, a beautiful royal palace built in the 14th century. We walked around trying to find a couple other sights, but due to being completely lost at times, never did end up making it there.
While we were staying at the hostel, we, or Lyndsay rather, had a little run-in with some incredibly immature 18 year old Australian boys. She ended up leaving her purse in one of the bathrooms, and when she went back to retrieve it, one of the Australian boys was occupying the bathroom. She politely asked if there was a purse in the bathroom, to which he didn't respond. Once he left, she went in, grabbed her purse and headed back upstairs. The Australian boy apparently didn't realize that Lyndsay was behind him, as he began mocking her to his friends on the terrace. When they realized she was standing behind him, they all laughed and sarcastically said "oh, sorry."
The next day, two of the boys from this group ended up
being moved into our room. Needless to say, we were not thrilled about this. Later that night, Sarah and I were having some wine with a lovely Australian couple while the group of boys were drinking and obnoxiously talking about sleeping with hookers, amongst other things. As you can see, they're all class... Lyndsay was doing some emails in the room, as she didn't want to be around these idiots. Anyway, I walked back into the room to use the bathroom and was greeted by a bobbing lime in the toilet. Nobody had been in there before me, so I knew that someone had chucked it in through the window. I pulled it out of the toilet, turned to Lyndsay and said "there is a lime in the toilet. It was probably those ******* tool bags," obviously implying our new roommates and their friends. Immediately after saying this, I stepped out of the bathroom to look around the corner in our room, and there was one of our new roommates... I quickly said "oh, hey man" and retreated back into the bathroom where I cursed myself for being so careless! The rest of the night felt a little awkward, but
Lazy days...
spent sleeping in the hammocks. Sarah took this picture from her hammock.luckily we were leaving the next day.
The next day we took an early train to Granada to see one sight only, the Alhambra. Little did we know that Granada would turn out to be mine and Sarah's favorite place in Spain. It had even more winding and narrow streets, and at some points reminded us vividly of India. Many of the shops were even selling clothes and other accessories that we had bought for a small fraction of the price in India. We were tempted to stay an extra day, but with most of our hostels already booked, it would have been too much of a hassle.
Now, the Alhambra. Getting to the UNESCO World Heritage Site was the biggest challenge of the day. We had to walk over 30 minutes to get there, and a lot of it was up some incredibly steep slopes. Since Sarah and I had done a fair bit of walking over the past few months, our legs were accustomed to this type of exercise. Lyndsay, however, was not ready for this and was ready to call it quits before we even made it to the entrance. She pushed on through, though,
I rule
at ruining Sarah's pictures and made us all proud! We arrived 45 minutes before our reservation time with sweaty foreheads and a loss of breath.
The Alhambra is a beautifully decorated palace and fortress complex built in the 14th century by the Moorish rulers of Granada. We're sure that many of you have even seen pictures of it and will likely recognize it from ours. It ended up taking us about three hours to go through all of it while listening to our terrible audioguides. We then made our way back down the hill to our hostel for a much needed siesta.
While in Granada, we met some interesting characters named Pyotr (we call him Peter), from Poland, and Sergio, a Mexican from the USA. The two of them became good buddies and were hilarious to socialize with. Unfortunately we only had two nights in Granada, so we did not get to spend a lot of time visiting with them.
Sarah and I spent our last night there in a hookah lounge smoking shisha and sipping herbal tea. For those of you who don't know what shisha is, it's simply flavored tobacco smoked through a large water-pipe. It's not at all
like smoking cigarettes, and actually does taste quite good. We had cherry. And, for those of you who don't know what herbal tea is... you're living under a rock.
Our next stop... Madrid, Spain's capital city. Our first impression of the city was quite less than ideal. While trying to find our hostel, which was supposedly situated right outside of a subway stop inside a particular building, we became slightly lost. We circled the building with our brutally heavy backpacks on, looking for any sign of our hostel. After a complete circle, I remembered that I had finished writing the directions to the hostel on the back side of the page. I flipped the page and immediately knew where to go. Whoops!
This hostel sucked. Plain and simple. The only thing it had going for it was that we had booked a 3-bed private room, which meant we were safe from the snores of fellow travellers. The hostel was simply a three bedroom apartment with loads of bunkbeds. There was our room, a large 12-bed dorm, a smaller 6-bed dorm, and a room separated by a dividing wall which happened to be where the owner and his family
Detailed carvings
on virtually all of the walls in the Alhambra lived. This had to be the weirdest setup that we had ever seen in terms of hostels. It always felt like we were getting in the family's way everytime we used the kitchen or bathrooms. One time while Lyndsay was trying to shower, they kept knocking on the door and yelling in Spanish until she finally came out. Another time, they occupied the whole kitchen making it impossible for anyone to cook their dinner. Our last night there, the family was in the kitchen getting drunk and yelling in Spanish until 2AM. Sarah even had to ask them to be quiet at one point, which they did... for about thirty minutes. I woke up at about 1:30AM and banged on the wall a few times in hopes that they would quiet down. Afterall, the kitchen was beside our room and supposedly closed at 12AM. It's incredibly frustrating when you have loud roommates, let alone loud staff members!
Other than our hostel, Madrid turned out to be quite nice. It was actually Lyndsay's favorite city in all of Spain, as at times it reminded her of New York. Our highlight of Madrid turned out to be these delicious deep-fried treats
Thumbs up!
at the Alhambra called Churros. Churros are simply fried dough sticks sprinkled with icing sugar, which you dip into melted chocolate. Are your mouths watering yet? Honestly, when they hit the table, ours were. I had to wipe the drool off my beard, along with some bread crumbs from lunch and dried toothpaste from the morning (kidding).
As for sights we saw the IMMACULATE Palacio Real, and a fascinating modern art museum called the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, where Sarah finally saw her favorite Picasso painting, the Guernica. We also visited a few staple public squares, one of which was under construction.
Our next stop was Bilbao, for the sole purpose of seeing the Guggenheim Museum. For those of you who don't know what the Guggenheim Museum is, Google it, as the building itself is a masterpiece designed by renowned architect, Frank Gehry (think back to Prague's "Dancing House"). Our directions for our hostel consisted of "take this train to this station." Ok, that makes sense... the hostel is in the station? The hostel is right outside the station? The hostel IS the station? No, the hostel was nowhere near the station, and ended up being several blocks away down
a few winding streets. Duh! We should have known that! After asking several locals, and a tourist information booth, we finally made our way there. We explained to the girl at the front desk that their directions were terrible, to which she pointed at a map and said "no, you get off here and then just come down these streets and we're there." Apparently we're supposed to know this... again, Duh!
That day we saw the Guggenheim Museum, or two thirds of it, as the upper floor containing the permanent exhibits was closed. We saw a few pieces that we absolutely loved, but most of them were a little strange. We did end up seeing a large temporary exhibit featuring a Chinese contemporary artist named Cai Guo-Qiang. He was the mastermind behind the phenomenal fireworks display for the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. His work was the most unique we have ever seen, mostly because of the techniques he used. Since we couldn't take any pictures, we highly recommend looking up some of his works online, especially the ones where he uses gunpowder.
The next morning, we woke up and went straight to San Sebastian, a beautiful
Me using my trusty compass!
for the first time... and we still got lost. Proud, Dad? surfer town on the northern-coast of Spain. We were incredibly excited to get to San Sebastian since the only sight we had to see was the beach. We spent one full day there, most of which lazing on the sunny beach where we all got sunburnt. Sarah and I spent a fair amount of time playing in the salty waves of the Atlantic Ocean, and by playing, I mean me trying to tackle and dunk Sarah in the massive waves... with great success. It was the most refreshing afternoon in a long time!
Here's another interesting hostel story for you... this one is X-rated, so please put the kids to bed. Our first of two nights in San Sebastian, we were sharing a 6-bed dorm with a very strange and slobby British girl, and a very preppy pretty-boy from the USA. As far as we know, neither of them knew each other prior to San Sebastian. Well... at about 2AM, I woke up and was feeling quite hot. I decided that I would open the window to let some fresh air in, completely forgetting about the glasses I had placed on the window sil earlier that evening. As I
Sisterly love
at the Palacio Real opened the window, you can only guess what happened next... smash! Broken glass everywhere! Sarah and Lyndsay both woke up, and I quickly asked Sarah to turn on the light, since I was in my bare feet and didn't want to move. She turned the light on and ran to get some wet toilet paper to get the small shards of glass. As she was gone, I looked over at the pretty-boy's bed and saw some movement under the sheets and heard some crinkling noises. Lyndsay then pointed out that the British girl was in bed with him, and both of them seemed to be pretending to be asleep. Also, as far as we could see, neither of them were wearing any clothes. As they were waiting for us to eventually turn the lights off and go back to bed, we heard the pretty-boy snoring. We're fairly sure that we foiled their plans to get lucky that night, or we just caught the tail-end of it... hopefully the former. Gross. Fortunately, the next night we had reserved a 3-bed private, thank GOD!
As we were packing up to leave to head to Barcelona, Sarah realized she couldn't find one
of her very few shirts. We searched all of our bags and the room, but to our dismay, it was nowhere to be found. Since Sarah was wearing it the day we arrived in San Sebastian, we decided to check our previous room just in case she had left it there. Since the British girl was the BIGGEST slob we had seen in any of our hostels, we wanted to make sure Sarah's shirt didn't get mixed in with her mess. She had a suitcase the size of our bed completely filled with clothes, shoes, and fashion magazines which at times were spread out all across the floor. I went in to check the room and couldn't find anything. I did, however, see a black shirt on top of the British girl's bag that looked SOMEWHAT similar to Sarah's. Similar only in the sense that it was black. I decided rather than snooping through her clothes, we should just get going as we had a train to catch in less than an hour. About a block away from the hostel, I knew that I absolutely had to go back and check that black shirt, as I would always be wondering:
was that Sarah's shirt?
So, I told the girls to go on ahead and I would run back to check. I ran into the room, which at the time was filled with all of the occupants other than the said British girl, and quickly explained to them that I was only snooping because she was a slob and I thought it might be Sarah's shirt. Alas, there it was! I grabbed it, threw it in my bag and ran off down the street to catch up with the girls. Success! Not only did we foil her plans to get lucky the night before, we also foiled her plans of stealing Sarah's shirt!
We then made our way to catch our train to Barcelona, from where we would fly to Rome the following day. This train turned out to be the worst daytime train in all of our European travels! Not only was it 9 hours long and incredibly uncomfortable, we were also seated beside two of the most annoying girls traveling this beautiful continent. They spent the first 8 hours talking incessantly about 80's and 90's sitcoms and Disney movies. When they weren't talking, they were singing terrible
Walking around Bilbao
Guggenheim in background show-tunes and gesticulating as if they were auditioning for a broadway play. These girls were no older than 20, but seemed to have an obsession for adult-contemporary music, such as the Osmonds. It drove Sarah and I to the point where we had to escape to the food-cart for a while. Lyndsay somehow managed to sleep through most of their shenanigans.
We arrived in Barcelona later that night where we ate pizza, gnocchi, and tended to our aching sunburns. The following morning we woke up early to catch a bus to the airport, and finally made our way out of Spain and into Rome, Italy. We had spent nearly three weeks in Spain, and were excited to move on to something new. None of us could wait for the Italian pizzas, pasta and gelato. Sarah and I were especially excited since Spain had been the hardest place for a couple starving vegetarians to find food.
That brings us to our current location: Rome. Take care, everyone, and thank you again for being apart of our exciting journey!
PS... this blog took us almost 4 hours to complete, and we're missing out on valuable Rome time! So... any
comments/emails would be greatly appreciated 😊
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Kathleen
non-member comment
Thank you for wasting Rome seeing time on such an interesting and thorough post! :) I was in Tuscany and Umbria over Easter and I was really shocked at the intensity of the men. I could always tell how far away I was from my traveling companion based on the number of "bella!! bella!'s" I heard. In the 20 minutes it took my friend to find a bathroom when we were shopping in the market I ended up backed against a wall hoping not to be seen by any further creepy grabby men.....I know you've been to a lot places now so you're probably numbed to such nincompoopery, but be warned! In any of my travels, that's the worst it's ever been. I was really quite surprised. Safe travels you three! Much love, Kathleen.