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Published: June 10th 2006
Whew...it certainly has been a while since I´ve visited dear old blog, which means either we´ve been spending too much time sight-seeing or too much time partying. The truth lies in some hazy mess in between, but in the end all that really matters is that I am back.
Soooooo...from Madrid we travelled south and west, and landed ourselves in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. The journey was our first night train of the trip, and let me tell you, not enjoyable. We did have our own private cabin including 4 beds and a wash basin, but glamorous train travel is not. The combination of radically changing air conditioning, shaking beds, and general noise of the train kept us tossing and turning all night, and upon our arrival at 9am we were looking a little less than fabulous. Nonetheless, a full day of sightseeing was saved, and we arrived in one piece. Unfortunately we did not realize just how hilly Portugal is, and that our hostel was located on the top of Mount Doom, which was not terribly enjoyable when carrying 20 lbs. of crap on my back, and sweating a very unclean early morning sweat after a looong train
Cows
Cows and cats...Danielle is sooooooooo cute!!!ride. fjdkaljfdk. As you can tell I´m still a little frazzled, but I digress.
Lisbon was gorgeous. We spent our days exploring the town, and climbed up to one of the highest peaks to check out the views from the old castle.
The next day we headed up to Estoril, about a 20 minute train ride, and had our first real beach day...sunscreen, sun burns et all. The beach was gorgeous, and while the water was a still quite cold, we braved the weather and all got our first taste of swimming in the Atlantic. Pretty cool. Other than that the day was quite relaxing, except for a brief minute of panic where the surf got the best of me right at the shore, and I could not get up for about a minute as my bathing suit had shifted to the point of indecency, and therefore had to suffer being knocked to the ground again and again by the roaring waves, and filling my ears and various other parts of my body with sand. All the while suffering laughing taunts of Steph. Ah with friends like these. :P
Our next day was a biggie, as we
The Moops
Palacio Pena in Sintra took the train North to the old town of Sintra, described as a playground and vacation spot for the rich and famous. It was a beautiful town, and it signified the beginning of a theme which has been following us ever since: the Moops. For those of you who do not follow Seinfeld, I can´t be bothered to explain...just understand that Moops=Moors and you´ll get the just of what I´m discussing. We started off our afternoon in Sintra with a relaxing lunch, then plotted out on the map which of the Moopish sites we were planning to see. One was a fortress that loomed high a top a hill which seemed pretty darn cool, but we all agreed that it would be ridiculous to endeavour to walk that far. So we struck our for a short hike to Palacio Peña. Ha. Haha. Turns out that in fact the palace was behind the aforementioned fortress and FURTHER UP. Fools. So after hiking for about an hour in the heat, and managing to subdue our severely upset stomachs (greasy lunch immediately followed by hot strenuous hikes are definitely a bad idea)...we arrived. Slightly sweatier than anticipated, but we arrived nonetheless. Overall it
Aiiiiiiii
Looking DOWN on the hill we had laughed at earlier after considering hiking to it. was definitely worth it...those Moops certainly know how to build a lavish palace. We trotted around for a while and checked out the views, then headed back down to town, thoroughly exhausted after our impromptu post-lunch marathon.
Luckily for us we were living in luxury in Lisbon, so after long days out in the sun we had a great place to head back to. Our hostel was called the Oasis Backpackers Mansion, and whew did we ever get spoiled. The shower was a million times better than any I´ve used before, there was a chef who prepared gourmet meals for cheap prices every night, and a backyard patio with a palm tree. Highlights from the hostel include drinking games with our new Quebecois friends Richard and Junior, and watching Cole, and American that we met, do the best Napoleon Dynamite dance I have ever seen. Seriously amazing.
We also had some great news while in Lisbon, as our ridiculously smart companion Emma, got THREE med school acceptances. Wow. So now we can truly brag when people ask us what we study in school. It goes a little something like this: ¨Well, I´m just finishing an Arts degree...Steph and
Palacio Pena
A rare picture of the 4 of us together. :) Danielle both graduated with Arts degree...but Emma´s going into MED SCHOOL in the fall. So there.¨ Real mature of us...gotta love Arts students.
So after some good times in Lisbon, we headed south to continue our fun in the sun, in the beach side town of Lagos. Now I had been dreaming about going to the Algarve since the bad old days at World Peace Forum, when I decided that work was for suckers, and instead spent my days reading Lonely Planet and dreaming...so getting here was a pretty big deal for me. And we were definitely not disappointed. The town was small and full of tourists, but we had a great hostel run by a middle aged Portuguese woman who basically took over the roll of mom for everyone staying there, and the beaches...oh the beaches. We did a day trip out on the boat (ahem...booze cruise...ahem) which gave us some pretty amazing views from the water, and which set up a mini trip to see some of the grottos up close. I honestly have never seen such beautiful beaches in my life. But as I mentioned in passing we were on a Booze Cruise organized through the
Hostel madness
...at Emma's expense. Yes we are wearing her underwear on our heads. No we had not intended for her to see this picture. Oops. hostel and had some pretty crazy times. Definite highlight was when we were returning to the big boat from our grotto tour, and Steph whispered to the loud one (me) that we should get everyone in our little boat to moon the big boat. Give me a stupid idea like that after a couple drinks and of course I ran with it. The sad result was that everyone got so excited about the mooning that we all ran to one side of the boat, which of course almost led the boat to capsize, sending one poor soul overboard, and me into the bottom of the boat with a nice lump to show for it. Luckily no one was seriously injured. A pair of sunglasses were lost and some egos bruised, but that´s about it. Great idea Steph...thanks again. Danielle however can now boast that she successfully completed her first mooning experience. Bravo to all.
Our final day in Portugal was spent on the most amazing beach I've ever seen in my life. The sand was fine and clean, and made up of what was clearly ground up rocks and shells. The water was freezing, but gorgeous turquoise and clear.
Crotch Holes
I had finally come to terms with the fact that my jeans were too indecent to be worn in public, but of course I had to immortalize our jean croth holes forever. I can definitely see why the beaches of Portugal have gained such fame recently, as I can definitely say it was the most amazing beach I've ever been to in my life. That day we also made TWO separate visits (shameful) to my new favorite fast food joint, Burger Ranch. More than anything this was prompted by the fact that I was able to enjoy the first veggie burger here that I've seen in ages...what a life.
The following day we prepared to catch our bus at 5am, and after hitting the snooze button once, awoke at 7am and got ready to catch the next bus at 1pm...haha oops. After a fabulous 7 hour bus ride we found ourselves in southern Spain, in the beautiful city of Sevilla. Where, thank the lord, we had laundry facilities, as by this point I had been wearing my bathing suit as underwear, as absolutely EVERYTHING else that I owned was dirty. Laundry aside, Seville was beautiful. We spent a full morning exploring the immense palace and gardens, as well as the Cathedral of Seville, where Christopher Columbus is entombed. We also did a tapas tour with the hostel, which took us to
various bars around the town to sample the local brews as well as revisit the tapas that we had enjoyed so much in San Sebastian.
Granada was our next stop in southern Spain, and due to a train mishap (aka. they were ALL full even though we tried to book 3 days in advance), we found ourselves with an extra full day to relax in the city, which actually worked out quite well. We had a great hostel in the middle of a funky middle eastern shopping district, and I got to spend 3 days stuffing myself with falafel, as there were great kebab places everywhere in Granada. I also discovered my absolute favorite ice cream on the face of the earth, which I'd never ever heard of before: Honey and Cinnamon. I know it sounds random, but wow. Needless to say we ate a lot of ice cream over our 3 days. Highlights of Granada included, of course, the Al Hambra. For those who are not familiar with it, it is basically the most amazing Moopish castle in existence. Emma had to book our tickets months in advance to ensure that we got the time slot that we
The Algarve
Most amazing beaches EVER. wanted for our visit. Overall we spent about 3 hours touring the various palaces and gardens, and were basically all totally blown away. Our last night in Granada we sampled some delicious Spanish Paella then spent the night playing ping pong and drinking games on the patio at our hostel, then we headed out to one of the area's more famous bars. The only problem was that the Spanish tend to run on a bit of a different schedule than ours. We arrived at the bar around 1am, and were concerned that we would have some problems getting in. Fat chance. We were the only ones in the bar til around 4am when we decided to leave, and the bar finally started to become populated. Crazy and ridiculous, but what can you do...seriously though, don't these people have jobs?!? How can they manage to stay up partying til 6am?! Crazy Spaniards.
Our last afternoon in Granada we lounged around and I enjoyed my last Honey and Cinnamon ice cream, then we packed up and began our walk towards the train station. Of course being the fools that we are, we managed to cross through town at the exact moment
that some sort of religious procession/parade was going through town...the madness of it all. Only idiots like us would stumble upon a major religious celebration like that, having ignored the fact that all day men and women in traditional Spanish dress had been parading through the town on horseback. Fools indeed.
We hopped on our last night train of the trip, and arrived the next morning, a little worse for wear, in Barcelona, our last Spanish stop of our European adventure. What a cool cool city. Knowing that we were going to be beat after the overnight train, we scheduled in a beach day and it could not have been more welcome. It was hot hot hot in Barcelona that day, and being a Sunday the beaches were packed, but we managed to find our own little sandy patch in the dirt and enjoyed a nice day of relaxing and sunning ourselves in under the Spanish sun. Ah yes, the Mediterranean, the water is a beautiful thing. Day 2 in Barcelona saw a bit more action, as we did some wandering through the city to see Barcelona's most famous site: Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia. Basically it is some of
Old Timers
Doing an 'Old Person' pose outside the oldest bar in Seville on the Tapas Tour. the most interesting architecture you will ever see, and it's a project that outlived the architect himself, as it's completion date is expected to be somewhere around 2050. Talk about a big whoopsies Mr. Gaudi. It was definitely a site worth seeing though, as you can climb up and down the various towers, and get a great view of Barcelona from above. Following the tower, we headed to Barcelona's most famous shopping boulevard, Las Ramblas. Basically vendors selling anything you could ever want, and some great people watching. Towards the end of the day we were feeling a little homesick, so we decided to head down to our favorite Spanish department/grocery store chain, El Corte Ingles, and buy the ingredients to make one of our meals from home that we missed the most: Burritos!! We scrounged together the ingredients, which was more of a challenge than you might thing, as the availability of salsa in europe is quite limited, and made ourselves quite a feast...to the point where we all felt like we were going to throw up. From that point forward I have been constantly encouraging all of us to choose stairs over escalators, but referring to ourselves as
World's Biggest Curry
Gourmet meals at Oasis Granada. the 'fat burrito crew'. After dinner we gave ourselves another treat from home, and headed off to see X-Men 3 at one of the local theatres. English movies...what a luxury. Good times were had by all, and despite the lingering burrito sickness, we of course enjoyed some chocolate and pop corn. Oi.
Our last full day in Barcelona we packed a picnic lunch from El Corte Ingles, then headed off to Park Guell, a UNESCO national heritage site, featuring some of Gaudi's most interesting statues etc. Fat Burrito Crew struck again, as we had all packed cheese so delicious that we could not stop ourselves from finishing it. Danielle and I also managed to polish off almost an entire jar of pickles and olives respectively. Grooooss. Thankfully the park was big enough that we could walk off most of our self-induced food nausea, and see some awesome statues and views of the city. Our last adventure for the day took us up to the Olympic park to check out the stadium and venues. For our last night in Spain, we spent it in truly Spanish fashion: tapas and the Da Vinci Code. Ok so the movie thing was just
to great for us to stay away from, and we had actually wanted to see the Da Vinci Code the night before, so ya...no making fun. General consensus: we are losers, and Tom Hanks is no Robert Langdon. Barcelona however, was fabulous.
Another train day, another city, another country...this time back into France to experience the French Riviera in Nice. Only problem was, it was cold and it was cloudy. What else is there to do around there but beach? That combined with the fact that the hostel we had booked was way out of town and massively disorganized (we had to change rooms there every single night, plus they had lost our original booking, plus there was like 1 bathroom for about 30 people, plus a random cat crawled into Steph's bed on the second night haha), led us to change our travel plans around just a little bit.
So after a few surprisingly nice days exploring Monaco, and doing some eating and rollerblading around Nice (I also forced myself to go swimming even though I was pretty much the only one on the whole beach, but I was not disappointed...sooo warm and amazing, like swimming in
a bath!!), we headed off to our exciting alternate destination: Lake Como, Italy!!!
For those of you who are not up to date on their celebrity info, this is the site of George Clooney's waterfront Italian Villa. And NO that was not our inspiration for going, but it did help, and I won't lie, we did talk about 'The Cloon' a lot on our way there, while we were there, and heck we still are. Lake Como was totally gorgeous. It basically looked just like the lakes in BC, but with Italian Villas everywhere...pretty sweet. We also got our first taste of Italian food, and let me tell you we are not complaining. We are also definitely not losing weight. Sigh.
We only had one full day in the region, so we maximized our time and took a ferry across the lake to the small town of Bellagio to do some exploring. Enroute we were lucky enought to have an American tour group on board, and therefore ended up getting a mini tour of the lake, on what in normally just a regular ferry. Because of that we were shown exactly where the Cloon resides: 'And coming up
on your left you will see the villa belonging to Hollywood actor Geeorge Cllloooney' (insert humorous female Italian guide voice), and one of the most beautiful villas on the lake, soon to be featured in the next 'Zero Zero Seven' movie. I love Italians. After our boat trip we stuffed ourselves with pasta, then took the Funicular to the top of the hill and way the sun set on lake Como. Great detour.
The next day it was back on schedule and off to Venice. Now what can you really say about Venice but wow. The second you leave the train station you are standing in front of the Grand Canal. We spent our days exploring the sites, including the famous bridges, Murano island (home of Italian glass), Saint Marcs Basilica (most amazing floor), and of course doing the two things you have to do in Venice: gondola ride and pidgeon feeding. The gondola ride was overpriced, but hey it's Venice, you kinda just have to do it. The pidgeon feeding, at 1 euro for a bag of food, was some of the best money I've spent all trip. Seriously what a gong show. We basically got absolutely covered
Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiice Cream
Best Ice Cream EVER!! I'm telling you...Honey and Cinnamon. Wow. with pidgeons. I laugh a lot, but I can honestly say I have not laughed that hard in quite some time. Ah Venice...such a magical city, disregarding of course our 1 star hotel where we all left bug bitten and lacking sleep for various reasons, including the fact that we were getting calls on our room phone at 3am. Not cool. We certainly travel in style that's for sure.
Sooooooooooooo...We left Venice yesterday and are now in Florence!!! I do apologize for the ridiculous length of this text. I was going to keep it to point form, but I have lapsed in my journal writing on the road, so I wanted to keep this fairly thorough to make up for it in some way.
Florence has been awesome. Great food, great sites, and AMAZING shopping. Italian leather...drool. This morning we almost killed ourselves climbing to the top of the Duomo, spent the afternoon shopping, then headed off to visit my new boyfriend David. Haha...ya we saw David and have all agreed that he is pretty much perfect. Unfortunately he is just a statue. We have also decided that if we had to choose between David Suzuki's bum and
Bag Head!
Yah that's Emma under there...playing drinking games with our new best friend Ali! Michelangelo's David's bum, we would choose Michelangelo's David's. Don't ask...half the story comes from my dad, the rest is pretty much nonsense. We're weird ok.
So now it's 2 more nights in Florence, followed by 5 nights in Rome, then beach beach beach. It's about bloody time, as my t-back tank top tan is rather shameful, and it's time to even it out.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings once again...I do hope I haven't put you all to sleep. 😊
Ciao!!!
xo,
Julia
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wooot wooot
hey man! so effing cool.. my mom came in and read it too! so jealous, wish i was there with you guys!