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Published: December 6th 2007
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A Look from Above
Looking down onto the main beach in San Sebastian. We finally made it into San Sebastian after the situation from hell in France. Stinky and sleepless, buzzing off a double espresso we talked about the funny situation that happened the night before. San Sebastian, a spanish beach town, was freezing. Not as cold as Switzerland or parts of Germany but it was up there. We didn't have any expectations for it since we didn't originally plan on going there. We found it to be a laid back town with a lot of cool stuff to offer though. We spent time walking around the beach looking for surf and found some, but it was small and the water was like 40 degrees. We walked up to a hill and took some cool panoramics of the city for the blog. Getting around Spain was a lot easier than France, not because of the strike but because we could communicate with them. We were surprised at the amount of people that didn't speak any english, even the ticket vendors at major train stations didn't. After a few days unwinding we hopped the night train to Seville. In the train station a spanish man made a scene and told Russ to play a solo.
Looking over the City
The statue of San Sebastian He busted out the live version of Hotel California and the man compensated Russ for his troubles with a bag of food, SWEET! The night train sucked though, it was tiny. Two things on our mind on arrival in Seville, food and shower. Funny how the most basic of things comes into great importance when traveling. Seville is the 4th largest city in Spain and the largest of the region of Andalucia. Andalucia is known for Flamenco so that was our main goal...see some spanish guitar and the senoritas that dance it. Just down the street from our Pension was a place called La Carboneria. It was this small flamenco bar that was hidden down a dark alley. It was a cool place and we got to see some authentic spanish music. The dancing was interesting, it mainly consisted of hands clapping, arms waving and feet stomping...we do that all the time. Oh yeah, we forgot to mention Paella. Its a traditional spanish dish that consists of a combination of rice, meat and vegetables...we concluded that it didn't look any different from the stuff we made in Pacific Beach when we had rice a roni and were low on money
Sworn to Protect
This statue overlooking the city looks oddly familiar... and low on food in the fridge. Basically, throw all your leftovers into some rice...who knew we were gourmet. Our goal was finished so we headed onto Catalunya's capital...BARCELONA!!!
Well our train to Barcelona was a bit more comfortable than the one to Madrid, but we were still a bit run down since it isn't exactly the best sleep we had ever had. The first day we pretty much just walked around the main tourist strip of Las Ramblas and the harbor. Seeing how at this point in our trip we were running low on funds our nights consisted mainly of cheap litres of Sangria and either going to the local bar for "a" drink or walking around the streets checking out all the street performers. In Spain nobody goes out to the bars until 1am but nothing actually gets going until 2 or 3. Then you party until 6 or 7 before heading to the after party. If you add on the cover charges and price of drinks in these clubs it pretty much was a no go for us. Walking around the streets of Barcelona is definitely an experience in that you will see every type of
Seville Town Hall
Enjoying the warm weather in Seville. entertainment. It has helped us expand our repertoire of ridiculous answers when somebody asks what we do for a living. Some of them include:
"I dress up like Dracula and jump out of a cardboard box on the street for money."
"It's kind of complicated but basically my dog and i dress up like clowns and play showtunes on the kazoo."
You are guaranteed to find everything from a 30 person dance team rehearsing the dance from Michael Jackson's Thriller to a couple of guys playing techno on the didgeridoo and steel drums. (they were REALLY good.) Some of the coolest places we went to were La Sagrada Familia and Gaudi Park. La Sagrada Familia is a cathedral that they have been building for like 50 years and has really cool architecture. Both of these places were designed by Antoni Gaudi whose style has been described as something out of a Dr. Seuss book. The cathedral looks really modern and was probably one of our favorites in Europe. Other than that the highlights included walking around the beach and eating finger foods at a tapas bar. We pretty much just did a lot of exploring since our "hostel"
Cathedral
So many cathedrals...this ones in Seville stunk like old man stench (pretty sure that we were one of a few people staying there under 75) and we were BROKE!! After discovering that our $20 flight to London was 90K away from Barcelona, we hopped on a bus, caught our flight to London, then got a second bus for the 35 mile jont back into London's city center.
We are having a little bit of mixed emotions right now knowing that this is our last stop before heading home. Excitement to see our family and friends after a half a year away, longing for our own beds and the option to choose what we want to wear for the day instead of having it dictated by what has the least amount of mileage on it...but also, a little sadness that the trip is slowly coming to an end. Well, that is enough of the sentimental stuff...we are gonna have a great time in London and celebrate the end of one adventure and the beginning of another...putting our lives back together. Well, until later...see ya.
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Haley Ciborowski
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bittersweet
Oh Ry - I know the feeling you have right now, and reading the end of your blog this time choked me up a little...I'm so happy you got to do all these amazing things that we have all been reading about for the past six months...I can't wait to share stories - there were so many pictures on the blog that we have the EXACT same picture of - just swap out the people in them...I'm so excited to see you guys, but I'm really sad for you that THIS adventure is over...like you said, always another one beginning - can't wait to see how your time away will shape your adventures to come! Come home! Can't wait to see you!!!!!! Haley