After an eight hour bus ride, a train ride, a metro ride, and a car ride, we finally arrived at the No Worries Barcelona villa! Although not 100 percent what we expected, the villa is amazing! We have our own room (really a closet with bunkbeds), a chef, a swimming pool, tennis courts and a fridge full of food and alcohol. The people are great and we´re meeting people from all over the world. The villa can best be described as a colleg co-op with lots of parties and messes to clean up.
We´ve only had one day to explore Barcelona so far. The city is very different than Madrid in that it is an odd mixture of old city, new industry and funky art. It feels like a Spanish version of Orlando, Florida, although our impressions may change with time. We had a bit of an odd moment when we caught a pickpocketer in the midst of his art. Before even coming to Barcelona, we had been warned about 20 times from various people to watch out for pickpocketers and now we have a sense of what we´re up against. Although we aren´t familiar with the city, we´re still really eager to get to know the city that so many people rave about.
Fortunately, we arrived in Spain just in time to experience Carnival. Carnival is a week-long celebration prior to the Lenten season...like an extended Mardi Gras. With our pals from the villa, we took a train down to Sitges, a cute resort town south of Barcelona on the Meditterrean (forgive our spelling...we´re on a time limit!). Because it is known as the biggest Carnival party in Spain, we decided to go all out for our time in Sitges. Dressed in mismatched clothes and bright colors, we hardly compared to the amazing costumes and floats that we saw in the parade. It was definitely an all-night party.
We´re at an internet cafe with expiring time so we must head out!
Miss you all and we send our love,
Alex + Kirsty = 30 seconds left. bye!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Lessons in Madrid
Another day in Madrid, and another day filled with lessons about travel. Number 1: Don´t piss off the local tour guides. We went to go on this free walking tour of the city but it was interrupted when the tour guide union reps interrupted with brochures detailing the illegal activities of said free tour. Apparently, the free tours are not official tours in Madrid so therefore the tour guides aren´t legitimate and aren´t supported by the city or the union. After some heated exchanges between the guide of the free tour and the official guides, we decided to support the union and leave. It was disappointing to not get the tour we had looked forward to but we felt like we needed to support the cause of the tour guides.
We decided to continue on the way and explore on our own. Lesson number 2: Always zip your purse & watch out for packs of women. As we were walking towards the next destination, I (alex) observed a woman standing ridiculously close, right behind us. I then saw the woman had her hand on Kirsty´s purse. At this point, I pulled Kirsty away and the woman walked away with her posse of two other women. We were both in shock at what had just happened. Luckily for the gang of the purse-snatching bitches, we were too shocked to yell or hit them. And it was probably for the best because we would have started an all-out brawl. More than just that, it was very very fortunate that Kirsty had her purse all zipped up or else it could have been bad news. From that point on, we made sure to ALWAYS have our purses zipped and made sure to both watch out for one another while keeping an eye out for potential thieves. We made sure to follow through on this lesson when we wanted to get our picture taken in front of a lovely fountain. We watched for potential photographers and decided our safest bet was two elderly women who wouldn´t be able to run off with our cameras. Yet, they were also unable to handle technology and while taking the photo, cut both of our heads out of the photograph. Oh well!
Finally, we ended our day in the central park in Madrid. Lesson number 3: Never turn down a boat ride for 5 euros. We rented a cute little boat and paddled our way through the pond/lake. It was a lovely day and we didn´t get robbed. Mission accomplished.
Hope all of you are surviving the cold and the snow.
Much love,
- alex + kirsty = sunburned
We decided to continue on the way and explore on our own. Lesson number 2: Always zip your purse & watch out for packs of women. As we were walking towards the next destination, I (alex) observed a woman standing ridiculously close, right behind us. I then saw the woman had her hand on Kirsty´s purse. At this point, I pulled Kirsty away and the woman walked away with her posse of two other women. We were both in shock at what had just happened. Luckily for the gang of the purse-snatching bitches, we were too shocked to yell or hit them. And it was probably for the best because we would have started an all-out brawl. More than just that, it was very very fortunate that Kirsty had her purse all zipped up or else it could have been bad news. From that point on, we made sure to ALWAYS have our purses zipped and made sure to both watch out for one another while keeping an eye out for potential thieves. We made sure to follow through on this lesson when we wanted to get our picture taken in front of a lovely fountain. We watched for potential photographers and decided our safest bet was two elderly women who wouldn´t be able to run off with our cameras. Yet, they were also unable to handle technology and while taking the photo, cut both of our heads out of the photograph. Oh well!
Finally, we ended our day in the central park in Madrid. Lesson number 3: Never turn down a boat ride for 5 euros. We rented a cute little boat and paddled our way through the pond/lake. It was a lovely day and we didn´t get robbed. Mission accomplished.
Hope all of you are surviving the cold and the snow.
Much love,
- alex + kirsty = sunburned
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
We made it!
So after a long journey, we finally have arrived in Madrid. The flight was fairly painless and easy - we didn´t even have to go through customs! We were so excited about arriving that we forgot to pick up our bags and were surprised to find that we had left the main, secure part of the airport and were on our way out the door. We finally had to enter through the DO NOT ENTER, AIRPORT PERSONNEL ONLY doors. Unlike in an American airport, no one wondered what we were doing when we entered in through an illegal doorway, not even the police officer standing by. But eventually we found our bags!
Madrid is a bit chillier than we expected, but it is better than the cold Midwest. We are quickly adapting to Spanish life, even though we had a few moments of utter confusion. The language barrier is still very much a barrier, but our old Spanish language education is slowly coming back. We now are comfortable saying, ¨Hola. Como estas?¨and ¨La cuenta, por favor¨. However, we are still unsure about the Spanish pronuciation of the letter ¨S¨. When do we add a lisp? When is the lisp inappropriate? All good questions.
There have been some ups and some downs. The hostel is different than what we expected. Not so clean, a bit stinky and we have a male roommate who we only have seen when he stumbled into the room at 5AM. Additionally, we´re having some technical issues because the promised wireless internet isn´t functional and we can´t figure out how to make calls to the US. However, we are having a great time exploring the city! We don´t really know where we are going but it´s been really fun to wander. On one such excursion, we found this huge cathedral and as we were walking through the interior, we found 60 euros on the floor. After debating what was the ethical thing to do, we decided that we would donate 10 euros to the church and be on our merry way with the rest of the money. God loves us!
Tomorrow we plan on taking a free walking tour of the city and then getting a delicious lunch of spanish ham/jamon. Two more days in Madrid and then off to Barcelona!
Love you all,
- Alex + Kirsty = 50 euros richer
Madrid is a bit chillier than we expected, but it is better than the cold Midwest. We are quickly adapting to Spanish life, even though we had a few moments of utter confusion. The language barrier is still very much a barrier, but our old Spanish language education is slowly coming back. We now are comfortable saying, ¨Hola. Como estas?¨and ¨La cuenta, por favor¨. However, we are still unsure about the Spanish pronuciation of the letter ¨S¨. When do we add a lisp? When is the lisp inappropriate? All good questions.
There have been some ups and some downs. The hostel is different than what we expected. Not so clean, a bit stinky and we have a male roommate who we only have seen when he stumbled into the room at 5AM. Additionally, we´re having some technical issues because the promised wireless internet isn´t functional and we can´t figure out how to make calls to the US. However, we are having a great time exploring the city! We don´t really know where we are going but it´s been really fun to wander. On one such excursion, we found this huge cathedral and as we were walking through the interior, we found 60 euros on the floor. After debating what was the ethical thing to do, we decided that we would donate 10 euros to the church and be on our merry way with the rest of the money. God loves us!
Tomorrow we plan on taking a free walking tour of the city and then getting a delicious lunch of spanish ham/jamon. Two more days in Madrid and then off to Barcelona!
Love you all,
- Alex + Kirsty = 50 euros richer
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
11 Days and Counting...
Hi! I'm Kirsty, world traveler #2. I don't think I'm quite as inspired as Alex to tell my life history here, (I've been continually teasing Alex about the length of her first post) but I'm so excited about our trip, which is starting in eleven days! We're leaving February 16th from Detroit and have a layover in Germany. Unfortunately we probably won't have enough time to leave the airport, but we can look out a window and admire the country! Maybe we will also have the chance to enjoy some overpriced German airport food. :) We'll arrive in Madrid on the 17th.
We're spending our first three nights in a hostel in Madrid, and then we'll make our way over to Barcelona- I'm just thinking now that we should probably figure out how we're going to travel from Madrid to Barcelona before we leave the US- to our first stop: the No Worries Villa. Sounds awesome, right?! I think I attached the link on here, I still have to figure out how this blog stuff works.
http://www.noworries-barcelona.com
Anyway, it should be a great adventure, and I know Alex and I are both so excited! We are very privileged to have the opportunity (and the supportive parents) to just be able to drop everything and travel for a few months.
If anyone has any suggestions of places to visit or things to see, please email us or leave a comment here and let us know! It's fun being able to share our experiences with our family and friends.
We're going to Europe in 11 days!!!!!!!! I'm so excited :)
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