Day 29 - Madrid

Since we had a hotel with super cold air and were able to basically black it out, we decided to go ahead and sleep in again.  Actually, I don't know if it was so much a decision as it just happened.  Either way, it was at least 11am before we woke up.  We joked that we are acting like traveling recluses, which really serves no purpose.  Can you imagine one though?  A person that pays thousands of dollars to go to another place and then just stays in 24 hours a day?  That would be a little weird, huh?

Anyway, after a breakfast of peanut butter & bread, trail mix, and melba toast, we headed out to get a few things done.  First things first, get bull fighting tickets!  So, we grabbed a quick metro (and by quick I mean 3 transfers and 30 minutes) to the other side of town.  We were pretty sure that tickets were going to be cheap, and sure enough, they were 5 Euro a piece.  I was thinking like an American sports fan and assuming that we were going to have nose bleed tickets, but later we found out that they were really, really good.

After grabbing the tickets, we headed to the train station so we could go ahead and book our travels for the next few days.  A quick update... at this point Josh and I are headed to Barcelona and then on to Italy.  Blake is headed to Barcelona with us for a few days, and then back to Madrid to fly home.  So, we had to get various train tickets to and from Madrid, Barcelona, and Milan for the three of us.  After 2 hours of waiting (yes I said 2 hours) we finally got the tickets we needed.  At this point, though, we missed the free walking tour that we planned on going on.  It's actually the same free walking tour company that we used in Amsterdam.  Anyway, we missed that because of the psycho train station line, so we decided to go take a look at the botanical gardens.  

The price for admission was 1 Euro which was way to steep for me.  Josh and Blake payed up though, and I walked around town trying to find a phone card.  An hour later we met up and headed back over to the sandwich place.  I am sure at this point you are realizing that once we find a place, we stick with it.  Not super adventurous, but very reliable.  Anyway, we headed over and were happy to see that the beers were 50 cents.  We each had a hand full of those, a few sandos, and headed out around 7pm.  The bull fight was at 8pm...

...Oh the bull fight.  Quite possibly the coolest and most horrible, bloody thing I have ever witnessed.  I will quickly describe the process without getting too graphic.  Just keep in mind that there is A LOT of blood...

  

1. 2 dudes come out on horses in goofy clothes and start the process formally

2. The matadors all strut around and act like they are the next big thing

3. A bull runs out and the matador and his 3 helpers all dodge it with their pink cape things.

4. Two dudes on horses come out and the bull charges one of them.  At this point the dude on the horse has a huge spear and stabs the bull in the back.  This happens twice.

5. The horses take off and then the matadors helpers (who are dressed similarly to the matador) stab the bulls in the back with these smaller spears.  

6. The matador grabs his sword and a big red cape and puts on a show, dodging the bull and getting really close to being gored.  All this time the matador is just strutting around, acting like he is the most bad ass thing in the world.

7. The matador faces the bull and stabs the bull right in the back of the neck.  If all goes well, he kills it with one stab.  If not, it's pretty gross, but they just keep stabbing it until it dies.

8. One of the helpers stabs it in the face to make sure it's dead.  The bull twitches and dies.

9. 3 horses come out and hook up to the bull and drag it out of the ring while the grounds crew covers up the bloody sand like nothing ever happened.

10. Repeat steps 1 through 9 five more times.

After this we were hungry for some ice cream, so we grabbed some at McDonalds and headed back to the hotel for a night of gory bull dreams.

Day 28 - Madrid

As I said in the blog entry before, we went to bed, and never woke up again last night.  All in all, I know that I slept at least 14 hours or so.  I know Blake and Josh both went to sleep at different times than me, but I think they were both pretty close to that number.  Anyway, it was a great night of just catching up on some much needed sleep.

By the time we were up and actually ready to go, it was about noon... maybe 1, but who's counting?  Anyway, we were up and ready to see the city.  So, the first stop on our agenda was to hit the royal palace.  As far as my opinion is concerned, it really is a must see.  There are multiple really cool things, but my favorite was the Royal Armory.  They have so much armor, horse armor, weapons, and cool stuff on display.  Definitely worth the price of admission, just for those couple of rooms.  Also in the palace is the Royal Pharmacy where blown glass and porcelain containers adorn the walls to make a super nice Walgreens.  But seriously, it was cool.  Finally the Palace itself is awesome.  All the rooms in the entire place are different, so every 30-40 meters you get a totally different feel.  It's really quite incredible and over the top.

After the plaza, we were hungry and luckily stumbled upon this great sandwich place.  It's a place that serves 100 different mini sandwiches for 1.20 Euro a piece.  So, you get 4-6 sandwiches and it comes with potato chips.  They have everything from Omelette to Chicken to Anchovy.  Everything we got was super good, and it was nice to have an affordable meal fill us up.  You know, as Americans we have to be full.

Ok, after awesome sandwich place we headed to the modern art museum which is filled with tons of cool art including works from Picasso and Salvador Dali.  It was a great little museum made even greater with free admission after 3pm on Saturdays!

After the museum we stopped by Ben & Jerry's to get our American ice cream fix for the week.  I had a cookie sundae with my favorite ice cream ever, cinnamon w/ oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough.  It's seriously the best stuff ever.  If you can ever find it at a grocery store (which you barely ever can), buy it immediately.   After ice cream dinner we headed back to the hotel to get some stuff done.  Oh, I forgot to mention... by this point we have decided to stay an extra day in Madrid because we realized there is a bull fight at the the third largest and "most important bullfighting ring in the world" the next day.  So, we headed back, got some stuff done, watched a little billiards, and hit the sack.

Back Home Early - Update on Final Posts

Hello everyone.

I am sorry it has taken me a few days to post since the last one. I know I said that it would be coming quickly, and they would have... the problem is that my small bag was stolen at the train station in Barcelona. While we were waiting for a train, someone came by and swiped it. So I lost most of my valuables. In particular, I was robbed of my passport, eurail pass, money, credit cards, camera, ipod, and a few books. This all happened a few days ago on July 17th. Today is the 19th and I am back home in Dallas.

Josh and I both decided to started making arrangements for our return and as I write right now (around 3pm CST on sunday afternoon), he is still on his way home. Hopefully there won't be too much of a delay for him.

I am still so thankful for the opportunity to travel such a cool land. I was in Europe just over a month, and I feel like I learned so much about myself and so much about other cultures. It was an opportunity to learn and grow spiritually as well. I was able to get to spend a lot of alone time with God which was really nice and really refreshing... I am not going to go in to a ton of detail, as I will expand on my final thoughts when I post my last blog after I get everything else from the last 4 days or so logged.

I do actually have some blogs already written on my computer for the days following Pamplona and I will post those just as soon as I get my computer. I will post just as soon as possible. Keep checking back as I plan on posting the rest soon. Also, pictures from the rest of the trip will be coming soon as well!

Day 27 - Pamplona/Madrid

Quick Note:  I am going to be posting material for the past 5-6 days pretty quickly.  Sorry for the delay.  Anyway, just keep in mind that there are going to be multiple posts as a time.  There are 2 this time, so scroll down...  more to come very soon.

We woke up at 7am or so.  I should say actually that Josh woke up blake and I at 7am or so.  Blake and I begged to stay asleep for a few minutes and then realized that we were going to miss seeing the run, and that's something we wouldn't get to see again soon.  So, we all got up and took off up the hill again to the center of the city, where we hoped to get a good spot on the fence...

We arrived up near the run around 7:30 or so, after a slower than usual hike (the night before on the grass didn't treat us very kind) and found that it was going to be pretty difficult to find a spot on the fence.  Everyone gets there pretty early, so when we rolled up about 30 minutes before, we were pretty much out of luck.  

I did, however, manage to force myself up on to a very small open section of the fence, and Josh threw his camera up to me.  I got a few pretty good shots, and got to see first hand exactly what we did.  All I have to say is that we are idiots.  I know it's one of those things you have to do before you die if you get the chance, but it's just insanity.  A bunch of dumb human beings running down a narrow alley away from bulls that want to put a horn right through your stomach.  Really, isn't it dumb?  Anyway, it was awesome to see it first hand, and I am sure Josh will have photos up soon displaying my excellent photographic skills.

After we watched, it was time to head back to the car, return it, and head to Madrid.  We did just that, and jumped on the train about 11am or so...

3 or 4 hours later (can't really remember at this point), we were in Madrid, and so freaking tired.  Oh, by the way... at this point we haven't showered in 3 days and we are still wearing the same clothes we started with in Pamplona, red sashes and all.  Anyway, we arrived ready to just find some internet and get a hostel.  After about an hour of internet cafe time/wandering the streets time, we checked in to the Castilla Hostel II, right off the main center of town, Plaza del Sol.

We thought we were going to head out that night, but instead we all just fell asleep around 6pm or so, and never woke back up...

Day 26 - Pamplona (2 of 2)

Picking up where I left off...

We left the ring around 9:00am and were super tired.  We had only about 2 hours of sleep the night before, and were ready to just chill out.  The only problem is that we didn't have a car, were super hungry, and wanted to see Pamplona.  So, instead of crashing all together we just drove around the city and saw Pamplona by car.

We headed out to the north part of the city and ended up at a random grocery store.  There, we grabbed food for lunch and drinks for the night.  Bring cheap backpackers, we decided that we should go ahead and buy drinks.  Really it's what everyone does though.  Basically at night everyone just has their stash of drinks and carries it around the city.  They partying takes place in the streets for the most part, so it's kinda dumb not to buy your own stuff...

So, Josh and I bought 2 big 2 liters of coke and a bottle of rum, and Blake bought some random juices and vodka.  Turns out Josh and I made a good decision in comparison to Blake.  But we all had drinks for later in the night.

We headed next to the center of town to just walk around and chill.  We ended up finding these huge mats (kinda like the ones from elementary school gym class) in the middle of this little park area.  We crashed on those for about 3 hours or so, and it turned out to be an incredible nap.  Once we woke up it was time to head back to the car and eat some peanut butter and bread with chocolate cookies for dessert.  We had to get something in our systems, because we knew it was going to be a long night.

9pm... we headed up the hill to the city with out big bottles of drinks.  We figured it was just going to be a mad house, and that it was.  There are literally people everywhere wearing the exact same thing just partying in the streets.  This whole thing keeps up all night long, until about 3 or 4 in the morning at least.  Even then, though, it doesn't really completely die down until about 5 or 6.  We chose to just hang in the plaza in the center of the city and people watch.  

We started wandering around a little later and ran in to some Aussies that were staying in the same parking lot as us.  We ended up wandering around the city aimlessly for hours with them, hoping to find a "concert" we were sure existed somewhere in the city.  Sadly enough, we didn't find it.  Not sure if that had anything to do with the fact that we didn't really know what was going on...

Anyway, we crashed around 3 or 4 in the morning.  Josh decided to go to the car, and Blake and I ended up on a random patch of grass outside the city.  About 5am we both woke up freezing cold, and headed back to the car to sleep.  The next morning we would wake up and go watch the run, and see exactly what we had gotten ourselves in to the day before...

Day 25 - Montpellier/Barcelona/Pamplona

Blake has to be frustrated at this point.  He thought we were going to show up yesterday morning.  Who knows, maybe he is pumped to get some time to himself in Barcelona.  All I know, is that I want to just get there at this point...  

...So, it turned out that the 7:20am train we thought we would get on was fully booked (this was a train that required a reservation).  We actually woke up at 5:30am to get over to the station, only to find out that this was the case.  The other option... an 11:45am departure that would require 1 change in Port-Bou, then on to Barcelona arriving at 6:45pm.  Right now, I am writing from the train to Port-Bou.  If all goes as planned, we will be in Barcelona in 5 hours or so. I will write more later tonight hopefully...

...We arrived in Barcelona on time, and found Blake fairly easily.  We then had to make a decision on how to get to Pamplona.  Since it was going to be really difficult to find a train, and expensive for Blake to ride one, we visited the rental car place.  They told us that we could get a car for 2 days for about 150 Euros.  So, almost without hesitation we went for it.  It would be our transportation and hotel for the next 2 nights, so we actually were getting off pretty cheap.

We jumped in the car around 8 o'clock and took off to Pamplona.  Everything was cool until we got to the first toll road stop.  The guy at the rental car place told us that it would be free, but it definitely was not.  We probably spent at least 30 Euro just getting to Pamplona.  Thank goodness we decided to take the car one way!  On the way, we grabbed weird gas station food and then headed to the center of Pamplona.  The whole drive was around 4 hours or so.

Once we got in, we decided to just find a place to park, and then a place to buy our gear for the run.  If you aren't familiar with what people wear, it's white pants and shirt and then a red scarf and sash worn like a belt.  Anyway, we parked in a garage around 1:00am and then found a stand selling some stuff.  When we were driving in to town, the place was still jumping!  People party all night long here!  More on that in the next blog though...  Ok, so we found a place to buy our stuff, wandered around for a little bit and then grabbed the car.  We headed out to a random parking lot and all took our places in the car for a big night's sleep.  Bedtime (or I guess I should say Cartime) = 3:30am.

Day 24 - Milan/Bern/Geneve/Lyon/Arles/Montpellier

2 posts at the same time again... sorry. 

Yes, we went to all of those places today.  

You know, it was all going very smoothly, and we thought we couldn't be touched.  Every train we wanted had open seats, and they all were running on time.  I guess all it takes is one Italian rail strike to make us feel like a couple of amateur travelers.  So I will take it from the top and give you the quick rundown of why we went to 6 cities in 3 different countries today.

It started off pretty nicely actually.  We got to the train station in time to board the train for Bern.  Once in route, we confirmed with the train attendant that we could, in fact, take a night train from Bern to Barcelona.  So, we thought we would spend a day in Bern and see an extra city that wasn't on our original itinerary.  

Once we got to Bern, though, it was a much different story.  The ticket guy told us that the night trains only run on Mon, Wed, Fri (it's Tuesday) and that even if we wanted to take a night train it was going to be $150 USD even with our eurail passes.  So, we decided to take option 2 - free trains with tons of stops. Basically we would have to make a bunch of stops and switch trains 3 times.  This would only get us as far as Montpellier for the day, though.  We would need to grab the 7:20am train from Montpellier to Barcelona the next morning...

We decided this was our only option, so we got on the first train to Geneve around 2:00pm.  After making stops in Geneve, Lyon, and Arles we ended up in Montpellier at 9:10pm.  We found a quick, reasonably priced hotel (with free WIFI), headed out for a bite (which ended up being a nutella crepe for Josh and fries and a coke for me), and came back to the hotel.   We watched CNN for a while and read some information on the internet about the running of the bulls and then crashed around 1:00am after a long day of traveling.  Hopefully soon, we will actually be back on schedule.