In Italy, Recap of the rest

Ok well I am in La Spezia today. Gonna go to cinqueterra I guess.

In the past few days....Ok so from Sevilla I went to Cordoba, from Cordoba I went to Granada, from Granada to Madrid, from Madrid to Toledo and back. Then I caught an overnite to Lisboa, then I caught a train from Lisboa to Valladolid. Then I caught a flight from Valladolid to Bergamo (near Milano). Then I caught a train from Milano (yuck to that city) to La Spezia. So I saw all the good stuff in Spain (dad...) and now I'm in Italy and going to see whats supposed to be really cool 5 little towns on the ocean built into the cliffs. After that pisa, Florence, back up to Venice, then train to Rome and then flight Rome-Bucharest Romania. Italy seems much more hectic than Spain generally. I saw communist posters here, which I think is funny, its like how many failures does communism have to have before people think "yeh i guess that doesnt work so well" Then again from my experience with the craziness of the train system....maybe a little top-down planning could do them well. Maybe these communist italians are really just frequent train commuters? Ok well I dont really have too much time to chit chat, internet aint cheap. But anyhoo thats the rundown.

Loooooong few days

Well today I am in Sevilla. Yesterday I was in Madrid. And before that I was in Alicante for a few days. Stayed with Amy (who I met in Barcelona Sants) and her roommates, all from Mizzou. Great people, showed me the sites, went to the beach, drank and carried on. It was a good time altogether. Not much to see there except the castle. Its actually pretty cool to have mountains and beaches in the same place. I climbed up to probably 3/4 of the way to the top of the castle, pretty cool, apparently left over from the moors and then converted. Caught a train to Madrid but then it started to hail (yeh weird) and storm really bad, the train had to stop because the rail lines were swamped ahead. So I had to stay on a train all nite...ce la vie. On the plus side, I got free food and drink, which in my book made it worth the trouble. Got to Madrid and it was cold and rainy and I was pissed at the weather and had like no sleep. I napped in the train station til around 10am and then went to prado and reina sofia museums. From what i could tell those are the highlights of the city, plus i wanted to get out cuz of the crap weather. Saw some great artwork, guernica, las meninas, the triumph of death, lots of dali, miro, picasso, el greco, etc etc. I liked reina sofia alot better than prado. I mean come on, how many pictures of the crucifixtion and the virgin mary can you take! Reina sofia is all modern art, with many different media used, so it was more my style. Well took the 8pm train madrid a sevilla. Got here and wandered around, lost like. My map didnt have where the train station was so i was like wtf. Finally made into the old town and was like man i need some beer, so i got some and felt alot better. Found the pension recommended by my travel book and the guy was real nice, even at 1230 at nite. Got my own room for 20 euro and passssssed out. First nite i paid for a bed mind you, not too bad. I might have rode out my couchsurfing, its really hard because i need internet to ask and i need internet to find out if they say yes later on.. This morning (luckily checkout was noon so i got to sleep in some.....but seriously wtf there were like cannons, yes they sounded like cannons, going off in the morning) It was so weird, but i was like all well, what can you do. Went to the Catedral de Sevilla, guinness world record for largest area in the world for a catedral. I guess its the third biggest but has the largest area. Saw christopher columbus´ tomb and a big picture of saint christopher right behind him. Pretty cool. Met some UF students in the tower, lets just say I could tell they were from UF. Then went to the alcazar, i think they said the oldest palace still in use by royalty. THe gardens were really beautiful.. Now probably going to catch the train to granada since my eurrail is still valid from last nite (travel after 7PM counts as the next day). Alrighty well thats all for now.

Valencia

Well I made it to valencia yesterday around noon, rode a bullet train but couldnt sleep cuz there was a crying baby in front of me. Got here walked around a bit and checked out some sights, followed a brit tour group for a while since they no where they are going. Finally found an internet cafe and got my host´s phone number and gave him a ring. They work at a hostal so I went down there said Hi locked up my stuff and went back out. They had to work til 12 so no point waiting around there til then. I went down to the park that was the riverbed, so cool. It has a little bit for everyone, skaters have a skate park, bikers have a path, runners, sleepyheads like me, lovers, picnics, futbol, everything. I went along it towards the ocean and there is an area called ciutat de las ciencias y las artes. It is so cool, they have these buildings straight out of the future with water features all around them. This compared to the old city that I had checked out earlier in the day, surreal. Well so anyways, went out to a bar last nite, had a belgian beer that was really good, 10% alcohol, then came back went to sleep. They had another couchie (as they call us) that they have had before from australia. My hosts were from new zealand and england so it was a veritable oasis of anglophones in valencia. This morning had a bocadillo and played some frisbee out in the park. Headed to alicant prolly tonite then on to madrid.

Well, I tried to get to valencia yesterday but all of the trains were full, so i got a ticket for today at 9. I didnt really know what i was going to do so i just sat in the train station almost the whole day doing absolutely nothing, waiting for them to kick me out or something. So i was sitting there eating my cheap crackers and a girl that looked distinctly american walks by where im sitting looking like a lost puppy. She wanders around the train station aimlessly for about a half hour before i get up and ask her if she speaks english, dont want to be presumptious after all. She does and she is american and is lost. Shes studying in alacante down the coast and is meeting up with some of her friends from U Missouri that are studying in Italy but got an apartment for the weekend in Barcelona. Since I have nothing to do and I know the city reasonably well to help her, I help her get to the apartment, through 2 metro transfers and a starbucks. Finally we find it, its real nice and im thinking hey maybe i can get a floor surf for the nite. I go in and there are 25 people in there, craziness. Theyre all very nice but I felt like a sweaty hippy that was dropped into a frat-sorority social. Well after a bit everyone heads out to party and the ¨3 amigos¨go buy like 20 bottles of wine (wine is really really cheap here) and everyone goes down the road with their bottles drinking merrily. We ended up down by the harbor where there are a string of clubs, it was cool, all of the music was really lame american music, but we partied anyways. So I ended up getting no sleep, the 3 amigos passed out way early and stumbled back to the apartment and everyone else tricked back around 6 or 7 am. when i got back i was laughing so hard with the 3 amigos, they are so fricken funny i swear. They were only slightly affiliated with the rest of the crew from missouri and it was easy to see. So went down to the train station, got on my bullet train, slept somewhat then wandered valencia for a bit before taking a well deserved siesta in the park that as far as I can tell was once a river...

Adios Barcelona!

Well today I leave for Valencia, Barcelona has been great. Yesterday was kinda a sleepy day, but towards the end it got better. Went biking with Pedros roommates bike. Riding with so many people on the sidewalks is not easy. Went to a museum that was free but very very cool. They had on display photographs by an american photographer. Then came back to the apartment and there was like 10 people here, introduced myself, tried to speak spanish as much as possible. One of the guys said he was going to try and move to Miami to do hairdressing so I told him to marry an American porque no necesitas una visa. He laughed and said it was a good idea. 3 of the guys including one of the roommates turned out to be italians from Sardinia. For some reason I was understanding their itaian much better than the weird catalan-spanish that everyone uses here. Its so mixed I get confused. So they were going to eat and go to a jam session so I tagged along. The roommate said he has never had an english conversation so I basically tried to talk to him in spanish and he tried to talk to me in english. He was probably better at english than i am at spanish....The jam session was pretty tight, like 5 saxophonists a pianist a guitarist and a drummer just playin jazzy kind of music. Well thats basically it, hasta luego

El primero dia de Barcelona

I ended up writing 8 pages in my paper journal, unfortunately I doubt that this will compare in length. I arrived at Barcelona airport at 9 around 0830 which for everyone in the US is 0230. I got my backpack and headed out, got a tren and ended up getting off at the main train station rather than riding it a little further into town (accidentally...) So there I was in the normal part of town, cero turistas. I went into this parc, i think it was called industrial parc, it reminded me of the failed parks of America....grand hopes and plans but no real return. People still used it somewhat, but I doubt it was what its planners expected. So I got my bearings and head southeast towards the old city. The newer old city had great architecture, traditional rectangular blocks with wide avenues (sometimes diagonal to the normal street plan). It is always great to see the majority of people walking or on bikes. They have bikes that you can borrow and ride around and return to a different borrow area, and people love them. Alot of times the sidewalk or sidewalks are wider than the actual street. Well anyways, I had the busiest day of my life, I saw nearly the entire city, all on foot, then met up with my couchsurf at 2000 (10PM). He is very nice, we went out to a really cool bar/restaurant/club with one of his friends and the dj that he knew. We ate, danced, had alot of fun, and left at 0130. I crashed so hard, I was out like a light, and didn´t wake up until 1330 when he was back from work during siesta. He lives in a beautiful apartment right in the old city where everything is walking. In fact hes on the biggest shopping strip I guess, which has apartments over it. When people think of living in Europe this is the kinda place they think about.

First Post

Well still in America at this point, packing and getting ready. Pretty nervous right now, but ready I guess. First stop is Philadelphia and then of to Barcelona! Pictures will be up of Barcelona in a few days on my picasa site, til then.....Cheers!