Evan's Tour Blog

Cherbourg, Dublin

So after leaving Paris I made my way up to Cherbourg to catch the ferry to Rosslare in Ireland.  However, it turns out that my ferry got canceled due to inclimate weather.  It hadn't even sailed from Ireland the previous day.  And as a result I had to stay around in Cherbourg for two nights, a town that turned out to be probably the most boring one I went to.  It really just didn't have much of anything going for it.  Apparently there was a maritime museum that was kind of neat, but I didn't go. 

So I went and found a hostel, which was also the most boring hostel I've been in.  A sterile HI hostel, an organization I've already complained about elsewhere in this blog, it just was incredibly boring.  Thankfully a Canadian guy, Patrick, in the same perdicament as me showed up.  So we hung out for the next couple of days. 

We then met up with another Canadian guy and managed to catch the ferry on Saturday.  It was a pretty uneventful ferry trip except that the lady who sold us the tickets was pretty much, for lack of a better word, a complete and utter bitch. 

Upon arriving in Ireland we took the train to Dublin.  I was disappointed at not being able to check out Killarney or Galway, but I just didn't have the time, having not been able to catch the ferry I wanted.  Anyway, we got into Dublin and found a hostel for us all to stay at.  When we got in the lady at reception told me that it would probably be cheaper if we went to the internet cafe next door and booked online then came back.  So me and Patrick went and did that while everyone else opted not to.  The other Canadian guy ended up paying 15 euros for an 18 bed dorm, and the two girls paid 18 each for a 6 bed dorm.  Me and Patrick, on the other hand, having booked online, paid a mere 13 euros for a 6 bed dorm.  When we came back, it took a while for the reservation to come through, but it finally did.  Then we went up to our room, and to our great surprise it was a private two bed room complete with a TV and our own bathroom.  I think we lucked out pretty well there, paying less than everyone else and getting far more.

That night we went to go on a pub crawl, but there weren't enough people so we just ended up hanging out with the guy who was going to lead it and a few of his friends.  It was good fun and I got to meet a lot of people, though unfortunately they seemed to be from everywhere but Ireland. 

The next day I spent an hour walking out to the modern art museum only to find that it was closed.  Oops.  At least I got to walk by the Guinness brewery.  Then that night me and Patrick went out to a bar that was absolutely packed.  And I got to meet a few local Irish guys who were really funny and kept trying to teach me phrases that Dublinners say, most of which are offensive, or at the very least will probably start a fight with someone if they can understand what you're saying. 

Finally, it came time for me to catch my plane the next day.  I got my bike boxed up and had a hell of a time carrying it along with my bags down to the bus stop.  I couldn't carry them all at once, and I didn't want to just leave my bike just sitting at the bus stop.  So, I kind of leap frogged my way down Connelly street, carrying my bike 50 meters, then my bags 50 meters, and so on and so forth till I got to the stop.  It took me about an hour longer than I had hoped, and when the bus that was supposed to show up every 15 minutes didn't show up for another 35, I was a little worried about missing my flight. 

However, I showed up and there wasn't much of a line for the ticket desk and it didn't seem to be a problem.  Except it took about an hour and 75 extra euros to get all my excess baggage sorted.  Still the people at the desk were incredibly kind and helpful and since it was so close to my flight time they put in the line for super important special people, that is, the line that didn't exist.  So I managed to catch my flight right on time. 

Paris

So, I made my way from Barcelona directly to Paris.  I found there was a night train from Cerbere on the border of Spain that would actually allow me to take my bike onboard, something I didn't think was possible anywhere.  So I took the regional train from Barcelona to Cerbere and then caught the night train.  It seems I was fortunate to have done so, because I talked to a number of people afterwards who said that they had paid upwards of fifty euros for the supplement direct from Barcelona to Paris. 

So, I arrived in Paris on the opposite side of town from where I was staying, and I couldn't take my bike on the metro.  No problem I'd just walk it, it'll be nice to see the city.  Except about a third of the way through it started pouring down rain.  So that was a little uncomfortable.  And then when I finally got to the hostel I couldn't get into my room to get dried off because it was too early, not that I had a dry pair of pants anyway.  However I promptely met a bunch of people there, although everyone I met except a girl from Chicago were leaving that day.  So I went out with Lauren and tried to buy myself some pants.  At this I succeeded only in that what I bought were in fact pants.  But as it turns out they were way too tight and way too long.  Apparently they had two tags on them, one indicating an inseam of 34, and the other indicating an inseam of 44.  The latter, that I hadn't seen at the store, was likely the correct one.  So, I didn't really end up wearing those pants.  Oh well, my jeans eventually dried.

So, we went out and met up with these three South African girls who were generally pretty fun.  It's a little tough to coordinate five people, however so we ended up splitting up later that day.  However, first we went to go see the Notre Damme, which was just as beautiful as I remember, and also just as free.  After we split up, me and Lauren walked down the Champs Elysee, all the way down to the Louvre which we didn't go inside.  Then we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower where we were going to meet up with the South African girls.  However, they never made it so after buying a couple of crepes, me and Lauren decided to make our way back to the hostel.

That night was one of the South African girls' birthdays, so we had a little bit of a party in her honor, complete with a cute little chocolate cake purchased at one of the nearby bakeries.   We went out to a bar that had a terribly cute dog there, which occupied more of our attention than perhaps it should have.  I suppose I missed having dogs. 

The next day we went out to check out the Museum of Modern Art, which was exceptional in that it was free.  However, it also had a lot of really neat works mostly by artists that I hadn't heard of before.  Still, it was definitely a cool museum, one I would have even paid for, but I certainly didn't mind not having to. 

I also managed to make my way to the Pompidou which had a lot of other cool exhibits going on.  A lot of the focus was cinema, and more specifically montages, and there were a lot of really neat works there.  I was however a little disappointed that an entire floor, the one containing their permanent collection was closed for renovation.  Personally, I think that if a museum closes off over a third of their collection to you, they have no business charging the normal price.  But through all the museums that had closed major parts for renovation (Reichsmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, probably others I can't think of right now) nobody gave a discount.

Then I went with Lauren and Samara (a girl from Quebec from the hostel) off to the Eiffel Tower.  I had been up it once before and so wasn't really planning on going.  However, I thought it'd be neat to get to see the town at night, and it most certainly was.  It was quite windy and cold up there, but we had a great time.  Interestingly enough we met a couple of Aussies back at the hostel who had been up just before us, and while they were up there an announcement came over the loudspeakers more or less saying "due to a security threat, we are asking you to please calmly exit the Eiffel Tower."  However, when nobody was doing anything of that sort and they asked someone working there, she simply told them not to worry about it.

So, Paris is lots of fun.  It's also quite beautiful.  Unfortunately, though, my view of it is just as a place that has absolutely terrible weather.  The first time I went it was windy and cold, and this time it was windy, cold and rainy the whole way through almost.  And really I think Paris is quite overrated.  It's very beautiful, yes.  The food is great, sure.  But there are so many other fantastic cities out there that have so much going for them in terms of atmosphere and people.  And furthermore, it's simply impossible for any city, even Paris to live up to the reputation Paris has.  It's perhaps indicative that I didn't meet a single well-traveled traveler who found Paris to be their favorite city.

Barcelona, pt. 2

Well, since I was going to be in Barcelona for the weekend, I decided to stick around two nights so I could have Friday and Saturday in one of my favorite cities, and one of the most fun cities I've ever been to.  Also, I wanted to go up to Figueres and check out the Dali Museum, just a couple hours north of Barcelona.  The museum was really cool.  There was nothing exactly famous there, just a lot of really interesting Dali stuff to check out.  A lot of it was really unique, and there were a lot of things like just regular sketches.  The whole building was also designed by Dali, so in many ways it was equally weird and interesting.

The next day it was free admission to the Maritime museum.  The museum was interesting, but I'm really glad I didn't pay.  I can't say it would have been worth it otherwise.  The pirates exhibition, whidh I did pay for, was especially crappy. 

then later that night a bunch of the people from the hostel went out to an Absinthe bar.  It was actually a really cool place.  Very relaxed and cool, with a great atmosphere.  And, to perhaps answer your questions about absinthe: no, it's not hallucinogenic.  As near as I can tell, it's just alcohol.  Alcohol that tastes funny.  But not altogether bad.  Anyway, that night I met a couple of American girls who were studying in Florence, and they were pretty fun.  So the next morning we went out to breakfast and went back to the Gaudi park and just hung out for the afternoon while I wanted for my train and they waited for their plane.

San Sebastian, Bilbao

So, I tried to make my way to San Sebastian from Madrid.  I went down to the station to catch the train.  But oh crap I had to make a reservation to get the train I wanted.  And oh crap, the line for the ticket office is huge.  And oh crap, they didn't have the "my train is leaving in 15 minutes and I'm a procrastinator" window that they had in every station in Italy.  So I missed my train.  Not to worry, there was another one leaving in a half hour.  Except it was at the other station all the way across town.  So I rushed down to the station and managed to miss that train by minutes.  So I decided all was not lost and just booked a night train there.  Not too bad a deal in the end, I got an extra day in Madrid and didn't have to worry about accommodation for one night. 

Unfortunately with the eurrail pass you have to pay a supplement for night trains.  The guy told me the fee was 22 euros.  I thought that was a bit excessive and that maybe he was charging me for a bed in a couchette, which I didn't want to pay for if it was more expensive.  So I tried to relate this preference to him, but it was a little difficult to get through to him as he didn't speak any English.  However, it seemed to work when he charged me 17 euros for the trip.  A bit more than my night train to Granada, but still cheaper, so whatever.

So, I went down to the train that night to get on, and it was just confusing.  Really confusing.  There were four separate trains leaving as one.  So I had to make sure to get on the right car.  The first 5 or so ended in the number one, and since my car was number 31, I just assumed that the ending "1" was superfluous and that I was supposed to get on car number 311.  Well, when the ticket guy came to check up on me later that night, he informed me through various miming gestures that this assumption on my part was very wrong and that if I stayed on that car I would never make it to San Sebastian.  So, I went on down and tried to find my car.  Unfortunately, though, the cars aren't marked by number on the inside, because they apparently never anticipated that someone would make my mistake and get in the wrong car.

So, as I made my way down, I talked to a guy in Spanish, which was fun because, if you recall, I don't speak Spanish.  But he told me that the car I wanted was two cars down.  Great, so I went two cars down, and it was all couchettes, with beds.  I said to myself that I must have misunderstood him.  So I went to the next car, found the seat, sat down and started to read some more.  We came to the next stop, and shortly thereafter the conductor came back through.  He looked at me with great frustration and grabbed my hand and led me back to the car I had just been in.  He led me down the hall, opened up a door, pointed a bed, and indicated that's where I was supposed to sleep.  So, apparently I had paid for a bed after all.  So, I went back, grabbed all my stuff, and went right to sleep and had a pretty uneventful trip for the rest of the way, considering that I was asleep.

So, I finally rolled into San Sebastian at about 7:00 or so in the morning.  Now, I had a hostel booked which was great.  I had forgotten to print out instructions to get to it, which was less than great.  So I resolved to just walk around the town in the dark until one of two things happened:  I either chanced upon the hostel, or found an open internet cafe and got directions.  So I walked around for two and a half hours, having not found the hostel but found a closed internet cafe.  The internet cafe said it would be open at 10, so I waited around for it to open, being a bit weary from just walking around for a couple hours that early in the morning.  So, ten rolls around and the cafe's still not open.  I come back 15 minutes later and it's open.  Fantastic, except apparently the internet cafe doesn't have the internet.  I had run into this phenomenon before in Greece and Italy:  the place that has the words "internet" plastered all over it, but as it turns out doesn't actually have the internet.  Now, I don't open up accountancy offices and then write "restaurant" on them, but apparently it's not unheard of to open up internet cafes that don't actually have the internet.  So I walked around a bit longer, found the internet cafe and managed to get to the hostel, which was a very nice and cosy place.

That the hostel was nice and cosy was a good thing, because there's not much of tourist value in San Sebastian, except that it's just a lovely little town in a very beautiful area.  Which is not altogether bad, but it can be a bit boring, especially when it's too cold to swim.  And especially when the first person you meet is one of those guys that just rubs you the wrong way.  I walked into the hostel and just hearing this guy talking I knew that I absolutely did not want to spend time with him.  He just sounded obnoxious and full of himself.  Unfortunately the place was so small, warm and friendly that being around him was unavoidable.  Fortunately, everyone else was quite cool and meant that I never had to really talk to him, except in my way of making fun of him in ways that only me and certain very clever people who know me understand. 

Walking through town I spied something I had hoped I would find:  a bota bag, a.k.a. wine skin.  Now, I was never a tremendous fan of wine, but this trip changed my mind slightly.  But having read Hemmingway's "The Sun Also Rises" I decided that no trip to the Basque region would be complete without getting a bota bag.  Unfortunately I didn't have a few fishing poles and jake to help me out, nor was there any bullfighting.  But I had to get one for the spirit of the thing.  And, also, as a humorous side note, this one store had a wine skin that looked like it was made from an entire pig.  It was certainly made from an entire some sort of animal, as it still had legs, or at least three of them.  It was basically a wine skin shaped like a three legged animal with the nozzle where the neck should have been.  I wish I had a picture of it.

I planned on only staying there the one night, however I met a couple of girls from California and a hilarious Aussie guy who convinced me to stay the next night, as it was the owner's birthday and I had to help them celebrate.  So I stayed on the  next night.  We spent most of our days wandering around the town and just relaxing.  It was quite nice.

So that night we all hung out, the owner came back and made a huge bowl of his special Sangria, which was pretty good.  It was lots of fun, and I met this cool Aussie girl who I'd end up spending the rest of the next couple of days with.  Which leads me to the next part of this post:  Bilbao.

San Sebastian was very close to Bilbao, so of course I thought it natural that I go over and admire Frank Gehry's masterpiece.  So me and the Aussie girl went, and had a great time.  The Guggenheim might be my favorite art museum I've been to.  The building itself is just amazing, almost to the point that it overshadows all the exhibits on the inside.  However, Richard Serra's torqued ellipses were indescribably cool.  They are really an exhibit that can only be truly experienced in person.  The way walking through the installation throws off your perception of space and direction is really really cool.

Next after we went to the Guggenheim, we went out and met up with a girl who was studying in town.  Susan had met this guy from Bilbao while she was in Poland and he had told her to look him up if he came to town.  Well, he wasn't in town, but his friend was.  So we met up with her, and a few other guys, and then went out to have a few beers and play some pool.  Then afterwards we went out for pintzos (Basque tapas).  Finally we were offered a place to stay for the night by one of the guys we were hanging out with.  So we stayed there.  They were incredibly generous giving us a place to stay in their living room, water to drink, and food to eat.  I just found it amazing that I was staying with a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend.  Two more degrees of separation and I would have been staying with Kevin Bacon.

The next day we went out and got my tickets for my night train back to Barcelona to pick up my bike and baggage I had left.  Susan spoke great Spanish, having studied in Barcelona for a year, so she was able to help me out.  As it turns out, for some inexplicable reason a couchette costs 17 euros while a simple seat is 22 euros.  That, of course, explained a bit of my earlier adventure.  Although it still doesn't make sense why a bed is cheaper than a seat. 

Madrid

Madrid is a big city.  There's an awful lot to it, but it also seems quite accessible for it's size.  It's relatively easy to navigate, despite the size, which is a nice contrast from Seville.  However, despite all these things, it lacks a certain atmosphere and charm that I felt in all the other Spanish cities.  Perhaps it's just the size that creates this problem, or perhaps it's something else.  Still, that shouldn't deter you from visiting Madrid as it's certainly a fantastic town.

This is one of the few cities where I managed to couchsurf successfully.  A friendy couple from Quebec hosted me in their apartment, which was also inhabited by a couple of girls from California and a couple of guys from Germany.  However, they were all pretty busy during the day so I was generally left to my own devices, which was perhaps a bit of a blessing.  At nights we usually just sat around and talked, generally also hanging out with their Parisian friend Thierry.  It was generally relatively relaxing and a good change of pace to just hang out for a while. 

During the days I spent my time in the various museums throughout the city.  The first I visited was the Prado.  There were tons of incredibly famous and old paintings.  However, as I think I've mentioned earlier, pre-impressionist art is generally not my bag.  However,  I do have to say that Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" was an absolute masterpiece.  It's perhaps a bit indicative of my tastes that my favorite work was by far the weirdest.  Anyone who has seen it will know exactly what I'm talking about.  It's more or less a depiction of the history of the world and the progression of sin.  And just magnificent.  The rest of the museum I wasn't entirely fond of.  There were some cool things, but nothing that really grabbed my attention too terribly.

However, I did manage to run into the California girls from Rome, who I also managed to avoid pretty well.  But more interestingly, while I was looking at one of the paintings, I heard a voice from over my shoulder, "Evan?"  And so I whipped right around, and who should be standing in front of me but Charles Ryan, the guy who lived across the hall from me Senior year.  It was really weird to again run into a Carl halfway across the world, but apparently they say that it's pretty small nowadays.

The next day I went to check out the Reina Sofia, which was a far far more interesting museum in my opinion, as it focused on more modern art.  They had a TON of stuff there, and probably most important among them was Picasso's masterpiece "Guernica."  It's just absolutely immense in size, and a real pleasure to actually get to see it up close and personal.  It was also accompanied by a couple of rooms full of his other paintings and drawings.  I must say that I've been getting a little bored with Picasso as his stuff is just everywhere and that's all I see and it just seems a little cliche.  However, it's impossible to be bored with Guernica.  It's truly a masterpiece.  But that's not all there was to the museum.  It was chock full of other works by some of my favorite artists, namely Dali, Kandinsky and Ernst.  They also had a ton of stuff by Joan Miro, who I also really like, but not quite to the same extent as the three I just mentioned.

Next I went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum.  This was an interesting museum if for no other reason than it was very very diverse.  It had everything from 14th century dutch art all the way to more contemporary stuff on the first floor from artists whose names I can't remember.  When I was talking with someone about it, he gave the description as everything from 14th century dutch art to Andy Warhol, but since I don't recall seeing anything by Warhol there, and because I remember looking, I think he was just wrong about that. 

So, if for no other reason than that, Madrid is certainly worth visiting.  Those three art museums were easily among the best I went to in all of Europe.  And I'd say that if you had to only pick one city to go to for art museums, Madrid might just be it.  It's got a little bit of something for everyone there. 

Saturday night, unfortunately, the couple from Quebec were leaving for Salamanca and I wanted to stay around Madrid.  So I made my way off to find a hostel.  Fortunately, the first one I went to had an availability.  It had a great facility, and on paper looks like a great hostel.  However, for some reason there's something about the common area that's just not terribly inviting and somewhat stifling of conversation.  It simply seems to inhibit meeting people.  I talked with a few other people in the hostel who were traveling alone and had the exact same experience.  I eventually decided that it was because the common area was simply too big and spacious.  Everyone was free to form their own little social circles and put plenty of space between them and the next group without having any fear of interaction.  Which is an interesting observation, I think, because the exact opposite was the case in Granada.  The common area was very small, and as a result you met EVERYONE, and you didn't even have to try, it just happened on its own.  You can feel the same thing when you go into bars or clubs.  A social area needs to be crowded for people to really interact and have fun.  You'll meet far more people if you're in a medium sized room with 50 people than if you're in a large room with 100, it seems.

Seville

So, I got lost trying to find the train station in Granada and therefore managed to miss the train I wanted to take.  So I took a later train which got me into Seville around 7:00.  Not too bad, but later than I wanted.  The hostel also didn´t give directions on how to walk there from the train station.  It just said to take a certain bus to a certain place and then go there.  However, I don´t like taking buses when I can walk for free, so I decided I´d probably be able to find the hostel on my own.  Two hours later I found the hostel.  I hadn´t accounted for the fact that walking around Seville is the most confusing thing in the entire world.  It´s like somebody created a maze, and then called it a city.  You can´t even drive through most of the town, at least the parts you want to see.  I knew I was in for trouble when the first five people I stopped had absolutely no idea where the road I wanted was.  However, I eventually found a portly old guy who knew exactly where to go and how to get there.  So I made it.

I was told by some people that Seville was like a bigger version of Granada.  And that´s true if your sole measure of a city is how confusing the streets are.  Seville is nothing like Granada except that they´re about equally difficult to navigate.  But the two cities have an entirely different feel to them.  Seville is decidedly a city, whereas Granada feels much more personable and accessible.  That´s not to say I didn´t like Seville, it´s just that I liked Granada a lot better.

Only having one full day to see the sights of Seville, I decided to pack it in pretty well.  Fortunately, I decided not to see one of the main attractions: the Alcazar.  Having seen the Alhambra, and having heard that the Alcazar was pretty much a less impressive Alhambra, I figured it was worth skipping.  I did however check out the Cathedral, breaking my earlier promise of not visiting cathedrals anymore.  First, it was real cheap to get into, and second, it´s the biggest in the world.  they even have a little piece of paper on display from the Guinness Book of World Records that tells you so.  The cathedral was pretty cool, pretty standard.  But it also had the remains of Christopher Columbus.  I found that interesting because his tomb is unlike anything I´ve seen before.  It´s not so much a tomb as it is a statue of four guys carrying a coffin, which I presume contains his remains. 

I also went to go see a Flamenco show with a bunch of people from the hostel.  It was pretty cool to see.  It was also funny because the place we were at was so decidedly not touristy, that it was touristy.  They tried so hard to make it seem authentic and real,that of course it´s going to be a place that´s just filled with tourists. 

And unfortunately I don´t have any pictures of Seville.  I accidentally left my camera back in Granada.  So on the way to Madrid I had to stop back in Granada, which wasn´t exactly on the way.  It sucked, but at least I got my camera back.

Granada

I took the night train down to Granada.  It was my first night train experience, and it wasn´t entirely pleasant.  I was seated next to an elderly guy, who I realized about halfway through the ride, had taken my window seat, a quite precious commodity allowing you to lean against the window.  First it started off with the guy listening to his radio really loudly.  He had headphones, but he must have been real hard of hearing because I could hear everything that came out quite clearly.  So he finally decided to turn his radio off and I thought I was going to be able to get a bit of sleep.  Little did I know what lay ahead.  For the rest of the trip the guy kept muttering things to himself, barely audible whisperings that, since they were all in Spanish, made no sense to me.  Then occasionally, when I would close my eyes and try to sleep, he would turn in my direction and say something.  Usually just one word that I couldn´t understand.  And by the time I would open my eyes and look in his direction, he would be looking forward again.  This went on pretty much all night.  Needless to say, I did not sleep well.

So I got to Granada and made my way to the hostel, it was a bit of a walk, but I´m glad  walked it because everyone who took the bus said that they got lost, whereas I found the place just fine.  And boy, what a great place.  It was the Oasis hostel, and I´m convinced it´s the best one I´ve stayed in so far.  It´s just got a perfect atmosphere to it.  The way the building and common area is set up, it´s just impossible to not meet people.  They also organize tapas tours or dinners every night.  They also had a "graffitti tour" which turned out to be pretty lame, and not much of a tour at all.  But the graffitti in the town was incredibly cool.

One of the coolest things about Granada is the tapas.  Everywhere in spain has tapas, good tapas.  But Granada has free tapas.  You go out to a tapas bar and when you buy a drink, you get free food.  Calamari and a beer: 1.50, sandwich fries and a beer: 1.50.  It´s absolutely magnificent.  And usually they´re pretty good.  I mean, it´s free so it could pretty much be crap and I wouldn´t care.  But I´ll take free calimari any day. 

The biggest tourist attraction in town is the Alhambra.  And for good reason.  It´s really really cool.  It costs ten euros to get in, and it´s one of the few places I didn´t leave feeling just a little ripped off.  Usually I go to a place, close my eyes and hand over the money telling myself that if I´m half way across the world and in the same town as something famous I should just suck it up and see it.  And then I leave and I think about what all I could have done with that ten euros.  But the Alhambra was different.  It was just a great place.  First, it´s incredibly beautiful. It´s surrounded by some fantastic gardens with all sorts of fountains and cool plants.  It also has a great view of the city.  There´s also just so much to see.   The gardens take at least 45 minutes to walk through, and then the actual palace takes a while as well.  Hopefully soon I´ll post some photos and you guys can maybe see what I mean.

I spent most of my days and afternoons just hanging out with the people I met in the hostel.  I hung out with a girl from Toronto for a day or two, then a few guys from Tazmania and a guy from Ireland.  I even spent one whole day just watching TV.  It was great, I can´t remember the last time I just sat around for a whole afternoon.  And the TV was even in English, so I could understand what was going on.  It was magnificent.  One night we also went out to this Irish pub that had the most hilariously drunk bar owner I´ve ever seen.  Think of a 50 year old Irish guy with gray hair.  Make him the most stereotypical Irish guy you can think of, he´s even wearing a Guinness t-shirt.  Now, imagine he´s drunk, dancing very poorly on the bar and waving a flashlight all over the place.  Just try to imagine that without laughing.  And I was there and got to see it actually happen.  You should be so lucky.

Barcelona

Let me start this off by saying that Barcelona is great.  It´s a ton of fun, great people, and quite beautiful.  I finally left the port on a Saturday at about 18:00 without a place booked to stay for the night.  Some might call that stupid, and they might be right.  It took me a while but I found an internet cafe, so I found some hostels and their phone numbers and addresses, so I wrote down the best ones and decided to go find a vacancy.  I had the great idea that if they didn´t have any vacancies at the first one I would just promise to book 3 more nights if they'd let me sleep on the couch.  Or if they would just let me take a shower and keep my stuff there and I'd stay out all night.  It was a great plan.  But it turns out that they had a vacancy there, miraculously, and I didn´t have to worry.  And the place turned out to be spectacularly fun.  The people I met there were great, and the workers were fantastic as well.

The first thing you need to know about Spain is that time works differently here.  Basically everything is incredibly relaxed, nobody´s worried about the time.  From 2-5 you have the siesta where everyone takes a break for a while.  Then all the shops open back up for a few hours.  Then everyone goes home and relaxes.  Finally, around 9:30 it´s time to go out to dinner, that is if you feel like eating early.  Then you go out to a bar around midnight, and hang out there for a couple of hours.  If you want to go to any sort of a club, don´t even try to go any earlier than 2:00, there are many that don´t open until 2:00 or 3:00. 

So all this I did on my first night in Barcelona.  We went out to eat at an italian place.  I felt a little weird going to an Italian place just a day after being in Italy, but that´s where everyone was going, and it wasn´t too bad.  Then we went to this place "El Gato Negro", it was dubbed as a shots bar, and they also had cheap beer.  It was actually a really cool place.  I was a little skeptical at first because I don´t much like shots.  But I was sold the moment the lit the bar on fire.  They had spray bottles filled with absinthe and pretty much every shot that was worth anything they lit on fire.  There was fire everywhere.  If you ever go, two suggestions are "harry potter" where they pretty much just burn the hell out of everything, and "boyscout" which involves roasting a marshmellow over your drink.  I didn´t get home until around 5:30 or 6:00 and I felt like I was quitting a bit early.  The streets were still filled with people.  I sometimes wonder if there´s any time of day where the streets are relatively empty.  If there is, I certainly haven´t found it.

The coolest thing about Barcelona is probably the architecture.  There are signs of the architect Gaudi everywhere.  He did these fantastic structures that had a great emphasis on appearing organic.  Straight lines are rare, as is conventional wisdom.  The stuff is absolutely brilliant.  He has a whole park that shows off a significant portion of his work.  Probably the coolest thing is the exhorbitantly expensive house batllo, which is 16.50 if you´re not a student, 3 euros less if you are.  It was really indescribably amazing.  And unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries before I even ascended the staircase, so there will be no pictures since I wasn´t about to pay the entry fee again just to get pictures.  His supposed masterpiece is the Sagrada Familia, a magnificent cathedral that has been under construction seemingly forever.  It´s still not even close to done, which is somewhat disappointing.  But I think if you return in a couple thousand years it´ll be finished. 

Another cool part of Barcelona is just walking down Las Ramblas, the main tourist drag in the city, and one of the biggest and coolest in the world.  It´s got some great street performers, who every morning apparently have to apply for a permit to perform.  these permits are limited, so it seems to keep the crappy ones out.  They had the usuals; the human statues, musicians, break dancing crews, however I was a little excited when a sword swallower came out.  I waited and watched, and then he said the crowd wasn´t big enough, and we weren´t excited enough, so he went home.  Well, I wasn´t going to give him any money anyway, so maybe I shouldn´t complain.

Upon planning to leave Barcelona for Granada it turns out there weren´t any trains I could take my bike on.  Fun fun.  So I talked with the people at the hostel and they said I could leave my bike and a few bags there and take off.  It was a little weird leaving my stuff behind, but everyone there was cool and I´m quite confident nobody will be able to run off with my bike, and nobody will want to run off with my dirty cycling clothes.  So now I have to go back to Barclona, oh shucks...  That´s nice though, because I still didn´t get to the Picasso museum, or the Dali museum in his hometown a couple of hours north.

Corfu

I got stuck in Corfu for a little longer than I wanted to be there while I was waiting on my railpass to get there.  But I think there are probably worse things than getting stuck on what is supposed to be one of the most beautiful Greek islands.

I stayed with an awesome guy who was living there teaching English.  He was incredibly friendly and made some great food as well.  He took me around and I got to meet a few "local" people who were real fun to talk to.  I say local in quotes because not one of them was actually from corfu, but they were all Greek, so I think that's local enough. 

However, I spent most of my time hanging out with the fellow Carls who were living there.  We had some excellent food, which they apparently do every night, those poor bastards.  however, one night we made an absolute feast.  it was amazing.  I fixed up some fettuccini alfredo, molly made some matzah ball soup, Britta and Margeaux put together a variation on the waldorf salad idea, and finally Alicia made vanilla ice cream swans floating in a chocolate pool.  Really, you kind of had to see that last one to figure out what it was.  But, it was all quite delicious.

As far as sights go, I didn't exactly see a whole lot.  I just kind of walked around Corfu town a bit most afternoons, and then one day Dimitris took me out to a castle that was closed.  I had planned on trying to cycle around the island, since it's a good size to do some trips around, but as it turns out it was absolutely frigid in Corfu.  It was certainly the coldest weather I've encountered on my trip so far, which was more than a little unexpected.  Especially since apparently everyone had been going swimming at the beach just the week before I got there.  I could have understood it being just too cold to swim, but the temperature change was pretty drastic. It was also incredibly windy, which was probably the largest contributer to the cold.  I mean, I handled Minnesota for for four years just fine, so complaining about being cold when it's not even freezing is a little weird for me.  But the wind was absolutely killer.

But that's pretty much all there was to Corfu.  A relatively relaxing interlude between Italy and Spain.  The ferries were quite nice though.  They felt rather like hotels, they had bars, cafes, restaurants and even a nightclub.  I didn't go to the nightclub, but I did walk by, and it looked like it wasn't fun.  But the fact that it was there I found to be quite amusing.  Of course, everything was a little overpriced, and due to poor planning and an unwillingness to drop 10 euros on a very meagre portion of food I didn't eat a lot, or enough, on the ferries.  but I wasn't exactly starving, so it wasn't bad.  sleeping was alright.  since I didn't have a cabin, i pretty much had to fend for myself.  on one ferry, that meant sleeping in the bar.  in the other it meant sprawling across four or five chairs in the "sleeping chairs" section.  sleeping in the bar was less than fun when I was awakened at around 8:00 by people playing the slots.  However, i think it was a little more comfortable than the sleeping chairs.   And that ferry was a little more preferable anyway.  In the bar they played english language movies that I watched all night, which was pretty cool.   Most of them weren't great though, the first one was something with Jean Reno about free diving.  It was kind of a weird movie.  And then they played Ace Ventura 2, not exactly the finest piece of cinema ever created.  However, they ended the night with A History of Violence, which was good.  Until about 15 minutes from the end when they turned the sound off so that people upstairs could sleep.  I begged and pleaded with them to turn the sound on for the last 15 minutes, but they wouldn't do it.  I found it more than a little obnoxious since there was some guy watching sports on another TV very loudly.  So now I don't really know what happens at the end of the movie.  Oh well.

more pictures

This is the castle on the cliff in Bled.  It's the first thing you see (or notice at least) when you make your way down to the water.  Although we didn't make it up to the castle itself.

This little church is on an island in the middle of the lake.  The only way to get there is to pay a gondola 10 euros a head for a ride.  We didn't go.

The only thing to do in Bled when you can't swim is walk around the lake and take pictures of the church.  Here are three pictures from slightly different angles.  I have approximately five billion more, however.

Bologna has a reputation for being a liberal city.  Pretty much it's supposed to be full of fat, rich, intellectual communists because it's the center of out-of-touch super liberals, the university, and food.  Legend has is that when the sculptor Jean Boulogne made it he asked permission of the Pope because of how little Neptune is wearing.  The Pope's response: "for Bologna, it's okay."

This is from inside the seven churches in Bologna.  Basically they built seven churches all inside each other like a gigantic Russian Doll.  It was really neat, and the churches all felt really midievil and old.  Unfortunately a number of years ago they tried to renovate the churches and in doing so destroyed three of them.  But they still call it the seven churches despite the fact that there are only four now.

This is part of the longest porticoed walkway in the world.  There's a large church up on a hill, so one day all the Bolognans (not sure if that's the proper nomenclature there) decided to get together and build a big long covered walkway so they could go up to church without getting wet or a sunburn.  So, in an uncommon mood of cooperativeness, anyone who was anyone donated a portico, and many of them were decorated with various things.  Unfortunately most of that artwork has long since been destroyed, but the porticoes themselves remain.  In all it's about 3.7 km long and there are 666 of them.  Who knows why they thought that would be a good number to lead to a church, but it seems to strike Italians as less funny than it does me.  It's a long way, so I took a lot of pictures, here are some more.

This is what the inside of the Colloseum in Rome looks like.  Now you don't have to pay eleven euros to see it.

This is some sort of arch.  I don't really know much about it, it was on a road that led immediately to the Colloseum and palatine hill though.  I thought it looked neat and it said something in latin about the senate on it. 

This is the tomb of the unknown soldier in Rome.  It looks like it's some sort of super well-preserved relic of ancient Rome.  Actually it was built in the early 20th century and there are little plaques all around it telling you information that seems interesting at the time, but you quickly realize you don't care too much about.

This is the actual tomb part.  The place is pretty neat and cool.  But don't sit on the steps or else some guy will come running and yelling at you in Italian.

This is a huge roundabout as viewed from the tomb of the unknown soldier.  Interesting.  Or not.  It's not very indicative of the kind of traffic you see every day in Rome.  Sometimes it's fun to play a game called, "spot the car without a dent in it."

This was on the side of some building.  I thought it was funny because it looked like he was holding the holy hand grenade of Antioch.  "O Lord, bless this, Thy hand grenade, that with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits... in Thy mercy."

Here's a picture of me and some of the people I was hanging out with in Rome. 

Here's a picture of me by the river in Rome.

And here's another picture of me in the same spot, this time with friends.

This was a neat statue leading up to the vatican. 

Here's a picture of the vatican from down the road.  I have another picture where the lighting and focus is slightly better, but it's unfortunately partly obstructed by a very close view of a Japanese woman's head.

This is the view of the rotunda inside the basilica in the Vatican from inside.

Here's another one.  I took ten of these photos, but right now you only get two.  If you really want the other eight, let me know I guess.

Another picture of inside the Basilica.  I only have about four more of these.

This is the entrance to the Colloseum in Pompeii.  I don't know the people, but I couldn't get them to leave so I could get a picture without them.

This is what the ancient romans used to use to tie up their horses.  Or at least that's what I heard in no less than five languages from various tours I passed throughout the day.  These things could be found in front of nearly every building where the curb was still in decent shape.

This is one of the many corpses they found at pompeii, covered, I'm assuming, in volcanic rock.  Although I thought volcanic rock was generally black, I'm pretty sure they didn't ship in bodies that hadn't been killed here.  And now, I have a ton of pictures that don't really have an explanation, so I'll just throw them all out so you can look at them.