"Fair land! of chivalry the old domain, Land of the vine and olive, lovely Spain!"

After Italy, I was seriously ready for an actual tourist office in the train station, a clean public transport system and wide streets. Barcelona delivered! I wasn't expecting much from it, so maybe that's why it turned out so great. Regardless, I have nothing but good things to say about it!

Our hotel the first night (long story involving weird opening hours at the second hostel) was super nice. It was located right on the water, so I took advantage of that the first morning:

It was too cold for a swim, but lovely to walk along! Once we'd figured out where to drop our bags off for the next night (another nice hostel, though slightly less posh than the hostel), we wandered down the main street in the city, the Ramblas. It was so crazy. There are all these street performers lining the road. In addition to the people, the vendors are our in full force. You can get flowers, food, and roosters. Yes, roosters. No, I don't know why. Here are some of my favorites (the scene in the back is actually a pair of women dressed in serious makeup. It reminded me of OM.)


Here's me at the beginning of the street:

We saw the cathedral next. I have no idea why this thing is not more famous. It was one of the first cathedrals in a while that I was actually awed by. There were these amazing gardens inside the walls and the inside was really unique. These pictures don't do it justice. Nicole took better ones, so when I get them from her, I'll post them. It was incredibly beautiful.


We navigated the metro with complete ease. Signs are in Catalan, Spanish, and English. Maybe it's arrogant to hope for English to be spoken and used in foreign countries, but it just makes things so much easier. They're clean and even have video monitors of public broadcast. Here's an awkward picture (the guy didn't seem to pleased, but I wasn't sure if I could legally take photos, so I was trying to get it done quickly):

The next day we went up to the Olympic Park (via funicular) to see the stadium and the Olympic museum. It was so. cool. There were video screens where you could access all the old Olympic video, so I watched loads of opening ceremonies, the Magnificent 7 (gymnasts) from Atlanta's games getting their medals, and the Thorpedo. There were histories of all the sports in the games, including those that went back to ancient Greece, which was really neat since we'd just been there. The gift shop sucked, which really was the biggest indication that we weren't in the States.

It had started pouring by this point, so we went on to the airport. I boarded my train to the airport and left Nicole to go on to see another friend in Spain. I guess it should go without saying at this point that my plane was delayed getting out of Barcelona. But I eventually made it back to London. Home sweet (sort of) home! I will say that the cold was quite a shock to my system.

All in all, the trip was a lot of fun, but I wouldn't really call it relaxing! I needed the week before classes start again to actually rest! I think that's just a family tradition though... Relaxing is overrated, right Dad? : ) We saw about as much as we could have in the time we had though, so it was a great vacation. I'm just avoiding airports for awhile.

"You may have the universe if I may have Italy."

...Well Giuseppe Verdi, I will gladly take the Universe. Have fun with Italy. On that note, I saw this sign while walking around London today:

and realized that was an awesome strategy. Because honestly Italy has a lot of things going for it - beautiful scenery, really old stuff, pretty architecture - the problem is Italy itself. Suffice it to say I was not terribly impressed with country. Nicholas and I had issues in Rome, but I thought that was just Rome. (Plus, in interest of full disclosure, at that point in our trip I was rocking some hard core homesickness and a wicked sunburn). Well, it's not just Rome. The people staffing the sites were rude, the train was needlessly complicated and crowded, and the city just lacked charm. (Of course all of this in my humble opinion; many, many others have nothing but nice things to say about the city.)

Anyway, putting all that aside, I did get to see some things I've wanted to see for a long time. Ever since I read The Agony and the Ecstasy, I've had a minor obsession with Michaelangelo, so getting to see his city was pretty awesome.

Here's the Basilica of San Lorenzo, where the Medici tombs are:


I wasn't able to take pics inside the chapel, but here's a photo of the tombs I got off the internet:


I seriously could have spent all day in there. They were absolutely beautiful. I did snatch an illegal picture of these awesome statues:


They were crazy intricate in person. There's actually smaller statues inside the bigger ones. The photo doesn't do them justice.

After that, we went to the massive Duomo, which was quite impressive. I went up into the dome, but only to the second level. I kinda freaked about the height there, so decided not to go up to the outside edge. I was sooo glad when I saw that the rail around the viewing platform? Yeah, not so much with the height on that. Anyway, I did peer out of a window and the view was awesome. Tuscany is famous for a reason.


The rest of the day and the next morning we just wandered the city. The famed bridge is kind of crazy looking. There are actual stores built into it. Cool, but odd. I also did quite a bit of shopping at one of the markets near our hostel. That was a lot of fun.


The second day we were there, we left mid-day and took the train to Pisa. The clouds there were very threatening, so I basically did another bad dash through the city just to see the Tower. Some day I'll actually spend more than three hours there. (Nicholas and I actually ran the distance though. I learned better this time and took the bus. Much better decision.)

After that adventure, we headed out to the airport in Pisa to wait for our flight to Gerona, a small town an hour outside of Barcelona. This is the point where things got absolutely insane. (Even more than than our ride from Milan to Florence two days before during which we got kicked out of our seats an hour before reaching the city because they failed to tell us we needed reservations for seats. And yes, we bought the tickets from an agent. Sigh.)

The flight was delayed. And then delayed some more. And wait...delayed some more. We were very concerned about actually being able to catch a bus into the city that late at night (it was nearing 11pm at this point) and I was quite sure I was going to spending the night in the airport. Luckily, the buses waited on the plane. We got into Barcelona around 2:30am. Other than a taxi driver who ripped us off, things went much smoother from there on out. More about Spain next post!

And a long strange trip it was...

Well I can't promise this will be a comprehensive tale of my journeys (darn that essay I've been putting off!), but here are a few pictures from Greece, Italy and Spain.

I'm pretty sure I inadvertently deleted the one I made on the flight to Greece upon which I spent 5 hours sitting on the tarmac waiting while the snow melted outside, then for a new flight crew because ours had been working for too

many hours, then for them to replace the snacks that had gotten warm while we were waiting. I wish I was kidding. But. I did eventually make it on the ship:

It's kind of hard to see in the second picture, but our ship ends where the lettering starts on the big ship behind it. It was a teeny ship. The cool thing about that though was that we got to sail through the Corinth Canal, which big ships can't do. We also got to dock at some smaller ports. All in all, what we got for the price was not bad. The food was decent (though I'm def glad we got the meal plan. Individual prices were steep.) The room was small, but good enough. I do wish we'd had a pool though.

The excursions were the best part.We saw LOTS of ruins. We had tour guides for each day, plus a resident expert, Heinrich, on the ship to answer questions.

This was was Ithaka, the only port that we had a completely free day:




















My favorite excursions were Olympia and Delphi.

This is me on the first Olympic running course. Olympia was where the first Olympics were held and where the torch is first lit before every Olympic Games. It's a beautiful area, with blooming purple flowers, grassy fields, and old ruins. I could have easily spent all day there.

Delphi was a couple of days after that. It's the site of the famed Oracle and a really old theatre space and arena. It also had a wonderful juice bar. The strawberry slush was just what I needed!

Our last day in Greece was spent in Athens. Here's the famed Parthenon:


It was impressive, but Athens is seriously polluted. Apparently they've instituted driving bans where cars with odd number license plates can drive M/W/F and evens can drive T/TH. People are buying two cars according to the tour guide, but at least they're trying!

Anyway, here's a collage of some of my other favorite Greece pictures:


This entry is seriously long, so I'll save Italy and Spain for later (along with the tales of my airport and train woes.)

Confused

It's 7:15am and there is a van parked directly under my window loudly playing an Indian version of the macarena over its speakers. What did I do to deserve this?


image via flickr user susan & her 5d's

"Strange is our situation here upon earth."

Ah, Earth Day. Vindication for the hippies, an excuse for the PR machine to work overtime for oil companies, a day to celebrate our world with the other 6-some odd billion people humans here. (Aside: Did you realize that the world population has nearly tripled in the last 50 years? Crazy!)

Anyway, as pollution really is gross and we really should pay attention to recycling, driving less and walking more, and other small changes that are good for the environment, I offer, in the truly American tradition, a chance to buy something to help the globe.

Aren't these reusable bags adorable? I want one in every color. I already love grocery shopping; now here's an excuse to carry a plethora of cute bags with me. I think this graphic one is especially stylish:

My current reusable grocery bag is this adorable cupcake one:

It's oh so me, but I do realize that not everyone wants to display knitting baked goods while they shop. (Although, why not? : ) )

Happy Earth Day!

(source: fashion is spinach and cakespy)

“London is a modern Babylon.”

This is quite possibly the coolest website I've come across in a long time; Get London Reading has an interactive map where you can click on book titles set in your selected part of London. Rough Guide also put out a free literary guide to London. Apparently Down and Out in Paris and London was written just a couple of streets from where I live. That's kind of cool, and yet a little depressing.

"Books - the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity. "

Perhaps after 11 days in the Mediterranean, it's a little odd that I'm posting about a magazine, but I'm decompressing before I blog about the trip. Rest assured, stories and photos are forthcoming.

Until then, I want to give a shout out to the amazing magazine Bookmarks. It's filled with reviews, recommendations, and author bios which, considering the hours I spent in airports over the last few days, were dutifully pored over and very appreciated. I now have even more books to add to my to-read list. Highly recommended!

Photoshop (and other) Disasters

The blog Photoshop Disasters is hilarious. Check out the incredible two-toned woman!


In unrelated news, all this overnight flying is turning me into a hobbit. From their wikipedia page,"Hobbits enjoy at least seven meals a day, not including snacks, when they can get them - breakfast, (arguably) second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, tea, dinner and later, supper." So far today I've had breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon and a snack. I'm not sure if a frap counts as tea? If Lufthansa doesn't find my luggage soon, I'll have to add a stiff drink to that list. I thought the Germans were supposed to be efficient?