Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Madrid

Madrid has been very nice after the incident with the cab driver. I spent two nights at a hotel with my mom and Rick. We had some good meals and wandered around the city. I ate beluga caviar and tripe for the first time in my life. Sort of opposites on the price scale.



After Rick and my mom left I lugged all my stuff to a hostel in the middle of the city. Since then I have just continued to wonder around the city taking pictures, going to museums, eating and drinking. I wondered into a sherry bar on accident last night. The bar looked so cool with maybe 700-800 bottles of sherry on the wall, all with tons of dust on them. There were huge barrels behind the counter and the oldest cash machine I have ever seen in use (it was wooden, built into the bar, and had a crank that opened the drawer). The sherry was actually very good and it was accompanied by some delicious green olives.



Now that I am all on my own for the next 8 months this is starting to feel real. My orientation is this Thursday (the day after my birthday) and then I will be heading off to Logrono on the 3rd of October.



Here are some photos of my Madrid adventures. The pictures of the horses and guards etc. are just from something I randomly stumbled across. There were some cars and a carriage being escorted by all these guards on horses. Must have been someone important.

























Friday, September 24, 2010

I made it to Spain

So today has been a pretty terrible day.  I had to wake up at 3:30 AM to catch my "cheap" easyjet flight from Charled Du Gaul at 650 AM.  Two short 5-10 minute walks, one bus, and an 8.50 Euro train, sounds so simple; however, it did not go as smoothly as I could hope.

When my alarm went off at 3:30 I was hoping thinking that this would be the worst part of the trip to the airport.  I put on 5 t-shirts, 2 jackets, swimming shorts, boxers, and jeans (because otherwise my luggage would weigh too much and I would have to pay 50 euros to check it, on top of the 22 euros I already paid to check it).  As I walk down two flights of stairs with 30 Kilos of luggage I start to hear something that sounds like rain.  It had been 70-75 degrees the whole week I was in Paris, but it decided to pour the morning that I had no choice but to walk, and with all of my stuff.  I get to the first bus without much trouble.  Twenty Five minutes later the bus drops me off, in the rain, 7 minutes away from the train station.  I am early, and have plenty of time to make the train; which is scheduled to arrive at 4:56.  After walking through the huge train station I pay my 8.50 Euros to get my train that will drop me off at the airport.  Once I am on the platform I notice the sign says that the train is coming "on time" at 5:30.  We'll I stand around for awhile thinking about how I will have a 5 minute window to get from the train to the gate before they wont let me check in because its a "cheap" ticket with easyjet.  At about 5:15 I look at the sign again and now it says the train will come at 5:40.  I make a quick decision to head back out of the train station and find a taxi because I figure the taxi will cost less than a new plane ticket (easy jet will not rebook your flight).

The taxi gets me there with plenty of time to check in and my bags are under the weight at which they would charge me.  So I get on the plane and I make it to Madrid.  Wet, sweaty and clueless as to how to get to the hotel.  Every booth in the airport says "no information" so I decide to take another taxi and hope it wont cost me too much.  The taxi driver takes me to the hotel and the meter reads 27 euros.  The taxi driver mutters something like "it's 50 euros."  I hand him 30 and ask for change he says "no no 50 euros airport... baggage... 50 please."  I said "no its 27" and he points at some confusing sticker on the window that says something about the airport.  So I reluctantly take his word for it and hand him 50 euros.

Once I get into the hotel and relax for a bit I read a little bit about Madrid in a guide book that my parents had in the hotel.  It says that the only legitimate charge is 5.50 euros extra for the airport.  So I got riped off about 20 euros.  Not as bad as the 50 I was ripped off last time I was in this city, but still come on Madrid why do you love to steal money.  It really pisses me off and I cannot wait to get to Logrono where there should be less crooks.  Let's see if I can make it 8 days without being robbed or cheated agian.

Pictures soon.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Paris still...

Couple more days worth of photos from Paris.  Not many stories though.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Last Night in Amsterdam first day in Paris

Our last night in Amsterdam we decided to do a pub crawl.  While we were eating dinner waiting to meet our pub crawl we saw Gabourey Sidibe walking around looking in shop windows.  First celebrity sighting.  The pub crawl was fun, it was more of a "club" crawl than a pub crawl.  They took us to 6 different bars (the last one was a club), with free entrance and one free drink at each location.

In any place that sells food or drink in Holland you have to pay to use the bathroom.  Add that fact to a crowded club and you get a real spectacle,  imagine a coed bathroom packed completely full with two door girls sitting on stools smoking cigarettes collecting 50 cents from each patron.

The next morning we caught the train to Paris.  Daniel has a very nice little loft pretty close to the center of the city, and his parents have an amazing apartment (the view is the best) just a few blocks away.  After dropping out stuff off at his apartment we went by his parents and took some pictures from the balcony before heading out.  We walked all around the city; from Notre Dame to the Louvre.  Once again the pictures speak for themselves.  Three more days in Paris before heading to Madrid.

Pictures.

Daniels Apartment