Vwalah! we are back in Madrid, just like that. We are staying at a new hostel here, Way hostel, and we´ve ran into two people from Lisbon. Is it just me, or is Europe smaller than it looks on a map?
I could not post pictures in Paris, due to the fact that internet cafes are pricy, but we saw everything there was to see. We proved some rumors to be false as well:
Parisians are not at all rude to English speakers. In fact, they are always pleasantly surprised to hear a parlay voo ingles?
And you don´t really have to pay for toilettes. This learned fact proved to be true with copious amounts of relief.
I will post all of the pictures Tuesday, when I return to America.
We also did some funny/fancy things in Paris that were a bit out of the ordinary. We stumbled across a bar that served juice and cocktails in baby bottles. It´s all kind of ridiculous, because they make you draw out your beverage, and they have cartoon names for everything. The place was called Zero de conduite, and we played board games while suckin´on baby bottles. Oh what a city. I guess it´s trendy to regress a decade!
But ohh, it feels nice to be back in Madrid. We connected with Wall street Nick last night, who is now starting up a business that is sort of top secret so I can´t put the URL up, but when it is full throttle you bet I´ll promote it. This business apparently involves 20 minute conference calls that turn into 2 hour conference calls when we´re waiting on him. Nick, for a business man, you surely have bad timing. Though, I´m surprised how much he´s got going for him here in Madrid now that we´ve returned. He´s in meetup groups, gone on a few dates, and has this business. If I wanted to work for wallstreet, I´ve acquired the appropriate connectionis. Ew, business.
So, we met up with Nick last night and went to one of our favorite Tapas places, El Tigre, and enjoyed some of our last munchin´ food of Madrid. Nik was teaching us that Notorious BIG´s TEN CRACK COMMANDMENTS apply to the business world. I won´t go into details, but I think he should do a thesis. Hmmm?
Now, I am fully ready to return. I will enjoy this last day in Madrid and go to the Retiro. I will probably see Nik for the last time, and I will walk the paths I did when I first wrote in this blog. Anything I decide to do, I will in fact do so by seizing it and enjoying it in the best way possible.
You can still expect more from this blog. On Tuesday I will be posting all of the pictures and explaining them. But thanks for reading! It has been nice to document this hoping someone will be inspired to take a trip of their own, because it is something that should not be avoided.
Adios! and as a true Madrid Spaniard would say: Vale! Vale! Vale!
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Decadence Day
I have declared this day, for myself, a holiday. Decadence Day: a day of lounging on the beach, swimming occasionally, and gaining a scorching second sunburn. I even took the 5€ massage bait, and had myself a suprisingly good 15 minute massage. Danny watched.
We have mostly been relaxing in Barcelona. There´s an awful smell in the hostel (somewhat like formaldehyde and pork grinds). Today was our last day, so we went to our favorite place, the beach of course. There were a lot of interesting people out and about. One man carried at least 30 donuts on a platter on top of his head and sang la bamba with the words: Me gusta la playa. I snapped a picture at the perfect time while he was shaking a man´s hand. I will post when I can. The beach was covered with people, and their skin kind of blended in with the sand at some point. I felt like Jimmy Buffet today, because I was clearly on island time. We approached the beach around 11, and left at 6 thinking it was 3 in the afternoon. This is the point in my life where I need to buy dolphin earrings.
Le tomorrow we are going to Le Paris. We at least knew, or could understand the languages in the cities thus far, but Pairs. Oh no no no. Although, I tend to enjoy socially awkward situations, because when I get back to America everything will be so easy. Now, I don´t think I could feel weird about buying the weirdest things in English, like a sequined bra or something. Not that I would want a sequined bra.
I am extremely excited and ready to absorb Paris. It is our last city before we return to Madrid, and there are so many interesting things to see.
As a tribute to my stay in Spain and Lisbon, I will document the power ballad that Danny and I wrote about pigeons. Ideally, we would like Kurt Cobain to play it, but imagination will do.
Don´t feed the rats
Don´t feed the rats old woman
they travel in packs
and don´t need no snacks
Don´t feed those dirty old rats
It needs some work, but it´ll do.
So Paris, Paris, here I come. Paris Je´taime (great movie by the way, I recommend it with no reservations).
It is time to embark.
We have mostly been relaxing in Barcelona. There´s an awful smell in the hostel (somewhat like formaldehyde and pork grinds). Today was our last day, so we went to our favorite place, the beach of course. There were a lot of interesting people out and about. One man carried at least 30 donuts on a platter on top of his head and sang la bamba with the words: Me gusta la playa. I snapped a picture at the perfect time while he was shaking a man´s hand. I will post when I can. The beach was covered with people, and their skin kind of blended in with the sand at some point. I felt like Jimmy Buffet today, because I was clearly on island time. We approached the beach around 11, and left at 6 thinking it was 3 in the afternoon. This is the point in my life where I need to buy dolphin earrings.
Le tomorrow we are going to Le Paris. We at least knew, or could understand the languages in the cities thus far, but Pairs. Oh no no no. Although, I tend to enjoy socially awkward situations, because when I get back to America everything will be so easy. Now, I don´t think I could feel weird about buying the weirdest things in English, like a sequined bra or something. Not that I would want a sequined bra.
I am extremely excited and ready to absorb Paris. It is our last city before we return to Madrid, and there are so many interesting things to see.
As a tribute to my stay in Spain and Lisbon, I will document the power ballad that Danny and I wrote about pigeons. Ideally, we would like Kurt Cobain to play it, but imagination will do.
Don´t feed the rats
Don´t feed the rats old woman
they travel in packs
and don´t need no snacks
Don´t feed those dirty old rats
It needs some work, but it´ll do.
So Paris, Paris, here I come. Paris Je´taime (great movie by the way, I recommend it with no reservations).
It is time to embark.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Fear and loathing in Cascais
******* DISCLAIMER: I am writing this tale overtly dramatized, the only way this horror tale should be told. It does not, in any way, reflect my attitude against Cascais. Yesterday was more of an adventure than a horror novel, but, in light of the situation, I have decided this dramatized version is the only way this tale should be written.*********
We hopped a train. Danny and I had been wanting to go to the beach. I even wore my swimsuit under my clothing, so that I could peel my jeans off and step into the salt water. We spoke the only Portuguese we knew, and bought a ticket to Cascais, a small beach area West of Lisbon. "Perfect," we thought, but little could we imagine the tracks that lay ahead. On the semi-peaceful train ride, filled with accordion players and gypsies, we tried to get a grip. Though, the hold seemed too far away to grasp. It started with the lightning, and followed with tiny drops of rain. Each drop of water seemed to push our swimming hopes further out into the sea, until they were swimming with the unclassified species of fish and eels. It was hopeless. We could get off at the next stop, and turn around with no tan mark on our body displaying no sign of soaked up enjoyment. But no, twenty minutes had passed, and we weren't about to turn around. "We aren't cowards," we said to ourselves, and decided to bare the remainder of the trip.
The train came to a halt, with a loud screech from the water laying on the tracks. Heading to what we thought was our beach, we were directed into a large mall-complex similar to the ones in the United States. We both screamed out in contempt. We didn't come to Portugal to eat greasy pizza and play tennis games in game stop, but we thought this could be different. We thought we could find salvation. On the side of the building we read "Fascismo" and "fascista" scribbled in grafiti type. These words acted as reminders of what we were entering: a commercialized resort inferno. There were more than nine levels to this hell, and we had merely scratched the first. The mall was filled with Game Stops and overly fancy McDonalds. We even thought we could save ourselves with a movie at the cinema, but our choices were limited to Scary Movie and Night at the Museum 2. What horrors! The mall even ruined Kabops for us. "How is this possible?" we thought. Our precious saucy love, left us with a bitter cucumber sauce aftertaste for hours and hours after the meal. "We have to get out of here," I heard Danny whisper. At this point in our journey, he couldn't find the energy to talk. A six story fascisma mart takes a lot out of a tired tourist.
We needed fresh air, a place to forget about the mall. We needed our beach. Walking along, we could only see resturaunts and hotels in the shape of boats. We were out of our element. We couldn't afford a 30 euro pizza. We wouldn't pay for a 30 dollar pizza. The beach was five paces to the east, and twenty north we thought, but we walked for hours. Almost simultaneously, in fatigued voices, we gasped: "Where is the infamous Cascais beach filled with free bike rides and wind surfing?" but we got no answer from the place around us. We only found a cold indifference to our bewilderment. We found it, after heaving and sweating. It was a small strip, hardly worth our time. The sand was soggy from the earlier storm, and there wasn't a single person under the tiny umbrellas. This was the KO in the match against Cascais. They had won battle. We couldn't even stand up enough from the last punch to look for the bike stand. We crawled back to the train with a look of sheer embarrassment on our faces.
I am dedicating this story to Cascais and it's people. You win. I might go back to you on the sunniest of days, and try again, but I will come more prepared. I will pack the punches with bagged lunches and pre-read weather forcasts lodged into my temples. I will retaliate, and when I do. You'll be sorry.
We hopped a train. Danny and I had been wanting to go to the beach. I even wore my swimsuit under my clothing, so that I could peel my jeans off and step into the salt water. We spoke the only Portuguese we knew, and bought a ticket to Cascais, a small beach area West of Lisbon. "Perfect," we thought, but little could we imagine the tracks that lay ahead. On the semi-peaceful train ride, filled with accordion players and gypsies, we tried to get a grip. Though, the hold seemed too far away to grasp. It started with the lightning, and followed with tiny drops of rain. Each drop of water seemed to push our swimming hopes further out into the sea, until they were swimming with the unclassified species of fish and eels. It was hopeless. We could get off at the next stop, and turn around with no tan mark on our body displaying no sign of soaked up enjoyment. But no, twenty minutes had passed, and we weren't about to turn around. "We aren't cowards," we said to ourselves, and decided to bare the remainder of the trip.
The train came to a halt, with a loud screech from the water laying on the tracks. Heading to what we thought was our beach, we were directed into a large mall-complex similar to the ones in the United States. We both screamed out in contempt. We didn't come to Portugal to eat greasy pizza and play tennis games in game stop, but we thought this could be different. We thought we could find salvation. On the side of the building we read "Fascismo" and "fascista" scribbled in grafiti type. These words acted as reminders of what we were entering: a commercialized resort inferno. There were more than nine levels to this hell, and we had merely scratched the first. The mall was filled with Game Stops and overly fancy McDonalds. We even thought we could save ourselves with a movie at the cinema, but our choices were limited to Scary Movie and Night at the Museum 2. What horrors! The mall even ruined Kabops for us. "How is this possible?" we thought. Our precious saucy love, left us with a bitter cucumber sauce aftertaste for hours and hours after the meal. "We have to get out of here," I heard Danny whisper. At this point in our journey, he couldn't find the energy to talk. A six story fascisma mart takes a lot out of a tired tourist.
We needed fresh air, a place to forget about the mall. We needed our beach. Walking along, we could only see resturaunts and hotels in the shape of boats. We were out of our element. We couldn't afford a 30 euro pizza. We wouldn't pay for a 30 dollar pizza. The beach was five paces to the east, and twenty north we thought, but we walked for hours. Almost simultaneously, in fatigued voices, we gasped: "Where is the infamous Cascais beach filled with free bike rides and wind surfing?" but we got no answer from the place around us. We only found a cold indifference to our bewilderment. We found it, after heaving and sweating. It was a small strip, hardly worth our time. The sand was soggy from the earlier storm, and there wasn't a single person under the tiny umbrellas. This was the KO in the match against Cascais. They had won battle. We couldn't even stand up enough from the last punch to look for the bike stand. We crawled back to the train with a look of sheer embarrassment on our faces.
I am dedicating this story to Cascais and it's people. You win. I might go back to you on the sunniest of days, and try again, but I will come more prepared. I will pack the punches with bagged lunches and pre-read weather forcasts lodged into my temples. I will retaliate, and when I do. You'll be sorry.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
"We couldn´t capture it in one frame!"-Wallstreet Nick
Just click on the album, and you will see our wonderful photos from Madrid thus far.
 |
| Madrid |
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Spanish sleep talk
&&&I apoligize for the lack of photos, these computers block the USB port. LO SIENTO.¨&&&
Hola!
I have much to report of the past two days. First thing is first: some people have ridiculous reasons for leaving the country and coming to Spain. Take Nick for example.
Two days ago, Danny and I were sitting in the lounge of the hostel, resting our legs, and Nick, a man in his late 20´s, introduces himself. He first points out that he is in search of an apartment, and that he wants to improve his Spanish. All of this information, at first, seems to be an honest plan. He will stay in Spain for 3 months, work on his Spanish, and maybe "find himself" or something. Later in the evening, Danny and I wanted on the computers, which is down in the hostel bar, where we find Nick, with his first drunken slurr in 10 years. Through the course of this later conversation, we discovered that Nick not only did not know a drop of Spanish "Como Estes? Hola Amigus," but also, Nick was recently laid off from Wall Street. The man is running from debt collectors, escaping his fortune, and lying left and right. I still really don´t know how old the guy is, I think 31? Anyways, good luck to him.
Danny and I got lost in the Parque del Retiro on Thursday. Look it up on a map, it really is insanely large. The park had everything: and obstacle course, a band playing, dogs, creeks, fountains, statues, a huge courtyard and boat rides and, of course, popscicles. It crushed my perceptions of awesome parks and trumped Loose Park in Kansas City by a long shot.
And today we spent the entire day in the Museo Reina Sofia, a modern art museum. I really liked a lot of paintings, especially Miro´s. I saw Picasso´s Guernica. ahhhhh. The only thing that caught me off gaurd was the ¨Waiting for Jerry.¨How am I supposed to interperet a single mousehole cut out in a black room with tom and Jerry plaing on the speakers as art? Danny disagrees.
Tonight Danny and I went to Cerveceria Alemana, one of the old bars of Hemingway. I had a fish sandwich. I´ve decided that I have been living a lie. I don´t like fish! I sort of like salmon, but not scaly, slimy fish. No thanks, I´ll stick to bread a cheese. Afterwards, we saw our first storm in Madrid and it was gorgeous. We were eating helado and getting rained on by these weird flowers from these strange trees.
The title for this post comes from last night´s sleep talk. I yelled at a Brazillian in my sleep last night. For the past two nights, there has been a man snoring right next to me, and I can´t stand it. I guess I shouldn´t complain, but my sleep has no control mechanism blocking my words. So, I yelled (apparently) in the middle of the night: ¨How are you breathing on me from all the way over there?!?!?¨
So, from these past couple of days, I have gathered that I should not sleep, I should eat more helado, and I should never enter into wallstreet.
Hola!
I have much to report of the past two days. First thing is first: some people have ridiculous reasons for leaving the country and coming to Spain. Take Nick for example.
Two days ago, Danny and I were sitting in the lounge of the hostel, resting our legs, and Nick, a man in his late 20´s, introduces himself. He first points out that he is in search of an apartment, and that he wants to improve his Spanish. All of this information, at first, seems to be an honest plan. He will stay in Spain for 3 months, work on his Spanish, and maybe "find himself" or something. Later in the evening, Danny and I wanted on the computers, which is down in the hostel bar, where we find Nick, with his first drunken slurr in 10 years. Through the course of this later conversation, we discovered that Nick not only did not know a drop of Spanish "Como Estes? Hola Amigus," but also, Nick was recently laid off from Wall Street. The man is running from debt collectors, escaping his fortune, and lying left and right. I still really don´t know how old the guy is, I think 31? Anyways, good luck to him.
Danny and I got lost in the Parque del Retiro on Thursday. Look it up on a map, it really is insanely large. The park had everything: and obstacle course, a band playing, dogs, creeks, fountains, statues, a huge courtyard and boat rides and, of course, popscicles. It crushed my perceptions of awesome parks and trumped Loose Park in Kansas City by a long shot.
And today we spent the entire day in the Museo Reina Sofia, a modern art museum. I really liked a lot of paintings, especially Miro´s. I saw Picasso´s Guernica. ahhhhh. The only thing that caught me off gaurd was the ¨Waiting for Jerry.¨How am I supposed to interperet a single mousehole cut out in a black room with tom and Jerry plaing on the speakers as art? Danny disagrees.
Tonight Danny and I went to Cerveceria Alemana, one of the old bars of Hemingway. I had a fish sandwich. I´ve decided that I have been living a lie. I don´t like fish! I sort of like salmon, but not scaly, slimy fish. No thanks, I´ll stick to bread a cheese. Afterwards, we saw our first storm in Madrid and it was gorgeous. We were eating helado and getting rained on by these weird flowers from these strange trees.
The title for this post comes from last night´s sleep talk. I yelled at a Brazillian in my sleep last night. For the past two nights, there has been a man snoring right next to me, and I can´t stand it. I guess I shouldn´t complain, but my sleep has no control mechanism blocking my words. So, I yelled (apparently) in the middle of the night: ¨How are you breathing on me from all the way over there?!?!?¨
So, from these past couple of days, I have gathered that I should not sleep, I should eat more helado, and I should never enter into wallstreet.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Minus four days
I will make this brief, considering this post is the introduction to a personal journey. I currently live in Kansas City, but I can't seem to suppress the urge to want to see more of this beautiful earth. Two days ago I threw a poorly designed graduation cap goodbye to the k12 school system. Now, with college ahead, and no responsibilities as of this very moment, I am spending all of my waitress tips on a month long voyage through Europe. That's right, I am placing all my money into one deep, new bag and traveling to Europe in four days. (I am bolding out of excitement).
Okay, so another boring travel blog whatever, whatever. Believe me, I am aware. But since I was given two flip camcorders for graduation and Christmas through the course of this year, I have decided to put them to great use and make a video blog. I guess the correct terminology would be vlog or something.
First stop-Madrid, Spain
Second stop-Lisbon, Portugal
Third stop-Barcelona, Spain
Fourth stop-Paris, France.
So, starting each night (hopefully), and if not every other night. I will be posting videos of my sabbatical. I am really hoping to gain advice from others who have traveled to these places and know some interesting (not lame touristy) spots. So enjoy my personalized, daring travel guide via video and blogging, and please, please seize the day.
-Paige.
Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero
Okay, so another boring travel blog whatever, whatever. Believe me, I am aware. But since I was given two flip camcorders for graduation and Christmas through the course of this year, I have decided to put them to great use and make a video blog. I guess the correct terminology would be vlog or something.
First stop-Madrid, Spain
Second stop-Lisbon, Portugal
Third stop-Barcelona, Spain
Fourth stop-Paris, France.
So, starting each night (hopefully), and if not every other night. I will be posting videos of my sabbatical. I am really hoping to gain advice from others who have traveled to these places and know some interesting (not lame touristy) spots. So enjoy my personalized, daring travel guide via video and blogging, and please, please seize the day.
-Paige.
Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero
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