Discovering Southern Italy

Naples is obviously famous for their pizza, since the modern pizza was invented there. And it was here where I had the best pizza of my life and one of the best meals of my life. Da Michele pizzeria, world famous and for good reason. Not even gonna bother trying to describe it, but every bite was pure happiness and gave me chills, and that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

So we had a good introduction to Naples, but aside from navigating the unfortunate, trash ridden streets, there’s not much else I can say about it. We used it as a home base for our following day trips to the ruins of Pompeii and the Amalfi coast and that’s about it. I’m sorry if you are a fan of Naples, but it’s hard for me to recommend much to do there other than going to that pizza place. But for the pizza alone it’s worth a visit.

In the ruins of Pompeii with Vesuvius in the background

As mentioned before, the first full day we had in Naples was spent taking a day trip to Pompeii, and it turned out to be a great choice. I knew only the basic information about Pompeii: that it’s a city in ruins as a result of the massive eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (which is massive) in 79 AD, and because of the amount of ash that fell from the explosion most of the ruins (including some people and even a dog) have been preserved in the ash. What I didn’t realize is how big the area of Pompeii really is. It was actually a pretty big city back in the day and the amount of ruins that we saw on our trip there was absolutely enormous. It’s only a 40 minute bus ride from Naples, just on the other side of the mountain, and we made the wonderful choice of buying ourselves an audioguide and spending the next 4+ hours there learning more than we ever knew about this place. As already mentioned, the crazy part about this place is that there were in fact some people, and even a dog, on display. The layer of ash that covered these people during the eruption solidified and preserved their decomposing bodies long after they died. You can still see some of the emotions in their faces during their final moments, which turned out to be a pretty powerful scene. I highly recommend Pompeii if anyone finds themselves down in that area of Southern Italy. I also highly recommend our next stop in that area the following day: the incredible Amalfi coast. (I should also mention that we went back to the exact same pizza place we were at the day before and had another incredible pizza there).

I had heard some pretty amazing things about the Amalfi coast before, like people telling me it was one of the most beautiful places they had ever seen, so I had some pretty high expectations for it. It’s honestly hard to disagree with these people after seeing it for myself. We caught this place on a perfect day too, and it was probably the nicest day in December I’ve ever seen. This place is also a quick train ride from Naples so when we got there we figured we could just rent a car or something and drive along the coast, enjoying the views as much as possible. We had also read about a really nice hike along the cliffs that was supposed to be stunning, so that was also on the itinerary. But when we got there the rental guy was just about to leave for the day and it ended up being perfect timing. He only had one scooter left, and neither of us had driven one of these before (especially on Italian roads) so to say we were a little nervous was definitely an understatement. But we managed, and Alex and I agreed to share this scooter and take turns being responsible for each other’s lives while trying to drive this thing.

This ended up being one of the funnest things I think we’ve done on this whole trip. We were able to just zip around anywhere we wanted on the coast and cruise along some of the most scenic roads I’ve ever been on. We rode from Sorrento, our starting point, over to the other side of the coast where our hike was supposed to start and began an incredible hike with absolutely stunning views. That was definitely a memorable three hour hike, and when we got done with it we were pretty excited to hop back on the scooter and cruise through the rest of the coast. We’d be weaving around cars and taking sharp corners on just amazing roads, overlooking the Mediterranean with the coolest looking little towns lining the cliffs just above the water. Again, this is one of those places where I just have to recommend visiting in order to truly grasp the pure beauty and awe of what this place offers. I’ll agree with everyone else when I say that it was at least one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, so we’ll just leave it at that.

Of course, there was a big public transportation strike that same day (Italy likes to strike) but that wasn’t an issue while we had our own scooter. We were a little hesitant about getting back to Naples in time for our 10 hour ferry to Palermo, but it ended up working out okay and we were able to catch our ferry while attempting to sleep on the floor for the entire time, and by the next morning we had made it to Sicily!

I was really looking forward to seeing Sicily and getting a feel for how just how different this place is from the rest of Italy. We didn’t have much time here unfortunately; due to time/flight restrictions only about 4 days total. But we tried to make the most of these 4 days and our first stop was Palermo. We really enjoyed our time in Palermo, with some of the most notable things being the food (of course) and a pretty cool little half-hostel-half-couchsurfing type accommodation. First off, one of the classic Sicilian foods are Arancini. It’s basically a type of rice ball, fried on the outside and filled with meat sauce and cheese, and it’s incredible. We ended up being in Palermo on “Arancini day” which is apparently the only day that offers chocolate, sugar-coated Arancini, and it was unreal. That was for sure the highlight of the food scene so far here in Sicily, and we were really excited to see what other culinary explorations were to be made here. As mentioned, our accommodation situation was actually pretty cool in Palermo as well. We found the place on a hostel website and booked it just as we would book a hostel, but the way it was set up was that the owner just rented out some apartment space and he lived there and cared for the whole place while providing some rooms for guests while sharing his kitchen and living area for the guests to use for themselves. We all met each other and spent the evening getting to know each other a little more, making a really good potato casserole-type dish for dinner.

A beautiful view of Palermo from Monreale

We spent the next day doing a little trip to Monreale, a suburb just outside of Palermo high up on a hill that provided some great views of the surrounding area. It was really cool to get a better idea of the landscape here, and I think Sicily turned out to be a lot more mountainous than I thought. We got some really good pictures up there and saw some really interesting looking vegetarian around the Cathedral gardens. We killed some time and got lunch up there while watching a couple football matches on the TV in the bar and headed back down into Palermo to catch a bus to our next city in Sicily: Syracuse.

Awesome view off the coast of Ortygia

Syracuse was a really nice little city right on the Eastern coast of Sicily, and because we arrived later in the evening, the first thing to do was to settle in at our next accommodation. B&B's are pretty big there, and because it was the offseason we practically had the entire place to ourselves. The owner was one of the nicest staff we've come across so the hospitality situation was really good there. He gave us a map of the city and proceeded to draw and write all over the thing, giving us about a million different recommendations and places to go, and by the end of it we had a collage of circles and arrows to use to navigate through the city. The following day was when we did most of the sightseeing so we walked around the center of the city, which was located on a connecting island called Ortygia, a super old and picturesque area that is basically on the water. Aside from walking around we had a nice little rock skipping session on the beach and basically took it easy for most of the day, eating arancini and gelato every chance we got. We also spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what we were going to do on the last day, deciding how busy we wanted to be before catching our 6:00pm flight the next day to Budapest. We eventually just decided to stick around in Syracuse, and from there take a bus to Catania, where we would fly out. We spent only about an hour or two in Catania before the flight out but we found a little cafe with a really nice owner and we just hung out there to kill time, so I can't really say much of Catania, but overall we had some great interactions with really nice people just about everywhere in Sicily.

I would obviously highly recommend Sicily to any traveler visiting Italy, and I do wish we could have spent more time here, but as is usually the unfortunate case with traveling...there is never enough time. I was also really looking forward to our next stop on the trip, and crazy enough, Alex's last stop of the trip before he would head back home for the holidays...Budapest!

My Return to Northern Italy

We definitely had a nice little break from Europe during our awesome trip to Morocco, but I was excited to be heading back to Italy, and more importantly, my old stomping grounds in Torino.

This was round three for me being back in Torino and I couldn't have asked for a better time. I always love coming back to this city, and since studying here three and a half years ago it felt like I never left. It was especially cool to show Alex around, and show him some of the main sites of the city and where I used to hang out.

Most of my time spent in Torino was really just spent catching up with old friends that I had made back when I was studying there. I was having so much fun hanging out with old friends and making new ones, and I was so content with just being in Torino again that at this point in my traveling I think it was just so refreshing to be back in such a familiar place and relinquish old memories. I've gotta be honest, I was and still have seriously considered staying in Torino and living there again, probably just teaching English and enjoying my time back in this awesome city. I know it would be a much different experience than it was from when I was studying there, and it would definitely be a lot more challenging, but I really do love this city and I could honestly see myself being happy there. Oftentimes we hear from our tour guides in various cities say that they were just traveling through Europe on a trip and they stopped in one particular city and just stayed there because they loved it so much. I feel like I seriously got a glimpse of this feeling when I was back here.

Feels good to be back at the old apartment!

It's crazy to be at this point in my life, at a crossroads where I can just make a decision and stay and live anywhere I want. It's exciting and scary, but I'm pretty confident that whatever I decide to do I'll be able to fully enjoy myself while doing it and take it in as a really good and valuable experience. With that confidence, it diminishes some of the worries that can arise when I think of making these types of decisions, and it definitely allows me to think more clearly.

After some thought and reflecting on the whole situation while I was in Torino, I'm still planning on traveling but wouldn't be too surprised if things change, so we'll just have to see what happens!

On our third day in Torino Alex and I had decided to split up. Not because we were too sick of each other (although I'll admit that I think we were both happy to have a break from spending every waking moment stuck with each other), but because it was Alex's first time here in Italy and it was in his best interest to see some of the other amazing cities in this country. So he was off to Milan to catch a concert, then he continued on to Venice and Florence while we had both agreed to meet back up in Rome about a week later. I, on the other hand, had decided to stay in Torino for a few more days before heading off on my own for a bit as well. But before leaving Torino, I spent a night out with my old friend Marco, an amazing friend that I had met from my days studying in Torino and who was born and raised there (and thanks to social media I was able to easily keep in touch with him over the years). Marco invited me to spend Christmas and New Year's with him and his family, and after confirming a couple arrangements, it looked like I would be heading back to Torino for the holidays! I was really excited about the news and really happy that I had some great plans to look forward to during my favorite time of the year. It would have been great to spend this time with family, but this was at least the next best thing.

So with plans of returning in a few weeks I was happy to leave Torino and head to a few new places in Italy that I had never been. The first place being in Italy but not necessarily part of Italy: San Marino. San Marino claims to be one of the oldest countries...ever. Well at least one of the first ever republics with the oldest constitution, and to this day it is still considered an independent country and one of the smallest in Europe/the world - so there's a little background information for you. I had first heard about it when I was studying in Torino and always had an interest to check it out and of course cross another lesser known country off the list. So now seemed like a pretty good opportunity to get there, and I wouldn't be heading there alone. My good friend Max, who had studied in Torino on my program as well and who we had recently met up with during our trip to Lisbon in November, was staying in Torino for the time being on his own little adventure. So after meeting up during my visit we decided to both see San Marino for ourselves.

San Marino

The weather wasn't great on the day we decided to go, but I think it honestly added a certain aspect to this place that not many people get when they come to visit here. The central part of the country is located on top of a fairly large mountain, but with the weather we had that day it was difficult to tell. We were essentially covered in clouds the entire time we were up there and this provided for a really neat, misty mythical-like setting. It was really cool and I hadn't really experienced a landscape like this before with this kind of foggy atmosphere. It felt kind of like a fairy tale, and I was expecting the headless horseman to be galloping out at us at any second on the trail. Max and I couldn't get over how cool this place was, and for this reason I think it was definitely one of the more memorable parts of the trip for me just because I hadn't really seen anything like it before.

We spent the rest of the day continuing to walk around the old part of the town which was neatly being decorated in all of the Christmas-like lights and embellishments, and it really felt like one of those little Christmas towns that appear in the stories and books you read as a kid. It was a really cool atmosphere, and I highly recommend giving San Marino a visit for anyone who’s interested in traveling there. Another thing worth mentioning is the odd number of stores selling weapons, leather handbags, watches, and souvenirs. For some reason these were the only types of shops around with little else to find. But it made for a pretty comical sight to see a Christmas shop set up right next to one of the weapons stores.

Because of its size it’s easy to see most of the main sights of San Marino in a day. After that day Max and I parted ways, as he would be heading back to Torino and I would be staying the night in Rimini, just outside San Marino, and preparing to head to Siena the following day. Because it was pretty rainy down in Rimini and we had spent all day hiking around with me carrying my home/backpack everywhere we went, I was having trouble finding an affordable hostel in Rimini that was still open. Rimini is a very seasonal summer beach town with plenty of options to stay and party during the summer, but it was almost winter now, and with the lack of options I had I was forced to splurge on a more expensive hotel room next to the train station. Luckily I had a credit card :) and after a night of living like a king I was off to Siena the next day. My first two trains were delayed, which unfortunately is completely normal for Italy and because of that I couldn’t catch my third train and had to continue to wait and take different trains to finally make it to Siena. A three hour trip turned into a six hour trip but I had finally made it and spent a night there.

Siena is a really nice little town in the heart of Tuscany, which provided for a really nice little feel for the Tuscan lifestyle there. It doesn’t take much time to see the city there but it was really nice to see some of the main sites in the city. One of my favorite piazzas is at the center of this place, and it’s huge and really well designed. Also, I was traveling solo for the first time since London which was quite a while ago. It was good to be alone again though and I’m honestly looking forward to the next time that happens down the road (no offense Al) since it’s a totally different experience. I would recommend Siena for a nice romantic stroll through the town with an Italian model, as I kind of got that romantic vibe from walking through the city, and it’s really beautiful and clean there. After my short night of visiting the city I was set to catch an afternoon train to Rome, where Alex and I would be reunited for our final section of the trip together.

Siena

Alex and I met up in Rome, and with no accommodation booked beforehand we had to begin our last minute search for a place to stay. After an hour or two we finally found a place that wasn’t far from the train station and stayed there for a couple nights to begin our sightseeing in this crazy historical city. I had been to Rome before and had seen most of the main sites myself, so I wasn’t too concerned with trying to see everything. With this being Alex’s first time here he had a lot to see but wanted to stick to a couple of the main sites, so we met up with a couple of our new Canadian friends that Alex had previously met in Florence and saw the Coliseum and the Forum and a lot of the main tourist attractions there. That day was also a national holiday (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) and the pope would be making an appearance for a ceremony that was going to take place in one of the smaller and more famous squares of the city. We had the crazy idea of trying to see him and we headed to the square shortly before the ceremony took place. Of course the place was absolutely packed, and we had to continuously try to squeeze ourselves in further and further in order to try and catch a glimpse of the pope. We were there for over an hour, and after most of that hour being spent on our tippy toes, I still don’t think we saw him. He was somewhere beyond the infinite swarm of people that were trying to do the exact same thing we were doing. I thought I saw him multiple times squeezed between people’s silhouettes in the distance but was never sure enough to say that he was there. Regardless, we were in the same square at the same time, so that counts for something, right?

After the “pope sighting” we headed back to our new hostel, which was much more fitting for younger people as there was a bar across the street… This place was definitely one of the cooler hostels we had been to, full of young travelers all on similar adventures, and it was kind of a nice breath of fresh air to be meeting others in a similar situation. Like I’ve mentioned before, Couchsurfing is one of the best experiences we’ve had on this trip, meeting locals and experiencing their way of life. But sometimes it’s nice to also meet other travelers going through some of the same experiences that we’re going through. We end up finding people with a lot of things in common because we’re having similar experiences and constantly traveling, trying to see as much as we can of the world. We share a lot of the same discoveries when we find that we’ve been to similar places, and it’s nice to converse about some of the same things we’ve done and haven’t done, and what others have to say about it.

But later that evening, we all decided to go out and have some fun in Rome and it was a blast. We mostly just stayed at the hostel bar and eventually met an Italian friend who showed us a fun late night bar, which remained open after there were no other options. After that night, an early morning spontaneous solo trip took me to Orvieto, a small town about one hour outside Rome, where I was going to plan on taking a bus to Civita de Bagnoregio (it’s best you Google image this place, since it’s hard to put into words how cool it looks) which was one of the two main things I wanted to see while in Rome (the other was to go inside St. Peter’s Basilica). Unfortunately, when I arrived in Orvieto just before 9:00am I found out that the bus for Civita de Bagnoregio wasn’t leaving until 12:45 that afternoon. This was not feasible for me since I had no sleep the previous night after going out. I was partially devastated by this news but was suddenly somewhat accepting of it after seeing the stunning, sweeping views of the countryside from the main square of Orvieto, which suddenly diminished my disappointment. I didn’t realize before I got there that the center of this town is perched high up on a hill, and is easily accessible by cable car from the train station. I had to hang out there for a couple hours anyways to catch the next train back to Rome, and although I didn’t make it to Civita de Bagnoregio I was happy to at least get something out of the trip with my successful discovery of Orvieto.

The stunning views from Orvieto

I got back to my hostel room at 1:00pm and the rest of the day consisted of sleep.

The day after that was our last day in Rome, and later that evening we had planned to use the last day on our Eurail pass to go to Naples. We spent the last day in Rome (technically the Vatican) doing the one other thing on my checklist that I wanted to do, and we were able to go inside St. Peter’s Basilica. We actually started by going to the top of the Basilica with our Canadian friends and enjoyed the amazing views of surrounding Rome from here. It was a beautiful day and the crowds were low, which made for a great combination for enjoying this attraction. After saying farewell to our friends from the top we began our descent into the Basilica itself. The outside is huge but the inside felt even bigger. It was truly impressive, and I think I now understand why this is the heart of Catholicism. I was blown away and very happy I got to see the inside. Pictures don’t do it justice, but I posted some for visual pleasure anyway. Alex hadn’t been to the Vatican museum/Sistine Chapel yet so I let him do that while I took a nice walk around the area and back. We spent the rest of that day making our way to Naples, and when we got there I had one of the best meals of my entire life. (to be continued!)

The Moroccan Experience

Africa! A new country and a new continent, and I can definitely say that things are different here from just about everywhere else I've been in my travels. It always takes some getting used to when traveling through a new environment, and Morocco was no exception. I have the crazy idea of trying to squeeze my 11 days in Morocco into one blog post, and I'm gonna try to stick to it so here it goes:

The Morocco Boys

Alex and I had most of Morocco planned out after an entire day of planning in Toulouse awhile back, so there wasn't a huge amount of improvising that we had to worry about when we got there. We also found some cheap flights arriving there and leaving, so we already had flights booked for entering and leaving the country, which we basically planned around while we were there. We hopped on our flight from Madrid to our first city in Morocco, Tangier, that would serve as a very impressive and promising introduction to our African experience. Alex had found someone who would host us in Tangier so we were excited to once again meet some locals and learn a thing or two about this new place. We met up with Anas shortly after arriving, who would be our incredible host over the next couple days. This turned out to be a perfect situation for us. Anas and his roommates spoke nearly perfect English, being translation students working on their masters, and they were the exact same age as us. We had an amazing time with these guys learning all about Moroccan culture and how everything works, getting to know each other and our similarities, and walking around Tangier seeing some awesome sites. Including a really cool cafe situated on a cliff overlooking the strait of Gibralter and providing us a view of the European continent that we had temporarily left behind.

We had the perfect introduction to this new country, once again meeting some amazing new friends and learning so much about their culture and way of life, always the most valuable lesson from traveling. We actually stayed a second, unplanned night in Tangier because we were having such a great time with these guys. It was hard to leave and move on but we knew there was still much to see in Morocco.

My memory of Chefchaouen

Next stop: Chefchaouen. A tiny touristic town in the middle of the Rif mountains. This place was really neat and extremely picturesque. Our hostel was one of the cooler places we've stayed in as well, with beds situated on the rooftop terrace overlooking the city, and of course we stayed up there on our second night. It's hard to stop taking pictures of this place, and I went on a pretty awesome hike with a couple new friends we met at our hostel to get an even better view of the city. The following day consisted of another amazing hike around some really cool nature-things that were about 30-45 minutes by taxi outside of the city. One hike was a decently strenuous uphill climb to the top of a natural bridge formation called God's Bridge, which connected two sides of a canyon and was obviously really impressive. The second hike, less strenuous but much longer, was a 4 hour round trip hike to an incredible waterfall. We had such a great time out here since we've mostly been so cooped up in all of these cities and haven't had much time to do a bunch of nature stuff. It was really refreshing and gave us a different perspective on Morocco, which turned out to be so much more scenic and beautiful than anticipated.

Aside from a few "interesting" situations that happened with some hagglers in Chefchaouen (which I would be happy to elaborate on outside of this blog), I really enjoyed the couple days we spent here. But it seems that again, as soon as we arrived, it was time for us to continue our trip across the country and head to the next city: Fes.

Fes is one of the old capitals of Morocco and one of the largest cities in the country. It's most famous for its Medina, or "old city," which consists of an enormous labyrinth of maze-like streets, small enough only for people, push carts, and donkeys to travel through. Fes has one of the largest medinas, consisting of over 1,000 of these little streets, walled on both sides by shops selling everything you can imagine, and even more things that you can't imagine. It's impossible not to get lost here, and we spent some time with the one day that we had getting lost and somehow finding our way back to our hostel before heading out on an overnight bus to the desert. It's hard not to go into detail with the situation that happened to us in Fes when we were trying to organize our trip to the Sahara, but long story short: some guy picked us up from the bus station when we arrived there, convinced us to pay for an all inclusive trip from Fes to the desert to Marrakesh, and made us feel really uncomfortable about it the entire time (probably another story I can elaborate on outside of this blog in order to save time, space, and literary energy). But regardless of how uncomfortable we felt, things ended up working out and we continued with the plan, taking an overnight bus from Fes to the Sahara town of Merzouga, close to the Algerian border.

Camel-cam

I gotta say, being in the desert was easily my favorite part of Morocco. After taking a much needed nap at the hotel when we arrived, we set out on a pair of camels with our guide, Mohammed, off into the Sahara. We stopped in a little Nomad village for some amazing homemade couscous for lunch, and then continued on to another small village where we would spend the night in the middle of the desert, with entertainment provided by our guides in the form of sandboarding, playing music around a fire, and having some amazing food for dinner while making more friends from another group that joined us in staying the night in our little village. It was definitely one of those unforgettable experiences that was easily one of the highlights of the trip. The only unfortunate part about the whole thing was the weather.

Usually weather doesn't bother me at all, which is why I don't really mind traveling during the off season in the Fall/Winter. But this time the weather had a direct impact on the rest of our "all-inclusive" desert trip in a big way. There was a significant amount of rain hitting the southern part of the country, and some of it passed through the desert where we were, with scattered showers here and there but nothing too crazy. However, it must have picked up a lot further West into the mountains, because apparently an entire bridge collapsed, preventing us from getting to Marrakesh from the desert. We were definitely bummed, because our next night was going to be spent near the Todgha Gorge, which is supposed to be a pretty amazing canyon on the way to Marrakesh. So instead of continuing our pre-planned trip, the guys at the hotel organized for a private car to take us back to Fes, and from there we had to take an overnight train to Marrakesh. In the end we made it, but had to cope with a massive detour that costed us a day in Marrakesh and the gorge. It was a bummer but we just had to accept it and move on.

On the bright side, we found an awesome host in Marrakesh, and he was able to have us for our last couple nights in Morocco. For the most part we took it pretty easy in Marrakesh. On the first day we did the sightseeing, checking out the big mosque and the Medina, getting some snakes thrown on us, pictures taken and donations requested, and walking around another massive market, filled with the familiar winding maze-like footpaths that consisted of the busiest part of the city. A more notable moment in Marrakesh was that we spent Thanksgiving there, and our host, Redouan, was kind enough to assist us in our Thanksgiving feast by cooking some turkey and vegetables Moroccan-style, with the finished product resulting in a delectable Thanksgiving turkey tagine. It was really cool to celebrate such an American holiday in such a foreign place, and we all had a really enjoyable meal. The next morning, bright and early at about 4:00 am, Redouan was kind enough to organize a cab to the airport for us and send us on our way.

Al and I being apprentice snake charmers

When I look back and reflect on Morocco I think of many ups and downs that we had, but the experience as a whole was something that I'm so glad we got to have. I honestly wasn't a huge fan of the big cities of Fes and Marrakesh, as the Medinas appeared constantly filled with people trying to get as much money from you as possible, and it didn't seem possible for us to peacefully walk through these cities without having to turn down multiple persistent hagglers, trying to get you to buy any unnecessary items that you aren't interested in buying. If things like that don't bother you, it's not such a bad place to spend a day seeing, and in all fairness I wasn't sure how I would react in these situations. It turns out I'm just not a huge fan of things like that, so I much rather prefer the peaceful vastness of the desert. Also, aside from the uncomfortable situations that happened to us in Chefchaouen and Fes, I refuse to let a couple strange people ruin the experience or the rest of the Moroccan people for me. We met some really awesome people during our stay and had some of the best hospitality we've had on this trip. I could also see myself going back to Morocco in several years, as another result of traveling is often the discovery of new places to see that we didn't know about previously, and there's a heck of a lot more to see in Morocco than I thought.

Overall, we had a nice break from Europe but were ready to get back in there and go to our next (and one of my favorite) cities. Back to Torino I go, and can't wait to relive the glory days of studying abroad in my favorite city in Italy.

Making Friends in Madrid

Madrid was one of those cities that we went to where we honestly didn’t do much “sightseeing,” however, we spent a lot of time meeting some really great people and having fun with the “human connection” aspect of traveling, rather than the “let’s go see as much as we possibly can in a really short amount of time” type of traveling.

Almudena Cathedral

The first thing we did was meet up with our amazing host, Juan, who picked us up from the train station after we arrived from Granada. We got a quick bite to eat while introducing ourselves and he then invited us to attend a tour guide class that he’s in, as they were doing a practice tour of Madrid for their training. Of course it was all in Spanish, but he helped with some of the translating as we watched other people in his class practice their knowledge and tour guiding skills over the next couple of hours. We got to see quite a few of the main sites straight away, and although it was difficult for us to completely understand everything about the sites it was still a nice introduction to the city. Also, after the practice tour the entire class went to a bar to socialize and celebrate a successful practice session, and we joined. It was awesome to meet all of these different people. It seemed like most of them were from Madrid, so we were able to meet plenty of locals straight away. We had a great time, and I always prefer meeting new people than seeing other sights.

After our great introduction to the city we went to Juan’s apartment to get some sleep. We decided to get another tour, in English this time, on our second day in Madrid, since we thought we would get some more information out of it. We did, but it’s hard to say that weren’t already “toured out” from a lot of the other cities that we’ve visited. I think we might need a break from a lot of the walking tours that are offered in just about every European city, as it all just eventually gets stuffed up into the same mush of names and dates that we’ve heard in every other city that we’ve been to. Not complaining, but it’s one of the harsh realizations that can happen when traveling around Europe.

                    

                      

We met some friends from the tour and had some good conversations with them about their travels for a couple of hours before heading back to the apartment to relax from the day. That evening we made some plans to go out. It had been awhile since we last went out in Barcelona so we thought it would be fun to meet up with an old friend and have a fun night. I met David while I was studying abroad in Torino, Italy. He’s from Spain and currently lives in Madrid, so I thought it would be great to plan Madrid around a time where both of us could meet up and hang out while I was there. It was great to see him again after about three and a half years of not seeing each other. We had an awesome night, and it was a lot of fun. We also rode the local city bikes that are set up all throughout the city to get around that night. The bikes have a nice little electric motor on them, which makes the peddling process a little easier and makes the bike ride a lot more enjoyable, especially after a few drinks. We came back home pretty late that night and slept in, knowing that most of the following day would be spent in the apartment…which it was.

Other than meeting up with David again to get a quick bite to eat, we stayed in much of the day and got a little caught up online with friends and family, which is always much needed after a while. We also had to plan out the rest of the trip and get all of that sorted as well, so we were totally okay with taking it easy for most of the day. Later that night though our host offered to take us to the movies, and we decided that would be a lot of fun as we’ve always wanted to see a movie in one of these countries we were visiting to see what it would be like. We decided to see Interstellar, which was a crazy, confusing, and well-made movie that had just recently been released. Thankfully the movie was actually in its original English version, with Spanish subtitles for all of the locals. This was also probably the largest movie theater I had ever been to and I felt like the room we saw this movie in was beyond IMAX; it was truly impressive. After our minds were blown for about three hours we left the movie a lot more confused than when we arrived. We went back to the apartment to get some sleep as we contemplated what just happened after watching this movie. Most of that following day was again spent in the apartment as we continued to plan our upcoming trip to Morocco.

David and I quaffing

We decided that we had to do something on our last day in Madrid though, so of course we had to make a trip to the Prado museum. The museum is free on Sundays from 5 to 7, so we took advantage of that. But of course we were running late, and after meeting up with David there we had just under an hour to see some of the more famous paintings inside. It was cool, but we wish we obviously had more time there to see everything. I’m still glad we went and would recommend it. David and I parted ways for the final time after the museum visit, and I hope to see him again in the near future. We spent a bit more time in the city afterwards but had mostly called it a day after that.

I do wish we could’ve spent more time in Madrid. It’s really difficult to spend “enough” time anywhere so you just do the best you can with it and have fun. I would definitely go back another time in the future to see more of the city and surrounding area, but I was really happy with the people we met and the friends that we made. I also think it’s time to take a break from Europe and do something different…so it’s off to Africa for the next 11 days!

The Best of Southern Spain

So after Lisbon we thought we had it all planned out. We were originally planning on visiting southern Spain since it's another significant part of the country to visit during a European tour.

Seville is one of the main destinations for tourists visiting southern Spain, so we thought we could just hop on a train and Eurail there from Lisbon. We got a little naive and found out that it's not that easy, so we had to replan it a little bit. Somehow, Alex found out about some town called Merida in Spain, which is a few hours away from Lisbon by bus. We were able to get a host there from couchsurfing so we were in agreement that that would be the next destination. It would also buy us more time to find hosts in Seville, or even Granada (another popular southern Spain destination), since we were having trouble finding anyone that could host us in those cities.

We met up with our host, Pedro, in Merida which ended up being great because we got there in the afternoon and it was a Sunday, so Pedro had time to hang out with us and show us some of the city. Merida is known for its Roman ruins, which it has a lot of scattered throughout the city. A lot of the ruins were even just hanging out downtown, so you'd be walking around the city and then BOOM, you get your fix of Roman ruins, which is always fun. So we saw a lot of cool ruins there and got excited for Rome. But the rest of the city was pretty cool too and Merida is much smaller than many of the other cities that we typically visit, so it was nice to be in a quieter place. The day went fast in Merida but we were thankful for Pedro's hospitality, and he was a great host. 

The next day we had to leave his apartment early and had a pretty interesting experience: The first thing we wanted to do was go to the train station to try and catch a train to Seville, which was only a couple hours away, and sort of part of the original plan. Buuut the daily direct train there had already left earlier that morning, so my first thought was BlaBlaCar (which we had taken before from Berlin to Amsterdam), and sure enough, I found someone who could drive us from Merida to Seville for cheap. I tried calling him but the catch was that he couldn't speak English. The phone call was a failure, but thank god for Google Translate because after a couple quick text messages our driver was able to pick us up from the train station and take us to Seville. 

It was a fun little two hour ride, full of silence and questions asked from Google translated Spanish with answers that I couldn't understand, which resulted in me nodding and responding, "si si, bien bien." But it worked out, and he was a nice guy. He even dropped us off at the Seville train station, where we found out that we could take a train to Granada for only 4 euros each with our Eurail passes, which we did. We had a few hours to kill so we saw about one main sight in Seville and then killed some more time before hopping on the train to Granada.

A nice view of Plaza de Espana in Seville

When we got to Granada we were pretty exhausted so we didn't do much the first night. We had planned to do a walking tour of the city the following day but it was real rainy so we stayed in and relaxed in the morning, and then began our tapas experience in the afternoon. For those who aren't familiar with tapas, it's one of Spain's main culinary claims to fame, especially southern Spain. The way it works is you go to a place that serves tapas, you order a drink (which is usually always relatively cheap), and you get a free dish of food with it. Our minds were blown. Depending on the place, you might just get your first dish free, or you might not get any tapas for free with a drink. But Granada is one of the few remaining places in Spain that sticks to the old tradition: for every drink you order, you get a free serving of tapas. The dishes usually vary, and from my experience, they just surprise you by bringing something delicious out. I'm not sure if you can be picky and tell them exactly which tapas you want without being charged but we were completely okay with being surprised with food after only paying a couple euros for a drink. The usual dishes consisted of the local roasted jamón (or ham) and some rice and bread, which was absolutely delicious. Because it was raining most of the day, what else were we supposed to do? We couldn't get enough of the deal, and every single time we ordered a drink we'd get a plate of food with it...every time. It was too good to pass up, and I have no idea how any of these places stayed in business. We would basically bar-hop, having one drink and tapas at each place, then go to another one. 

Great view of Granada and the Alhambra

After a few hours of nonstop drinking and eating, we met up with Kelly, our friend from Reno, who joined us in our Granada adventures. I had heard of some Gypsy caves nearby which sounded pretty interesting, and I saw that there was a tour being offered to check them out later that day. We decided to take the tour, and it was totally worth it. These caves were unreal. They were completely man-made, dug into a hillside overlooking the entire city, including the Alhambra. These gypsies literally had the best view in town, and they weren't paying a single penny for their living situation. They were tapping into all of their own electricity and water supply, and there were some pretty sophisticated cave setups. Some even had their own satellite dishes to amplify wifi signals for some free internet. It was really impressive, and it was difficult to resist the urge to move into one right then and there and just live there for a few years, but unfortunately the tour had to continue. We ended the tour at a cave bar of course, and yes, it had tapas. We spent the rest of the evening seeing a really interesting flamenco show and having more tapas. Flamenco is the traditional style of music and dance of southern Spain and it's definitely worth checking out. We had eaten tapas and drank all day. I was completely full all day and I think I had already gained at least 5 pounds over the course of the first day we were there.

The next day was really productive and we saw one of my favorite sites of the trip so far. The Alhambra is a pretty special place. It's the main tourist attraction in Granada, and for good reason. It's basically a large palace/castle district built up on this hill with spectacular views of the surrounding area. It's difficult not to indulge in the peaceful, euphoric atmosphere that radiates from this place, and it's one of those "you've got to see it to believe it" kind of places. We spent a few hours there before returning to reality, and I already felt like our day was complete. There's not much else to say about the Alhambra other than it's the most visited tourist attraction in Spain, and I highly recommend seeing this place, as words just don't do it justice. The rest of the day was quiet as we continued to stuff ourselves with tapas and churros and chocolate (which was WAY too much food). 

I think it's safe to say that Granada may be my favorite destination in Spain so far, with one more city here to go. It was great having another random meet up with old friends, catching up with Kelly, and having her join us in Granada. I couldn't be happier with our trip there and I'm happy to say that I undeniably took advantage of the tapas culture. 

Looking forward to see what Madrid has in store for us!

Lovin Lisbon

Reminds me a little bit of San Francisco!

After our fantastic time in Barcelona it was time to move on to Lisbon, skipping Madrid for now. We took a couple nice long trains for our 14 hour commute, and finally made it.

The first thing we had to do was get coffee, so we did that. The second thing we had to do was meet up with our host. He lived a bit outside of the city so we had to trek a little bit to get to his place, but it was well worth it. Yas was a great host and very welcoming. He provided us with everything we needed and we greatly appreciated his hospitality.

We were exhausted but we arrived in Lisbon pretty early in the morning from our overnight train, so we had to make use of our day and power through it. After getting settled in we decided to meet up with one of my friends I studied with in Italy three and a half years ago, who was also traveling around and happened to be leaving Lisbon later that day. We headed back into the city to meet up with Max and did some sightseeing and just getting lost, coming across some amazing views and some really cool buildings. Lisbon is such a scenic and beautiful city. There's so many viewpoints with so many amazing views, and a bunch of the buildings are covered with painted ceramic tiles to protect them from the salty air near the sea.

After some catching up with Max, we had to part ways. But it was great to see him again and he gave us some good suggestions for things to do in Lisbon before we leave. We spent the remainder of the day mostly walking around, but headed back to Yas' place soon after parting ways with Max. The following day was spent doing most of the touristy things: seeing Belem (and eating a pastel de nata, an amazing Portuguese pastry), the famous area where all of the famous Portuguese explorers set out to sea, doing a LONG walking tour of Lisbon learning all kinds of history and cultural lessons of the Portuguese, and grabbing some dinner and drinks while checking out some traditional Potuguese fado music at the bar. It was a busy and productive day of sightseeing, and we weren't up for much longer after heading back to the apartment at the end of the evening.

The water was a little rough at Boca do Inferno

The following day was actually our last full day in Lisbon. We had originally planned to stay for another day after that but we had trouble finding transportation to our next stop on the day we planned to leave. We spent the last day with Yas, and he drove us to an amazing place about half an hour outside of Lisbon called Sintra; a large, hilly forest area by the coast. We stopped at a really cool cliff viewing area on the coast called Boca do Inferno (Portuguese for Hell's Mouth), and watched waves violently slamming into the side of the cliffs, which was incredible. 

In Sintra, there's an old little town at the base of this massive hill and there's a really cool castle at the top which was amazing. The weather wasn't great that day so we just drove around to see some great scenery and try to find a place to eat. Yas cooked some food we bought in preparation for what would be one of the more memorable "picnics" I've ever had, mostly because it ended up being a really funny situation. Because it was raining most of the day, we couldn't just find an open place outside to eat, and we brought A LOT of food with us. We even brought our own plates and silverware, a pot full of an entire chicken, rice, salad, wine, beer, tea, everything. We tried asking a local restaurant if we could sit there and eat our food, but instead we just got some weird looks and an apology that we couldn't, so we had to improvise.

Nice little picnic in a garden store

Yas knew of a garden nearby. It wasn't really like an actual garden, but it was a large place where you can buy plants. They just had plants set up under a greenhouse-type roof for people to look at and buy, but we thought it looked like a nice place to have a picnic. So we asked the people if we could sit down somewhere to eat our food and sure enough, they were nice enough to let us eat there. We set up our stuff under this little mini gazebo structure in the middle of a garden store and had a picnic. I don't think the people that worked here knew how much stuff we had when they said we could eat here, but we brought everything out and had a full on picnic in the middle of a garden store while people walked around shopping for plants and stared at us. It was hilarious, and I highly recommend garden stores for any future picnics. It's a nice atmosphere.

The remainder of the day consisted of another stop on the way home in the middle of the forest while having a drink of wine and relaxation before heading back to the apartment. The last night was pretty quiet as we had to figure out what we were gonna do the next day, so that was about the end of our time in Lisbon. 

Overall, it was a wonderful place to visit, and we were really lucky to have Yas for a host. Another friend gained and another beautiful city visited. It was time to head back to Spain to continue our adventure and see more of the country.

Barcelona

Good old Barcelona

As most people might say, and as I'm sure you may have heard at some point in your life (especially if you've been), Barcelona is an amazing city. So to spare you repetition from cool, typical touristy sites that you can look up on your own, I'll explain some highlights of our 5 nights here:

The first night was insane. We had the opportunity to celebrate Halloween in Barcelona which, believe it or not, is actually somewhat festive and starting to catch on across the pond. I knew Halloween was kind of just a U.S. thing but it's gaining popularity over in Europe, mostly because it gives people a good excuse to go party somewhere. We knew we were going out for this first night, and in order to avoid disturbing our next couchsurfing hosts during our stay here we decided to live it up and use some of my points to book a nice little hotel room at the Hilton Barcelona for the first night. This was a treat to say the least. We felt like kings. I mean, we definitely didn't look like we belonged anywhere near the Hilton, being just a couple young backpackers that probably looked a little weathered from traveling for almost a couple months, but we sure got excited after seeing how nice this place was. We had a great time relaxing there and getting ready for the festivities that would be taking place later that night. We obviously didn't have much to wear costume-wise, so we had to improvise. We decided that taking a couple of the complimentary bath robes from the hotel room would do, so we sneaked our way out of the hotel and put them on in the metro, on our way to one of the largest clubs in Barcelona. To make it short, this place was nuts. Probably one of the biggest clubs I've ever been in and just a maze of different stages, music, and people everywhere. Of course, Alex and I got separated and ended up getting home at completely different times, each with our own little stories to tell from the night, and it was certainly a great way to kick off our stay in Barcelona.

Beautiful view from Park Guell

The following day was horrible, as expected. Trying to recover from last night, the lack of sleep, and coordinating with the meet up of our hosts and logistics was just kind of a pain in the ass, but we got through it, and boy did it pay off. Our experiences with different hosts just keep getting better and better. I often find it hard to describe how incredible some people can be, and these guys fall into this indescribable category. Patrick and Mireia are quite the couple; inspirational, motivating, genuine, kind, positive, welcoming, and generous are a few words I can use off the top of my head to describe them. After about 15 minutes of introducing ourselves to Mireia (Patrick was working), she handed us a set of keys to their apartment and we had a place to stay and let ourselves in and out of at any time we pleased. This caught me by surprise, that she could suddenly trust us like that. I mean, obviously she could but it's not like she knew us very well at all, which didn't necessarily matter. She was familiar with what kind of community couchsurfing is and what kind of people use this system, and we weren't her first surfers at all. We just hadn't had anything like that happen to us before, and it was definitely a kind gesture for her to do that and we obviously greatly appreciated it.

La Sagrada Familia (with it's beautiful cranes)

I really wish we could've spent more time with these people. They were so busy with their lives in such a great way. They were both working and studying so much, and not just studying for the need, but studying for the desire to learn new things. Both of them were pursuing degrees purely out of their own self interest. They already had degrees and jobs and decided that they just wanted to learn more about certain subjects. So they took more classes and now they're pursuing these extra degrees purely out of interest. I really respected this and it kind of brought the whole education system into perspective for me. Granted it's quite a bit cheaper over there to get a degree; I think they were definitely taking advantage of it, because they could.

What was most impressive and inspiring was Patrick's story. A few years ago, he set out on an adventure of a lifetime and rode his bike around the world. He literally rode his bike around the world and it took him two and a half years to do it. I had so many questions for him and he was an absolute pleasure to talk to about it. He had so much to say, answering our questions and explaining details of the trip to us like it was the first time he spoke about it. I really connected with his adventure and was so moved by what he had to say, not just about the places he went to but the people he encountered, the lessons he learned, and how he views his own life because of it. When you meet people that have experiences like that and have such a positive outlook on everything in life you can feel that energy and connect with it, and it inspires you. A little bit of deep blogging there, but definitely wanted to get that out. I could spend hours typing about things he had to say and how much it inspired me to go around the world someday ;) But it was so great to speak with him about it and hear about his travels.

Aside from again meeting some incredible people, we spent plenty of time seeing the city and getting some of the history behind it all. Of course, Barcelona is an amazing city with a lot to see, a lot of history, and some very scenic views. Other highlights include a spur-of-the-moment hike up a massive hill and coming across a random amusement park at the top, an unexpected 360 degree view of the city that blew our minds at a local park, and walking through a random pikachu-anime-gathering-festival-thing on our way to a museum. I obviously recommend visiting Barcelona for all of it's famous sites as well.

After an incredible time in probably one of the best overall cities in Europe, it was off to another large one on the other side of the Iberian peninsula: Lisbon.

Lyon/Toulouse

And the French travels continue!

Believe it or not, there's actually quite a few other places to see in France outside of Paris. We got our first look of this after we traveled from Paris to Lyon, another large city further South. We scored another great couchsurfing visit in Lyon where we had our first real experience of going out with quite a few of the natives, which turned out to be an amazingly fun time. We arrived in Lyon midday and met up with our host, Vinora, who lived near the center of the city and who graciously took us in for the next few nights during our stay. That very night, somewhat spontaneously, there ended up being a house party at the apartment and a ton of French students came over to come out with us. We hadn't been out with this many of the locals on the trip yet, so it was really exciting to meet so many new people from this totally different culture. They were so excited to speak and practice their English, and we were excited that they were able to speak it! This made for an awesome time of meeting new people and making a few new friends. We went to a really fun little club nearby and had a blast.

The remainder of our time in Lyon was slightly less crazy but still awesome altogether.  I spent my 24th birthday in Lyon! Buuut it was on a Monday so there wasn't too much crazy stuff happening that night, which I was okay with.. I'm getting too old anyways. I did have my first language-barrier-restricted haircut that day, which required me to show past pictures of my hair and attempt to describe something in French which probably made no sense to the hairdresser, so that was fun. We also went to the top of a nearby hill which had a mini Eiffel tower-style radio tower at the top of it, and a church of course. We got some amazing views of the city from up there and discovered that Lyon was much bigger than we thought, even though it hardly compared to the sheer size of Paris, which I was okay with.

Lyon

After taking in some great views of the city (see above) we ended up going to one of my favorite museums of the trip so far. It was a museum that featured some really famous props and models used in some really famous movies. We saw things like Harry Potter's magic wand (used in all of the Harry Potter movies), the wrapper from the Willy Wonka candy bar that contained the golden ticket in the original movie, and the actual mask that V wore in "V for Vendetta." I think our favorite part of the whole museum though was the second exhibit, which featured a bunch of miniature rooms of different places. They weren't all necessarily modeled after anything, but artists would just build a miniature room and make it look super realistic with little miniature objects and furniture lying around in the room. I was overcome with a very strange feeling of happiness when I saw all of these little places, and I wanted to live there, as weird as that sounds.

Another notable thing that happened to us in Lyon was our very first real screw up of the whole trip so far. Long story short, we missed a train. We missed a train and had to stay an extra night in Lyon, but Vinora was kind enough to let us stay the extra night so that we could depart the next day and be on our way.

Toulouse

Our next stop would be our third and final city we would visit in France: Toulouse. I gotta say, I wish we could have spent more time in Toulouse as it's just a beautiful city. It's so much different than Paris and even Lyon. The people were so friendly there, and once again we had another amazing host. Jacques was a really nice guy and made us feel welcome during our short two night stay. Other than walking around and taking a look at this beautiful city, our last night was definitely our favorite part about visiting this place. After gathering some supplies at the grocery store, Jacques cooked dinner for us! A very generous act, and it was delicious. After dinner we had some delicious, moldy French cheese, bread, and red wine. A little bit of that and some Super Smash Bros on Nintendo 64 and we were set for the night, on our way to Barcelona the next day.

At this point in the trip we've spent more time in France than any other country, and I'm very happy with that. I think it's important to realize that France isn't just Paris. And don't get me wrong, Paris is an amazing city, but it's not the only amazing city. I'm so glad we got to see more of this country, and in a way it inspires us to see more of every country. Countries have so many differences in and of themselves, and I think it's important to get that perspective. It gives more meaning to the country as a whole and you get a deeper understanding of the diversity it has with the rest of the world.

Another important travel lesson learned and another blog post to follow this one: Barcelona's up next and we're still in the process of making it happen.

So for now, au revoir!

Paris

Bonjour Mes Amis!

The Louvre

This is the part of the trip where we start to do a lot of French things, like going to Paris. We were in Paris longer than any other city so far, 7 nights. This doesn't sound like the best way to save money; as most of you know Paris isn't the cheapest city in the world.  But thanks to that fantastic little thing called couchsurfing we've been able to do quite a few touristy things while we've been here, while spending quite a bit less than the average person visiting this crazy expensive city. Granted we did have to spend 2 nights in a hostel, every other night was spent with a fantastic host that continues to make the trip that much better. Our first two nights were spent with a host that was just an all around awesome person. Max shared a great passion for music that instantly made our stay awesome and we spent a ton of time getting to know each other, sharing common interests, and just having great conversation. The first night he took us out with some of his friends to a drum and bass gig at an underground club in Paris that was a ton of fun. We couldn't have asked for a better introduction to the city and it's people. We didn't do much sightseeing these first couple days as we were spending most of the weekend with our host and getting ourselves settled in, knowing full well that we'd have plenty of time to go out and see some sights over the next few days.

A new friend

After the second day we parted ways with Max, a new friend gained, and set out to what would be our hostel for the next two nights. The cheapest hostel we could find was between 25 and 30 euros per night, which was quite a bit more pricey than anywhere else we've stayed. The majority of these next two days were spent sightseeing, and we were able to knock out most of the typical sights; the Eiffel Tower (surprise, surprise) which was cool to see again since it was Alex's first time checking it out, the catacombs (super crazy and highly recommended), and a walking tour during a torrential downpour (which probably would have been more fun in the sun). The second day we attempted the impossible, and I'm proud to say that we did it. The Louvre and Versailles in the same day. I don't think I would recommend doing this but I will say that it's doable. We knew that the Louvre was one of the biggest and most famous museums in the world, but we didn't know that it was by far the biggest museum any of us would probably ever go to, and when our tour guide said that if you looked at each piece in the museum for 10 seconds it would take you 3 months to get through it, I don't think we understood. The Louvre is a big museum...like really big. But we did follow some advice and kind of planned out what we wanted to see before going in, which is definitely the best way to go, otherwise you'll be super overwhelmed and you'll definitely end up spending 8 hours there crying, getting lost, and probably never finding your way out, so I'm glad we avoided that scenario.

Gardens of Versailles (featuring a fountain renovation)

We easily spent over 3 hours at The Louvre and easily could have spent a few more. We saw most of the main masterpieces (including the famous painting of a woman) and were very satisfied. Immediately after that we had to start heading to Versailles, which is about 40 min outside Paris by train. We got to Versailles and checked out the palace and gardens, which is pretty much the only thing to see there, but that's good because if there was any more it would be A LOT. We were already feeling pretty sightseeing'd out from the Louvre, but this definitely took the rest out of us. We didn't go into the palace or else we may have collapsed by the end of the day, but it was nonetheless impressive from the outside. The gardens are a site to see by themselves, and as if we hadn't done enough walking that day, we definitely did enough by the time we were done walking through about 2% of those gardens. It's basically the Louvre of all gardens. It's beyond huge, and I'm really glad we made it there and got to see it. We didn't spend too much time there but enough to see most of the general sites in the area. After that, we had to make our way back to Paris to meet up with our next couchsurfing host, whom we found last minute, and we couldn't be happier with the result.

                         

The first thing we did with Jean-Jacques after we met up with him was play squash at the local athletic club that he goes to. I'm not going to say who won (he likes to rub it in) but either way, I was equally impressed with my ability to even stand on two feet after doing The Louvre and Versailles on the same day. It was so cool to play squash (and actually get real exercise) after probably a couple years of not even seeing a court, and we had a ton of fun. After that we were brought to his apartment and once again, had some great conversation and became great friends instantly. He hosted us for the next three nights and we could not have had a better experience. Jean-Jacques was one of the best hosts we've ever had and I don't think I'll forget that couchsurfing experience. When people go above and beyond for someone who they barely even know it's a pretty amazing thing. When people tell me that the French are rude or whenever they go to Paris everyone is so rude to them, I can't help but laugh. I've had quite the opposite experience BOTH times I've been to Paris and I've had some of the best personal connections with other cultures in this city. This has easily been my favorite part of Paris and meeting some of these people, hearing their stories, and sharing experiences with them has far outdone anything that The Louvre or the Eiffel Tower or Versailles could ever do. These experiences are what it's all about, and Alex and I both agree that this is our main goal when we go to these different places, far above any of the sightseeing that we could ever do. The Louvre will never hold enough artwork to provide for the incredible experience of meeting new people from different backgrounds in different parts of the world.

I think that's enough reflection for now, so until next time, au revoir!