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!