Travel Tales #3: The Rest of It

Wow, I apologize, I know you all (I have 12 followers!) have been on the edge of your seats for eight days now. I didn't get to finish before I left on my other trip, to London, which I will have to write about after I finish this one. So...from Marseille to...

NICE: April 15-16
The first and most memorable part of Nice was our hostel. We'd had a long day of traveling when we arrived, only to find that the hostel had booked us for MAY 15, not April. Ruh roh. So they took us to some "over-flow" room in the basement. It smelled like sewage. And somehow, I loved this hostel more than any other. Why? The two-story bar, of course! They open the door for us to show us around and the first thing we see is this ginormous common room. Couches, coffee tables, a bar, computers...and tons of people. It was incredible. I thought I had walked into some kind of club or bar or something. We promptly discovered that pints of beer were only 1 euro, and a made-to-order pizza was 5. Plus, the 2 euro brownies were the bomb. Seriously, I felt so comfortable, so relaxed there. And all for 16 euros a night--the least I paid the whole trip. It was awesome.

Really, we didn't see that much of Nice itself. There was a flower market and the ocean. Instead we opted for a day trip. First, along the coast, was a beautiful little town called Ville Franche. We saw a pretty neat fort, but it was raining the whole day. Kinda sucked. We got some pretty sweet pictures though. Just a small fishing village in the south of France, you know!

On to Monaco. If you haven't heard of Monaco, it's the wealthiest country in the world (by income per capita, I believe), and it shows. Technically, there's something like 30,000 people but I'm pretty sure they all drive ridiculous cars. It was like a topless beach...you try not to gawk, but damn! Haha, for real though, Bentleys, Aston Martins, Ferraris, Rolls Royces...the BMWs and Benzes were "cute" in comparison.

The Monte Carlo casino is the setting for "007 Casino Royale," I believe. We didn't get to go in, it was closed for some special celebrity event or something. We saw the royal palace. Mostly, we just walked around and can say we went to Monaco, the little principality in the south of France clinging to its independence. Wikipedia says it takes 56 minutes to walk from one side of the "country" to the other, and that's just about right. And we just about did it. Other fun facts about Monaco: the reason for its wealth is the fact that there are no income taxes. For this, some of Europe's wealthiest people move to Monaco. Also, it's the most densely populated country in the world. Think about it...32,000 people in 0.7 square miles. That's not a typo.

VENICE: April 17-18
We didn't have much time in Nice and thereabouts because it took about 6 hours on the train to get to Venice, our next destination. It seemed like it took forever.

Venice was a nice change of pace. We stayed in a campground; no tents, but little campers. It was actually really sweet. No crowded, loud hostels, just Abby, Adam, and I in the wilderness outside of Venice (which is an island, you should know). Truthfully, I wasn't expecting much from the city (it wasn't my idea to go, I just went along), but I was pleasantly surprised. The streets of water really are cool. We didn't take a gondola ride, per se, but Adam and I did find one and hopped on to take some pictures! The caption should read: "I'm on a boat!" So funny.

We met up with our other friend Robbie, who had just come in from Rome, and we spent the afternoon with him. We basically just screwed around the whole time in Venice, walking around the windy maze of sidewalks along the water without a map, taking pictures of whatever we thought was funny at the time, stopping for gelato several times. Good times. I can see it being a romantic place, but our experience was far from that.

From there, Adam and Robbie stayed in Italy for a few days (they found a cheap flight later in the week), and Abby and I moved on toward Spain once again (we found a cheap flight for the next day). That's kind of how traveling goes here, at least with my group of friends. You find cheap transportation, get someone to go with you, and book it. You can figure out the details later! But when you find a flight for 30 euros, you don't let it go.

COMO: April 19
This was definitely a last minute thing. Abby and I had a flight out of Bergamo (30 minutes out of Milan) the next day, but nowhere to stay. Milan is expensive, Bergamo was full...we met a guy at our hostel in Nice who mentioned Lake Como as a nice place, and it was only an hour away from Bergamo. So we bought train tickets to Como and went!

We get there, this tiny-ass town in northern Italy, 10 minutes from Switzerland, and we have no idea what we're doing. We found the name of a hostel in my travel book, so we get off the train and walk around and try to find it. No reservations or anything! Well, that task proved to be much harder than it seemed. In the process, we end up getting caged into some closed-of courtyard. There's a small square surrounded by buildings on three sides and a tall gate on the other. We walk through the gate nonchalantly...BAM. It slams behind us. We realize we're in the wrong place and turn to leave. Uh oh. We are seriously locked in. It wouldn't even open from the inside! Unbelievable. We start ringing the few doorbells there are in the surrounding buiildings. Nada. We can't believe the sequence of events that just occured, and after 10 minutes we decide the only option is to jump the fence. Right as Abby attempts to hoist herself over, the electric gate mysteriously opens. We just look at each other in shock. Then our eyes dart up to the windows. Someone HAD to be watching us, had to. And laughing. But in the end it appears they had mercy, and pressed some sort of button to let us out. Thanks!

Overall, Como sucked. I like my Como (Columbia, MO) better. Plus, it was raining. Never helps. After we finally make it to the hostel, we don't know what to do. This was basically just a stop between Venice and flying home. The lady at the front desk says Switzerland is a 10 minute bus ride away, and our ears perk up. An hour later, we are sitting in a Swiss coffee shop, eating Swiss chocolate. I can now say I've been to Switzerland. For 53 minutes.

Really, that's about it. We got up the next morning, caught the wrong train, ended up in Milan instead of Bergamo, got on another wrong train intentionally to get back on track, and magically arrived at the airport in Bergamo. After a shaky plane ride, my feet touched the ground in Alicante for the first time in 15 days, and it almost felt good. We get on the bus back to downtown where we live and pay the busdriver. "Grazie," Abby said. "Merci," I said. We look at each other and laugh. It was quite a trip.

Travel Tales #2: Most of France

After saying goodbyes and walking the girls to the subway terminal in Barcelona, it was me on my own again. I was actually really sad; it had been so nice to be with family again, and all of a sudden it hit me that I wouldn't see them again until June. But I had another nine days of traveling to do! So I grabbed a Fruit & Yogurt from McDonald's (I'm addicted...and for just one euro!) and went to meet my friend Adam down in the Gothic quarter. He had been there for two days and we had plane tickets to Paris that evening.

Adam was all about saving money, like making sandwiches for lunch instead of going out, for example. This was fine by me...I had just withdrawn my maximum ATM limit for seven straight days! But he was prepared, let me tell you. He pulled out bread, a small jar of peanut butter, and a metal butter knife from his man-purse. Haha, I remember when he bought that thing in Granada on a previous trip, and it's still as goofy as it was then, but it proved to be very useful in the upcoming days so I refrained from commenting on it.

After a makeshift lunch we head to the airport, and the first thing we do after checking in is seek out the guard at airport security and ask about several items in Adam's "murse," as I call it. She seemed amused.

"How about...this?" We pull out the jar of peanut butter. Surprisingly, it passes.
"OK, what about....this?" Metal corkscrew is a no-no. So is the butter knife. Damn.
"Alright, one more...this?" His metal flask. It can go, as long as it is empty. Adam and I turn to each other and laugh. We knew what was ahead of us.

Fifteen minutes later, the 7 ounces of scotch had been mysteriously removed (consumed) from his flask, and we were clear to go! I then proceeded to lose my boarding pass in the 100 meters between security and the bathroom, and vowed never to pre-game another flight with scotch. It's ok, I made it on the plane and we arrived in Paris two hours later.

PARIS April 10-12
It took us 10 euros and an hour and a half to get from the airport to our hostel. Right off the bat, I noticed how much more diverse France was as opposed to Spain. The population was no longer boring and homogeneous. Plus, I saw actual houses for the first time since I left home--real houses!! I'm not sure if houses are even built in Spain, all I see is tiny pisos stacked on top of restaurants and businesses.

By the time we checked-in to the overpriced (like everything in Paris) hostel and found some dinner, it was bed time.

I'm still trying to figure out how we saw so much the next day. Adam went to Musee D'Orsay per my sister's suggestion, but I was turned off by the lines. And the fact that it was a museum. I'd much rather spend three hours walking around and getting a feel for the city than standing in line, then trudging through a museum. So I walked around and took pictures and met Adam three hour laters. No hard feelings.

From there, we basically hit up all the postcard items in Paris. Eiffel Tower (with a nutella crepe, of course!). It was actually bigger than I thought. The line was ridiculous (kind of the theme of Paris), and we had more stuff to see, so we moved on. Arc de Triomph was very cool. Champs Elysees (We walked the entire thing!). All the way down to the garden leading up to the Louvre. By that time we were exhausted, so we would have to see the rest the next day.

Well, the next day was Easter, so we rightfully started off in Moulin Rouge. "Hey, guys, free show! You want to look? Come take a look, it's free." Uh...dude, it's 10am on Easter, I think I'll pass on the porn for now, thanks anyway though. I did take a picture of the windmill though.

Sacre Couer was close, and it's supposed to be a big thing to see in Paris, so we saw it. Meh. The view was cool.

Another nutella crepe held me over on the way to Notre Dame, where we repented by going in and hearing an organ "more-than-one-song-not-quite-concert" thing for a bit. Who else can say they went to Notre Dame on Easter?? Well, other than the thousands of people that were there with me...

Centre Pompidou, Place de la Bastille, more pictures...I can't really do Paris justice in words. I enjoyed it a lot, but it was mostly go see this and go see that. So pictures are the best way to explain. It was a little touristy for me, which probably had something to do with the fact that we went over Easter, but it was definitely a beautiful city. One more night, then it was on to Lyon to meet up with our friend Abby.

LYON April 13-14
My sister studied in Lyon for a semester, so I was eager to see what it was like. I must say...Alicante is better! Lyon and Alicante are similar actually; a few things to go and see, kind of a cool city to walk around in, but in Lyon there was no lively barrio and no beach. Yeesh. Once we checked into our hostel, we got some food and started pre-gaming for the Lyon party scene. Well, the party scene in Lyon is dark and quiet. I had to stop and ask a restaurant worker where the bars were. "What bars?" he said. "The ones with people," I replied. After 15 minutes of wandering the streets by ourselves, we went back to our hostel and finished the rest of our bottle and went to sleep. Real cool, Lyon, real cool.

Who knew that Lyon, France was an important city in the Roman Empire? We found (other people had found them before, obviously) these ruins from a Roman theater up on the hill/mountain leading up to the basilique. They were from the 4th century or something ridiculous like that. Trippy. The "Notre Dame" of Lyon didn't really compare to the one in Paris, obviously, or the Sagrada Familia. Cathedral visits would only be disappointing from this point on.

We treated ourselves to an authentic French meal and got the menu of the day. I had some sort of tasty meat, and Adam and Abby both ordered the casserole. Which turned out to be a bbucket of mussels. Immediately after, we did what should have been done days ago and bought a French-English dictionary. I can't begin to explain to you how hard it is to order at a restaurant when you don't know what the menu says. I did pick up some basic french though, and started to say all of my English sentences with a bad French accent. I thought it was funny. My friends and the citizens of France did not.

MARSEILLE April 14
We made an afternoon trip here on the way to Nice, our next destination, in the south of France. Marseille deserves more than four hours, but it was better than nothing. Again, the diversity shocked me. It was the most diverse place I've ever been. No two people walking down the sidewalk looked alike. It was pretty incredible.

We ordered kebaps and somehow managed to avoid getting food poisoning. Those places are sketch, man, but they're so good. Walked to a WWII museum. Everything was in French. We left. Walked up to another cathedral/basilique/whatever. Meh...I've seen so many of those things, but the view was awesome. In the distance you could see Chateau d'If, the prison-island from The Count of Monte Cristo. Never read the book, just heard about it.

That was about all we had time for in Mar-say. On to Nice, which would prove to be one of my favorite parts of the trip. But I'll save that for tomorrow. Enjoy!

Travel Tales #1: Mallorca/Barcelona

Hola amigos! I have returned from my 15-day, 9-city excursion through western Europe and am dying to share with you all. My trip was so massive that I will have to divide my story-telling into a few different parts, so I hope I can get it all in before I leave again for London on Thursday! After that, I think my traveling will be over.

This will be the first two cities: Palma, Mallorca and Barcelona.

PALMA: April 5-7
It was so so good to see my sister and mom. Thanks so much for coming to visit me, and I hope you guys had as much fun as I did. After Friday night and Saturday in Alicante, we left for Palma, the capital of Mallorca, the biggest of Spain's Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean.

Truthfully, Palma itself was a little disappointing. The beach was a 20-minute bus-ride away, but we still managed to find ourselves drinking tall boys and looking out at the Mediterreanean. Also, we discovered God's gift to Spain: 3.50 euro sangria. We enjoyed it immensely...several times.

Palma had the biggest church I had ever seen (until I went to Barcelona and Paris), and Mom actually went in it while Bri and I decided we'd rather find an internet cafe. No regrets. I've seen so many churches in the past few weeks I feel like I never have to go to church again!

The coolest part of Mallorca for me was the day trip by train to Soller, a town in the northern part of the island famous for its oranges apparently. Everything was orange flavored, and we picked up a bottle of their orange liquer before we headed out. The train ticket was steep, by my standards, at least, but I'm glad the girls didn't let me wuss out.

In sum, Mallorca was definitely relaxing, and I really enjoyed spending time with the fam. But Barcelona was so much better...

BARCELONA: April 7-10
Barcelona is my favorite city. It is huge, and there is so much to do, so we opted for a two-day tour bus pass so we could hit everything. Good call, Bri! So that's what we did...saw everything! We ran around the city all day, every day, trying to take in the sites. Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Familia is absolutely stunning. I had learned about it in my Spanish class back home, so I'm glad I got to see it in person. Construction started, what, 100 years ago? No, seriously. They're still working on it, 80 years after Gaudí died, and it's supposed to be finished, well, between 2020 and 2050, depending on the source. My guess would be never.

Paying 9 euro to go inside and basically see a construction site wasn't that great, but I'm glad we went in. The detail is incredible, and you can't see everything from the street. This thing is gigantic, and I think it's supposed to seat 20,000. The pillars are like tree trunks in the rain forest. It really was incredible.

Gaudí basically owns Barcelona; it seemed like every other building was done by him, and there were lines of people out the door at all of them. Weird architecture. Crazy, intricate patterns. Kind of like if Dr. Seuss constructed buildings.

A site on the bus tour was Camp Nou. For all of you non-soccer (football, as I call it now) fans out there, it's the biggest stadium in Europe, second biggest in the world, and home of Barcelona F.C., my favorite team and arguably the best in the world right now. The second night we were there they were playing Bayern Munich in the Champions League, basically the World Cup of club teams in Europe. When we got to the stadium, I decided to just see if there were any tickets available...only singles scattered throughout. Well, I was approached by a scalper who had three tickets and after consulting with the girls, we decided to fork over the ridiculous amount of money (really ridiculous) and just do it. Once-in-a-lifetime, priceless. Just bite the bullet and give the man your money. So I found an ATM, withdrew my maximum amount, then proceeded to hand it directly to the scalper. Gulp. But the tickets were ours after half an hour of debate and conversation about the legitimacy of the tickets, rules for entering the stadium, etc.

That night we returned to the stadium and it was electric. The attendance was announced at 93,000. I saw some of the world's best soccer players right in front of me. Barcelona absolutely destroyed Bayern, 4-0, and all four goals were scored on the goal right in front of us. It was nuts. I'm so glad I got to go; not many people can say they've been to a European football match. I can!

There's more in Barcelona than I have time to explain, but the fruit market was sweet! It was ginormous and filled with fresh fruit, meat, cheese, and more fruit. We gathered up a breakfast there. Saw the Olympic Village from 1992, a statue of Chrstopher Columbus pointing to 'Merica, the Miró museum (which I actually enjoyed for the first 30 minutes!), etc. Ate Thai food and way-too-expensive paella, but it was so worth it. Best I've ever had.

Truly, I just really enjoyed being with my mom and sister and didn't realize how much I missed them until I actually got to see them again. And Bri and I aren't in the same place for more than a few days very often, so I was happy. I think we probably wore Mom out with our bombardment of jokes, but she's used to it. Plus, she always joins in after a few cups of sangria ;) Very sad to see them go, but we all knew it had to end and we had to go our separate ways. Bri back to Chicago, Mom back home...and for myself, on to Paris!

Whew! So much to say...

Hola Tyson-followers!

I apologize for the lack of activity on here recently...for this, I have much to say. I left you with the cliffhanger of picking up Kelsey in Madrid. I'm sad to say that it's been a whole two weeks since then, and one week since she left me for another three months.

I was so proud of my never-been-out-of-the-country-before girlfriend finding her way into my arms in Madrid. International travel isn't easy, and when you finally arrive to your destination, you feel like you've accomplished something! Anyway, Kels and I stayed in a great hostel in a busy part of Madrid. The subway system there is fantastic, and we bought a pass to zip around the city. (View from hostel)

The thing about Madrid is that, to me, there aren't a bunch of "must-see" sights; it's a bunch of old buildings and open plazas. Ok, well I guess that's my general experience of Spain so far too. So we just walked around to different areas mentioned in my handy dandy travel book and experienced the city that way. We walked and walked and walked, and poor Kels, just having arrived from home, got dragged along in a semi-conscious, state of jet lag. Every couple hours, she had to stop and nap, but then we caffeinated up and were off once again! Oh, and we saw Europe's oldest flea market...until the swarms of people made us decide to leave 15 minutes later.--->

And we felt obligated to go to at least ONE museum...so we did the Prado in an hour. On Sunday, when it was free :) It was boring. We saw old paintings and Greek sculptures. We're not museum people. The most interesting thing we saw there was actually a guy in a Mizzou shirt! We were shocked, so of course I went up and said "Hey, you're from Mizzou too? That's cool! What's up?" I mean seriously, what are the chances? Well, at first it was as if he didn't speak English. Then he kind of mumbled something like "uh huh," and that was that. What a jerk! A kU shirt would have suited him better. (Prado-->)

After a weekend in Madrid, we set off to my "home" in Alicante. Kels was nervous to meet my host family and I had to mentally prepare her. "If you don't like it, you should still eat it all," "You can say whatever you want about them, because they don't understand English," etc. All in all, they got along through my constant translations. It was nice because the girl I live with from Germany speaks English (even though we speak Spanish to each other), so Kelsey had someone else to talk to.

Alicante is just a city and a beach. The weather wasn't great but nice enough to get out for a little bit. I had to go to a few classes, so she got to see what I have to go through everyday! Well actually, she just played around on my computer. At the end of class she said, "I have no idea what just happened," and we went and had lunch.

One of the highlights of the trip was going up to the castle. It's a hike, lemme tell ya, but it's worth it. We didn't plan it, but we saw the sunset at the top, which I hadn't done before. The views are incredible.

So I introduced her to my friends, we went out to a club, did the whole barrio scene...all in all a good time. The best part was just being together SOMEWHERE for the first time in three months. But I'm happy because she said she liked Alicante better than Madrid. I think I actually agree.

It was so sad to say goodbye again in the Madrid airport a week later. Maybe even harder than the first time. I had such a great time, and I remember now how much I miss home.
But enough with the sappyness. I thought it was interesting that she pointed out all of the things that Ive gotten used to here...and I realized how much I hate them. "Wow, the people on thebus kind of stink." Ha, yeah, I guess you're right. They do smell! "Geez, people don't know how to walk on sidewalks here!" Yeah, they are incredibly rude, aren't they? And so on and so forth. Kind of funny, kind of sad that I'm used to it. Meh.

After saying goodbye, it was on to a crazy week for me. I haven't been understanding what's been going on in my econ class, and I had lots of homework to do. Also, I moved out of my homestay Thursday and into a new piso with a German and a French guy (Frenchie? Frenchman?) Plus, I studied all week and squeezed in a midterm for my online class before break, got my hair cut for the first time since January, and made hostel reservations for the weeks to come. Whew, I'm worn out. My mom and sister are getting here tonight, and thus begins my 15-day travel extravaganza. I'm excited to see them, of course, but I'm also excited to travel! Sunday we leave for Palma, Mallorca (one of Spain's Balearic Islands), which will be sweet. Then Tuesday it's on to Barcelona for three days. They leave Friday, and I'm meeting up with a friend in Paris. After a weekend there, we're meeting up with another friend in Lyon by train. From Lyon to Nice to Venice (where we meet up with friend #4) to Milan and home again.

I'll be gone from the 5th through the 20th, and I'm living out of a backpack. Should be interesting. Since airline restrictions only give me 10kg/22lbs, my poor little MacBook will probably have to sit this one out. Sorry guy! In the meantime, I'll do my best to take pictures, remember the cool stuff I saw, and have fun. See you in two weeks! Adios! Besos!