We have pictures up from Sam´s camera!
See http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006883&id=1063440494&ref=mf.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Our hop off a moving train in Valencia
We saw the Alhambra, built by the Muslims who ruled Spain and added to by a Christian king. By religious law, the Muslims aren´t allowed to paint or sculpt idols, so the art in the Alhambra is mostly related to geometry. And damn, they were good at geometry.
By coincidence, a girl named Isobel who I met in the Malaga hostel was living in a house right next to my hostel. She came along to the Granada, and she and I chilled and explored the city for the rest of the time in Granada.
We met a lot of people in Granada, actually, mostly at the Makuto Guesthouse (the wonderful hostel in Granada with hammocks and crepes in the morning). There were Jack and Ruby, a couple (going strong after 2 years!) from Britain, Deb, a sassy Southern bell, Carmen, a woman from Barcelona who we all fell in love with, Mel, the witty, brilliant, lesbian filmmaker from South Carolina, Korea, and Estonia, Tracy, from Calgary, which apparently is the Texas of Canada due to the high concentration of cowboys, beef, and oil, and Antee, a guy from Finland who doesn´t say much but sings a passionate Finnish anthem.
I went on a motorcycle scooter tour led by the hostel´s owner´s husband, learning how to ride and hitting 50 kph in the same day. Riding a motorcycle is one of the more exhilarating things you can do. It feels like you´re gliding, almost like skiing.
All in all, I fell in love with Granada: the tiny cobblestone streets through which no cars can drive, the plazas where musicians bang drums and pull accordions, the ancient-looking houses and buildings, the colorful bazaars that dot the roads, even the beautiful graffiti on the walls. But after three days, our time was up, and we were off to Valencia.
These trains don´t get any easier. Due to shoddy planning, we took a night train. We decided that instead of sleeping on the night train, as normal people might, we would spend the travel time partying and sleep at the hostel.
The train ride consisted of eating, an intense game of hearts we played with two Canadian girls named Kirsten and Beatrice, and a little sleeping. Until we hit the first of two Valencia stations, it was largely uneventful.
We rolled into Valencia about 30 minutes late (5;30 a.m.). The train stopped. We walked to the front of the car, and the guy in front of us opened the door. He left the train, and we followed. John stepped off, and the train started rolling forward. I was baffled. Was the train fine-tuning? Was it a parallel-parking train? It was picking up speed, though. I jumped off. Sam came a second later. At that moment, I realized two things. The train was leaving, and we were the only people who had gotten off.
¨Get back on,¨I yelled to Sam.
¨No, stay here,¨John yelled.
Sam stutter-stepped, but it didn´t matter. The train was gone.
The guy we had followed turned out to be an American from Newport Beach, as clueless as we were. It all worked out, though. We took a cheap taxi to the hostel and slept.
I woke up around one in the afternoon. In my boxers, I took in the Valencia scene from the balcony. I looked to my left, and saw another shirtless guy on his room´s balcony. His name was James.
¨Yeah, I got in at five on a train from Granada,¨I said. ¨You just wake up too?¨
¨Yeah, I got in around six or seven from clubbing,¨he said. ¨Late night.¨
I bet. Before I went to bed, I saw him hooking up with another guy near a bar down the street.
By coincidence, a girl named Isobel who I met in the Malaga hostel was living in a house right next to my hostel. She came along to the Granada, and she and I chilled and explored the city for the rest of the time in Granada.
We met a lot of people in Granada, actually, mostly at the Makuto Guesthouse (the wonderful hostel in Granada with hammocks and crepes in the morning). There were Jack and Ruby, a couple (going strong after 2 years!) from Britain, Deb, a sassy Southern bell, Carmen, a woman from Barcelona who we all fell in love with, Mel, the witty, brilliant, lesbian filmmaker from South Carolina, Korea, and Estonia, Tracy, from Calgary, which apparently is the Texas of Canada due to the high concentration of cowboys, beef, and oil, and Antee, a guy from Finland who doesn´t say much but sings a passionate Finnish anthem.
I went on a motorcycle scooter tour led by the hostel´s owner´s husband, learning how to ride and hitting 50 kph in the same day. Riding a motorcycle is one of the more exhilarating things you can do. It feels like you´re gliding, almost like skiing.
All in all, I fell in love with Granada: the tiny cobblestone streets through which no cars can drive, the plazas where musicians bang drums and pull accordions, the ancient-looking houses and buildings, the colorful bazaars that dot the roads, even the beautiful graffiti on the walls. But after three days, our time was up, and we were off to Valencia.
These trains don´t get any easier. Due to shoddy planning, we took a night train. We decided that instead of sleeping on the night train, as normal people might, we would spend the travel time partying and sleep at the hostel.
The train ride consisted of eating, an intense game of hearts we played with two Canadian girls named Kirsten and Beatrice, and a little sleeping. Until we hit the first of two Valencia stations, it was largely uneventful.
We rolled into Valencia about 30 minutes late (5;30 a.m.). The train stopped. We walked to the front of the car, and the guy in front of us opened the door. He left the train, and we followed. John stepped off, and the train started rolling forward. I was baffled. Was the train fine-tuning? Was it a parallel-parking train? It was picking up speed, though. I jumped off. Sam came a second later. At that moment, I realized two things. The train was leaving, and we were the only people who had gotten off.
¨Get back on,¨I yelled to Sam.
¨No, stay here,¨John yelled.
Sam stutter-stepped, but it didn´t matter. The train was gone.
The guy we had followed turned out to be an American from Newport Beach, as clueless as we were. It all worked out, though. We took a cheap taxi to the hostel and slept.
I woke up around one in the afternoon. In my boxers, I took in the Valencia scene from the balcony. I looked to my left, and saw another shirtless guy on his room´s balcony. His name was James.
¨Yeah, I got in at five on a train from Granada,¨I said. ¨You just wake up too?¨
¨Yeah, I got in around six or seven from clubbing,¨he said. ¨Late night.¨
I bet. Before I went to bed, I saw him hooking up with another guy near a bar down the street.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
An all-natural workout
Billy, the unbelievably friendly, smart, and witty English guy with whom we went to dinner, has become the mythical protector of the trip. Whenever a problem arises, a risk is on the horizon, or we lose ourselves in the city, his holy name is invoked. Billy, if you are reading this, um, don’t freak out. But we just love you. And bow down to you every so often.
Everyone in
The night after the discoteca, we stayed in the hostel and found ourselves in a legit kickback. We met a woman from Denmark, Stina, who had graduated waitressing school, which is a three-year deal in Denmark, her boyfriend Jen, who camped in Brazil and had dreadlocks, and Julia, a girl from Australia who was travelling like we are.
A day later, we visited John’s former Spanish teacher’s friend, a teacher herself. She lived in a quintessential Spanish Mediterranean apartment overlooking the beach and the city. They served us pasta, we slept on the living room floor, and we woke up to a typical Spanish breakfast. For those of you don’t know (I was one of those in the dark), a typical Spanish breakfast is even more minimal than frosted flakes. It’s coffee. Nada mas. When Helen, our host, enlightened me, I feigned delight. I imagined myself on top of a hill looking over a sea of coffee, yelling, ¨NO, NO! Billy, save me!¨
The next night (last night), we went out for drinks with two Dutch girls. We wanted to go clubbing again, but yesterday was laundry day, and John was wearing his only clean outfit, including shiny white polyester basketball shorts.
¨Those shorts. No,¨ bouncers said.
¨Why not?¨ John asked one in Spanish.
¨Those are for basketball. You can wear those if you want to play basketball inside.¨
¨Can I play basketball inside?¨
¨No.¨
The bars were more accepting.
All in all,
Today, we took a bus to
Unfortunately, I could not find my camera while packing up in
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Train-hop to Malaga
We came to the train station early to get tickets for what we thought was a 3:30 train to Malaga. We soon realized that there was a 12:10 train for Malaga. Thinking it might be the only one, we ran hard. Panting, we jumped onto our train at 12:08. It left two minutes later.
Malaga is beautiful. The streets are sandy from the beach, the buildings all have Mediterranean flair, and the food is awesome and cheap. We want to live in this perfect beach town.
Malaga was first a Phoenician trading colony. Later, it was the chief port of the Emirate of Granada (Muslim rule in Spain). During the civil war, it was a Republican stronghold before Italian planes bombed the city to pieces and Nationalist sympthasers were killed in 1937. Today, it is a Eurotrip playground.
We keep meeting fascinating people. At the beach, we met three Spanish girls, and we spoke in broken Spanish, and they spoke in broken English. We went out to dinner with a friendly English guy named Billy. He once was Muslim but had thrown off religion and become an atheist.
He showed us the best local discoteca, and we danced the night away. In the morning, a hostel worker came into the room saying we needed to get up so that they could change the sheets. We had slept through breakfast. It was after noon. But thats (I cant find the apostrophe on this European keyboard) life right now; we have no schedule, we wake up when we please, rest when we get lazy, and improvise each days itinerary. Today, we may go to the bull-fighting museum, or the beach (which stays light past 8:30), or both.
Malaga is beautiful. The streets are sandy from the beach, the buildings all have Mediterranean flair, and the food is awesome and cheap. We want to live in this perfect beach town.
Malaga was first a Phoenician trading colony. Later, it was the chief port of the Emirate of Granada (Muslim rule in Spain). During the civil war, it was a Republican stronghold before Italian planes bombed the city to pieces and Nationalist sympthasers were killed in 1937. Today, it is a Eurotrip playground.
We keep meeting fascinating people. At the beach, we met three Spanish girls, and we spoke in broken Spanish, and they spoke in broken English. We went out to dinner with a friendly English guy named Billy. He once was Muslim but had thrown off religion and become an atheist.
He showed us the best local discoteca, and we danced the night away. In the morning, a hostel worker came into the room saying we needed to get up so that they could change the sheets. We had slept through breakfast. It was after noon. But thats (I cant find the apostrophe on this European keyboard) life right now; we have no schedule, we wake up when we please, rest when we get lazy, and improvise each days itinerary. Today, we may go to the bull-fighting museum, or the beach (which stays light past 8:30), or both.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Welcomed by Living on a Prayer and Palaces
Los Amigos Backpacker´s Hostel has clean rooms, clean bathrooms, clean showers, free breakfast, fast internet, and outrageously kind people staying in its room. We love it.
I had my first chorizo (Spanish type of sausage) last night. Not that exotic, but pretty good. Like salami.
Our sleeping arrangements were great, except a strangely good American pop band was playing just outside our doors. I went to bed with the sounds of ¨Living life on a prayer¨ringing inside my head.
¨Oh-oh, we´ll make it I swear. Oh-oh, living life on a prayer.¨ It was a real Welcome to Madrid moment.
Sam and I woke up early and decided to jog. I persuaded him that he could jog in his boxers, and he persuaded me that I could jog in my boxers and give him my shorts. We stumbled upon the Royal Palace and its two huge gardens, where horse-drawn buggies were setting up. It was another Welcome to Madrid moment.
After the jog, I found out why my breakfast is free. It´s bread and cereal, but there´s only whole milk, and not enough of it, so I had frosted flakes in water by my second bowl. Actually, it was pretty good. And we met two awesome English girls, their first night in Spain as well. We may meet them to go clubbing.
We can go anywhere in the city for one Euro using the Metro. Today, we saw the Prado, one of the most beautiful and overwhelmingly well-stocked museums I´ve ever seen, a gallery of Man Ray, a fabulous surrealist/bizarre-ist photographer/painter/sculpter, and a Naval Museum where Sam fell in love with antique guns.
We meet people everywhere, and all of them are nice. John, who is fluent, charms every older Spanish woman we pass. Sam and I are getting our old Spanish skills back, too. I am proud of my ability to explain to a Spanish woman on my jog that her schauzer looked like mine except that mine had blanco in addition to negro.
Tonight, we searched long and hard for a market, a type of store that apparently doesn´t exist in Spain. We found a 7/11 type store and bought ham, crackers, fruit, and grape juice.
We hit the playground, shared deep secrets, and headed to the paella place we had seen earlier in the day. It was closed, but we improvised, and ended up having a fancy duck and seabass dinner (our grad presents to oursevles).
We walked to the Sol (the central part of Madrid), found a blues bar, walked in, clapped along, chatted up the locals, learned how to eat sunflower seeds (they thought Americans didn´t know how, that sunflower seeds were somehow a Spanish tradition foreign to us, and we played along), and listened to the surprisingly good guitar and harmonica. We clapped hard on our way out, shouting ¨Arriba.¨ Clapping, singing, and giving in to our homoerotic tendencies, we headed home.
I had my first chorizo (Spanish type of sausage) last night. Not that exotic, but pretty good. Like salami.
Our sleeping arrangements were great, except a strangely good American pop band was playing just outside our doors. I went to bed with the sounds of ¨Living life on a prayer¨ringing inside my head.
¨Oh-oh, we´ll make it I swear. Oh-oh, living life on a prayer.¨ It was a real Welcome to Madrid moment.
Sam and I woke up early and decided to jog. I persuaded him that he could jog in his boxers, and he persuaded me that I could jog in my boxers and give him my shorts. We stumbled upon the Royal Palace and its two huge gardens, where horse-drawn buggies were setting up. It was another Welcome to Madrid moment.
After the jog, I found out why my breakfast is free. It´s bread and cereal, but there´s only whole milk, and not enough of it, so I had frosted flakes in water by my second bowl. Actually, it was pretty good. And we met two awesome English girls, their first night in Spain as well. We may meet them to go clubbing.
We can go anywhere in the city for one Euro using the Metro. Today, we saw the Prado, one of the most beautiful and overwhelmingly well-stocked museums I´ve ever seen, a gallery of Man Ray, a fabulous surrealist/bizarre-ist photographer/painter/sculpter, and a Naval Museum where Sam fell in love with antique guns.
We meet people everywhere, and all of them are nice. John, who is fluent, charms every older Spanish woman we pass. Sam and I are getting our old Spanish skills back, too. I am proud of my ability to explain to a Spanish woman on my jog that her schauzer looked like mine except that mine had blanco in addition to negro.
Tonight, we searched long and hard for a market, a type of store that apparently doesn´t exist in Spain. We found a 7/11 type store and bought ham, crackers, fruit, and grape juice.
We hit the playground, shared deep secrets, and headed to the paella place we had seen earlier in the day. It was closed, but we improvised, and ended up having a fancy duck and seabass dinner (our grad presents to oursevles).
We walked to the Sol (the central part of Madrid), found a blues bar, walked in, clapped along, chatted up the locals, learned how to eat sunflower seeds (they thought Americans didn´t know how, that sunflower seeds were somehow a Spanish tradition foreign to us, and we played along), and listened to the surprisingly good guitar and harmonica. We clapped hard on our way out, shouting ¨Arriba.¨ Clapping, singing, and giving in to our homoerotic tendencies, we headed home.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Becca's beach party pics
My Girl never sounded better.
Sam, in the background - a lizard with a zest for life? 
Becca like sandwiches. For more beach party pics, go to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006462&page=2&id=1063440067
For even more beach party pics, go to
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006561&page=2&id=1063440064
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Beach party
Last night, we went to the beach near the Chart House. We played football. No one knows who won, but Adam showed ability as a linebacker, slamming into my thigh and Izzy's body. Lucas mixed drinks, namely lemonade and orange juice, and brought the most gourmet salad any beach party has ever witnessed, becoming master chef of the night.
Ten fingers happened. We can pretend it didn't.
Lucas, Sammy and I went skinny-dipping, and two anonymous girls jumped in sans tops. Hailey, Sam, Izzy and Alex were voyeurs.
We went back to the towels, finished the food, and cleaned up. The sentimental air that had hovered above the party for most of the night amped up during the last half our. We whispered our goodbyes, a few of them tearful.
Those who slept at my house got a window into the Sammy's bizarre definition of "girl talk," including, "Which President would you most like to be?" and "Which President would you most like to fuck?" FDR.
The moon was full during the party, and its reflections on the choppy water looked like a white path out into the world over the dark sea. I tried to swim to the end of the path when I was skinny-dipping, but friends on the beach called me back. Hailey made me promise not to kill myself.
On Sunday, I'll take bigger steps on that uneven path. My loved ones will be 6000 miles away, a good distance more than the 60 feet that separated us tonight. Still, I think they'll be watching me, and that's comforting. And I'm glad I took my first steps into this wild adventure with you guys.
Ten fingers happened. We can pretend it didn't.
Lucas, Sammy and I went skinny-dipping, and two anonymous girls jumped in sans tops. Hailey, Sam, Izzy and Alex were voyeurs.
We went back to the towels, finished the food, and cleaned up. The sentimental air that had hovered above the party for most of the night amped up during the last half our. We whispered our goodbyes, a few of them tearful.
Those who slept at my house got a window into the Sammy's bizarre definition of "girl talk," including, "Which President would you most like to be?" and "Which President would you most like to fuck?" FDR.
The moon was full during the party, and its reflections on the choppy water looked like a white path out into the world over the dark sea. I tried to swim to the end of the path when I was skinny-dipping, but friends on the beach called me back. Hailey made me promise not to kill myself.
On Sunday, I'll take bigger steps on that uneven path. My loved ones will be 6000 miles away, a good distance more than the 60 feet that separated us tonight. Still, I think they'll be watching me, and that's comforting. And I'm glad I took my first steps into this wild adventure with you guys.
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