A comfortable train provided the transportation to Madrid for our flight back to the states. However, we caught the sunset on the way back. An appropriate culmination to a great trip.
Jay and Joe
Sunday, June 28, 2009
On our way to this crazy party, we meet up with some more of Salud's friends at a college cafe.
I can only begin to explain the beach party in words. You must check out the Video. I would guess there to be 750,000 people on this beach, but who knows it might have been 2 million.
We dance, drink, and jump over the bonfires until 6 am. A great time.
In preparation for La Noche de San Joan beach party, we spend the evening in the City. Jay's terror of heights and rotating objects is obvious when we scale the old tower.
We meet up with Juan, Brett and Salud's friend from Xavier who also hails from Valencia, and tour the park that used to be a river. They have orange trees in the park.
Wow, what a day. We wake up at the beach condo and spend the morning at the beach. Jay beats Joe in a beach footrace. The race has an asterisk however, as a guy got in Joe's way.
Francesc, Salud's 17 year old brother, joined us at the beach. We taught him American curses. Francesc wants to study abroad in America.
We take the train up to Valencia where we tour the old and new town. Valencia is beautiful and very clean. We go into the Cathedral where we see the supposed "Holy Grail" and also a guy's arm from like six hundred years ago. A kind priest shoots the shit with us.
We get up early to tour the city of Tarragona and its ancient Roman ruins. We arrive at the first sight to find that they are all closed on Mondays. Spanish people never work.
Take a bus to Valencia later in the day. The difference between the European and American lifestyles is again, readily apparent.
Upon arrival, we are greeted by the wonderful Salud at the bus station. She brings bomb bocadillos. Then, we are guided on an expert tour of the old city by her beautiful friend. Relaxing night at the family condo near Salud's town Sueca at night. The family treats us wonderfully.
Barcelona D4
1:46pm buy bus tickets
2:00 pm Jay denies it was a nightmare last night. He claims to have been awake the entire time...severe migraine headaches.
2:02 pm "This is just another one of your shennanigans. Your opinion is completely biased. You are just writing that to make people laugh and have no regard for the truth - jay sutton
At night, Joe freestyles to the italians on the balcony
Afterwards, we enjoy a lazy European day on the Northern beaches. We haggle with the beer selling Spaniards near their home base.
Check out the Sagrada Familia Cathedral at night. Gaudi was the man. Eat tapas late at a bar; guys stay out late.
Barcelona D2
We own the dance floor and close down the club around 5:30 am.
Miserable bus ride that leaves us 3 miles from the beach at barcelona. Grocery stores are not open yet and no shuteye to be found on the bus. Hike the miles and arrive at the beach at 830. Sleep and hangout on the beach all day, hike back to our hostel.
Party with the hostel that night at a crazy club. Spanish breakdancers embarrass everyone to American music from like 10 years ago. Babes abound.
JoJo is down to ride with us. We arrive in San Sebastian early afternoon and look for Holgas Place (our hostel). Go to eat pintxos. Without respect for the cultural integrity of the trip, Joe orders the buffalo wings at the bar. Instead is forced to choke down four or five different things by JoJo and Jay.
Light party night in San Sebastian, so we join the Aussies, Spaniards, Englishwomen, Irishmen, and Russians for a beach party at night. One chick shaved exactly half of her head. The british girl attempted to drink dipspit.
¨¨you dont want to drink this, it has my spit in it¨¨ joe says to the girl, ¨¨i dotn care give it to me¨¨ she replies. Joe resists urge to allow dumb girl to drink it and throw up on the beach.
We catch a late afternoon bus after a great night in Madrid to Bilbao and arrive in JoJos open arms at 8pm. Jojo introduces us to his boy David and his roomates. Home cooked meal and home cooked bar tab at night consisting of Callimochos, picas, and cigarettes. Jay loves Basque country.
2:00am Jojo tries to jump out window. Joe saves his life.
*****steriod era asterisks. joe actually threatens jojos life by dangling him out window. Joes only words to get quell situation are ¨dude, you know i wasnt about to let you fall be cool¨¨
6:00am Jay cannot sleep and breaks into joes room for sleeping pills, who cannot sleep either. It appears the pills are in joes pack in the non-jet-lagged jojos room: uhoh JoJo. So joe and jay form a small terrorist group, attacking jojo and demand money and drugs. go in heavy with a turban on jays head and a bandana across joes face. Then they annex the living room and declare success by placing stuffed animals in compromising positions.
Our Madrid amigo, Paulo, is nowhere to be found once we reach Spain. touche europe. We took that in the chin and rebounded well. We met the Spanish WtP in a Plaza where, after a picture, she immediately demanded euros.
...Ended up getting a great sunset and experiences in no less than five restaurant and bars meeting people and working on our spanish (and dancing).
Good opening leg for the Amazing Race wannabes.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Greeting from Kentucky. Just now got around to following your travels on the Blog. Sounds like all is going well. Here is some info from home front...Brett finished up in NO and had a great experience and made it to Brazil and that is all we know. Mickey came in 11th at Pga jr. in IL 76, 80, 73 (lots of rain on first 2 days). Reds lost 4 straight to drop to 500, but rally last 2 night against Braves to go 2 games over. ..Micah O. hit 3 run blast and pitched 6 inning for the win last night. Peter is suffering with his 8:00 class. My class reunion was a blast at DePauw last weekend and Kym came up on Friday night to meet all my old girlfriends. Not all that much going on here in NKY. Everyone is getting into the summer and weather is heating up. Send us updates onyour travels and take lots of pictures. Love DAD
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Three days until blastoff
Ok, so we are nearing the much anticipated trip out of the United States. The itinerary has experienced some changes, mostly to keep our schedule open and flexible. Let me speak to our first city, Madrid:
-Leave USA Thursday afternoon
- Arrive Friday in Madrid
- through an innovative website, www.couchsurfing.org, we have been able to find complete strangers to stay with Friday night in Madrid. Our host's name is Paulo, and he has agreed to let us spend the night on his couch. I had a great time browsing this website and asking Europeans to host us. Paulo was our only successful reservation however. Hopefully this does not turn out to be the next type of Craig's List Murder Scheme, knock on wood.
One night in Madrid with Paulo and his roommates, and then on to Bilbao the next day to see Jojo "Spanish" Naughton. Jojo relocated to Bilbao after he graduated from JMU in 2008. He was a Spanish major and often shows off his Spanish speaking abilities. I hope that he talks to me in English at least, but that is kind of a long shot too.
Jay should be meeting me tomorrow in Washington DC; we have two days to finish packing and get any additional supplies. We will update before we get on the plane, adios for now.
-Leave USA Thursday afternoon
- Arrive Friday in Madrid
- through an innovative website, www.couchsurfing.org, we have been able to find complete strangers to stay with Friday night in Madrid. Our host's name is Paulo, and he has agreed to let us spend the night on his couch. I had a great time browsing this website and asking Europeans to host us. Paulo was our only successful reservation however. Hopefully this does not turn out to be the next type of Craig's List Murder Scheme, knock on wood.
One night in Madrid with Paulo and his roommates, and then on to Bilbao the next day to see Jojo "Spanish" Naughton. Jojo relocated to Bilbao after he graduated from JMU in 2008. He was a Spanish major and often shows off his Spanish speaking abilities. I hope that he talks to me in English at least, but that is kind of a long shot too.
Jay should be meeting me tomorrow in Washington DC; we have two days to finish packing and get any additional supplies. We will update before we get on the plane, adios for now.
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