Day 5 - Ahhh, Venice

The Grand Canal from the Accademia Bridge

19/9/2010 - Venice

This morning we got an early start so we could get L'Accademia, even though we didn't have a reservation. Thankfully yesterday's horrible weather has passed, and it's a little cool, but clear and sunny and looks like it should be a pretty nice day. I had been stressing out and thinking we would need to take a vaporetto to Gallerie dell'Accademia to not get hopelessly lost, but it turned out to be all of a 7 minute walk to the Accademia bridge, one of the five (I think) bridges that cross the Grand Canal. The museum opens at 8:15, so when we got there at 8 we had time to grab a quick breakfast at a cafe nearby (cornettos, caffe for Geoffrey, cioccolata calda for me) before waltzing right up to the non-existent ticket line and getting right in as they opened. 

A beautiful (and cheap, only 6.50 euros) museum, featuring Italian, primarily Venetian painters, such as Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Bellini, and Canaletto to name a few. The galleries are very nicely arranged and it's a very manageable size and laid out in a way where the galleries are numbered, so you don't have to wander around, doubling back in confusion like I feel ends up happening in a lot of museums. We had the place practically to ourselves, and by the time we were leaving a little before 10, the hordes were just starting to descend. 

Calle with laundry flying like prayer flags

This ended up being our museum day, and we timed our visits pretty perfectly so that we were leaving the Accademia right before the Peggy Guggenheim opened at 10, which was definitely more crowded and expensive (still, only 12 euros), and also a very easy to see size. There's a great garden at the entrance, and a glamorous marble terrace on the Grand Canal. An unusual art experience, as the museum is in Peggy Guggenheim's house, some of the pieces still hanging where she had placed them. Each room had an old photo of what the room looked like when she lived there, which made it a very personal experience - you feel like you're stopping by for a visit, and just happen to get to see amazing art by Picasso, Miro, Klee, Magritte, Kandinsky, Pollack, and Dali, all artists that Peggy Guggenheim personally collected, most of them artists that she personally knew and helped succeed with her patronage. As always, I felt like I was wandering around in a reverent daze, feeling so honored to be in the presence of such spectacular art. 

After leaving the Guggenheim, we crossed the Grand Canal in the sunshine back to our hotel for a quick nap and lunch in our room, and a change of clothes, since the day was sunny, clear, and warm. As the museums were really the only thing on the agenda for the day, just wandering around and getting lost would make up the rest of our afternoon. We chose the Frari church as our destination and headed off via the Rialto bridge to try and find it. We found the church with not too much difficulty - so far we've found places by aiming for the closest major attraction nearby and following the signs to get there, then hauling out the map once we're in the general area and asking directions - it seems to work. The church was wonderful, fairly deserted, peaceful and cool, with some fantastic art - Donatello's John the Baptist, Titian's Assumption, a Bellini, and some other great pieces. I got to light a candle, something I really enjoy doing, despite the fact that I'm not Catholic.  

Frari Church

When we left the church, we found a nice grocery store and replenished some of our picnic provisions, along with a corkscrew and a bottle of wine, a nice local Valpolicella for 6 euros. I love how food and wine are totally affordable in Europe, and not just crappy junk food/malt liquor quality, but good, fresh, local food and nice wines.

One of the things we'd registered for on our honeymoon registry was a gondola ride (if you're getting married any time soon and have all the dishes, towels, and glasses you want, and are planning to take a nice honeymoon, I would definitely recommend this, we went through thehoneymoon.com and loved them. You can write whatever you want for your item, assign a price and break it down into smaller denominations so it's easier for people to "buy" for you, and then they just cut you a check for the total dollar amount spent on your registry).

So we decided to take our ride, so we wandered around for a while and picked our gondolier, then we were on our way. We asked to go through the back canals, not the Grand Canal, since you can do that on a vaporetto for a fraction of the cost of a gondola ride. Our gondolier was really nice and took us on a really lovely ride, and he didn't speak much English, so I finally got to practice my Italian. So far in Venice, it seems like most people just would rather speak English to you than to let you fumble through Italian, which is making me lazy. So it was a pleasure to ask him questions about Venice and gondolas and his family in Italian. Venice is so beautiful to see from that vantage point, so quiet and peaceful, I can se why it's know as La Serenissima. Gondolas are such an elegant, relaxing way to travel, no motors or crowds as far as we could see, just water gently lapping at the boat as we glided along.

In a lot of ways, Venice seems like such a study in contrast, it's like two different cities coexisting on different planes of reality. In the early morning, and off the main pathways between major destinations, it feels like just a magnificent, magical city where people live and work, that just happens to have streets paved with water. But you can take the exact same empty piazza from the morning and fast forward to the afternoon, and it's a crazy, swarming, tourist-filled madhouse. I'm already sick of tourists (and yes, I know I'm one of them) and I've only been here a couple of days, I don't know how the Venetians handle it. When we'd gone over Rialto on our way to the Frari church, it seemed like such a beautiful bridge, if only you could take away the gift shops and map and camera wielding tourists slamming on the breaks in the middle of the street for no apparent reason. I feel the same way about malls at home.

Our gondola, serenely traveling the back canals of Venice

In hope of avoiding the San Marco crowds, we decided to go get coffee at Cafe Florian that night, and go up in the campanile for a night view of the piazza and San Marco. After another quick hotel room picnic, we ambled over to Piazza San Marco, which was surprisingly deserted. We took the elevator up the campanile shortly before it closed for the night, had an amazing view and took some great photos, and then were shooed back down, luckily right before the bells rang the hour, they're a little too up close and personal when you're in the tower to really want them to ring.

Piazza San Marco from the campanile at night

We warmed up at Cafe Florian, which was decadently elegant and made me feel completely underdressed to be having hot chocolate in its plush interior, with a string quartet playing outside. After our drinks were done, we took one more spin around the dark piazza, and headed back to the hotel.

Our very expensive coffee & hot chocolate at Caffe Florian

Throughout the day we'd noticed a lot of activity going on in our neighborhood, and when I asked the concierge what was going on, he told me that the neighborhood has a big festa each year to celebrate the beginning of fall. It was beautiful, long tables ran the length of the street, and Christmas lights were strung everywhere, people eating and drinking, kids running around, and live music, like something out of an old Italian movie. The dinner was just getting started when we'd left and was in full swing when we returned, and a guy was singing old Italian songs, which we could hear in our room, like we were being serenaded. 

When we got back to our room, Geoffrey needed to call his bank because his debit card hadn't been working since we'd gotten to Italy. Unfortunately, this ended up taking until about 1 AM to get cleared up, since the bank had messed up and not posted his travel alert to his account, so his card had been canceled. In the end, they said they'd overnight a new card to our hotel in Verona, which I did not have high hopes of actually receiving. To compound the annoyance of a stupidly long phone call with a bank, the music outside had switched from Italian love songs to American disco. Really, really loud American disco. Not the best end of an otherwise nice day.

The block party out our window

Day 4 - Toledo to Venice

18/9/2010 - Venezia - Italia at last!!!

After a sleepless night topped off by getting up at 3 AM, a 130 euro cab ride, and a short flight, we're finally in Italy! Add a bus ride from the Marco Polo airport to Piazzale Roma, where we caught a vaporetto - right number, wrong direction. We got straightened out, and eventually made it to our hotel, Albergo San Samuele. It's perfect, in a quieter neighborhood that actually feels like a neighborhood, and located really close to a vaporetto stop and a traghetto point, so once we were going the right direction, it was really quick and easy to find. Our corner room is a beautiful, with two door-sized windows that open onto mini balconies - you could set stuff out on them, but you really couldn't stand on them, so there's great light and a bucolic view of the little calle we're on.

It was really tempting to just stay in our room all day - it's drizzling and cold outside, and neither of us slept last night due to paranoia about oversleeping and missing our taxi and subsequently our flight. But I had gotten 12 hour passes for the vaporetti so we could go out to the other islands in the lagoon, so after a quick nap and a semi-futile attempt to freshen up and feel more like humans and less like zombies, we ate a so-so lunch at the trattoria across the street and made a quick stop in the alimentari nearby for provisions (including pesto, some Baci, juice, meat, cheese, yogurt, and fruit, we just needed to find some bread), we layered on ALL our cold-weather clothes, including the gloves I thought I'd never need when I threw them in my bag, and headed out in the pouring rain to catch the vaporetto to Piazza San Marco, where we would get the vaporetto to Murano. After a quick pass through Piazza San Marco (crowded even in the rain), and caught the #5 vaporetto to Murano.

A quick note about language at this point - I had been concerned about starting our trip in Spain before ending up in Italy in regards to my grasp of Italian. I've spoken Spanish for 10+ years and have spoken it in many real life situations for travel and work, so it's well rooted in my memory. Italian is a much more recent acquisition, I've only been studying it for about 2 1/2 years and have never spoken it in a real life situation outside of a classroom, so I was worried that a week in Spain, speaking Spanish, would push all my Italian out of my brain. The languages are similar enough that it's pretty easy to get them tangled up if you know both, and I've certainly mixed them up in Italian class where I'm suddenly speaking Spanish instead of Italian. And let me tell you, sleep deprivation has the exact opposite effect of alcohol for loosening the tongue when speaking a foreign language.

After a fairly terrifying, rainy, miserable boat ride across the lagoon, we arrived on a deserted island. No barkers trying to entice us into their shops to see a glass blowing demonstration, no tour groups, nothing that a person typically associates with Murano. We explored a bit, Geoffrey played some table tennis with some sullen Venetian teenagers in a park while we used one of the few free bathrooms in Venice. We walked to the end of the island and got a good look at the storm clouds heading our way across the choppy, grey water.

The end of the world, or at least the sidewalk, on Murano

We were freezing and decided it was time to head back before we got swept out to sea, so we walked back to catch the boat. We took a detour to visit the Basilica dei Santi Maria e Donato, a gorgeous church that was as deserted as the island itself, that had a very un-touristy feel to it - notices about upcoming church events, choir practice notice, that sort of regular church thing.

Basilica dei Santi Maria e Donato on Murano

After another long, stormy journey back to Venice via a different route that put us on land by the train station, we stopped for a coffee and gelato break (my first in Italy - chocolate & coconut, pretty good for a place so close to the station). We caught another vaporetto back to the hotel (after our detour this morning, no matter how confident I am that we have the right one, I ask before we hop on to make sure) and enjoyed a picnic dinner in our room, listened to our audio book before turning in early. Benvenuto ad Italia!!

Day 3 - Toledo (La Vuelta)

17/09/2010 - Toledo

After FINALLY having a truly restful night's sleep (dare I hope we're over our jet lag already?!?) we got an early start on the day, with the intention of getting a nice breakfast and doing some non-Vuelta related things (per my request). We ended up eating breakfast at a place where the pastries are made by nuns, and I finally got to have the hot chocolate of my dreams - basically hot liquid pudding. Heavenly. I also picked up some of Toledo's famous marzipan and pine nut cookies. These are wonderful, I'm usually kind of a snob about desserts and will rarely give the time of day to something that doesn't contain chocolate, but these definitely make the list of exceptions. When they're done right, they're soft, chewy but not sticky, and studded with pine nuts that add the perfect crunch to balance the sweetness of the marzipan.

After breakfast, we walked to Santo Tome to see El Greco's "The Buriel of Count Orgaz", which is a magnificent in situ painting in the miniscule chapel of Santo Tome. I'd been lucky to see this on my first visit to Toledo, and had been looking forward to seeing it again. Then we hiked the few blocks back to the cathedral, which was thankfully not too crowded and spent a good amount of time wandering around, ooh-ing and ahh-ing and craning our necks to try to see all the golden details. So completely humbling and awe-inspiring, I'm constantly amazed by the dedication of all of the churches and cathedrals that took lifetimes to complete. We're so impatient now, it's no wonder no one builds things like that anymore. After a perusal of the treasury, which included not only golden, jewel-encrusted crosses and chalices, but also relics (saint's hands and tears and other weird, macabre body parts). Not having been raised Catholic, I just don't get the fascination with shriveled body parts.

After we emerged from the cathedral, it was nearly lunchtime, so we went in search of the market near the cathedral to get picnic supplies, and ended up well set with our usual assortment of meat, cheese, bread, fruit, and juice, plus some weird things that looked like a cross between a pepper and a pickle. I talked with a butcher who explained the difference between some of the jamon he was selling (look at the color of the hoof, if the hoof is black, it's higher quality).

Geoffrey's black-hooved lunch

The day had warmed up, so we swung by our hotel for a quick change before heading out of the main town area to where La Vuelta would finish. On our way, we stopped at the Santa Cruz museum, which is located in a beautiful building that was once a hospital, and is free. The main reason I wanted to go was to see the el Grecos they're supposed to have, but from what I could tell from lady I asked, they were out on loan. So we looked at some ceramics and tapestries, which were cool to see, but I really can't say I have a huge appreciation for either, as I don't know a whole lot about them. The highlight was the building itself, with a tranquil courtyard, and Geoffrey's favorite, bullet holes in the facade. After that, we were off to La Vuelta.

Museo de Santa Cruz courtyard

Geoffrey was so excited he was all but skipping ahead of me as we made our way down the winding street out of town to the finish line for La Vuelta. This is why we were heading down about 3 hours before the race was supposed to finish. Honestly, if I'd been okay with it, we would have spent the whole day down there, just watching the set up.

I'm glad that we were able to time things so we could see a stage of the race, especially in Toledo, a town I was really wanting to get back to. When we were planning our trip (well, I say we, but I really mean I), I asked Geoffrey what he wanted to do, and his only requests were bike-related - no preference of cities to visit, areas to be sure to spend time in, a not to be missed museum, nothing like that. Just to see a stage of La Vuelta and spend some time on a bike. If you don't know anything about La Vuelta, I'm really not the one to enlighten you, as I know about 3 things more than nothing about it. I'll have to get Geoffrey to write a post about who was there and who won, etc. But here's what I do know: La Vuelta is one of the big deal, multi-stage European bike races - everyone knows about the Tour de France in July, but there's also Il Giro d'Italia in May, and La Vuelta de Espana in August/September. Huh, maybe that's all I know about it, I guess I oversold myself with the knowing three things bit. Anyway, it's a bike race that most of the big teams/pros compete in, it has about 20 stages (days/races), and we're getting to catch the tail end of it. I think the Toledo stage is the second or third to the last stage before it ends in Madrid. Sadly, we won't be around for that, which would be a pretty cool thing to experience.

After eating our lunch on a bench under a gorgeous vine-covered archway, we roamed around the team buses and the finish line set up, and bought a La Vuelta 10 euro souvenir set that had a t-shirt, hat, horribly cheap sunglasses that would probably only fit a Keebler elf, a metal sign, and a few other odds and ends, all in a pseudo-backpack bag. It was still too early to stake out a spot to watch the finish, so we made our way over to the parking lot where a lot of the team buses and support vehicles were parked. We ended up in what seemed to be a conference center, an expansive, modern building with a spacious, airy bar and a terrace with a view of the buses (guess where we sat). Geoffrey ordered his 17th coffee of the day, and we were sitting outside and enjoying the view of the buses, when a girl came up to us and asked if we were press (we had the big camera), and ended up sitting down and chatting with us for a while. Her name was Jessica and she's a cyclist as well, who was there to see her boyfriend Tejay van Garderen ride in the stage. Geoffrey knew of him, which was pretty cool, he rides for HTC and is actually from Tacoma. As it was getting closer to when the riders were supposed to be coming in, we headed back up to the finish and, with one sentence, Geoffrey's life was made - Jessica needed to stop at the team bus to talk to driver and asked us if we wanted to come in and check it out. It's basically just a big, nice bus, but it was definitely a highlight for Geoffrey.

Garmin team bus/car

Once we got back up to the race course, we staked out a good spot to see the riders coming into the finish and decided that we had time to get some wine to pair with our remaining bits of cheese and jamon. Geoffrey guarded our spot while Jessica & I went to get wine (easy) and paper cups to drink it out of (surprisingly difficult - after a few stops, we managed to charm a shopkeeper out of three small paper Coca-cola cups). It was really great hanging out with Jessica, she actually lives in Lucca and trains there when she's not home in the US, and she would be there when we would be in Florence, so we exchanged e-mail addresses so we could try to meet up for dinner.

Having never seen a pro cycling race, I have no basis of comparison, but it was fantastic. It seemed like it was over so quickly given how long the people had been setting up, but it was really exciting to see the riders coming in. I would have no problem doing this again, even not knowing who everybody was, it was a really fun day.

Geoffrey & our new friend Jessica waiting for the peleton at the finish

After the race was over, Jessica headed up to meet Tejay at their hotel back in town, and we walked back to our hotel to unload some of our stuff before heading to a very early dinner. We needed to get packed and to bed early to catch our 3 AM taxi to the Madrid-Barajas airport for our 7 AM flight to Venice. This was NOT my original plan, I had booked us on a 3:30 PM flight, which would be no problem to get to from Toledo via the train back to Madrid and the Metro, but that flight was canceled, and our only other real option was to take the 7AM flight or switch days, which really wasn't an option. I'm trying to focus on the positive, which is an extra day in Venice. Hopefully we'll be awake enough to enjoy it.

Day 2 - Madrid/Toledo

16/9/2010 - Madrid to Toledo

Not a great morning. I've been having a hard time sleeping, and Geoffrey's back has been bugging him so he's been tossing and turning a lot, which keeps waking me up. So this morning, after getting to bed at 2:30, he got up at 6:30 to go out and explore - without a map. I fell back asleep for a while, only to be jolted awake at 8 realizing that Geoffrey still wasn't back. I was reaching total panic zone when he got back about an hour later (without the map, he got pretty lost) and we had a nice, pre-breakfast discussion about how his trying to be considerate and let me sleep was completely undone by the fact that I was trying to figure out how to find someone without a cell phone in a strange city. After trying to get a little more sleep, we checked out of our hotel but left our bags, then headed down to breakfast, then to the Mercado de Anton Martin just a few blocks from our hotel.

I love food shopping at home, and I really love food shopping in a foreign country, so I was in paradise picking out cheese, bread, meat (for Geoffrey), fruit, and juice for a picnic lunch in the park. It was a muggy, overcast day, and we were planning to spend a couple of hours exploring El Parque de Buen Retiro, which is kind of like Madrid's Central Park. We sniffed our way through the beautiful rose garden before visiting the Palacio Cristal, which I has somehow overlooked my first trip to Madrid. We found a nice spot for our picnic, then headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and get to the train station to leave for Toledo.

El Parque de Buen Retiro

I had talked to Natalia that morning, and she had told read me the times for the train to Toledo, and we decided to aim for the 13.50. With Estacion Atocha only 2 metro stops away from us, we headed over around 1, thinking that would be plenty of time to buy tickets from an automated kiosk for the quick, easy, 30 minute trip to Toledo. WRONG. For some insane reason, you can't buy a ticket to Toledo from one of the fifty or so automated kiosks throughout the station, you have to take a number and wait in line forever to talk to a live person. I'm really not sure why, it's a simple, one-stop only train ride that leaves no room for confusion, so it's not like we were trying to figure out how to take a night train to Moscow or something complicated. So of course we missed the 13.50, and the train after that, and instead of getting into Toledo at 2:30 as we'd planned, hoping to have a decent part of the day to explore, we got there about 4:30. Geoffrey was very excited about the trains, which was good, because there are a whole lot more of them in our future.

Estacion Atocha, Madrid

The train station in Toledo is small, and simply beautiful. It's very old, with palm trees and a nice little cafe/bar where we grabbed a quick coffee (Geoffrey, of course) and another tortilla. After our snack, we bought a map in the station and asked if the people working there knew anything about where La Vuelta would finish the next day. One of the station police knew and showed us on the map, so we went to catch the bus to our hotel with an idea of where we'd need to be the next day.

The bus ride into town can really only be described as terrifying. Toledo is a medieval hill town, with very skinny, winding streets that are pretty narrow for a car, never mind for a bus. Geoffrey was very lucky that his seat was facing backwards, so he only witnessed the successful results of the dozen or so harrowing near-misses I had to watch head on. We got off at the stop for Plaza de Zocodover, which is as close as you can get to the cathedral, which was just a few streets from where we were staying. We ambled our way up to the cathedral with only a few wrong turns and found where we were staying, Hotel Santa Isabel. We checked in and were shown to our room - it was heaven. On the top floor, sleek and simple, modern but with a definite old world feel, and a view from a small balcony that opened onto the rooftops of the city and the cathedral. It was absolutely breathtaking, and only 55 euros a night. We did get a good laugh about the bed, which was actually two twin beds pushed together, very 1950's.

The view from our balcony

The view from our hotel's rooftop deck

After we got settled into our hotel, we headed out for dinner to a restaurant recommended in our Rick Steves guidebook, which turned out to be awful. A great deal, but way too fried for our taste - I had gazpacho (ok) and fried seafood and fries, which I could barely choke down beyond a few bites, an okay dessert and a nice glass of wine. Geoffrey had a salad and venison "tacos" which turned our to be about as similar as Spanish tortillas are to Mexican tortillas - it seemed to be some sort of venison stew, also with fries. Not good. The restaurant was at least not smoky, and pretty cool looking, to focus on some positive points. After that travesty of a meal, we headed back to our hotel under a cloudy sky. It was just starting to rain when we got back, and as we got ready for bed, the rain was really starting to come down and we could see lightening in the distance. That night there was a pretty big storm (luckily I had closed the doors to our balcony before it got too bad) and the next day it was clear and sunny.

Madrid - Day 1

Cervantes Pizza Bar, our local bar/breakfast place

15/9/2010 - Madrid

Cervantes Pizza Bar, Madrid - After an 11-hour sleep, we are recharged and ready to hit Madrid. Last night was sort of a comedy of errors. Our second flight ended up being about an hour late, getting us into Madrid-Barajas airport, where the Metro pass machines would not work with any of our credit cards, so we had to get cash at an ATM in the airport to get into Madrid (can't imagine we got the best exchange rate there, but really not a whole lot of choices). Because of that, we ended up getting to the hotel about an hour after I was supposed to have called Natalia to make plans to meet up for dinner. Our room didn't have a phone, and naturally the phone in the lobby wasn't working, so after dumping our bags and a quick change out of our grungy, travel soiled clothes in an effort to feel slightly more human, we had to go in search of a phone. After wandering around for a few minutes, we found a phone/Internet place, so I called Natalia's cell - and got her voicemail. I left a message letting her know that we had arrived safe and sound, didn't have a way for her to get back to us, and we'd call her back in a few minutes.We ended up wandering around our neighborhood, which was right by the Prado and Parque Retiro, and was still hopping at 10:30 on a Tuesday night, which, coming from a town that closes up at 8 seems like such a novelty. Finally got ahold of Natalia and made plans to talk tomorrow once we'd gotten some more sleep. We then had the very hard decision of figuring out where to eat. There were about a gazillion restaurants in our neighborhood, which is actually very overwhelming when you're exhausted and have no real information to help you choose one place over another or recommendations or anything. In the end, we settled on probably the worst place (loud Americans) we could find. The main reason for going to this place over any of the other numerous options? No one was smoking. We ended up ordering canapes instead of tapas, so we ended up with basically half-baguettes slathered with various toppings (cod & tomatoes, some small fishes, and tuna spread that looked exactly like an open-faced tuna fish sandwich). It was okay, but WAY too much food, but we were no longer hungry and tired, but just tired. After we wandered around a little more, we went back to our hotel and crashed.

First night's dinner

I have to take a minute to totally bitch about smoking in Europe, Spain in particular. It is HORRIBLE, people smoke EVERYWHERE, and cigarettes are really cheap, about $4 or $5 a pack versus I believe about $7 or $8 in WA. After Washington banned smoking in public, I got totally re-sensitized to cigarette smoke, and it bugs me even more than ever. Plus, having a tiny, capsule wardrobe I'm already worried about keeping clean, I now have to worry about it smelling smokey. Apparently a law was passed a few years back banning smoking indoors, but everyone ignores, which explains the "No Smoking"signs I see on doors of bars & restaurants full of people smoking. Natalia later told us that they're supposed to pass another law in December that actually enforces the no smoking law. We'll have to wait to come visit again after that. Seriously.

It's pretty hot out, and we're enjoying what will become our staple breakfast in Spain - coffee, hot chocolate, and tortillas at a bar. Our plans for today are pretty basic, we're going to La Reina Sofia, the modern art museum that houses Picasso's "Guernica" (one of my all-time favorite paintings) and some amazing Dalis & Miros. Then we're meeting up with Natalia in la Plaza del Sol and she's going to help us get a cell phone to use throughout the rest of our trip, then go to a market near her neighborhood and walk around a bit, then go back to her apartment and meet Javi for dinner.

The courtyard of La Reina Sofia.

Lunch.

It ended up being a great day, lots of walking (we're so centrally located, we probably won't get a whole lot of use out of our metro passes) and it was really nice to be walking around with someone who knows where they're going so we don't have to keep whipping out our map every time we turn a corner. The museum was spectacular, though we started out with the temporary (and practically deserted) exhibit of Manhattan mixed media pieces, mostly photography, where we spent about 45 minutes more than I thought necessary before heading down to the older works. After a quick outdoor lunch of bacalao for me and a jamon y queso bocadillo for Geoffrey, we headed over to el Prado (the line was WAY too long, so we sadly didn't even try to go in) and checked out Parroquia San Jerónimo El Real, a cool church right behind it. We headed to Plaza del Sol to meet Natalia after that. We ended up taking the Metro, basically just to avoid getting too lost. It was so great to see Natalia, she looks so at home here, Spain definitely agrees with her. We walked through the Plaza del Sol, which was probably the most crowded place we'd been to so far, and headed to a Vodafone store, with the hope of getting a disposable cell phone that we could use in Spain and switch out the SIM card when we got to Italy. According to the (incredibly unhelpful) sales lady, you can't do that. I really think she just didn't feel like helping us out, since I'd read in multiple places that it's really easy to do exactly that. Sans phones, we headed to a really cool indoor market which seemed like a cross between Pike Place Market and Whole Foods, where we got some olives, stuffed peppers, wine, chocolates, juice, and coffee and ate them at a standing bar area.

The market.

After the market, we headed to Natalia & Javi's through la Plaza Santa Ana and a couple of other really cool plazas. One of them had a fountain in the center, and while we were there, two dogs came running up to it, and jumped INTO the fountain to get a drink. It was obscenely cute. They were eventually joined by another dog (Geoffrey has been singing "Three Dogs in a Fountain" ever since).

The fountain, pre-dogs.

Three dogs in a fountain.

We eventually got to Natalia & Javi's apartment, which is fantastic. It's in this great old building, but the apartment itself is really modern. We went to dinner with them and met their friends Lucia & Tony. It was great, I got to practice my Spanish a lot, since Lucia doesn't speak English. We ate at a really cool local place where I'm pretty sure we were the only non-locals there. The food was really good, we had some delicious wine and some actual salads (I was craving some fresh veggies after a day of mostly fried food) and I had black risotto with bacalao (good but very rich) and everybody shared dessert (a brownie with violet ice cream - the brownie was so-so, the ice cream was definitely better). After dinner we walked around some more (poor Javi had to work the next day, so he had to head back home because it was getting pretty late). The rest of us stopped for drinks at a bar, then Tony & Lucia walked us back to our neighborhood, since their apartment was really near us and we had no clue where we were at that point and didn't feel like getting lost at 2AM. We finally got to be around 2:30, exhausted and happy about our first full day of our trip.

Trip Journal - The Long Way There

Okay, here's the start of the story of our trip. I had originally intended to blog while we were there, but since we didn't have a laptop or regular internet access, it just didn't happen. So this is mostly from my trip journal that I kept while we were gone, which I was able to write in whenever I had a few minutes.

9/13/10 - Everett/Seattle

On bus - Finally on our way! How is it, after months & months of planning, plus a whole weekend free for tying up loose ends, PLUS the whole morning & early afternoon to get ready, is it possible to feel rushed and unprepared? I know we are as prepared as can be, and I think it must just be anticipation, and anxiety about being gone for a whole month. Neither Geoffrey nor I have been gone that long, anywhere. This will definitely be an experience.

SeaTac Airport - Monday is apparently a good day to fly, we got to the airport with tons of time (bus from Everett to downtown Seattle, Link from downtown to SeaTac), made it through security with no problems and didn't get forced to check our bags, and are now at the gate with 2 hours and 15 minutes to spare. There's a baby screaming its head off nearby - please God, don't let it be on our flight.

We're flying out of one of the satellite terminals, which you reach by riding a little subway-tram thing to get to. It's funny, the last time I rode it was when Amanda was coming back from England. I very clearly remember Aaron practicing his pole-dancing skills in the empty car, to everyone's amusement. That was back in the day when you could still go meet people at their gate of arrival.

14/9/2010 - London/Madrid (switched to European date-writing)

Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3 - I love London, even the airport is fantastic. This terminal feels light years away from the one we just flew out of at SeaTac. There are tons of different food places - Starbucks (of course), an Italian place, a bagel shop, a couple of pubs, a few nice looking bar/restaurants, and a sandwich take away shop. (I feel like I'm suddenly shifting into the Queen's English - I keep describing places as "proper" - "a proper coffee shop", etc." Not sure why.) There are a lot of high-end shops - Harrod's, Paul Smith, Chanel, plus the usual assortment of duty-free places. We've got a couple of hours before our flight departs and we haven't even been assigned a gate yet, so we're hanging out in the food/shopping area, snacking on bagels and people watching.

I went into some of the drugstores and bookstores and noticing all the the different kinds of snacks, candies, and beauty products, and it really hit me that we're in another country. I think it's easy to think that London will not be so different from the US because they speak English, and I'm really glad to start out in a place where that's the case because I'm in travel zombie mode, but it is absolutely not home. I'm trying not to think about what time it is at home (7:53 AM) because it just makes me tired. I don't know why I can never sleep on planes - I can sleep on the bus, on the train, during movies, but not planes. I've gotten to the point where I don't even expect to any more, because if I'm planning on it, it won't happen. So now, if I manage to doze, it's just a nice surprise. I do enjoy getting to watch a bunch of movies ("Letters to Juliet" and "The Backup Plan" - both totally predictable, but it's always nice to get a junk food movie fix).

So far, our flights have been smooth, no problems with delays or luggage (knock on wood). I'm really going to try to sleep on the flight to Madrid, though, because it would be nice to not feel like I'm sleepwalking when we're out to dinner with Natalia & Javi, and with us only having a few days in Madrid, I don't want to spend the entire time sleeping.

A little girl a few seats over from us is blowing bubbles.

oooooooohhhhhhhh - just hours left. !!!

Geoffrey here,

There are just hours left and we are buzzing with excitement and itching to get the last chores done so we can sit around (the globe) for the rest of day (on a plane).

As you might imagine, Maddi has been getting a lot of love hear in the last 48 hours. More walks, more play, more snuggling. She knows something is up. Luckily for Krissi and me, we know that the dog will likely have as good a time and gain as much weight as we do on her vacation to her dog-parents (krissi's folks) house. I'm just about to print off some photos so when I say "il mio cane" or something like that in italian I can point to the photos and there will hopefully be understanding.

So, until later, ciao.

Geoffrey