Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

And Thank You for the trip.

Europe is under construction

On the 11th of June Andie and I decided we wanted to go for a run...a run accross Spain. We started early, early and took a quick train out to the old city of Toledo which in no way resembles its American sister. The city is older than medieval and is situated on a "strategic" hill that is almost surrounded by a river. When we were there, before the crowds, the people of the city were starting to hang cloths, banners and garlands throughout the narrow streets. The celebration was Dias de Fiestas en Honor de Nuestra Señora de las Estrellas. (celebrations in honor of our lady of the heavens) The town had some great views, but much to our dismay, the fort was closed for a complete renovation not be finished until next summer... sad. We did however love to look at all the pieces of demascene steel (inlade with color) that the city is famous for, and the old buildings that remain. We even got in free of charge to a museum that held 18 pieces of art by El Greco. I recognized maybe one of them, which i thought was a pretty good ratio ;). At noon we left the city and headed back to Madrid to catch the early afternoon train to Cordoba. Cordoba is famours for one thing, and one thing only, the Antiqua Mezquita, or cathedral of cordoba. This is an old islamic mosque that traded hands a number of times in the past, and only got more expansive. We have studied this place many times in our history classes, so it was nice to finally see what the pictures never could. It was extremely hot in the city, 36 degrees infact. I dont know what that is exactly, but i know it is uncomfortably close to the tempurature of my body. That is why neither Andie nor I complained when our hostel room had air conditioning! We kept it pretty cold that night, about 19 degre

On the morning of the 12th we took another train to Granada to see the Alhambra, known for its red bricks. This too we learned about in our history classes and to be able to see the Generalife was indeed a good experience. The views here were also beautiful of the palace, the white washed city and the snowcovered sierra nevadas in the distance. The water fountains that were everywhere with cold mountain water helped too. The sad thing is, when we got to our other destination on the hill, the court of lions, there were no lions in the court! They were removed as the originals were getting worse for wear and they were working on replacement ones....again, sad reconstruction. Though i guess i cant blaime anyone for trying to make things last longer for someone other than me.

We ate a spanish dinner of Gezpacho and Pollo Asada. The coffee we had afterwards was probably in my top five coffees for this trip, Spain, who knew? We then hit two birds with one stone and took the trenhotel once more to get sleep whilst we traveled to Barcelona. Our last stop. The train was pretty quiet other the the two old codgers who were sitting beside me. They sat there, watching me draw a building of the generalife until I finished when i asked them if they would like to see my sketch book. They were more than delighted and followed my trips through France as the other countries are in my first book. I think I suprised then that i spoke to them in Spanish, as again they said they thought i was German. They had been to the town of honfleur and recognized some other little known places I had sketched.

I write this now inside a hostel across the street from Parc Guell in Barcelona. The hostel is actually quite beautiful, having been someones estate once long ago, it has high ceilings and beaitiful detail work. Too bad most youths that stay here couldnt give a damn about the history they are sleeping in. Oh well, Parc Guell and Sagrada Familia today!


No worries, i dont actually like Gaudis work, but I feel as though i should atleast see it while i am here.

"Hermanitas mas gualpas" -old man

Yesterday we took a tour of the Palace Real, it was probably one of the most ornate palaces we have been in to date. The halls wre beautiful and the views from the windows were excellent. My favorite part though had to be there armory where they had full suits of armor of both knights and horses alike. They even had some for dogs and children. though most of it was extremely ornate and obviously for show, i liked it, especially the conquistador helmets and the 10 foot muskets.

Our hostel, is pretty nice, though the walls are very thin and I could here our neighbor snoring through the walls last night...atleast that is all I had heard. We slept in this morning until ten then walked around town some more, intending to do some shopping and exploring, though, much to our dismay, we had forgotten today is sunday and nothing was really open. We walked to the parque del buen retiro and the old train station that has been filled withtropical trees instead of tracks. Which by the way was a neat idea on paper, but horribly humid when used as a place for people to travel through. We then went to get out of the heat by going to see oceans 13, which was pretty good, but not up to par of the others. I guess you would expect that for the 3rd installment. spiderman, cough. cough

tomorrow toledo, cordoba!

Bienvenidos a Madrid

Last night Andie and I took what is called the Hoteltrain out of Paris to the city of Madrid in Spain. It took about 14 hours, but it was ok because we each basically got our own lazy-boy to sleep in. I was amazed at the countryside as we passed it this morning. I felt as though i was drivng through a movie set in central california, with the small dusty towns and the single slouching church standing tall above the rest of the city. Anyway, we got to Madrid and found a hostel at the tourist center of the train station. Its small and run by a young pregnant woman who keeps the place unscrupulously clean. The shower was wonderful.

Its funny, although its been 4 years since i spoke spanish on a regular basis, i can still understand most of what is said to me. though i do know the people are probably speaking the most elementary of Spanish because i am a blonde blue eyed american, it still makes me happy. Poor Andie is expected to speak Spanish because of her sur name Garcia, though she really speaks very little. It dissapointed one woman who was trying to help us out this morning when she asked "¿me entiendes?" and andie did not respond.

We plan to spend a couple days here, then head to toledo, granada, and seville before we go off to Barcelona to finish this 3 month adventure.

Bittersweet Symphony

We had our last day of class at the park de Vosges this morning where we had a picknic with rotisserie chicken sandwiches(no vegetarians here) and wine. It was bitter sweet as people will be leaving now. I walked through a little of the city with Mike Hee and some of his friends who came into the city this morning. It was easy going and different. We were going to go to St. Chappalle to see the glass windows; but it evaded us once again by being closed. We will go tomorrow. Tonight our class plans to go to the trocadero to watch the sun set and see the Eiffel Tower twinkle as a last horrah to say goodbye. Our hostel has no running water today; so that will be fun later. Tommorrow night, andie and I are heading to Madrid for the last part of this little trip. Wish us luck.


I watched a parade of policemen today ride horses down the street as they played their bugles and trumpets.

Day Day

We woke early yesterday to catch the faster train that goes out to the city of Caen. Here we went to the Normandie bunker museum. Because it was the day before Dday, there were veterans in uniform all over the place. I met one man who was a british pilot back in the war. His plane was shot down and he was taken in and hidden by a number of french families. He has spent the last week remeeting and eating dinners with the same families who saved his life so long ago. In the museum we watched a movie that was rather well done. No words, just a split screen of filmed from both sides of the battle of dday going at once. It was hard to follow, shocking, and to the point. I would hate to have been the man to document all that. Though I guess that is your one job. Stay alive, hold the camera. Its not unlike the revolution. Stay alive, hold the flag. In one of the gardens outside the museum I found about 100 british soldiers practicing a ceremony for the anniversary.

After the museum we took a bus in to Gold Beach. We couldnt make it to omaha or Utah, as there reamlly is no bus system thqt way. On gold beqch we saw a small parade of veterans and then sprinted back to catch the bus. The bus ride was beautiful along the coast. I felt like we were riding among cinderellas chataeu all over the countryside, on the hills, on the beach and cliffs. It was phenomenal.

We went out for another dinner with a total of 10 of us to end our time in Honfleur, the best pqrt of France. This morning we cqme bqck to Paris and spent the day checking off sites that we have missed. Tongiht we plan to go to LA Defense to see it lit up when it is finally dark.


The weather is wierd here. Its not hot until about 4pm and it stays light until 10 pm

Hail Mary Full of Grace

On June 4th we met for class at the largest wooden church in the country of France. It was one of the most interesting ones I hqve been in in a while. Of course, it was built by sailors and shipwrights, so I guess the odd architectural style is forgiveable. Afterwards we walked up the hill to the north of the city and got a decent view of the bridge that crosses the bay. We went to the churcyh that locals believed saved the city from the war, as marys stqtue had once survived the cliff face falling. We did some skecthing that dqy qt the Marina and then climbed the steeple of the church. Wow, the was a bad idea. To quote the mqn who sold us the ticket to climb, "climbing is forbidden" (you cant sue us) " if you are up there when the bells ring you will be destroyed"( cover your ears). the steps were iffy, as were the supports, but in my defense, i was follozing the professor. We went the the Boudin Museum, a contemporary of Monet and then went back to the park to work on projects once more. We ate kebabs for dinner, then went to bed.

Bread and Wine

On june third we took the night train out of the city of Nice bqck towards Paris. We met one nice french girl and one nice girl from Quebec. Both of whom hqd problems with the boys in the car next to ours. In the Morning when we got to Paris, Mary qnd I took another train out of the city towrds Normqndy, qs the rest of the group hqd to deal with ,oving out of their plqce. We took the trqin to Lesioux and then waited in the cafe for the bus out to the town of Honfleur. While we were waiting; Walt and Judy got off one of the trains and joined us in our wait for the bus. Aftre we got on; we chatted q bit about where we were and the lqndscqpe thqt surrounded us. We decided it was so,e sort of combinqtion of Wisconsin and the east coast. I tqlked with Judy a Bit qnd we tqlked qbout Minnesota. Apparently both she and walt are from there. She spent a summer once in Moose Lake and it was her fathers construction compqny thqt built highway 35. Talk about a small world. When we descended from the wooded hills of the ride, we cqme to q small town filled with half timbre homes and sail boats. We had reached Honfleur. Our Hotel ETAP was luckily accross the street from the bus stop so getting there was easy. The room however was not ready so they let us leqve our luggqge in the room while the lady cleaned it. We went to a smqll park we found in the south end of the town; passing Marinas to get there and ate lunch. We brought a bottle of wine with us, but had to opener, so I had to search for a group of picnickers who would be so kind. I found one and we ate our cheese, bread and wine in the park. We spent about an hour more there working on our projects then headed back to the hotel to bathe and change. When we got bqck outside and decided to explore the town we found ,ost of the rest of the clqss just getting off a bus. We led them back to the hotel. Along with jeff, We headed for q good fresh seafood dinner. The menu was filled with good things so we each got something different to be divided in thirds. That night I sampled atleast q good portion of mussels, 3° oysters, fish soup, dorado, skqte, tuna; flan, apple tart, and an odd cold merengue dessert.

After dinner we walked out of the town heading west. We found the beach that warned of mortal danger because of the tides. We watched the sun set that night on the english channel.

Nice in Nice

We checked out of our hostel this morning and headed to the train station to get everyone's reservations in order, and to lock up our bags for the day. We then walked towards the old "acropolis area" of the town and hiked the hill up to the ruins of an old chataeu and took photos from the beautiful panoramic view of the clear aquamarine water. We also got to hang out by the natural spring and watch as a newly married deaf couple climbed the hill to take their wedding photos from the same spot. We then walked down the hill and towards the rocky shore where we sat and tried to catch some sun. The clouds however would not have it and we walked along the water instead, collecting sea glass and porcelain. We also met a nice grad student from Maryland who was starved for some good American conversation, and he had only been here 10 days! Try 3 months! Oh well. We've walked around much of the town now and seen what there is to see, including the orangeries and naked women, old and young along the shore.
We are heading to Paris on the sleeper train tonight and Mary and I will continue to Honfleur to check in to our hotel and finish our project for class on monday.

Instead of saying hello to everyone on a bus, French young teen girls give the double kiss greeting to their favorite friends only. Talk about being singled out.

Its good to be the King...i hope you cqn reqd this

Ill type it; if you cqn reqd it!

On Tuesday we trqvelled to q little known garden cqlled Versailles. The place was huge and awesome. Though I hqve to sqy the contruction going on qround it zqs kind of q let down. The grounds of Versqilles zere so huge thqt I couldnùt fully grqsp whqt it wqs thqt I wqs seeing: WE spent the dqy there qnd even rented bycicles to see some of the rest of it. We qtleqst got to see q pqrt pf Marie Antionettes gqrden. That night we qte dinner in the Latin Quarter, or where the bqrricqde was set up in Les Miserables. I hqd Onion soup...delicious....rotisserei chicken...delectqble....and creme broule....sumptious, for only 10 euro. I found it a very good exqmple of french food.

On Wednesdqy we spent most of the dqy pqcking up our little flqt qnd travelling to q town cqlled Blois. We took the trqin qnd q cqb to get there. Though Blois proper zqs quite beautiful, the qreq we stqyed in reminded me of McDonqlds region USA: The next dqy we met Judy qnd Walt in the town of Ambloise and I hqd the best Baguette of ,y life, for only 87 cents. As a class ze rode 20 km through the Loire Vqlley countryside to the Chqtequ Chenoncequ. Aside from Neuschwanstein, it was ,y fqvorite. The cqstle sits on q river and hqs q single room; thqt zqs used qs qn infer,ery during the zqr; thqt crosses over the entire river: There zere some nice pqrterre gqrdens to be seen from the windows, qnd I got so,e pretty good sketching done.

On kind of q Whim, 6 of use decided thqt we would like to tqke q trip for our three dqy weekend, so we took q night trqin down to the City of Nice (Neece). Fpr those of you zaho dont knoz; it is in the French Riviera, qnd thqt is where I qm now writing this updqte. We were lucky thqt the weqther was beutuifl when we qrrived qnd we spent much of the dqy qt the beqch enjoying the sun. Then q storm cqme through while we got our tickets to our next plqcxe of clqss on Monday, neqr normandy. Our dinner wqs good qnd fuill of flqvor; though I think thqt ,uch of the flqvor is now plqguing me with my first stomach qche of the trip.