Madrid Cont. 3…6-11-2014

                Today we once again decided to relax and wake up around noon. Now noon in Europe isn’t even bad because most days we take mid day naps and wake up at 7 or 8 and then go out on the town.  Europe are late goers haha.  We got lunch and decided to check out some local parks and see what they are all about because on the map they looked HUGE.  

  Well ya Madrid has some awesome parks/gardens/water fountains.   Pictures will show so more of what we saw for the day.  It started to rain while we were raining and then thunder started to surround us.  Luckily the trees were pretty thick by us and we could hang out by this nice size pond that was covered in wild life such as birds/fish/turtles. It was a nice place to relax and it seemed many others were doing the same.

               

As soon as the rain calmed we figured we would rush over to the metro and get back to our hotel since we did not bring an umbrella since the weather forecast that we read didn’t say anything about rain.  Now we are back in the room and just hanging out. It’s roughly 7pm here and we will probably just go to a local market and grab some food to cook again tonight.

                It’s crazy that we come home in 2 days…. Sad yet relieving at the same time.  Im thinking one more post will come out before home… J

Madrid Cont.COPS ANYONE??? 6-11-2014

                We decided that we would just not set an alarm and just really take these last few days to relax.  Most of the trip we had ideas and sites we wanted to see, so we were constantly on the move.  Madrid we are kind of experiencing the opposite experience.  We do not know a whole lot about what to do or see so we are basically just exploring the surrounding areas.  This method we have used during other parts of our trip and have found it to work pretty well.

                

Yesterday we decided to go back out and walk the town in the evening. We walked back to this square I spoke of earlier.  Now this square is pretty big and probably has 8 or 9 “entrances” coming from all parts of this square. Some are for cars and some are for walkers only, on top of that there are about 4 metro entrances/exits on all corners.  Tonight though this square was covered and I MEAN COVERED in cops.  Every “entrance” to the square was secured by 3-5 police officers and every metro exit was covered as well.  There were roughly I’d say 50+ cops and about 20+ cop trucks in this area. Also a helicopter was flying above.  It was a little unsettling because everyone was just going among their business and we had no idea why they were there.  We still don’t know why and never heard anything.

Last stop…Madrid – 6-10-2014

                So we got to the train station all fine and got our tickets about 30 mins before the train was going to leave….over the past 20 days we have learned the system pretty well we think.  Our high speed train from Barca to Madrid was little under 3 hours.  At many points of the trip the train was going 300km/hr (186mph).  Fastest train we have been on                                                                  all trips and it was SOOOO QUIET!!!! It was amazing actually.

                We arrived and found our hotel pretty easy from this main square in Madrid.  This square was packed with people and fast food, normal food, and shops.  In about 3 blocks I saw a McDonalds, 2 burger kinds, KFC, Starbucks and some other European type food places.  The funny thing is though, other than this square being packed and a few blocks surrounding it everything else was very empty and quiet.  I did not expect this after coming from Barca where it was pretty packed everywhere.  So far Madrid has been pretty quiet in terms of tourist type place compared to everywhere else we have been on our entire trip.

                Our hotel is amazing…. For 3 nights it is costing us 127euro TOTAL….cheapest place of all the places we stayed on our entire trip and this place has great AC, nice bathroom, a Kitchen, a real Full bed (not 2 beds pushed together), and a couch.  We actually were blown away.  We made dinner here our first night, well Lexii made the dinner and I just kept making our “homemade makeshift sangria mix.”

Barca “almost” bad bad incident! 6-9-2014

                So lexii and I up to this point in our trip with only a few days left have had NO problems what so ever with anyone trying to steal things or cause us harm or anything…. After many family members and friends telling us all these awful stories and telling us to be careful we were very happy we could go home and say we had no issues.

NOT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                So let me explain in a briefly manner…..
                                We were at the beaches of Barcelona around 11:30pm…. Late you may say but actually the beaches were covered in groups of people spread through-out the beach…all drinking and just chilling having a good time.  We had bought wine, sangria, sprite, cheese, and bread and were just enjoying the nice weather at night.  Along with all the people hanging out, behind us there was some kind of festival going on because there were tons of people dancing and singing and fireworks going off in the streets.

                All of a sudden a guy walked up to me and said “do you want any beer or weed” (now this happens often and they normally just walk away and move on)… I say no dude we don’t need any of that can’t you see we already got stuff.  He continues to push for the sale of weed and what not. This guy is on my left and while this is happening Lexii (on my right) looks towards her purse and notices it’s GONE!!!!  She turns around and sees a guy walking away, she gets up and runs and says “hey you stop.”  Meanwhile I’m in a brief shock of what is happening and look at my guy on left and hold my back…I saw naa don’t want any dude, he leaves and walks away…  Meanwhile Lexii (now roughly 30 yards behind me) is talking to the guy and says “hey give me my purse back!”….the guy gives the purse back….she notices the purse is unzip.  She then says “now my wallet.”   The guy gives the wallet back and walks away… Lexii walks back to me and we are like “let’s pack up and leave”….  Briefly overwhelmed in the moment and still trying to understand what just happened we pack up and leave.  The adrenaline and stress still flowing through our veins we drink some more “homemade” sangria to calm the nerves haha.

                We took the metro and make it back to the hotel and well I’m now writing this…. Almost 1:30am now.   Long day and night but still pretty wired from the situation… could have been far FAR worse.   For all the family and friends WE ARE SAFE!!!!   Good night everyone! Tomorrow we are taking trains over to Madriddddddd.

                 EDIT: even though what happened tonight, we had come to enjoy what Barca has to offer.  The nightlife seemed pretty cool…maybe it was because these celebrations of some kind were going on but we had better food and enjoyed the beach….reminded Lex of the beaches of Socal in a way.

Rome to Spain 6-8-2014

                Today we arrived at the airport in Rome to fly over to Spain… Let me tell you it aint no Southwest flight haha.  We were actually bussed to our plane on the tarmac far away from our gate….. Thank god we had priority boarding, which we still aren’t sure how we achieved haha.  The plane thank god was like any other commercial plane except a little hotter and no free snack.  THANK GOD the flight was only hour and some.

                Edit: So far Barcelona has been pretty interesting.  At first we did not really enjoy what it had to offer, this may be because we barely understand Spanish at all.  I’m sure Spain has its historical background but after coming from Rome and experiencing the amazing history it has with some amazing tour guides, any other country/city would have to be amazing to beat what we saw in Rome.   We got the chance to try the cava, sangria and tapas which from what we heard from family and friends is what we must have.  After a few days I can say we have had some good versions and have had some EHHHhhhh versions.    We did get to see some great sites such as where the Olympics games in 1992 and got to walk around the grounds where many events were held.  Even though not much was happening there it was still cool to just see where a huge event happened.
           

     Barcalona has May parks and I want to say they may be known for well designed parks.  Parks to show a few.  Being a soccer fan I also saw that the FC Barcelona stadium was nearby so I had to stop there.  OMG that place is huge and I read the stadium can handle about 100k.  Hopefully that is true because it looked massive even though I did not get to go inside (sad face). We did though go in their “mega store” that is 3 stories big full of merchandise!  I bought a Barca scarf and Barca wine.  The wine was pretty good as Lexii and I drank it before going to the beach. I hope to see the Real Madrid stadium as well just to see the comparison of the two biggest Football Clubs in the world.

                EDIT 2 : We haven’t talked to many people on our trip (strangers) and well we were in the “chill zone” of our hotel/hostel in barca and we happen to meet this nice couple from the UK…. We talked to them for the last hour and half…. All about their trip, our trip, the states, the UK, Rome, etc etc.  It was actually really nice and pretty awesome.  We don’t even know their names…. Their accents were pretty awesome tho.

Rome – 6-7-2014

                The past few days have been some good ones; we enjoyed the majority that Rome had to offer such as the trevi fountain, pantheon, coliseum and the whole Vatican museum.   The Vatican museum was amazing and im so glad we paid for this guided tour because without this amazing tour guide we had then we would have been walking around all the artwork in the blind and have no idea what we were looking at.  It was well worth it, I’ll never forget Fee( tour guide).

                Early into our Rome trip we met lexii’s friend Paige which she spent the wine business class with before I arrived.  Along with Paige was Paige’s sorority sister who we spent the last few days with.  We checked out the tours together and spent most nights at a local hostel bar called “the yellow”.  This bar was basically an international college youth bar.   Walking into this bar reminding me of what I would see in Rohnert Park or Campbell…  We met many people in the past few days from these tours and bars and actually realize how small this world is, such as meeting a random guy who spent the last 12 days in Israel with my old team mate Garrett Gooch. 

                Now Rome was amazing yet tiring at the same time.   I say this because this city is very busy and very touristy.  Wherever we went there was some tourist group already ahead of us or behind us and we were also walking around in 85 Degree weather.  Regardless we got to see some amazing buildings and some amazing art. Like I said before, without our tour guide for 2 days, then we would have basically learned nothing.  She was amazing and very informational yet not boring in one bit.

                One final week before we are flying back to the states…. Sad in a way but yet refreshing.  This trip has been great and I have seen a lot, yet I can’t wait to relax a little and just enjoy the comfort of home.  I can’t wait to come home to my parents and puppies and just be welcome in an open house and one that speaks all of English haha.

                The funny crazy thing is as soon as my parents pick lexii and I up at the SFO airport, soon after we arrive home and enjoy some family time and tell the family about our trip before they go to bed we will have to meet our friend Miguel for his birthday at the Campbell bars in San Jose.   I’m assuming we will be plenty away because of the 9 hour change difference.  Other than that I can’t wait to just relax for a few days with my family and tell stories before I leave once again for Cancun with part of Lexii’s family for a week.

DAMN BUGS - 6 - 4 - 2014

Its past 2am here and I am still up cause I keep hearing these little nats or little mosquito things buzzing and from the beginning of the trip to now I have probably been bite over 20 times.  First they were just little bug bites and little bumps.... BUTTTTT these dudes in Italy have been causing a small rash and it itches.... so annoying.   I have been spending the past hour killing random little dudes flying around!

not my fault the AC doesnt work and only way for any moving cold air is having a window open of some sort... shoot me now!

mom.... dont worry I aint dying haha.   Ive been putting like healing ointment on the bumps that seems to help but i mean doesnt stop new dude froms biting me.   may have to go to a medical store tomorrow to find some repellent or something.   they dont eat lex :(   just my blood 

that top one looks bad but its better now.... ugh