It's now 7:17am in the morning here in Madrid. We are heading home today. Our flight leaves at 1pm. I'm sad to know that our europe trip is over and that in a couple of days, we will be back doing the same thing that we did before we went on the trip. It will be nice, though, to have clean clothes again. Now only a metro ride and about a 15 hour plane trip till we get back to California.
-Ed
MADRID
Madrid was a nice city. We didn't have much planned. We stayed a block away from the famous "Gran Via" and "Puerta del Sol". We headed to the palacio real, crystal house and walked around a park. I bought stuffed bull for Kirby. Ate kahbab at a restaurant .... Where Ed fell in love with the cashier there. The next day we took 3 different metro trains to the airport. There were hookers all over hotel and we were propositioned by many.
Madrid airport was huge and security was very tight. Ed and I made it through security very easy... Rui on the other hand was hasseled. At the checkin line security hasseled him they demanded to see all the receipts from everywhere he had been through out Europe. Something we did not have... eventually they let him through. Apparently I appear to be a local as the security guard came up to me and said "traveling with Japanese friends eh"... "I responded oh there chinese".... his reply " There all the same"... "I busted up laughing".
Inside the airport gate... We suddenly hear over the loudspeaker "RUI XU please come to the gate immediately".... Rui gets taken by security and is led off.... 20 minutes later he is returned to us apparently he was forced to go through all the security checkpoints again... because he's from China. This concluded our time in Europe.
BARCELONA
It was not easy getting to Barcelona....
We had to book a plane from Milan rather than from Vencie. So we took the train from Venice to Milan. At Milan we had to take a bus shuttle to the airport... since Ryan Air doesn't fly out of Milan's main airport it flys out of orio airport. At the airport we checked painlessly. We boarded our plane which looked like the "low class" section in the movie Soul Plane. The entire plane was filled with soccer hooligans from Germany... apparently there was some big match.... They were chanting soccer chants the whole time at the top of there lungs. The flight attendents threatened to call the police if they didn't quiet down, and the pilot came out asking the same thing. This only encouraged the soccer hooligans to shout louder. The pilot himself appeared to be drunk and flew like it as well. I've never been in a plane that took off so steaply and landed shaking the wings back and forth. We made it safely to Girona airport.
Girona airport is about an hour a way from Barcelona. This was one of Rui's planned cities. So instead of taking the Barcelona Bus which takes us directly to Barcelona (1 hour ride).... Rui decided that we should take the Barelona Bus to the city of Girona then take a local train and then Barcelona metro... this took about 3 hours. We arrived at our hotel... where Ed tried to speak spanish... he has the worst spanish I have ever heard... EVER!
We went in search of a restaurant and found a nice place... which is where we realized Barcelona is cheap. 10 euros for a 4 course meal including alcohol. I had a very good lager.
We managed to see everything that barcelona had to offer... at the moment I don't remember the names... but any major attraction in Barcelona Ed and I at least saw it. Rui was lazy one night and went to sleep/picked up a hooker...
Friday, April 11, 2008
Venice
They say that Venice is one of the most Romantic cities in the world. Seeing as how we traveled there as a group of 3 males, I didn't find it all that romantic. The sights of the city, though, were amazing. We rode the Vaporetto (water bus) throughout Venice. Cars and motorcycles aren't allowed in Venice, so all the taxis and buses are all waterborne. We also went to an island right off of the main area of Venice called Murano. Murano is famous for it's glass artwork. We went to a glass making factory and saw a Master glass worker make a horse from a glob of molten glass in less than a minute. It was quite impressive. If it hadn't been for our hotel, I would have said that my experience with Venice was wonderful. Before we went to sleep we knew there were mosquitoes in the room, one would expect this being so close to the water. It wasn't until we woke up the next morning that we realized that there were also bed bugs. I, myself, was bitten about 15 times just on my face. All night long, I woke up swatting at what I thought were mosquitoes on my face. The bed bugs and mosquitoes made for a much worse experience than the mouse that was in our room at Amsterdam.
-Ed
-Ed
Venice was a beautiful city. We started the day by checking in at our hotel, which was hidden away from the main streets of Venice in an alley way very close to the hotel. It appeared quite clean, we learned later that the place was anything but that.
Per the recommendation of the hotel front desk we headed to a restaurant that was a little further down the alley towards the main street. It was a very reasonable deal something like 12 euros for a 4 course meal. It was way too much food and we were forced to leave a lot of leftovers.
After this we took the Vaporetto to San Marco's Square/Bassilica via the Vaporetto. It was a 20 minute trip. Having traveled to Rome's Pantheon, Florence's Duermo, Paris' Pantheon, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame just days before, San Marco's Square and Bassilica seemed unimpressive.
Having nothing really on our schedule for the day we decided to take the Vaporetto to a neighboring island called Murano. Murano is where the world famous Venetian glass comes is made. The Vaporetto ride was very long. In fact all 3 of us fell asleep... luckily we woke up about 5 minutes before our stop or we would of missed it. We got off the boat and head to a glass making demonstration. It was amazing how quickly the glass maker was able to make a horse figuerine. Following this 10 minute demonstration we headed to the gift shop where Rui and Ed purchased items. Then we walked around the island of Murano looking into the various glass shops where I purchased a glass dog.
Next we decided we wanted to head to the grand canal, but not wanting to take another 1.5 hour long Vaporetto ride we decided to get off at the first Vaporetto stop on the main island and walk across the island. After a 10 minute ride we got off on the main island. I was tasked with navigating us to the Grand Canal.... this is not an easy task in Venice, many of the streets are not labeled, or end in dead ends into a canal. I pretended i knew where I was going and just started heading south. We made it to our destination... also having accidentally toured the entire city of Venice along the way. We started to get exhausted at this time and headed back to the hotel. That night Rui and I were tasked with buying bottled water. We searched the area around our hotel for a supermarket which is much cheaper than a bakery to buy water from. We searched for a half an hour and could not find a super market finally we bought water at a bakery. Later that night we went searching for dinner and ended up purchasing sandwiches from a small shop. These sandwiches were terrible.
The next day morning we boarded a train and began a day long journey to Spain.
Transportation was very expensive. 15 euros for a day pass on the vaporetto. Vaporettos are very slow. Around the main island its much quicker to walk then to take the Vaporetto. Food was cheap compared to paris, but expensive relative to the rest of Italy.
-Poon
Florence
The museums in Florence were not as impressive as the others that we have previously seen. They were quite small and with the exception of the Statue of David, everything that we saw did not seem to be quite as impressive as the Museums in Paris. However, the Uffizi museum was pretty cool because it housed works from all of the Ninja Turtles. The town of Florence is actually quite small. I liked the small town feel of Florence but on pretty much every street, there was dog poo. I felt like I was constantly in a mine field. If they could just get rid of all the feces in the street, Florence would be that much cooler. The food in Florence and (everywhere else we ate in Italy) was amazing. By far, the food we ate in Italy was the best we had on our entire trip.
-Ed
-Ed
Rome
While in Rome, we did all the usually tourist stuff. We went to the Vatican, saw the Sistine Chapel, saw the Colosseum, saw the Pantheon, saw the Trevi Fountain, and ate Gelato (The first of 5 straight days eating Gelato). Some chick also tried to pickpocket me on the metro. I laughed at her though because I had nothing in my pockets. We also found a very cool family run Italian restaurant that had "Chef Benny" as the cook. The house wine was actually the best tasting wine that any of us had ever had. Plus, they had the grandfather (Pepe) chilling at the front door greeting everyone. He was very cheerful and was the one who grabbed us off the street to go inside and eat. We ended up going there for dinner both nights in Rome because the service was so good.
-Ed
Rome was another great city. It felt like we couldn't walk more than a couple blocks without seeing a famous fountain or building. The city is also relatively small so walking through the city is an option.... in fact one night we were forced to since the Metro closes at midnight.
We started the first day by visiting the vatican. we went to the very top of the basillica which was not an easy task. Then we toured the city and went to the spanish steps. We ate at a authentic restaurant, where I had the best white wine ever. I ordered a 750ml bottle of the house wine... unfortunately though Ed is allergic to wine so he had half a glass... and well Rui is a weakling I had to drink most of the bottle of wine by myself. After dinner we went to the Trevi Fountain and bought several wooden clocks from a clock shop near the Trevi Fountain and ate Gelato.
The second day we were forced to go back to the Vatican as yesterday the sistine chapel was closed and I demanded that we return to see it. The line was very long to get in. The sistine chapel was amazing when you first look at the ceiling it appears as though theres complex pillars built in, but then you look closer and realize that everything there is painted, but amazingly it all looks 3 dimensional. After the sistine chapel we headed ot the colisum. We used the trick of going to Palentine Hill to buy tickets and thus we were able to completely bypass the line to the colisium. We walked through the colisium then headed to the forum. We made the mistake of eating lunch at a tourist restaurant. The food was absolutely terrible and expensive.
After the colisium we walked to the pantheon and continued walking through the city. Ed hijacked us and made us walk back to the Vatican... he claimed there was a spot he had to take a picture at which was the exact symmetrical point. He said there was a circle there. We arrive at the vatican square and well theres like 10 circle things on the ground. We never did figure out the "symmetrical point". Later that night we decided to eat at the same restaurant for dinner again. We each ordered a pizza, which was not quite as good as the pasta. We walked the city again and got gelato at the same spot a very popular place with the locals. As we tried to board the metro we find that its closed so were forced to do a 2 mile walk back to the hotel.
The next day we boarded a 2.5 hour train to Florence.
-Poon
-Ed
Rome was another great city. It felt like we couldn't walk more than a couple blocks without seeing a famous fountain or building. The city is also relatively small so walking through the city is an option.... in fact one night we were forced to since the Metro closes at midnight.
We started the first day by visiting the vatican. we went to the very top of the basillica which was not an easy task. Then we toured the city and went to the spanish steps. We ate at a authentic restaurant, where I had the best white wine ever. I ordered a 750ml bottle of the house wine... unfortunately though Ed is allergic to wine so he had half a glass... and well Rui is a weakling I had to drink most of the bottle of wine by myself. After dinner we went to the Trevi Fountain and bought several wooden clocks from a clock shop near the Trevi Fountain and ate Gelato.
The second day we were forced to go back to the Vatican as yesterday the sistine chapel was closed and I demanded that we return to see it. The line was very long to get in. The sistine chapel was amazing when you first look at the ceiling it appears as though theres complex pillars built in, but then you look closer and realize that everything there is painted, but amazingly it all looks 3 dimensional. After the sistine chapel we headed ot the colisum. We used the trick of going to Palentine Hill to buy tickets and thus we were able to completely bypass the line to the colisium. We walked through the colisium then headed to the forum. We made the mistake of eating lunch at a tourist restaurant. The food was absolutely terrible and expensive.
After the colisium we walked to the pantheon and continued walking through the city. Ed hijacked us and made us walk back to the Vatican... he claimed there was a spot he had to take a picture at which was the exact symmetrical point. He said there was a circle there. We arrive at the vatican square and well theres like 10 circle things on the ground. We never did figure out the "symmetrical point". Later that night we decided to eat at the same restaurant for dinner again. We each ordered a pizza, which was not quite as good as the pasta. We walked the city again and got gelato at the same spot a very popular place with the locals. As we tried to board the metro we find that its closed so were forced to do a 2 mile walk back to the hotel.
The next day we boarded a 2.5 hour train to Florence.
-Poon
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