Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre (“Five Lands” in Italian) is a string of small towns nestled in the cliffs of coastal Italy lying halfway between Genoa and Pisa. They were built centuries ago far above and inaccessible from the seas below as refuge from the very real threat of pirate attacks. Over time they have become better known for idyllic beauty that comes both from the picturesque layout of the towns and from the dazzling and serene landscape that surrounds them.

After the turn of the century, when Italy was being connected by rail, the tracks just so happened to pass through Cinque Terre. This changed the towns from an unknown and inaccessible hideaway into a obvious destination in eyes of travelers, and there emerged a serious risk of these towns being destroyed by overzealous developers trying to capitalize on this quaint slice of heaven. Thankfully the Italian government stepped in, making Cinque Terre a national park and preventing large-scale development, which is why today Cinque Terre is still lacking any type of large-scale development and hotels. If one wishes to stay in one of the Cinque Terre towns, many residents rent out a room of their house.

From Florence we hopped a train to La Spezia, the closest access point to Cinque Terre. There we purchased access day passes for Cinque Terre, and hopped a small regional town that led to the first of the five towns.

After arriving, we explored a bit and began following the foot path that connected all the towns. Each town exuded such an old-world charm: small local markets, hole-in-the-wall restaurants serving authentic-as-it-gets pasta and pizza and gelato, and the obligatory souvenir shops lined the streets that led to the most breathtakingly beautiful seascape on earth. A gentle breeze swayed the scattered high grasses and trees that lined the cliffs overlooking the water. The water itself gently lapped the rocks below, as small specks of people floated around, their shadows darkening the ocean floor ten to twenty feet below them, and in the distance charter boats scooted by and private yachts relaxed, anchored peacefully.

The path between towns was not always easy, and it took 60-90 minutes to get from one town to another. This was serious up-and-down-hill hiking that had us sweating, drinking tons of water, and thankful that we had remembered to switch our sandals for hiking shoes in the morning before leaving. We made our way in this fashion through four of the five towns, before the setting sun forced us to make our way back to Florence.

You can see more pictures here.

Milan

Our overnight train from Barcelona that departed the night before took us in darkness throughout southern France, and deposited us in Milan by midmorning. I can’t remember if I mentioned earlier that we were roped into buying sleeper-car tickets because regular seats had sold out. Unfortunately, these quarters were even more cramped than the seats would have been, and Stacey and I were both happy to breathe some fresh air and stretch our legs.

We didn’t have a lot of time in Milan – really only a couple hours before again moving further south toward Florence. We headed downtown to see the Duomo, which was really an impressive piece of gothic architecture from the outside. We were unable to go in. Next to the Duomo was an upscale shopping center that had elegant glass-domed roof sections that made for a unique experience as we walked around.

Surprisingly, the most memorable part of Milan had to be the gelato we bought. I’m sure Stacey’s done a better job of describing it than I could. It was pretty amazing, and I'm not the biggest gelato fan.

The Beach

Today made me wish we had more time in Barcelona. In the morning we made our way downtown and into a perpetual and grandiose farmers market that was absolutely bustling and some of the most fun I’ve had so far. Individual sellers were hocking fresh fruits, fish, cheeses, crustaceans, meats, breads, pastas, pastries, drinks, nuts, candies, and everything in between in such an array of colors and aromas and sounds that it overwhelmed the senses. If you looked around you could find killer deals, and Stacey and I got a large meal of grapes, fresh bread, a substantial wedge of brie, two fresh fruit drinks, and some candy for under ten dollars.

We took that meal with us to the beach, where we relaxed and enjoyed people watching. Out in the water a ways there was a long row of enormous concrete cubes (about 6-8 feet per side) rising out of the water that had been scattered perhaps as a breakwater, perhaps as an I-dont-know-what, but it looked just far enough to swim out to. So I did. The water so warm and comfortable and clear and beautiful and it was at this point that I was sad that our time here was nearly over. Our train was leaving tonight, and we didn't have time to fritter away like I would have liked. Swimming up to the blocks was surreally beautiful because the water was so clear that I could see at least 15 feet down. The cubes scattered away in a pyramidal pile as they descended in the water, and as they did so they ever-so-gradually became less and less pronounced, making the water below a gradient of vibrant colors: the grey and algae-covered gold of the concrete blocks blended into teal, into the most gorgeous blue-green and finally into the azure of the beach’s depths. I wish I had my camera with me because my clumsy words can’t do it justice.

Gaudi

All of Barcelona’s most amazing sights were designed by one man. I’m sure Stacey has gone into great detail about Gaudí already, so I won’t go on and on filling you in on his history. What he has designed is so different from anything else in the world has ever seen, though, and the best I can do is show you pictures from some of the places we saw that he designed. Check them out here. (There is no link yet because the internet is kind of wacky and I can’t upload albums. I will work on this in Greece.)

There are many buildings around town, but the most noticeable is the Sagrada Familia cathedral. It was started in the late 1800s and will not be completed until halfway through this century. I’ve never seen a structure of that shape or that was as dauntingly tall as this. It completely dwarves the surrounding buildings of six to ten stories. We went inside, but there is so much construction still going on that there was little to see. I’m sure that the guests who visit once it is completed will be speechless.

Barcelona

Last night because of all the train switching we didn’t get a lot of sleep and we caught up when we got to our hostel.

Alhambra and Alcazar

I couldn’t believe the lines and security at the Alhambra. At the door we picked up our tickets, which were scanned as we walked in. By the time we had left (where they were again scanned), it couldn't have been scanned less than half a dozen times. The Alhambra was an amazing display of Muslim architecture which really could have blown me away, but the lines were equally stunning, and it was difficult to be awed when shoulder-to-shoulder with other tourists all jockeying for the perfect photo spots. I’m glad we went, but all in all felt that the alcazar in Seville provided much the same architecturally with a fraction the crowds, security, velvet ropes, and price-gouging opportunism. Think Knott’s Berry Farm vs. Disneyland.

One description would fit for both places equally, as they were quite similar. That’s why I’m grouping them together here and why i didn’t talk about the alcazar earlier.

It was incredible to me that most of the walls from should-height upward were completely covered in carvings of Arabic patterns, designs, and words. I was literally unable to fathom the amount of energy and time and effort that must have gone into constructing these fortresses.

At the time they were built, I can only imagine them being even more opulent, especially in contrast to everything around them. They must have been symbols of such complete lavishness and absolute power that it would make a peasant's head spin to step inside. how I wish I could step back in time to when these were used for their intended purpose. When there were no park benches, ropes, recorded announcements, and cheesy gift shops. When they used fountains designed to take advantage of natural water flow instead of using pumps. When people went about the corridors on their day-to-day business and weren't wearing nametags and uniforms. Still, I feel blessed to have been able to visit them.

Note: pictures are from the Alhambra, video is from the Alcazar.

Rambutan

The one day we spent in Granada, we slept at the Rambutan Guesthouse, a long hike uphill at the edge of town. I won’t go into it in great detail because I’m sure Stacey has spent some time explaining it already. All I’ll say is that I wish I had more time there. I could easily imagine losing weeks just reading and talking and having fun with the other guests. It had such a feeling of a communal, timeless paradise.



And the view from our balcony was stunning.

"Weenus"

Last night Stace and I had the good fortune of meeting an ambitious street artist from Britain who informed us, among more other things than we wanted to know, of his two aliases: "Weenus" and "Lexi." Ambitious, motivated, visionary, and completely unable to see the difference between our politeness and rapt interest in his mission, he talked our ears off about how he was touring Europe and drawing on people's clothes to make a big name for himself. Pumps, trainers, hats, you name it - if you had the cash he could make it look like crap for you.
I've never been a big fan of the graffiti style to begin with, but I have to say: Weenus was setting his sights a little high by imagining himself the next Banksey and having a multi-million-quid clothing line. The cap he wore to advertise his work made the homework margins of the delinquent kids from jr. high look framable. This was unsteady single-line writing with unsteady single-line shadowing.

Pushing us to buy his stuff after we politely declined wasn’t enough, and he did his best to make sure we took photos of his work to upload to Facebook and informed all our friends about the new mogul-in-training. This quickly grew thin as we never gave any indication of being interested in him to begin with, but what added to his grating nature was the loudness, the fast talking, the unclean, unkempt hygiene, the profuse sweating, and the profanity. Oh well. After smiling and nodding for about fifteen minutes he was gone and out of our lives forever.

* * *

Today we returned from the Alcazar tired and in need of showers when we again bumped into "Weenus." As we passed in the hall, he took a smile and "hi" as an invitation to start up again. We weathered the storm and made our way into our room. Stacey sighed with relief and I was glad to have some quiet time. As we passed our open window, Weenus, out in the hallway, saw us.

"Is this your room?"

Yes, Weenus, this is our room.

"Hey - me too!" And with that he followed us inside.

The look on Stacey's face was absolutely priceless.

Needless to say, we had very little quiet time in the next hour before heading out to flamenco, but hey – that’s half the fun of hostels.

All caught up but short on time

all of my travels up to this point are documented in my journal. now i just need to find the time to actually type them all up and post them with pictures. today we will be walking around seville some more and tomorrow are on our way to granada to see the alhambra. i hope i can post tonight, but i am not hopeful because we are going to see a flamenco show tonight and afterwards will be walking around town. im doing my best though, and expect a whole lot of updates sometime in the next few days.

Seville

This morning we saw Plaza de España. It was an enormous example of Spanish and Moorish design. We sat in the shade beneath its arcade and listened to flamenco guitar, singing, and castanetas while watching street vendors try to hock their cheesy wares while keeping a nervous eye out for the police.

In the afternoon we did laundry, which turned out to be quite an ordeal. Stacey washed in the sink while I rinsed in the shower and found places around our already far-too-cramped room to hang things. All-in-all it took the better part of two hours. Hopefully everything will be dry by morning so we can have some semblance of order in our room again.

We bought tickets for a flamenco show tomorrow which should be a lot of fun - Stacey is really excited. I also hope we have time and the funds to go through the alcazar and the cathedral here in town tomorrow. We'll see.

Picasso Backpacker

Right now I am sitting on the roof-top balcony of Picasso Backpacker in Seville, looking past the railing at the stunning cathedral dominating the skyline and less than a five minute walk from here. The hostel itself is located in the most perfect of places: in the center of downtown, close to everything, amd with amazing views.

The atmosphere of the hostel matches well – the white walls with green antiqued accents gives such a bright, cheerful, fun, sunkissed-beach-house feeling. The hallways of the rooms form a triangle around a center courtyard-like opening that, while small, follows all three stories to the roof and, at the bottom, sheds the quintessentially Spanish-feeling lobby with fresh air and sunlight from above. At each window of the rooms overlooking this central opening, flower boxes of hanging plants dangle, reflecting sunlight and soaking the clean white of the hostel with further accents of green.

Out room is shared between five people total: Stacey and me, two girls on holiday from Slovenia, and an Aussie traveling solo. All three seem like decent people. The Australian, although coming off as arrogant and stand-offish at first, turned out to be quite friendly. It was amusing to hear him take matters into his own hands when other rooms down the halls got too raucous in the late hours of the night. In conversation with the Slovenian girls, it emerged that one would be visiting New York and LA the following year. An invitation by Stacey to stay with her while visiting left her giddy with astonishment. Her reaction really was cute to see.

Today was crazy when we tried to book our outgoing overnight train from Granada to Barcelona. All the seats were full, and after working around and around our options, we ended up getting tickets that will take us from Granada to Seville to Madrid to Barcelona. The time frame is about the same, but I don't think we'll be able to get any sleep, since we'll be hopping trains in the middle of the night. Oh well. Tomorrow we explore Seville!

Cascais: On the Coast of Somewhere Beautiful

Today we returned to the beach town of Cascais (pronounced kash-KAISH), which we had spent a majority of the day yesterday exploring, too. It is straight west of Lisbon as far as possible before running into the Atlantic, and is the closest point we will be to home during our trip. (By the way - enlarge the pic to the right to see how incredible the beach looked in person.)

The town consists of narrow streets flanked by the slender, tight, high buildings that seem to be a staple in Europe. With relentless sun bearing down from above and the unique-to-Lisbon (at least so far) tiled pavement of white reflecting from below, the entire town was washed in a beautiful, stringent white. Thankfully, it was kept cool by the Atlantic coast, which conditioned the air and provided refreshing sea breezes. Both sides of the winding side streets that interlaced Cascais were lined with small cafés, novelty souvenir shops, and high end designer fashion stores. The former two spilled out into the streets with tableclothed patio seating, racks of inexpensive wears, and hopeful vendors doing their best not to be overtly pushy. In the background of the scattered plazas teeming with outside seating and lunchtime diners, accordion players serenaded as pigeons and the occasional dog kept their distance, but remained alert for discarded scraps.

A landing peppered with outside café seating and ice cream vendors ended at a low block wall that overlooked a secluded beach, protected on its right and let by cliff walls upon which sat beautifully quaint – if somewhat tired – housing. The beach itself was not wide, and when completely full of sunbathers would accommodate less than a hundred people. The beach was quite full – young sun worshipers, older folks, families with small children playing with one another in the surf, and of course a European sense of modesty. On the cliffs that overlooked the water several dozen feet from the shoreline, a group of local teens worked up the courage to make the ~20 foot dive into the cold sea below. Back up the steps leading to the beach and through more radiatingly clean and white side streets with sights and sounds and smells that tantalized, through more plazas fill of afternoon diners and gentle music, and we emerged at a larger stretch of beach that abutted a wide causeway several hundred feet long and teeming with the activity of workers attending to their daily activities. Even the water was ethereally brilliant, and matched well the not-quite-real diffusion of light emanating from the streets and buildings surrounding it. I could really only imagine a place like this to exist in a storybook.

Alfama: The Old Quarter

This afternoon we veered east from the downtown of Baixa and found ourselves in the twisting and turning roads of Alfama – the only original area of Lisbon that was not devastated and rebuilt after an enormous earthquake in 1755.
Turn after turn we made our way through ever ascending narrow streets that angled steeply as they led toward Castillo de Sao Jorge, which perched at the pinnacle of the hills overlooking Lisbon. Along the way we were provided the most breathtaking panoramic vistas of not only the coast and sea beyond Baixa, but of the entire city.

At every turn we were met with the noises of the 28 Trolley: dings and bells, squeals and clacks as the bright yellow transports highlighted the otherwise earthen city streets with their swathes of color.

After enjoying the views and the atmosphere of the Alfama, we made our way back down to Baixa stopping along the way at one of the little pastelerias that are so common here, where we grabbed a quick nibble of fresh pastry, a simple end to a beautiful day.

Belém

Today we hit three a Bermuda Triangle of tourist sights in close proximity to one of each other: the Belém Tower, Explorer’s Monument, and Jeronimo’s Monastery. All three were in the town of Belém, just a quick train ride west from Lisbon.

Because it was Sunday, Belém Tower was free. Because there was an extremely long line, we chose not to go inside. I did have fun outside snapping pictures alongside Stacey, though. Apparently, for hundreds of years that tower – more in the water than on the coast – was the last glimpse of Portugal that departing sailors and soldiers would see when leaving their homeland, and the first they could spot if they made it back.

After that was a quick bite to eat before seeing the Explorer’s Monument. An obelisk several stories high with enormous stone figures of Portugal’s great men of exploration and influence, it was just as impressive display as the Tower of Belem, but in an altogether different way. Viewing such a monument where I am no larger than a kneeling king’s toe does much to provide an awe-inspiring experience. By the way – that’s Stacey in the bottom right corner there. It took 9 shots to get the entire monument to fit into a picture.

After our ogling was wrapped up, we made our way across the street inland to see Jeronimo’s Monastery. I feel redundant by describing every sight I see as being breathtaking, but I have never been so captivated by this quantity of sights in a single day. Jeronimo’s Monastery was definitely the highlight of the three, and the single most impressive piece of architecture I’ve seen. There is little to say about it that would not be said much better through pictures, which you can check out here.

On the way out, we passed a pastry shop that opened in 1877, and has been famous for their custard pies ever since. Stacey and I got one each and, after going through the routine of sprinkling them with powdered sugar and cinnamon, both concluded that there was good reason for their substantial fame and out-the-door lines.

A Day of Settling in and Catching Up

Today I have little to report. We stepped off the train at Lisbon's station around 9 and into a place completely foreign to me. The preceding hours of daylight trainride showed us glimpses of a world far removed from the relative affluence of downtown Madrid. As we rolled past stretch upon stretch of fields and factories and highrise housing in various stages of disrepair, I reflected on the fact that we had no clue how to speak Portuguese or really how to find our way around town once we arrived. At this point the train was making periodic stops and passengers disembarked sporadically. No anouncements were made about the names of the stops, and Stacey confirmed that, like me, she could see no outside signage for the station stops, either. It was at this point that I began to get slightly unsettled for the first time since our trip began.

With each stop, my naive mind reflected more and more on literary imagry of destitute, ungoverned Soviet satelites and the early morning mist only added to my apprehension. At the last second, we noticed our station, and departed into Lisbon Station. Still on edge, we did our best to navigate through to the safety of our hostel.

By the time we emerged at our Metro's destination, the fog - both real and imaginary - had lifted from the streets. We emerged in a large square paved in an intricate mosaic of black and white that was orders of magnitude, cleaner, quiter, and emptier than any public place Stacey and I had been in Madrid.

In less than fifteen minutes, Stacey and I had found our hostel. We checked in, ate breakfast, and from what I hear, I fell right asleep. You can read about how cute I was here. Around noon we were let into our room (any earlier would have been disturbing the other twelve guests that shared it with us), whereupon I promptly feel back asleep. Of course Stacey was a sweetheart and let me rest.

In the afternoon we left the hostel and made our way to Baixa (pronounced BAI-zha), the downtown area of Lisbon. We simply strolled and took in the sights, adjusting to our new city. This city is breathtaking, and I will fill you in with excruciating details in later posts.

Notes From the Train

"As I write this, it is actually in the early hours of the 16th, and we are riding the overnight train from Madrid to Lisbon. Stacey has been trying her best for the last few hours to grab what sleep she can. I'm not too tired, and thought this an opportune time to finally catch this journal up to the current day. Today we didn't rise until close to 9am, and it really felt great.

The news of Stacey's bag is that they followed our original instructions and it is on its way to the Black and White Hostel in Lisbon. We'll see when we get there, but I'm not holding my breath.

Today was really just a day buying time before our night train. Another cold breakfast and host shower and we were on our way. We made our way through Plaza Mayor and past the palaces to the Plaza España, which I now regret not photographing. There was a central monument probably 30+ feet high that had within it one of the most beautiful fountain/waterfalls I have seen.

Afterwards we made our way to El Parko de El Retiro. Along the way I grabbed my far-from-first kabab. It's not quite a gyro and not quite a sandwich, but it comes from Turkey and tastes like heaven.

At Retiro park, we walked, grabbed gelatto [ed. note: Leche de Merangue is still by far the best flavor, and it's nowhere to be found in Portugal], and tried our best to nap a bit. At the park there is an enormous pool - much more the size of a small reservoir - on the far side of which was a decadent Roman-styled edifice. Many small boats had been rented, and were paddling around serenely.

After our afternoon at the park we made our way back to the hostel to grab my backpack. With that and a small bag of groceries for the train, we took the Metro the the train station. There is little to report from there to here. Our rail passes have finally been put to use and Lisbon awaits!

PS: The weather here in Madrid has been to die for. We were expecting a humid heat, but have been given mid-seventies and mild breezes. The last time I felt weather this nice was years ago in Vancouver."

Training Day

Today we spent a majority of our day trying to get train tickets. It was not too exciting for us, and will be even less so for you, so I'll keep it brief. We left the hostel early for the train station, where we waited in line for an hour and realized that we would miss our hostel's checkout time if we stayed long enough to be helped. We hustled back to POP and just barely made the 11:30 deadline, then went back to the train station, waited several hours, learned that the overnight for Portugal that evening "es completo," and booked one for the following evening. To save time, we also made reservations for the train back to Madrid and the high-speed day train into Seville.

With a substantially lighter wallet, I had extra bounce in my step as we made our way up to Stace's old stomping grounds. I got to see where she lived when studying here several years ago and along the way we stopped and snacked at the fanciest damn ice cream shop ive ever seen.






It was mid evening when we decided that it would be a good idea to find a place to stay for the night, so we made our way back to POP. There we inquired about vacancies and crossed our fingers that Stacey's bag had been delivered unto us by the luggage gods.
We received negative answers to both, but POP mentioned that they had a sister hostel aross town with room. They called ahead for us and reserved a spot and, after checking our email and chatting with other guests, we made our way through Plaza Mayor to Musas Residence Youth Hostel.

Last night at POP Hostel we had been content (I was just trying to be flowery with my description earlier, Mrs. Schwartz. It wasn't really bad at all), but Musas - which had opened just 20 days prior and only had warm water on a single floor - really blew us away. Come to think of it, I really should have taken more pictures, but only have one of our room. It was clean, bright, open, artsy, friendly, and in a beautiful part of Madrid that left me with a completely different taste of the city than POP.
I was exciterd because finally we were in an area of Madrid that didn't feel and smell like the less reputable areas of downtown LA. We were 3 or so blocks away from the gorgeous Plaza Mayor and could get to the Palacia Duques de Ucedo Viaductyo, Palacio Real, and Plaza España in less than half an hour. That evening we walked past the palaces before heading back to the hostel. We had heard word of a festival in the Latin Quarter, but we were too tired for a night of debauchery that "would show us just how liberal a town like Madrid could be." We hit our matresses and were out.

We´re OK

Stacey and I have been so busy and are not feeling settled yet but we're both doing just fine. We were not able to get our train to Lisbon for tonight, so we have another night in Madrid, and from what we hear, Stacey´s bag should be coming in tomorrow morning if not tonight, so that's good news. As soon as that comes in we will have a power converter and a computer that doesn't need to be used by a dozen other people so we will finally have time to post stories and pictures. Until then know that we are safe and having fun.

Pop Goes the Hostel

After doing what we could about Stacey's lost luggage, we made our way underground to the Metro - the network that courses beneath Madrid's surface and acts as the city's arteries. It siphoned us through its dank capillaries and deposited us not far from our hostel, in a square bereft of the busy activity I had imagined of Madrid. Neglected buildings and pigeons outnumbered pedestrians.

We made our way through narrow one-way cobblestone streets flanked by sardine-can storefronts wrapped in a graffiti that looked as tired as the shops themselves. Most were closed, with barred display windows. Others were divorced from us and the world by industrial roll-up doors that were overgrown, like the walls around them, with the street art contributing greatly to the seediness emanating from these back alleys. After several blocks we reached our hostel.

A button push and a momentary pause and we were buzzed into the foyer of Madrid's POP Hostel. It was dimly lit and wept an odor that had been coordinated perfectly with its outside appearances. Stacey and I made our way up a single flight of narrow, worn, and creaking wooden stairs that zigzagged up the building's four stories. Muted sounds of activity trickled down the stairs from above and increased as we made our way up. At the first floor landing, chatter seeped from under the closed door upon which a postage-stamp of a sign proclaimed to us that we had reached our destination.












Once inside and finally with a hold of our bearings, the place grew on us immensely. Staff went out of their to help us feel welcome, including phoning Spanair to inquire about Stacey's luggage. Free maps were provided and destinations were marked for us. The rooms were cozy, clean, and empty, save the single hung-over Italian finding relief from sunlight and the bustle of the city. We were beyond ready for settling in, too, but first things first: we needed train tickets for our overnight to Lisbon the following day.

Because walking is fun, we didn't take the Metro across town to the train station. At least an hour and a dozen stops for referencing our map, we made it. Once at the front desk, our shining beacon of ambition dutifully informed us that he could not sell us tickets because they closed at 9. Behind him, a large clock read 8:54. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day, and we will get our tickets early then. The path back took less time and fewer map references and it was fun to see how alive Madrid was at night.


It's almost 3 in the morning here, and I'm too tired to think of a clever way to say how tired I am. Hopefully I will be able to get you all up to speed and stay current after our activities tomorrow. If you don't want to wait for me, Google Torre de Belém and Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, which we will be seeing during the day. In the evening we'll be walking and taking some amazing vista pictures from the Alfama quarter. Stay tuned!

Bad Air Day

Okay. I finally have time to sit down and fill you all in about the past few days. It is about ungodly:30 in the morning, but this is the first time I have been able to get my ducks in a row and I thought, who am I to keep you waiting?

For as much time as we gave ourselves to get on our plane, we barely made our flight. It took nearly 3 hours to get from the front of the luggage-checking line to our terminal because of how unusually busy the airport was, the issues with rescheduling flights thanks to Lufthansa's strike, and because the credit card Stacey used to buy our tickets months ago had since been canceled. Being excessively vocal was the only thing that allowed us to make that flight.

At our layover in San Francisco on the way to Munich, they chose to move our flight across to the other side of the airport without letting anyone know, but that wasn't too big a deal because how on the ball Stacey always makes sure to be. Beyond those hitches, there was really nothing much more eventful on our first leg of the flight out, though I could write pages about how stressed Stace was doing her best not to be. To be fair, I had about my fill of unexpected changes in plans, too.

Stacey slept a majority of the flight into Frankfurt, while I kept busy with electronics. Once in Germany, customs was a breeze and Stace and I had nothing but time to kill after passing through. Four+ hours later we were finally able to board the last flight to Madrid. To board, we needed to leave from the terminal and get on a bus that took us to the plane. I think both of us were surprised at the cold and the wind and the rain; neither of us was dressed for that, so we were relieved once we had made our way inside.

I'm sure you've all heard from our emails or reading Stacey's blog that her bags were conveniently waiting for us in San Francisco when we arrived in Madrid. At that point we couldn't do much but laugh at the fact that it was all just part of the days luck that had begun at LAX.

Itinerary

We've finally nailed down our itinerary; I was able to put it together in a way that should be rather straightforward. I'm not tech-savvy enough to figure out how to stick it right into this blog, but if you want you can check it out here.