Barcelona, Spain (In a nutshell)

Once again we were lucky and had amazing weather in Barcelona. We stayed in a hostel near the beach/Port and we were about 5-10mins away from Las Ramblas. It was a great location. As you'll see below we saw a lot! Our tour talked a lot about Gaudi and we were able to see a lot of his works, as well -- we saw a lot and heard a lot about the Olympics! As Barcelona was the host in 1992 (the year my beautiful Sister, Kathleen was born).


Placa d'Espanya - setting of the 1992 Olympic Games -- One of the city's biggest squares, It was designed by Josep Amargós. The fountain at the centre of the square was designed by Josep Maria Jujol, a collaborator of Antoni Gaudí, while Miquel Blay designed the statues. The buildings were designed by Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí.

Venetian Towers - they are 154 ft tall and lead the way to the MNAC via Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, an avenue commonly used to host trade fairs.
Fira de Barcelona
Parc de Joan Miró - previously known as Parc de l'Escorxador (Abbatoir Park), it is nowadays named after the Catalan painter Joan Miró, whose 22-metre-tall statue Dona i Ocell (Woman and Bird) can be seen in one of its corners.
Arenas de Barcelona, a bullring - It was built in 1900 in the Moorish Revival style and is being converted into a shopping center.


Park guell (Gaudi's work)

Park Güell (Catalan: Parc Güell) is a garden complex with architectural elements situated on the hill of el Carmel in the Gràcia district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí and built in the years 1900 to 1914. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Works of Antoni Gaudí".


Sagrada Familia-Gaudi's dream

Sagrada Família, is a large, privately-funded Roman Catholic church that has been under construction in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain since 1882 and is not expected to be complete until at least 2026.
Considered the master-work of renowned Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926), the project's vast scale and idiosyncratic design have made it one of Barcelona's (and Spain's) top tourist attractions for many years. The church is to be consecrated and proclaimed a Basilica by Pope Benedict XVI on November 7, 2010, during his visit to Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona


Sagrada Familia-Gaudi's dream


Gaudi’s work

Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet was a Catalan architect who worked during the Modernisme (Art Nouveau) period but became famous for his unique and highly individualistic designs regarded as beyond the scope of Modernisme. He is sometimes referred to, in English, by the Spanish translation of his name, Antonio Gaudí.


Port Vell next to the Sailboats


Near the Christopher Columbus statute

The Columbus Monument (Monument a Colom in Catalan, also known as the Monumento a Colón and Mirador de Colón in Spanish) is a 197 ft tall monument for Christopher Columbus at the lower end of La Rambla, Barcelona, Spain. It was constructed for the Exposición Universal de Barcelona and is located at the site where Columbus returned to Spain after his first voyage to the Americas. The monument serves as a reminder that Barcelona is where Christopher Columbus reported to Queen Isabella and Ferdinand after Columbus' most famous trip.


Candy at the Market (Las Ramblas)


Also at the market ! Yikes !


The Port

We saw on our Tour the Port Vell Attractions: The IMAX theater features three projection systems: the Omnimax screen, the flat IMAX and the 3D IMAX for which spectators use 3D glasses. The biggest attraction of the Port Vell is the aquarium, one of the largest in Europe. The aquarium boasts 8000 Fish, including 11 sharks in in total 22 basins filled with 6 million liter (1,5 million gallons) sea water. Basin 17 features an 80m long tunnel from where you can observe mediterranean deep sea fish, including sharks. Southwest of the Maremàgnum is
Aduana Buildingthe Aduana building, an old customs building constructed in 1902. Adjacent is a long pier with the new World Trade Center.

We went into the Maremagnum and shopped around/ate.


Next to the Port near Las Ramblas

I AM SO LUCKY! Got to see and look around the 1992 Olympic Stadium! (Where the opening and closing ceremonies were as well).







Barcelona, was selected over Amsterdam, Belgrade, Birmingham, Brisbane and Paris in Lausanne, Switzerland, on October 17, 1986, during the 91st IOC Session. It had bid for the 1936 Summer Olympics, losing out to Berlin.

Porto and Cesar - PORTUGAL

My trip to Portugal was breathtaking and amazing! We stayed with friends and the families of the friends and had a blast.


Here is a view right next to the Douro river. There are beautiful buildings and outside cafes that we walked by. I wouldn't say this is tourist-y at all. Barcelona was much more tourist-y. The weather this day was beautiful and we had a blast. The river and bridge were amazing and there were even speed boats in the water cruisin around!


This bridge was great, we walked on it! It is in LOTS of post-cards (family watch out! I've sent you some). It was great, and again the weather treated us awesome!


The coast in Porto. I'd recommend anyone to travel here!


After we walked down the coast and on the bridge we had these great singers sing to us a few songs :) They were quite gentleman and all of the ladies they put on a big coat to keep us warm, it was quite cute.


This is the flan dessert at Gil's birthday party. He had his birthday at a really nice restaurant with endless food and drink and we met all of his close friends in Cesar, Portugal. We are so happy we went to Cesar. This is a small village in Portugal, and we also visited Porto, which is obviously a much bigger city. We stayed with Gil's family and they even cooked us Sunday brunch! It was amazing!


Gil is the shirtless one! He backpacked for a year through South America and he is who we were staying with. He is the best host in the entire world. He showed us great things, we were very very fortunate. We saved a lot of money staying with him rather than in hostels. His family (mom and dad) didn't speak too much english but they were so nice to us and had a BEAUTIFUL house in Cesar.



Here is a picture of our whole group at the dinner for Gil's birthday. Tad is the guy from San Fran, Zuzi from San Fran, Sara (the red head) from San Fran, Alicia (long brown hair) from Stout, though lives in Minnesota, and Kristie the Australian. Brittany is also on the left, from LA though studies in San Fran, Cali.


Gils YUUMMMY birthday cake!


We went to an actual PORTUGAL FUTBOL GAME! The yellow team is the team from Cesar and the black team is the opponent which is in the Division one (Cesar is the local team).


At the soccer Game.


The futbol game


Being the amazing host Gil was, one night he actually took us to a "student night". There was a band and free beer at a stadium near the university. This is the band, we had a great time and never would've known of half the things in Portugal without Gil showing us. He said it was an awesome time to come. 1. for the student night here with bands and such. 2. his birthday and 3. we were there on a Sunday for his mother to cook us an awesome and traditional Portugese meal.


Portugal is VERYY VERYYYY cheap. This burger was 3 euros and we had fries and a drink as well! It was awesome!


The tallest lighthouse in all of Europe here


We also got to spend time at the beach which was wonderful!


Here is all of us on the streets of Porto :)


These are the appetizers before the meal. Our main meal is below but these little things were cold, but they are a breading with seafood in the middle.


This translates into the "little french girl" > We don't know why. It was delicious and very heavy! There was sausage, ham, tons of meat and cheese - it was our first dish in Portugal EVER!


The streets of Porto at night


All of us by the river/bridge/coast in Porto.


Right in the City.


All of us at the Wine Tasting.


This is the Winery Tour we did. Learned a lot about PORT Wine :)


We got to the beach at the right time! Just for sunset...

You can find me at Brandenburg Gate for NYE 2011!

NYE IN BERLIN! 2011!

We've decided our plans for Christmas and New Years. We'll be arriving in Rome on December 19th 2010 and staying there for 3 nights. We plan on checking out all of the major cities in Italy (Florence possibly for Christmas??), and then on Tuesday Dec. 28th we booked our flight out of Venice, Italy to Berlin, Germany for New Years eve! We'll be staying in a flat from the 28th until January 2nd. Then Jan. 2nd back to Arnhem.

TOP TEN NYE Destinations and Berlin Falls to #3 !!

Exciting !

Check this out:
>>Askmen.com (UK) -- No.5 - The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin
If Paris and London are the refined parents at New Year's Eve, then Berlin is the drunken uncle. Over a million people gather for this overwhelming celebration, with a massive fireworks display, music, dancing, light shows, international food stands, and beer tents (it is Germany after all). Behind the Brandenburg Gate is the 1.2 mile-long "Party Mile." The name says it all. Strasse des 17th Juni (17th June Street) turns into one huge open-air disco, replete with international DJs, laser and light shows and performing artists. It’s also open-ended, so no matter how big a party animal you are, there will be someone there to party with.<<


Leaving for Porto tomorrow. We're leaving Arnhem at about 10:30am and going to Eindhoven (this is where we fly out of). We're going to walk around Eindhoven, take some pictures and have lunch and then we're going to leave at 4:00pm getting into Porto tomorrow night. Not back until NEXT SUNDAY :) Can't wait. We also have tickets to an ACTUAL Portugal Soccer game (Futbol of course). I'll let you know how it all goes! Back from Spain the 24th...

Couch surfing in Leiden

So Friday October 8th my friend Madison and I went to Leiden (Netherlands) for our first couch surfing experience. Couch surfing is absolutley free and you literally "couch surf" or stay with people for free. Sometimes you have a couch to crash on, sometimes a bed, sometimes your own spare bedroom - its however the host sets it up. Sometimes it is just a place to stay, and sometimes the host will show you around, be your tour guide and kind of hang out with you while you are in that particular city. Couch surfing is WORLD WIDE and I met people there who actually couch surfed all through America as well. You go through the couch surfing website and put up a profile and after you stay with people they reference you, and you can see the references of the hosts as well. We stayed in Leiden with Tommy who is Dutch, though he speaks English, German and Norweign as well. He also knows some French and is learning Russian. He speaks English better than anyone! His friend said that he truly is a linguist and catches on really fast, and he said his skill lies in the pronunciation aspect because he is so good! You would never ever guess that he was Dutch by the way he talks. We ate dinner at his house the first night for only 2 Euros. A girl named Lauren cooked for us, she is majoring in International Relations and is going to school in Leiden & she is 30 from the O.C. (Cali). It was fun getting to know her and Tommy! Lauren has lived in a lot of other places like Thialand, France, and she even taught English in North Korea. She's been all over. Her family now moved out of Cali and live in Boise, Idaho. They also have a "permanent" couch surfer staying with them - his name is Pete and is from Hungary. He speaks Dutch and English as well. Tommy has couch surfed over 60 times and has had over 100 people stay with him - a lot of first timers!

The first night we hung out, got to know each other and had dinner (as well as watched Inglorious Basterds on their HUGE projector). There were also two other couch surfers staying there, one from Portland (who was half Canadian) and one from Santa Cruz, CA. The next day (Saturday) we walked around the whole city and also went to the Farmers Market. It was absolutley beautiful outside and Tommy was our "tour guide". We checked out a lot of places and had a great time in Leiden.

Also on Saturday, Tommy's couch surfer friend Marina came to spend the night for a few nights. She grew up in Sweden and just spent three months in Africa! She started in Morocco and worked her way around - she is a hitch hiker. Tommy and her have hitch-hiked for a while now and we learned a lot about this aspect and how it is in Europe. Totally a new concept to me and definitley interesting. She had a lot to say about Africa (as she JUST got back) and also couch surfing and hitch-hiking in general. She plans to go back home to Sweden and then go to New Zealand as well. We talked a lot about Moroccans and what she thought about the country, as well as Africa in general as she met women who worked in the sex trade and talked a lot about the drugs she saw there too. A lot different there then in Europe and the US.

Leiden is a prettier city than Arnhem in my opinion. The canals were great and there were a few historical markers we came across as well. I did see lots of wind-mills too! I'm glad I did couch surfing because I met so many new people and it was nice to get out of Honigkamp and Arnhem for a weekend. We also went to a bar the first night and has the "beer" talk with Tommy as he said US beer is only about 3% alcohol content and in the Netherlands it is like 6 or 7% (sometimes higher).

Tommy also has a money tree in his house! I took pictures of it, and it literally has money from all over, and coins in the bottom of the plant too from all over. It was cool to look at the different currency and especially the Canadian dollar! I had no idea it looked very similar to the Euro! Tommy "claims" the tree could be worth HUNDREDS some day because it is a "work of art" > I totally agree!



Here are waffles and stroopwafels at the market we went to on Saturday morning. I definitley had a stroopwafel for breakfast :) Delicious!


Leiden canals at night


The money tree! Paper from AAALLLL over the world . . .



You can see here that on different buildings throughout the city there are little "sayings" >> Too bad I couldn't read it


Being in Europe (Especially the Netherlands) makes you want to go boating/sailing every day! The canals are beautiful on a sunny day and the boats are so fun to look at.


Windmills are all over the city, of course.


'Dispicable Me' was featured at the main theatre in the city, I got a picture with the star of it!!


This is the view off the balcony of where we couch surfed at. They were right in the city by all the shops - the view was awesome!


My Sunday morning coffee and pancake :)
YUMMY!