Paris I

Paris!
Here I am at the Eiffel Tower on our first day in the city. We spent 3 days in Paris altogether. We had a picnic with wine and waited until dark for the lights to come on. This is my attempt to fit in. So many people walk around with baguettes :)... not a false stereotype

This is me with our couchsurfing host Mikella who has been living in Paris for about a year and showed us around the whole city.

This is me and Mikella walking through pere lachaise which is a very big cemetery. There are many big graves that have space for people to go inside and pray.

This is Sacre Coeur. It is a beautiful cathedral at the top of Montmartre (up about a thousand stairs) and there is an amazing view of the entire city.

-Renee

Tours, France II

4/11 - On Monday we took a bike right through Tours. Our couch-surfing hosts were awesome. Besides having a lot of fun hanging around and talking, they let us borrow their bikes! We met up with Dave, and rode for about an hour down the river that runs through Tours, there we had a picnic in the sun!

On the way we passed these houses. They look normal from the front, but they are actually built into the cliff. Apparently people will build the front of a house, then keep digging into the cliff when they need more room. Apparently the French love doing this because it keeps their wine at the perfect temperature.

Here we have Renee sitting at the dinner table with our couchsurfing hosts. We had a really great time with them. Aurelie and Cedric are seasoned travelers themselves... and had many great stories to tell. They also were well experienced when it came to being someplace unfamiliar, and we couldn't have had nearly as much fun in France if it wasn't for them.

Here is Cedric taking us to the train station. Especially crucial, since we had to print our tickets, and French/Dutch ticket machines work on an electronic chip, and can't read my US credit card (sliding machines work fine) - so we had some difficulty retreaving our ticket to Paris!

Tours, France I

4/9 - Instead of taking the train from Madrid, to France, we drove with Anjo, our host from Ceceda. Anjo was taking 2 dogs to their new homes in Germany and Holland.We left at 7:00 in the morning and passed through passed the Picos de Europa, Basque country, and up through French countryside. Including breaks it took 12 hours to go from Asturias Spain, to Tours, France. Renee did a good job taking turns driving the massive van.

Tours is beautiful. It has tons of old buildings, beautiful architecture, and gardens. It also doesn't have many tourists, so it's very clean.

We met up with our friend Dave who is studying abroad in Tours - he lives right next to the Cathedral of Saint Gatien.

It is big.

We took a walk inside - there are some great stained class windows portraying stories from the bible.

We also made sure we topped by the center of town, found a Cafe, and got crepes.

Madrid III

4/3 - Madrid - Sunday morning Kayleigh showed us where to get some cheap coffee ... not many people were on the streets - I'm guessing they were recovering from their previous night. Every Sunday morning there is a Market about 1km from the center of Madrid. We passed a famous square (pictured) on the way.

The market was easily 10x the size of the market in Cangas de Onis. You could find anything there. Mostly clothes, but many stands had souvenirs, tools, cheeses, and one even had juggling equipment.

After the market Kayleigh brought us to try something new. We got "Chupas" - which is basically like having a heart attack for lunch. Chupas are strips of fried dough which you dip in thick, hot chocolate. Needless to say - they were delicious.

We wandered around the city for a bit. Madrid is really beautiful - very classic/old, and really clean. It's a great combination of traditional/old architecture, and a very modern/young lifestyle of staying up late and being social. For Dinner we went to "LATERAL" - a restaurant that serves many smaller dishes which you share w/ your party. Among these dishes were the delicious "Patatas Bravas"... (Brave Potatoes) - potatoes cooked in a sweet and spicy red sauce.

Our goal for the night was to find Street Beers. Street Beers are cans that are sold after-hours by people wandering the streets. IF an Indian man approaches you on the street, holding a cooler, and says: "Cerveza?" - you've just been offered a street beer. On our quest to find one of these guys we stopped by our Hostal where we ran into our room-mate. He had never heard of street beers - so when I told him about our quest he came along. Brian's a really cool guy (on the right) - lives in Illinois, but has been all over Europe, and South America. He knows English, German, Dutch, and a small bit of Mandarin.

After finding our street beers, we stopped by an Irish Pub to listen to some live music before we retired for the night (~1:00am - very early for Madrid).

Madrid II

4/2 - Madrid - Saturday - In the morning we met up with Kayleigh and had Coffee in an out-doors cafe over-looking the Puerta de Alcalá. Kayleigh lives right next to Retiro park, you can see the park from the street, and walking distance from the center of everything!

Of course we had to be those American Tourists who take pictures of everything.

We spent the afternoon in Retiro Park. Retiro Park is massive. It's filled with statues, fountains and art.

We ended up getting lost in the park it is so massive... so we wandered around for a bit. We stumbled through the Rose Garden (pictured). Close by was a rotary without any cars, where you could rent roller blades for a few euro's.. I've never seen to many roller-bladers in such a small area. It was fairly frightening to get past.

We also saw the Crystal Palace - A famous landmark built to exhibit artwork. I can imagine that whoever built this ridiculous house would like to slap the current coordinator for their choice of "modern art" in the inside. After finding our way out of the park (a good 40mins), we got our budget lunch at a supermarket, which included bread, cheese, strawberries, and boxed wine - which we ate on the grass over-looking the pond where people could rent row-boats.

That night was crazy. We went to an event that Kayleigh's older host sisters were having at their apartment on the farther edges of Madrid - where their was live music, and home-made pizza (what else do you need!)

Afterwards we met up with a few other students that Kayleigh knew who were also studying abroad - and went to a club. Madrid sure does like its Techno music. In the clubs, in the shops, even on the buses - the city feels young and alive.

We left the club at 3am... since the metro was closed, and it was still very warm outside - we walked around the city a bit. Everywhere, even the odd side-streets, still had people wandering around. After getting pizza... we finally made it back to Kayleigh's at 5:00am where we crashed on the floor!

Dinner-time: I'll finish the weekend later!

Madrid I

4/1 - Madrid - On Friday we traveled to Madrid. It took a car ride from Ceceda to Nava, a bus to Oviedo, a train ride to Madrid, and a subway to get where we wanted to go. The train ride was really fascinating. Over the course of 5 hours, the terrain of Spain changed from the mountainous and humid region of Asturias, to the dry and flat climate of Madrid.

We arrived at the Sol subway stop... which is the mid center of the city. It was Madness. You couldn't take 2 steps without tripping over someone who was ready for a party. It was Friday, and everyone was outside. There we found Kayleigh and her friend Kate. We stopped by our hostel which was very nice... nicer then we wanted.. but everything else was booked. Apparently, when it's nice weather in Madrid people from all over Europe decide to take a weekend trip to Madrid. After stopping at our Hostel, we wandered around the city, got Falafel at a local vegetarian restaurant, and got a tour of the classiest places in Rome, including a chain bar called 100 Montaditos, where you get dinner and a beer for 2 euros.

Ceceda Pictures

Here are a few pictures from Ceceda!

Estrella is a young German Shepard. We got some funny pictures of her jumping for her favorite toy one afternoon. She had the energy... but accuracy wasn't her strong point.

Anjo's house in Ceceda is very nice. Surrounding the house is nothing but farms, hills, and cows.

Every Saturday Anjo, Renee, and I would go to the "Perrera".. aka the dog shelter and socialize/take care of the dogs there.

Here's our room. Looking out our window we could see the cows in the morning... it was angled so that the sun would come in the window all morning, which was very nice. All day and night we could here the jingling of cow bells.

Here's Renee offering flowers to a cow. The day before we left Ceceda we took a walk around the town (aka country-side)

Every morning the neighbor walks their cows.. at first we thought he was exercising them... but Anjo explained that every day they grazed at a different meadow. I never realized just how big cows were, until I had to convince one that my tools were not delicious (I had made the mistake of leaving my tools on the stone wall by the road while we were working on the fence)