The Last City-Madrid

Today was the last city exploration of our entire trip. Tomorrow we will leave for the airport and embark on our long, bittersweet journey back to the states. 

We began our day with a very delicious dunk n doughnuts breakfast and then joined a free walking tour at 11:00. Being in a city with this rich of a history, we felt the need to learn more about it. Our guide told us about two monarchies, two republics, a dictatorship and the democratic system that exists today.

We also learned a lot of interesting facts about the city. Like how the royal palace has 2,800 rooms and is the largest in all of Europe.

 Or that on the Madrid crest there is an image of bear eating from a berry tree. 

There is a tree here that produces a berry that contains alcohol and many years ago, bears would roam the city streets at night and eat all of these berries! It become such a popular phenomenon that this image can be seen almost everywhere. 

After our free walking your we decided to do a tapas tour through the same company where we went to 3 bars, got 4 tapas total, and a drink at each for only 12 euro! It was a nice lunch and a cool way to meet some friends and try more Spanish food. 

After a good nap, we went to a very central food market in the Plaza de San Miguel and had more paella than we could finish for only 4 euro each, it was incredible. This market had full pig legs, raw fish, and almost any food or drink you could want in Spain. 

Going along with the plan, were turning in early tonight so that we can have an early start to our travel day home tomorrow. We're homeward bound!

Toledo

If anyone is confused by the title, yes, we took a spur of the moment day trip to Toledo, Spain because it was only a 33 minute train ride, and we get it for free!

Once in Toledo, we bought a map and started to see the main sights. We quickly figured out that it does not take long to walk around the city. According to Austin the city was built like a maze so all the small streets are very complicated. Some of the things we saw were the Alcazar, and old fortress, and bull fighting arena, and a famous Catedral.

 Once we ate and saw all of the main sights we decided it would be fun to get lost so we chose a couple random turns and just walked around streets we thought were cool. In the blazing Spain heat, we were tired and boiling so we took an earlier than planned train back to Madrid. Once back, we rested a while, then had a nice dinner of more kebab then people watched a little in a square. Tomorrow is our last full day which makes us so sad!

Yes Everyone, We Are Still Alive

After a very long and very fun evening experiencing the night life of Pamplona, we found that construction workers began their toils even before 5:00 am constructing fences in the streets so that the bull run is controlled. 

Without having been to this event it would be hard to imagine how big it really is so ill put it into words through something Ben said: Imagine time square, on New Year's Eve, with everyone in the city wearing the same thing, and bulls running through the middle. It was absolutely insane. 

This is a picture of the small street, packed with people running. It was so packed up against these fences with people trying to get a good view that we had to stand for over two hours in order to secure our spot. Two hours of standing, inches from a boat load of strangers all pushing and shoving to get to the front...we made friends pretty easily. After only a 15 minute cat nap instead of a full nights sleep, we were exhausted. So after the bulls ran, we made our way to the train station and boarded a train to Madrid and slept the whole ride. After arriving, we went to our hostel and slept some more. 

After our nap we decided we needed some dinner and went to a place recommended to us for paella and it was quite delicious!

Tonight will be one good nights sleep but tomorrow brings a new adventure!

We Made It To Pamplona

Since all the trains were booked, we took a coach bus from Barcelona to Pamplona. We arrived to find out we had no idea what was in store for us. We got off the bus to see EVERYONE dressed in all white and red belts and bandanas. Naturally, we found a great deal on the whole wardrobe and changed right away. We checked our bags and made our way to a field that everyone seemed to be flocking to. After sitting down and making some friends. We watched an incredible fireworks show to start off the festival. 

After the show was over, us and our new friends started to experience the festival, and we ended up having an amazing time. Seeing as we didn't book a hostel, we now have to wait a couple hours for the bulls to run before leaving for Madrid. Pamplona is crazy, we love it!

Thank You

Nearing the end of our trip, we are done meeting people we know and so we can't help but look back and once again thank everyone who took us in or just met with us. 

Thank you to my grandparents in Chester, England, for showing us an awesome time and taking us to all those meals! 

Thank you to Richard in London who was very helpful in our exploration of the city and who was an awesome host. 

Thank you to my Aunt Caroline and my cousins who took us to a great meal in London and showed us around for the afternoon. 

Merci to Jochen in Paris who was awesome enough to drive us to all the sights late at night, and then show us a little French cheese, bread and wine, along with letting us stay a night. 

Dank u to Graham and Liz who taught us about Belgium, let us stay with them, and Liz showed us a little of Brussels and showed us the famous Belgian chocolate!

Dank u to Wijnand in Amsterdam who took us out for a great dinner and to the oldest and coolest pub in the city!

Danke to Wouter in Berlin who showed us an awesome music festival location,  let us stay in his home, and was helpful with what to do in Berlin. 

Danke to Tyler in Vienna who let us stay in his apartment, and took us out to a restaurant with famous Wiener schnitzel and drinks too. 

Muchas gracias to Pedro and the family of Laia for having us over for an amazing dinner and Pedro showing us the best time ever during our stay at his house in Barcelona. 

And again to all, THANK YOU!

Classic Barcelona

After another day of sleeping in, we felt so well rested and ready for the last five days of the trip. After waking up we went to the train station and realized a train to Pamplona was hopeless. Therefore we consulted the bus company and realized a bus ticket cost only a few euro more than train reservation! So tomorrow at 3 we leave for Pamplona to see the bulls!

Ben, Katie, and I decided to spend some more time at these amazing beaches and it was well worth it, Ben is even getting noticeably tan! We then went back to our gracious host's house (Pedro) and left from there for dinner at his girlfriends parents house. (To explain our loving situation here, we had a very nice student teacher for Spanish this year named Laia and she is from Barcelona. She and I became friends and said that we could stay with Pedro, her boyfriend, for a few days and it has worked out so amazingly!). At her parents house we had a very delicious and traditional Spanish meal where there were many small snack sized dishes on the table and we picked at and chose through these dishes with a main plate of homemade pizza! Laia's family was so sweet and our host Pedro is honestly the best. We are so great full for all that they did for us. 

After dinner we went out for anther night on the town and are very excited to leave for Pamplona tomorrow even though we had such an amazing time here in Barcelona. 

Barcelona Day 3

Yet another great day in Barcelona and on our trip! We slept in, then Austin and I, now joined with Katie, met our Venice friends, Dmitri and Michael, at the Sangrada Familia. It is this church that was started about 150 years ago and is still in progress and is incredible. The outside is not done but still looks amazing, and the inside might be more impressive. We bought our tickets online and skipped the line and spent a good amount of time exploring the church. 

Then we spent the rest of the day at the beach again, but unfortunately the weather was not as great and we were a bit chilly, but had fun just the same. After that we all had dinner with Pedro and his friend from Russia who is staying with him now, Victor. We all ate a great tapas dinner then we hit the Barcelona night life attempting to celebrate the 4th of July, and we were successful! One more day in Barcelona and we don't ever want to leave!