| A Trip to Spain for Julie's 30th Birthday |
| The Diary of our trip (James is white and Julie is in yellow) |
| 10/18/06
Currently flying over the SE on our way to Miami � and then to Madrid! Music at the current time is the iPod on shuffle. It�s Mana right now. It feels weird to be flying again and esp. so quickly after our last flight overseas back in July. I�m so out of practice from writing that my hand hurts. That�s always the case! I feel like a loser whining about it. Ah well. I�m really excited for Spain and I�m sure Julie is way worse. Still, I don�t think it�ll really hit her until we�re in the airport. Does she want to write? Well, I�m done so I�ll at least let her read this. This pen is too heavy. Caca. Okay, I thought James was being ugly because I read �Julie is way worse� over his shoulder and got mad. He was being delightful, though, so no more griping from me. I am very excited, but James is right in that I won�t really believe it until we land and get off the plane. That said, I�m looking forward to having a great time with Marie, Abel & Eduardo! 10/21/06 I�m still a bit tired from last night. It�s currently around 2 in the afternoon � we didn�t get to bed until around 4 last night. So, yeah, my sleep schedule is a little off. OK, back from the beginning� Weds was fine; from RDU we landed in Miami with only a short layover. It was nice seeing the great beaches in Fla. from the air. But then, flying over the middle of the state � nothing but swamp. UGLY! Worse than the panhandle. Thankfully the layover was short. Then we flew to Madrid. The flight was uneventful, which is fine with me. Julie got more sleep than I did. I put on a shuffle mix of Fripp hoping it would work, but only partially. I just can�t sleep on planes. It took a while, maybe an hour, to get out of the airport here. We took a taxi to Abel�s and he eventually got us here, even though he didn�t know where he was going. Abel�s place is pretty far outside of the center of town � it�s not even on most maps and almost at the end of the metro line. It�s a nice place, very clean, looks new. It would be a comfortable place to live. When we stepped out of the cab, Marie just happened to be getting back from shopping, so that was perfect timing. It�s great to see her again � too bad Scot couldn�t come. After showers and a quick breakfast we went out into the city. It�s time for a shower so I�ll just end it here at the end of the page! 10/23/06 On another train � this time on the way to Cordoba. It sucks I haven�t had the time to write. It�s been like constant motion. Very tiring. I�ll go back to where I was in the previous entry � which is funny because that�s still recapping our first day! Here�s the quick rundown of what we�ll cover: W � 10/18 � Fly Th � 10/19 � land and Madrid F � 10/20 � Madrid Sa � 10/21 � Madrid Su � 10/22 � Avila M � 10/23 � (today) Cordoba Alrightie! On Thursday, Marie, Julie and I left Abel�s and went into the central area. Metro�d to Gran Via I think and walked around a lot � Sol, Gran Via, Plaza Mayor, Palacio Real, etc. Eventually we met up with Abel & later w/ Edu. Good to see them again. Earlier the 3 of us ate some good tapas at a place in plaza Santa Ana where Hemingway evidently used to go. Yay us! Anyway, after it was 5 of us, we just hung out for the rest of the night. Went to bed very late. On to Friday�Didn�t have a whole lot of time until Marie had to fly back so we 4 had a quick & good lunch before heading to the airport. Edu met us there just in time to see her off. (Present note � I really enjoy traveling through the Spanish countryside � it�s really nice.) After goodbyes we 4 (J, J, A & E) drove all the way across Madrid and went to Edu�s where we hung out all night. The drive was really long � traffic here is *horrible*. Thank goodness for the Metro. Anyway, we spent the evening eating, drinking & playing Risk. Abel ended up winning, with me 2nd. Oh well � practice I suppose for the match w/ Jenn. We got home at f�n 4am that night so that was hard to get up the next day. For Saturday we 3 (JJA) got a lot of ham & cheese at the local grocery store & had a huge and great lunch. So good! Sat Eve we met up w/ Edu and ate paella � really good even though I was still full from lunch. After that we went to Flamenco. The guys had never seen Flamenco before (which I find very odd) and they enjoyed it. For Julie and I, not so much. It was pretty good and a got better as it went on, but the first set � the whole group dancing � was pretty sloppy and very unprofessional. Plus they were dancing to a tape, thus no singers & no guitars. Ick. The 2nd set was much better � only individual performances and that was really good. At the end they all came back our and did a sort of comedy routine. Pretty funny, for as much as I could understand. After that, home to bed. Yesterday we 4 went to Avila, about an hour and a half away. Pretty cool place. Had a wonderful walled inner city that was quite cool. It was a good day and great (esp. for me) to get out of the city. And now we�re in the present on the AVE (fast train) heading to Cordoba. Hopefully it won�t be rainy there � it�s rained nearly every day here. OK, I stop now. 10/24/06 Happy 30th Birthday Julie!! I always like being the first one to wish her a happy birthday. Once again on the train, back to Madrid. Cordoba was a cool town, with some mountains along some of the sides. The train ride was really nice. After arriving we walked (not too far) to the hotel we decided to stay in � Hotel Boston. After check in and dropping off the heavy bag we went to the Mezquita. It was really awesome and a crazy mixture of Muslim & Christian architecture. Very awesome. Spent a long time in there and then walked around some more. Saw the Roman bridge, but it was being renovated and thus was barely visible. More walking around and then to El Corte Ingles to get sammich stuff for dinner. We ate back in the hotel room � drank a lot and passed out. Woo! This morn was just shower, brekkie and then to the train station. OK, I�m closing now. 10/25/06 It looks like I�m going to be the only author of this here diary. July only did her bit back on the first day. Eh. Music for this writing is KC � Great Deceiver � Zurich show. We had a great day yesterday. I hope that Julie had a good birthday. I think she did. After arriving back in Madrid and dropping our stuff off at Abel�s we spent the day walking around the city. Let�s see � where did we go? Hell, everywhere. OK, we got off the metro @ Alonzo Martinez and walked up to Julie�s 1st apartment there near Bilbao. Then we ate lunch at a kick ass Italian place � had some great pesto pizza, salad and wine. Yum! We then made our way to Julie�s 2nd apartment, on through Retiro, to pla. Cibeles and back round to Sol. Of course, all of this walking took HOURS. I managed to find Tattooed Millionaire and the Corte Ingles in Sol, so that ruled. After a beer in Pla. Santa Ana we met up with the guys at El Oso y el Madro�o (bear-licking tree) @ 9:00 and had some decent tapas over near Sta. Ana. Long day and we eventually got back to Abel�s around midnight. Said goodbye to the guys and crashed. Tried to, anyway; we barely slept. Difficult time getting to the place, but we�re about 2 hrs from Miami now so all�s good. My hand really hurts, so I�ll just say we had a fun trip! 10/25/06 Well, I suck major ass for not contributing to this journal as much as James. I find it hard to write in the middle of a trip, and honestly there hasn�t been that much down time. This has been the best birthday I could ever have hoped to have. Abel has been the most gracious host, and made us very comfortable by giving us the master bedroom of his piso. His flat is very, very nice and perhaps the cleanest I�ve ever seen. He said it was built in the 70�s, but it looked brand new to me. Yesterday � on the big dirty 30 � James and I came back from Cordoba relatively early (@ 1:30pm), dropped our stuff off at Abel�s, and then headed out for a memory tour of Madrid. We first had pesto pizza @ Pizza Buona in Bilbao, along with a great bottle of Rioja. =) We walked to Goya, down to where Katy, Marie & and I lived on Doce de Octubre, then through Retiro. We hit the Estanque when the sun was going down and got some really great shots of it reflecting off the water. James is really good at getting inspirational shots. We then headed to Plaza de Santa Ana (after a brief trip to El Corte Ingles in Sol for James to get a Bruce Dickinson CD) and had a beer & olives. I love Spain! We finally met up w/ Abel & Edu @ 9:00 @ el Oso y el Madro�o and headed for La Trucha. The food was pretty good, but the company great. They gave me a David Bisbal CD for my birthday and I can�t wait to hear it! Those guys are troopers for taking us all over Madrid and to Avila and for speaking English so well. I�m so glad Marie was able to come as well, and we had a great day and a half with her. Can�t believe it�s over and I�m on the plane to Miami. I don�t know what my favorite moment has been. Perhaps first meeting up with Marie at Abel�s flat, and then going out to Plaza de Santa Ana for tapas & beer. We walked around a bit after that � to Plaza Mayor and the Palacio Real � then had wine in Puerta del Sol. Edu joined us there and we went to another place for Cruzcampo � which James hated � and waited for Abel. We moved to yet another place that Abel recommended for yet more beer � good microbrew, actually � and tapas. It was cool because you got one free tapa w/ each beer you ordered. Hooray! That night was really great and we all had a lot of fun. I also enjoyed our jaunt to Avila for the day, where, despite the rain, we had a lovely lunch and nice walk around the city. Cordoba � at least the sights of the parks, Mezquita and Alcazar � was fun. James and I also had great fun in our hostel � Hotel Boston. With our meal of bread, assorted cheese (for like �4.00) and salami, and jumbo, puffy cheetos! We also had a bottle of wine and 3 bottles of lambic � big surprise, right? All in all, a fabulous trip that I will never forget. |