Zaragoza - A Review

Zaragoza was just a stop-over on our drive to Barcelona from Madrid. It ended up being a diamond in the rough. It had an unbelievable Cathedral in the middle of it's town. Read more here.

Highlights

• The Cathedral
• Parking was so easy here
• My first of several experiences with Churros
• Having Britta ask me if we should prop a chair under our door handle of the pension where we rented a room for the night. It really wasn't that scary, but Britta wondered if it might be a rent by the hour place.
  
• The whole feel of the town felt very similar to some of the cities I served in on my mission.
• All of the pastries we ate for breakfast
  
• Having Britta get sincerely angry at me when I made her hold a stupid pose for a long time in front of a statue of Ceaser, while I tried to take a picture.
  

Lowlights

• Not much more to do other than see the cathedral

Toledo - A Review

Here is a link to Toledo's history: click here. This place is a mid-evil city. It was very cool. I felt like I was in the beginning of Aladdin with all of the small alleys and streets. If you thought about it while you were in the middle of the maze it could make you claustrophobic.

Highlights

• Holy Toledo - The cathedral and the art inside were unbelievable. Unfortunately you couldn't use a flash inside so most of the pictures turned out pretty crappy.
  
• All of the sword shops. I swear there had to be at least 50 of them. Who really buys that many swords. I only need one.
• The fact that they have installed escalators up the side of the hill so people visiting don't have to walk up. See Europeans are lazy just like us Americans.

Lowlights

• Walking up the hill (we didn't see the escalators until it was too late)

Madrid - A review

Madrid has a really cool history as does everywhere we visited. If you are interested check it out on wikipedia here.

Highlights

• I loved all of the pedestrian streets
• The beginning of a lot of ice cream eating
• How late everyone stayed up at night
• Tortilla Espanola
• The beginning of eating at many roadside cafes
• The royal palace
• Retiro Park
• The Prado Museum
• Just walking around

Lowlights

• Struggling to understand Spanish with the Spanish accent. It really took me almost the whole trip to get it.
• Driving in Madrid. Wow! It was a whole new world for me. I only got honked at 5 times or so. Those giant round abouts are quite tricky
• It was so hot!
• The effects of Jet Lag

Dublin - A Review

Well you have all been asking for it and now it is finally here! I am going to put up a post for each place that I visited. I will try to keep the info brief and then just include a slide show of my photos.

Highlights:

• The accents - much better live and in person
• The street musicians. There is something that was just charming about it all.
• The live music in the pubs.
  
• Rugby - I got to watch a World Cup Rugby match between Ireland and Georgia live in one of the pubs on my way home. I loved being in an atmosphere where everyone knew the game. It was more exhilarating than I thought it would be. It gave me the itch to start playing again.
• Woman walking and breastfeeding at the same time in public. I imagine it is much more difficult than it appeared.
• Man teaching son how to spit on moving cars from the second deck of the double decker bus.
• The Guinness!
  

Lowlights:

• Running to catch our bus to the airport with our backpacks on.
• Sleeping in the Dublin airport on my way home. Not as comfortable as one wood think.

Are you sure you don´t already have kids?

That would be Britta´s question to me after staring a few moments at me with my new sun glasses and beard. Evidently I pull off a good Dad look. I told her it looks much better when I have my mustache.

Greetings from Zaragosa, Spain. This is the half-way point between Madrid and Barcelona. It has ended up being incredible. Here is a picture of the Cathedral here:

Unfortunatley this internet cafe stinks and I can´t upload the pictures that I took. Hopefully I will be in a better situation tomorrow to show you some photos. The cathedral is incredible to say the least. The inside is much more beautiful.

. . . . Okay it is now the next day and I am in Barcelona. It is an incredible city. I like it even more than Madrid.

I hate driving in Spain. So far I have only been honked at 6 times. I heard that roundabouts were terrible. I have thought how horrible them must be when I saw them on TV. However only driving in them can I officially tell you how much I hate them.

Quick entry for today. Hopefully more tomorrow. Good Night.

Holy Toledo Driving in Madrid is Crazy!

Dear Readers,

Once again I welcome you to my blog. So today was an interesting and long day and needless to say I am super tired now that it is 12:30 in the AM. First off I finally had success at sleeping last night. I think I got a full 7 hours in, which made me happy. I woke up at 8:00 and decided finally I could go for a run (I am running the St. George Marathon on October 6th). I wasn´t sure how I would feel since I hadn't run in over a week and I am at a much higher altitude than San Diego. I took off to Retiro Park (Madrid´s version of central park). I actually felt great and I think that it helped having so many other runners out (mostly older Spanish men in very short running shorts which made me feel out of place). I ended up running 14 miles which made me very happy.

Today was the first day that we were going to have our rental car which we will have for the rest of our time here. We went to the airport to pick it up and then headed straight to Toledo. For those of you haven´t heard of Toledo you should check it out on wikipedia here. Basically it is a preserved Midevil City that was started by the Jews, Conquered by the Muslims, and then taken over for good by the Christians. What remains is a midevil fortress on a hill filled with pieces of all three cultures. The pictures really do no justice because you can´t get a good angle on anything because all the streets are barely wide enough to fit one car and they wind all through it. You almost get clasterphobic when you are in the middle of it.

After a long afternoon of walking the hills of Toledo we headed back to Madrid in the car. Boy what a treat. Could the Spanish make things any more confusing! Plus parking was an absolute joke. On top of being lost and getting honked at in round-abouts, Britta had to go to the bathroom. We ended up finding a parking spot literally miles from the hostel. We started the trek back to the hostel and like the genious that I am I realized I had left my wallet in the rental car. Needless to say between the run this morning, Toledo, and parking the rental car my feet hurt. Here are the pictures from today. I am going to dedicate my blog to your questions tomorrow so if you have something that you have been dying to ask me let me know and I will respond. Buenas Noches!

I am having troubles uploading the photos to the blog tonight. You can see the ones from Toledo by following this web link: Click Here

Mad for Madrid

Well kids. What can I say? Madrid is freakin awesome! However Jet Lag is not. I really thought I was over it until it was 5:30 AM this morning and it dawned on me that I still hadn´t slept. Here are some pictures from Madrid in slideshow format. Enjoy!

Ay Who There Has Stolen Me Lucky Charms?

Greetings Fellow Bloggers,

I am coming at you live from the Internet station at my new hostel in Madrid. First off let me tell you that I have only been in Madrid for a half day, but is incredible. It reminds me of Buenos Aires a lot, but clean and without Dogs. I will report more on Madrid tomorrow. This blog is dedicated to my last half-day in Dublin. I really liked Dublin, but have decided that you don´t need more than a day to see it. We had a great adventure, running late to the airport and I was dreading having to lose a day in Spain over missing our flight. Luckily things worked out and we caught our plane in time. The hostel sleeping was great with ear plugs. Our hostel in Madrid seems much nicer (more showers and not so public) so I am looking forward to a better nights sleep.

I come back by myself for one half day in Dublin when I fly back on the 15th. I am excited though because that night Ireland has a World Cup Ruby match, so I am going to find a good bar to go and watch it in with some diehard Ireland Rugby fans. Enjoy some of my favorite pics from Dublin:

Look at me I am in Dublin and I haven´t bathed or slept in 24 hours!

Sign Reads: Please Keep Off Lawn! I am rebelling just like the Irish did 5 times.

The effects of Jet Lag = naps in the park at 4 in the afternoon

Grafton Street!

Britta informs me that this is as close to action as I will be getting on this trip.

Ay this be me TJ 'Paddy' Davis jumping in front of Saint Patrick´s Cathedral. (There really are guys named Paddy here!)

Walking down some old Church. It only took Britta one day to comment on my ´man bag`.

These guys played us a fine Irish Jig in the Temple Bar while we watched those around us enjoy pints of Guinness

The old soap in the fountain trick is even funny in Dublin, Ireland. I can´t believe that Britta put the soap in there. We could have been deported.

The main river in Dublin

Until Next Time . . .

O Danny Boy . . The Pipes the Pipes are Calling . . .

Well I made it to Europe, and the jet lag is kicking my butt! We are in Dublin today, and it really has been everything I hoped it would be. I am already loving the hostel living. I am in a mixed dorm room with 18 beds and two toilets and two showers. I have already been offered to help finish off a bottle of Southern Comfort with a new found friend from Austrailia. Even though I have never seen the movie, I decided there is no way Paris Hilton (even while acting) would stay in a Hostel. In fact I just told Britta how impressed I am that as a girl she would be willing to live like this for several weeks. I don't know many other girls who could handle it. I also have been made fun of by her, because I think I brought twice as much stuff as she did. It actually is pretty nice (don't freak out Dad). I really love Dublin. I can barely understand half of the people here, but everyone has been really nice. The weather has been excellent. It is around 65 degrees which is a nice break from the heat wave we were having in San Diego.

We enjoyed a great lunch today at a charming little cafe called 'Subway'. It was quite delightful. Ireland has recently become the most expensive country in the EU, so we are saving our money for Spain.

I forgot to bring the cord to my camera with me today so I could upload some pictures, but I will remember for the next post. In the meantime here are some images off of the web from things that we saw today:

This is Grafton Street. It is a walking street mall with lots of street performers. Alas the Bush Man in San Francisco could put them all to shame.

This is Trinity College in Dublin. It's campus is almost as nice as the University of Utah's but it doesn't quite have the history.

This river runs through the town and really adds some charm. However if you look at it closely it is quite brown and I have decided that they most likely dump their sewage into it. No matter it still adds charm, much like the East River does to New York.

Well that is all for today. I am off to the Pub for some Guinness and to listen to some traditional Irish folk music, and hopefully see an amateur boxing match (doesn't it seem like there is always one of those in every Irish movie?). Cheerio!