Before I get into some more of the details of our trip, I should probably apologize for the switching of tenses, grammatical errors, and random words that don't make sense-I'm still figuring out odd and ends of my iPad . And my editor (Katie) can't correct all my mistakes, even though she usually does a good job =) ( thanks katie!)
Adventure seems to describe Our trip perfectly. Each day has been something different, introducing new food, new sites, and new "bumps in the road". We leave today traveling from Barcelona to Nice. After spending numerous hours on eurail trying to figure out how the best times, and routes,we finally found the perfect one leaving Barcelona in the morning, switching trains in Figureres, and then continuing onto Montpellier, ending in Nice,France.
It's insane to think we have been traveling a week now. I wish we could have stayed and visited more of Spain. It's such a beautiful culture, one I definitely would like to spend more time in. Barcelona alone was an interesting city. Much more modern than Madrid, in the sense that most people spoke English, tourism was everywhere you looked, and the city fixated more upon image than anything. Don't get me wrong, I still found the beauty of this city. The building were historic, and the streets are kept very clean, filled with vendors, and Shops. Barcelona was our second Hostel experience, which turned out to be in our favor. We had booked 2 nights in a 4 bed mixed dorm and then 1 night in a private suit. We shared our mixed dorm with a brother and sister from Philadelphia, originally from Poway,CA (go figure out rival high school, such a small world!) they were spending 5 weeks traveling all around Europe visiting many similar places. It was nice to exchange tips and hear about some of their travels.
Since I'm a big foodie, I have to add something about the Barcelona cuisine. During our first day, we found a covered market that had rows of all different types of foods, fruits, meats, and so on. I decided to grab some fresh fruit while Katie and I split a banana walnut crepe with nutella.- which was delicious! It's interesting how much italian and french influence we saw in Barcelona. As for the rest of our time in Barcelona, we enjoyed many tasty dishes from fresh salads with goat cheese, to paella and fresh sangria.
Most of our time spent in Barcelona was very relaxing, we got a real sense of the city just by spending our time wondering the streets. I think my favorite part of our trip was our last night when Katie and I went to our favorite vegetarian spot (I feel like I'm allowed to can claim I have a spot after spending 3 days), we grabbed some falafel, two pear cider ales, and enjoyed dinner sitting on our personal terrace.
Although I am blessed to be able to travel all over Europe, I have been anticipating our travels to the South of France, Italy , and Paris . I have hear such amazing things about Italy, the food, art- my hopes not to gain a travelers 15 may be harder than I think. So far, train has to got to be my favorite form of travel. In general Europe is so much more civilized compared to the US. Their lifestyle, values, and overall life mentality seems to make more sense to me. Instead of an instant satisfaction, quick fix, right here right now approach, Europeans enjoy each moment for it's worth. They take their time, enjoy the long summer days, and even more so the longer summer nights, taking naps in between meals, drinking good wine at all hours of the day... I definitely think I could get use to this.
Our train ride has consisted of two stops. After our first stop in Figureres, we shard a section with a family of five + grandmother, traveling from Florida to Spain, and Paris. Originally from the west side of LA (again, small world, considering half of my life has been spent back and forth from those same parts), they planned on spending time around Spain and were now on their way to Paris. They seemed like they were all having such a great time together, traveling and site seeing, Makes me realize that there is always time to experience the many cultures of the world. Everything was smooth sailing, or as smooth as it could be, considering Katie and I know no French, until we realize after switching trains that we were on the wrong cart. I don't know how many times I looked at our tickets, and read: Cart 14, seats 63 and 64. And still, for some reason we got onto cart 16, to find that two other people were sitting in "seats". As we try to make our way through the t carts, we are getting those typical American looks. At one point we were told we should just stand back, due t the amount of traffic between the aisles. Finally we found our seats, and sat down across the sweetest, married couple. 63 years married , lived in Paris together and then moved to Nice, and have live there for 20 years. While speaking very little english, we learned of their 3 boys and daughter, and their love for watercolor.
I am excited to see how our hostel /hotel works out. It seems to be a great place, 10 minute walk from the beach, close to the train station, and sits along a main road in Nice. We have a double room booked for two nights, but I'm thinking we may find that we will want to stay longer.
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