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Goodnight.

USA

We made it back to the US. We will spend several hours in the crappy terminal (unofficial name) of the Newark, NJ airport. At least there is college basketball to welcome me home.

My body is essentially wrecked at this point. No fancy earplugs for the flight home, so the right half of my brain exploded somewhere over the Atlantic. My back is very unhappy and my head is congested. Today will last 30 hours for us, mostly in uncomfortable places. The beaming light at the end of the tunnel is our very own bed in our very own home in our beloved Des Moines.

Cheer a little harder for the Hawkeyes tonight, as I will be in the air during the game. I will try to shoot them some goodwill as we fly over Chicago.

Stephanie's Barcelona Update

It's me again!  I wanted to give a quick update on some of the food we've been eating in Spain.  Most of our time here has been spent trying tapas and avoiding rain.

So here is our time in Spain in food:

Day 1:

We had breakfast on the train...no picture.  But we had coffee, orange juice, fruit, croissont, omelet, and jamon (cured prosciutto type meat).

Breakfast/Brunch (aka bocadillo time).  Per our guide books, the Spaniards eat light sandwiches before their large lunch at around 2:00

Sam: Chorizo Sandwich, cafe, and beer
Stephanie: Fanta Naranja (Orange)

Then we had tapas for dinner before the game.  I was pretty nervous to try out my spanish for the first time at a local tapas bar but the bartender was VERY helpful.  I said I spoke a little Spanish and he said he spoke a little English.  It worked.  But in our pre-game excitement, we forgot to take pictures.  We had jamon de iberico, manchego, pan con acieto y tomate.  (Iberian ham, Spanish cheese, and a local staple of toasted bread with olive oil and tomato rubbed on the bread.  You'll see pictures of it later as we had it again elsewhere.)

At the game, BARCA chips. 

 Day 2:

Breakfast/Brunch...we slept in this day

Cafe, Bocadillo de Jamon Iberico y Bocadillo de Chorizo
(Sam and Stephanie shared the two sandwich types)

Early Evening Tapas -

We headed to a place near our hotel per the recommendation of the extremely helpful staff here.  He gave us a voucher for a free "snack or drink or something".

The first thing we got from that voucher was some sort of seafood salad bite on toast topped with tuna...we think.  It probably had mayo in it, definitely tuna, and peas...the rest is a mystery.  Now if you know Sam, you know he HATES mayo and really dislikes peas and tuna.  If you know me, you know I HATE seafood and don't like peas either...but we were able to give it a try and were thankful the bites were so small.  (And that I had balsamic vinegar to drown out the tuna flavor for me).  Our efforts were rewarded at the end of the meal.  Read on.

Next up were some tasty treats:

Left: Tortilla Espanyola with that tomato bread
Right: Albondigas (meatballs in sauce...picture was taken after the meatballs were already gone).

If you care to try a similar meatball, try the Albondigas at the Continental in Des Moines.  Sam prefers those.  I like them both a lot.

Our short meal was punctuated by some free shots/digestives.

Sam's is the green one.  The waiter asked if we wanted something "fuerte" (strong) or something "suave" (smooth).  Sam picked fuerte and got some type of Spanish grapa.  I picked suave and got Crema Catalunya.  We think.


Late Night Tapas -

That tomato bread again with CROQUETTES!  My favorite!  (And a glass of Cava)

Some..."beef ham with parmesan cheese".  Essentially beef prosciutto. 

And for dessert Sam (left) Creme Brûlée with Pineapple Carpaccio

Stephanie (right) Crema Catalunya

 Day 3:

CHURROS
I was on a mission to try Churros.  My friend Kylee from Des Moines loves these things (I think) and they sound great, but have always tasted miserable at the amusement parks I've had them at.

And I wanted to try xurros amy xocolate (churros with chocolate in Catalan)

First place...no chocolate but very tasty in coffee

 Second place just an hour later...

amb xocolate!!  The chocolate is like a warm VERY rich pudding.  It was a little too rich for me, but the xurros were great.

We are on our way out for more tapas tonight...then an early flight home tomorrow.  The flight starts early, but we get home late.  A long day of travel tomorrow, but looking forward to being home and saying hello to our favorite cat/chat/gato Belle.

Last Day

I write this from the balcony of our hotel room in Barcelona, overlooking a quiet square with a little a playground. Yesterday the weather was terrible. It was cold and very rainy. Stephanie enjoyed about 2 minutes of dry feet all day before here tennis shoes were breached. Today is another story. It's cool, but sunny and nice.

We went to see the Sagrada Familia cathedral this morning. Even though is unfinished, it is still breathtaking. It compares to the other large cathedrals we have seen on our trip in scale and grandeur, but adds in a modern element. It has great stained glass, and the light is beautiful as it streams in.

After that, we went to the Picasso museum. That was short and sweet, but worth doing.

We have been strolling through the old city since then, wandering winding roads and stopping into small shops along the way. We will spend the afternoon and evening getting ready to depart and enjoying a few more tapas before it's time to go.

We have had a terrific time, but we're starting to smell, wear down, and miss home a bit. It's time to come back.

See you soon,

Sam & Stephanie

Scams and Bombs

Hello again!  This is Stephanie doing another guest blog.  This one isn't strictly about our itinerary in Europe.  It is about being a tourist and having loads of people try to scam you out of your money, or simply try to take it out of your pockets/purse.  And there was a "bomb," but I'll get to that in a minute.

First we'll discuss scams.  My first time in Spain, I witnessed the scam where women will try to aggressively give/sell you flowers (or in that case, tree branches) while another one pickpockets you.  I knew it was about to happen because they were discussing logistics quite loudly in Spanish not aware that the group that was walking by was actually a group of Spanish speaking Americans.  I actually have not seen this scam (yet) unless those men by the Eiffel Tower selling keychains "3 for a Euro!" have the same plan.

During our trip planning we read about a scam that involves a few individuals asking if "[you] speak English" or posing to be lost tourists trying to get information.  We had at least 2 groups of ladies with a clip board ask us this in Paris.  I always wonder why they're asking if I speak English when it is clearly not their native language.  Shouldn't they be asking if I speak that??

We also read about yet another scam that involves a person stopping to pick something up right in front of you.  It turns out to be a gold ring you supposedly dropped.  It isn't yours, but they will point out the marking on it that proves it is pure gold and will either try to sell it to you or simply give it to you out of the goodness of their heart and then ask for money in repayment.  We have seen this scam attempted on us at least 4 times.  The first time I firmly said, "No, gracias" ...in Paris.  Eventually I managed to squeak out a, "No merci!" to which the guy started repeating and laughing.  A few of them laughed at our assertiveness with them to get away.  And one was a woman that really threw us off guard.

All of these happened in Paris.  We have yet to experience any scams in Barcelona.  Probably because half of our time here has been spent trying to dry out from all the rain.

Essentially, we are now paranoid of anyone and everyone who drops something, tries to talk to us, or looks at us directly.  Everyone is a scammer.  Including small children, pup-pups and birds.

In London we had an interesting experience with this little box on the subway

Here is a close up

The box was sitting all by itself when we boarded the train. It was very likely just a sound equipment box that someone left on the tube accidentally (as that is how it was labeled).  However, EVERYONE around us asked about it and indicated that it might be a bomb and asking what we should do about it. Two Asian men walked onto our train, stopped short, said a few words I didn't understand, followed by "bomb" and some hand gestures.  The feelings we all had were pretty universal and language barriers were no problem.  A few stops later another traveller bravely grabbed it on his way out of the train and gave it to security.  And our lives were saved.

I have to go now since this post has gotten too long and it's time for breakfast followed by our last day in Europe.

Camp Nou

We went to another football match last night, and it was amazing. Barcelona is the best team in the world, and they play at one of the most famous stadiums in the world. They also have the best player in the world, Lionel Messi.

The stadium, called Camp Nou, is huge. It was filled to the brim on Tuesday night for a match against AC Milan in the champions league. The champions league is a tournament featuring the best club teams from the many leagues all over Europe. This was the second match of a 2-match series. They simply add up all the goals over the games to determine the winner. Milan was ahead 2-0 after the first match, so Barca was in a tough situation, and needed a big win to advance.

We arrived early to soak in the atmosphere.

Sam got a new scarf

As the game got closer, the stadium continued to become more crowded. We were seated in an area pretty close the corner into which they packed the Milan fans, maybe 6 sections of them, but they were all together, and they spoke and sang with one voice. Of course, we rarely understood what they said, but several times the Barca fans raised their voices in protest.

They do some funny theatrics right before the games in the champions league, including the champions league anthem.

The Champions

Eventually, the game actually began, and not long after, the place went totally nuts when Messi scored the first goal. Game on!

The next segment of the game featured a lot of action, but no goals. Barca almost scored immediately after the first, and Milan nearly struck back on a counter, hitting the post. Then with five minutes left in the first half, Messi stuck again. We went to half time even over the series.

The second half was full of tension, but Barca eventually took the lead on a goal by David Villa. Due to the tiebreak rules in the champions league, Milan could still win with one goal, so the last 25 minutes were as nervous as it can get. Any time Milan had the ball, regardless of where on the field it was, or how they they had it, all of the fans booed, hissed, and whistled.

Barca eventually hung on to win, adding a very late goal for good measure. It was an awesome experience, and we both had a great time.

Visca Barça!

Train to Barcelona

We arrived in Barcelona this morning. We took an overnight train from Paris. The station from which we left wasn't very nice. It was cold, and there wasn't much indoor space to enjoy. There were also fewer helpful people who spoke English, as the train was from France to Spain. We muddled through, and eventually we boarded the train.

We had a very small room, but it was ours, and it ended up being a nice experience. We had drinks at the bar before turning in for the night, and we had breakfast in the small restaurant on the train this morning. It wasn't the best night of sleep either of has had, but it should get the job done.

Our cabin.

Now we're on to the next leg of our journey, in Barcelona. We will be thrown right into the fire with a huge soccer match this evening between Barcelona and AC Milan in the UEFA Champions League. We have seen several Milan supporters around the city already today, along with tons of people sporting Barca gear, including Stephanie.

Stephanie's Eiffel Tower Visit

Hi, guys!  Stephanie here doing a guest blog to give you my take on the Eiffel Tower. I am not going to say I was not afraid of the whole thing. It was scary for sure. My adrenaline was definitely flowing. And my heart was pounding but mostly from all those stairs!  I had realized my fears of heights in St. Paul's Cathedral as well.  But I've decided it is because in that building you are forced to look down.  You cannot look out because you're inside and completely enclosed.  I don't like that.

Back to Paris, we made it up to the 2nd platform with no problems (for me).  I didn't have strong desires to go to the top.  It was very foggy out and the views weren't going to be great.  It was cold, and I was a bit nervous after the whole St Paul Experience.  BUT, my whole family had gone to the top, and I knew if I came home without having summited the tower, I would never hear the end of it.  So up to the top I went!

The elevator ride was terrifying, but the top wasn't so bad.  I have loads of pictures and a video of the elevator, but only have time to upload one now as we are trying to head out for some dinner.

I did it!

So, all in all, a good time for me.  I don't hate Mr. Eiffel.

More Fun in Paris

We continue to push ourselves pretty hard to get in as much as possible in Paris.

One thing that has become very clear on this trip is that I have a pretty strong fear of heights. The first trouble we had was at St. Paul's in London. For those that haven't been, they have a gigantic dome. Tourists are allowed to go up into the dome. We climbed like a billion stairs and got to maybe half way up. there's just a narrow walkway around the dome that overlooks the cathedral. I didn't like it at all, so we did a very quick tour of the circle and made our way back down. We were up there for no more than a minute. This wasn't a brand new phenomenon, but I have started to notice it more lately.

"That story was about London. I thought they were in Paris now," you all say. Well, here in Paris they have another tall building tourists are allowed to climb. This morning we went to the Eiffel Tower to go up to the top. We didn't plan ahead much, so we took the option to buy tickets there to walk up stairs to the second "floor", at which point we would be allowed to purchase elevator tickets the rest of the way up. So up the stairs we went. We didn't get far before I started to notice that the tower didn't have freaking walls and you could see through everything to the emptiness and the really far away and hard-looking ground. For the first bit, there were lots of places to stop and read fun facts about the tour and Mr. Eiffel, so I was able to distract myself from time to time. After the first floor, which is really really high up for something called the first floor, there is less to keep to keep the mind occupied. I started breathing really really hard, and I think I might have a couple bruised ribs from how hard my heart was beating. I grabbed on as hard as I could with both hands to the railing and the fence along the way up. We finally made it the second floor, which I guess is probably a little less than half way up the tower. I told Stephanie I was bailing on the elevator ride to the top, and I guess from the terror in my eyes she didn't protest at all. Thanks, Stephanie. She went up, and I made my way inside to the little cafe section, which kind of does have walls, so isn't nearly as scary. She went on to the top on her own, and came and picked me up on her way down. I was very relieved to get back down to the ground level.

Me, not going up the elevator and very angry at Mr. Eiffel

Stephanie was brave and went up there

Me, safe on the ground, still very mad at Mr. Eiffel

We spent the rest of the day touring more of Paris. We went to the Orangerie museum which has a couple of rooms devoted to Monet's water lilies, and is an excellent use of 45 minutes, especially when you need to calm yourself down from an Eiffel-induced panic attack. Next, we visited the St. Chapelle church, which has amazing stained glass.

Stained Glass

Stained Glass

Stained Glass

From there, we did some strolling. We went to the beautiful and peaceful Ile St. Louis, which is a tiny island in the middle of the river, next to the big island in the middle of the river with Notre Dame and St. Chapelle. There are lots of great little shops, and it's a nice place to walk after having endured Mr. Eiffel's touristic terrorism earlier in the day.

Ile St. Louis

Then we did more walking in the Marais, a nice area of the cite that has all sorts of shopping, busy streets and quiet squares, and Victor Hugo's house. We happened upon a great little restaurant that served really good buckwheat crepes. I had one with cheese and andouille sausage and it really hit the spot.

In the late afternoon/evening we went to the Pompidou Centre of modern art. It's a crazy building, as has crazy art, but we really liked it. Specifically, there was an exhibition by an artist named Jesus Rafael Soto that I thought was just great. He does things with perspective and lines that make parts of the work look like they are floating and moving. It was great.

Wacky look at a wacky building, brought to by iPhone 5's panoramic function

The lobby space at the Pompidou Centre

Now we're off in search of dinner and wine on our last night in Paris. I'm thinking we might avoid Mr. Eiffel and his stupid tower.

Bon Soir

Paris Photo Diary

Here is what our Paris time has been like so far...

We left London from St. Pancras station

Notre Dame

We stopped by the Louvre on Friday

Proof that we went to Paris

La Seine

Day 2 - Back to the Louvre

Napoleon III had a nicer dining room than we do

Next up - the Arc de Triumph

A stranger made us do this and he took our picture

Dinner at Cafe Constant - Stephanie had steak

...and Sam had a piglet

And this is only a quick look. We have been many other places, and walked a lot in between. We have had crepes & pastries & wine. We continue to have a great time.

Bon Soir,

Sam

Bienvenue a Paris

We made it to Paris. It's raining outside, and we had to wait for a long while at the train station to get our Metro passes, but we made it to our hotel. It has a proper bed, so I'm looking forward to a luxurious night of sleep tonight. For now though, we're off to explore.

Au revoir

Wow are we tired. We had a really good first day in Paris. We ended up walking around a ton. We did an abbreviated version of Rick Steves's historic city walking tour. We saw Notre Dame for the first time. It looks pretty great. We will go back to go inside and report back. We also walked around many other famous sites.

About half of everything here used to be a palace, or so it seems. You always find yourself in the middle of a giant courtyard surrounded by a huge building and realize that even though you're in a museum or a shopping mall that some King at some point had this built for himself. It's pretty surreal.

I have tried my best to use some French when talking to people today. We stopped in at a few cafes today, and I initiated conversation in French. These places were very busy, and apparently I identified myself as hopeless enough that the waiter brought us English menus and spoke to us in English. I am perfectly willing to carry on and make a fool of myself trying to speak French, but it seems it is more efficient for them to work in English. From there it's a bit confusing, as I am willing to try to continue on in broken French, but the jig is up already. Do I continue en francais, or just accept defeat? The most important thing for me to is to make it very clear that I'm willing to give it a try. We will see how this situation progresses for the duration of our time here.

I promise we will get some pictures up soon.

A bientôt,

Sam

Last Day in London

Today was our final fully day in London. We board the train to Paris bright and early in the morning, so today was our goodbye to London. We spent a lot the day riding around town and doing some shopping. I will leave London defeated on that note. Everywhere we go around here, the men are dressed in really sharp overcoats. Seeing them all week convinced me that I needed a really sharp overcoat just like theirs. Sparing you details, we wasted a lot of time today not buying overcoats. Oh well, maybe the sell clothes in Paris or something.

We did manage one last bit of sightseeing today with a quick stop at Buckingham Palace. It's famous because the queen lives there, and also because one of the guys in Cool Runnings shows a picture of it to his teammates and says one day he wants to live there and then people make fun of him, but one of his teammates is all like "follow your dreams, mon."

Last night, we kicked around the idea of seeing another show while we were here because we like musicals, and we don't come to London very often. We followed through on that this evening by seeing Les Miserables in the Queen's Theatre. It was great. They had the whole rotating stage thing going, and all of the performers were excellent.

I leave London having had a fantastic week. I'm not too sad about leaving though, as we have kept ourselves plenty busy and we have so much more to which we can look forward on the trip.

There is a lot of good stuff that hasn't made the cut so far on the blog, and I'm planning to get back to it at some point when I have a chance. I'm not sure exactly how I'll arrange that, but I'll figure something out to make sure no good stuff gets left out.



We hope all is well with everyone back home. Is Belle still alive?

Penultimate Day In London

We are eager to get started on our last day in London, so I'll do a summary post about yesterday. I might come back and embellish this a little more later.

• Toured St. Paul's Cathedral in the morning. Another wonderful church. 
• British Museum - saw many great artifacts from all times and most places, including the Rosetta Stone and bits of the Parthenon.
• Tate Modern art museum. Modern art in a great old industrial building overlooking the Thames.
• Visited a few old pubs in the City of London, including Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, which is much older than America.
• Attended the ceremony of the keys at the Tower of London. This is where guards lock up the tower, as they have done every night for a bajillion years. It was great.

Cheers,

Sam

Cambridge

Today we left London for a day to visit the university town of Cambridge, about 50 minutes away. As it turns out, our day started and ended with train delays. We started in the morning taking a very crowded tube train to King's Cross Station. For the Harry Potter fans in the crowd, this is where the magical Platform 9 3/4 resides. Station officials are apparently good natured about this, as they have installed an actual Platform 9 3/4, although sadly we were both unable to unlock the magic required to summon the Hogwarts Express.

There was some last-minute train drama, and we had to abandon the first train we boarded in favor of another on a somewhat distant platform. We ended up departing about 20 minutes late. This would normally not have been a problem, except that we had a fairly tightly planned schedule that required us to arrive more or less on time to Cambridge to meet up with a walking tour of select parts of the city. We ended up on a mad scramble upon our arrival, including a hybrid fast-walk/jog with an extremely nice lady from the Cambridge tourism office to help us catch up with the group that had already departed. Once we did catch up, we had a nice tour from a knowledgable if not overly friendly guide. She admitted that she wasn't a graduate of the University along the way, but she clearly takes great pride in the city and its many colleges.

The highlights of the tour were Queens' college and King's college. My family and I had been on a similar side trip to Oxford when we came to London 5 years ago, and I really adore these world-famous English college towns. As an aside, Cambridge residents don't use the O word, but rather, refer to Oxford as "that other place." The weather today was perfect for walking around this idyllic town. The sun was shining bright and we guessed that it must have been near 60 degrees (or whatever nonsense the people over here call that). For those unfamiliar, the colleges that make up the University here are self-contained, almost like a monastery. Each one typically has a large front gate of some kind, and a beautiful courtyard. There is usually a dining hall and other common space along with living quarters. Most of the colleges also have associated churches, as the University and the church were once closely tied. It's really amazing to hear about how students have been studying here for so much longer than the U.S. has been around, and to think that students today share so much of the same space as their predecessors.

The architectural highlight of the tour, and probably of the trip, and possibly of my life, was the King's College "Chapel." I use quotes there because it is just as grand as any Cathedral you are likely to ever see. The high vaulted arches are huge and ornate, and the stained glass is amazing. Like Westminster yesterday, it's really impossible for me to imagine people actually building it. As it's name suggests, King's College was founded by a King of England, and he spared no expense on planning his chapel. Even though the founding king died before it's completion, another king down the road picked up the project with gusto. From the amazing ornate organ screen to the dragon and greyhound statuettes that line the walls, the chapel amazes from start to finish.

After the tour, we entertained ourselves by walking all over this beautiful town, and stopping from time to time at a local pub, or finding a bench by the river to sit for a while. It really was a perfect day for us to be there. Maybe partially due to the great weather, the town was very lively with tourists, students, and anyone else around. Streets were lined with bicycles. Our tour guide explained to use that none of the 12,000 or so undergraduate students are allowed to have an automobile within 10 miles of the college, so nearly all of them travel around town on two wheels. There were buskers at several places along the way, and an outdoor market in the central square. Students were out walking together in groups, and several people were punting, or taking small boats out on the calm river that runs alongside the city.

We headed back to London late afternoon, and made a quick stop at the British Library. We almost certainly didn't give it enough time or focus, but we did see some pretty amazing books & documents including several very early bibles, the magna carta, and the original sheet music for Handel's Messiah.

We dined at Nando's again. I received some feedback last time I mentioned Nando's, so I would like to take this chance to rescind my earlier comment that it is quasi-fast food. Nando's is very good and I meant no disrespect. The food is excellent and it doesn't deserve to have its name dragged through the mud. Nando's, I apologize. We were planning on making a quick stop back at the apartment then heading out to a neighborhood pub, but we had more train trouble on the way, which delayed us and tired us out a bit.

We'll get back at it tomorrow.

Monday Rundown

Here's what happened on Monday. Details and photos tomorrow. It was a very English day.

• Slept in again, this time not as much, and at least partially due to IKEAgate
• Spent the morning touring the Churchill War Rooms museum. It was really impressive.

During a long part of World War II, Winston Churchill and a lot of senior British officials operated the war effort from an underground series of rooms. These rooms have been preserved or restored to what they looked like then. It's amazing to think that so many lived for so long in such austere conditions, and that they were ultimately victorious.

There were lots and lots of maps

Churchill's little-used bedroom

• Half-assed version of Rick Steves's Westminster walk. Stephanie did a commendable job guiding us through it backwards while I was rushing her along. The houses of parliament building is amazing.

I have been to London before, but I hadn't made my over to this area of the city. The ornate and massive gothic architecture is fantastic. I found myself wondering how anyone could ever have possibly actually built the houses of parliament building, which I believe was a royal palace in a previous life.

• Visited Westminster Abbey. Absolutely massive in many ways. Nobody got married or became King or anything while we were there. We saw dead Isaac Newton and dead Charles Darwin and dead lots of other famous people

Any amount of awe I had at the parliament building was almost wiped clean when I took in Westminster Abbey. If you're even in London and have a chance to see it, I highly recommend doing so. Between the massive and ornate building and the who's who of notable people buried there, there is something to look at every step of the way.

• Dinner and a show not really in the West End. I had bangers and mash and it wasn't terrible. We saw Billy Elliot and it also wasn't terrible.

English Food

We are taking a day trip to Cambridge tomorrow, so expect us to be way smarter in the coming posts.