Italy

HELLO (CIAO) Everyone! It's pretty much been a whirlwind since France. We left on Tuesday to the Cinque Terra because everyone we met told us we had to go there. We are super flexible so off we went and had a great time. There are five different villages in the Cinque Terra and we stayed in Monterosso in a really nice apartment. It's kind of a funny story because we had looked for a place to stay on the internet, and couldn't find anything. When we got there we went to information and they gave us a sheet with some places to stay, which were pretty much impossible to find from their sketchy map. After walking around with our heavy packs forever we were all ready to cry cuz we were so tired and we didn't have any lead on a place to stay. When we decided it was a hopeless situation, the only lady in the village I'm sure that spoke English said hi to us and we asked her if she knew anywhere to stay. Her sister happened to own an apartment nearby but it was a little out of our price range. She said she could give us a special price and she took us to see the place. It was a mansion apartment we were so excited cuz we had our own rooms and a kitchen so we could cook for ourselves and we could do our laundry there for free. The next day we hiked to all the villages and saw the most amazing views and explored each of the villages. On Thursday we left for Florence, stopping in Pisa to see the famous disaster! We sort of caught the wrong train to Florence when we left Pisa so when we finally arrived there information was closed and we didn't have a hostel(I don't know why we do this to ourselves.) When we finally found a hostel it was full and so were all the hotels on the street except for one. Yesterday we went to the Gardino Bardino Di Eoboli and inside we saw the Porcellane museum, the Galleria de costume and another garden called Gardino Bardini. In the evenings we love walking around and seeing the cities at night so we walked to the river and since we are in Italy we had to get Gelato. Today we went to the Uffizi museum after waiting in line for 2 hours. We saw paintings from Leonardo DaVinci, Donnatello, Michaelangelo, and many others. Tonight we are going to a concert and tomorrow we are catching the train to Rome. Not sure how that is going to go because the trains are going on strike tomorrow. We were actually responsible and booked our hostel in Rome and now we don't know of we'll get there! We find this all quite hilarious! Anyways in a nutshell this is what we've been up to, check out Sheri and Starr's blogs cuz I think they wrote about more stuff.

Barcelona, Andorra, and France

Wow it's been awhile since I've blogged. I havn't really had access to the internet since we left Madrid. Right now I'm in an internet cafe in France so this might be short. After Madrid we headed down to Barcelona and stayed at the "Center Rambles." We really Loved Barcelona and we got to hang out with our friends that we met in Portugal, and we are going to see them again in Germany. We all said that out of all the places we've been we could see ourselves living in Barcelona. Beautiful gardens, breaches, and architechture. All around it was just a really fun place to visit! After Barcelona we took the bus to a little country that no ones heard of called Andorra; to visit my friend Todd. We stayed at Todd's place and had a great time. He took us shopping and to the best pastry shop EVER! We also went hiking in Ordino and had a game fest with Todd and his roomates. We were really impressed with Andorra because it's the only place we've been that is super clean and you'll never see a begger on the street and all around is just a really classy place. Thanks for having us stay at your place Todd, we had a great time and that brunch you made was AMAZING! From Andorra we headed into France and stayed in Toulouse for our first 3 nights. We had a really difficult time finding a hostel and to make a really long story short ended up staying in a cheap hotel. On Valentines Day we took the train to Carcassonne because all we've heard is how beautiful it is. Besides getting rained on the entire day it was definately the perfect setting. We went out for Valentine's dinner and had rabbit and crepes yum! From Toulouse we took the train to Nimes and stayed for 2 nights and now we're in Nice! We arrived here yesterday and spent the day at the beach and went to a carnival. We are undecided where we're headed to next(somewhere in Italy) but I'm sure it will be just as fun and exciting as the trip has been so far! I have so many stories but I'm out of internet time... I am hopefully going to put some pictures on soon.

Madrid, Spain

Everytime I sit down to do my blog I get a tad overwhelmed. Everyday we do and see so much I can't possibly share everything, as much as I would love to. Last Sunday we had to leave Lisboa and go to Porto. I was incredibly sad because just felt so at home at the "Travellers House" and I loved the people. We caught a cab to the train station and we literally had to run to catch our train. Our friend Claire who we met at the "Traveller's House" came with us to Porto just for the fun of it. Our hostel in Porto wasn't quite as nice and no one spoke English who worked there so that was a bit challenging. Porto was a really fun city! We went on a boat tour and we got a wine tour and tasting of Croft's Port wine. On Tuesday we had to check out of our hostel by 11:00am so we put our bags in storage. We definately couldn't leave Porto until we went shopping! When I say shopping I mean going in to all the stores, and wishing we all had a million dollars and room in our packs to actually buy stuff. We caught the 4:00pm train back to Lisboa and dropped Claire off. From there we took the 10:00pm train to Madrid. It was a 10 hour ride but I slept pretty much the entire way. As you've probably figured out I can sleep anywhere. Airport floors, Trains, planes, noisy hostels; I haven't had a bad sleep since I've been here. when we got to Madrid we took the metro and then walked to Elaine and Brent's house where we would be staying. Elaine was friends with Starr's dad in Saskatchewan. When we got there Elaine made us feel right at home. I have my own room and bathroom, and Elaine made us breafast and even did our laundry for us! She is so sweet! It was funny because while we were eating breakfast we discovered that Elaine's sister and my mom were best friends in college! What a small world eh? At about 1:30pm we took the metro out to Sol to see the sights. We did our own walking tour and for supper went out for Kono Pizza. It's pizza crust in the shape of a cone with the pizza topppings in the midddle--so GOOD! Ever since we've been here Elaine and Brent have been so awesome. They've fed us, taken us out, made us midnight snacks; they're quite the entertainers! On Friday we started the day bright and early because Elaine drove us out to Segolvia. This city is about an hour north of Madrid and we got to see the aquiducts, a fairy tale castle, we did some shopping and went out for coffee and pastry. After Elaine drove us to Pedraza, which is a medieval town designated a monumental site in 1951. This small walled city has a population of 150 people. All the cute little shops were closed but we walked around and looked at the goods through the shop windows. Pedraza is famous for it's lamb, so Elaine took us to an adorable restaurant and we shared a huge serving of lamb. It was so good and I don't even like lamb. Elaine had to be home at 5:00pm to go tutoring so we left Pedraza at 3:00pm. It was so fun being in a car and really nice being seeing the countryside of Spain. When Brent got home around 10:30 that night he cut us some Ibericol ham off his pig leg. His company gave him this pig leg which is like $60.00 CDN. We were really Spainsh and had it with crackers and olives--tasty! On Friday Sheri-Lee wasn't feeling well so Starr and I took the metro out to the Real Madrid Stadium. Starr is a die hard soccer fan so she totally knew all the players, it was really significent for her to be in that stadium. I don't watch soccer, I don't play soccer, but I really did enjoy going through the museum with all the trophies and learning about all the history of the soccer club. "Real" actually means "Royal." Brent told us that it would probably take an hour to walk throught the museum and check out the stadium and the shop. Starr and I were in there for 2 1/2 hours--we were just having a great time! That night Brent and Elaine invited us to come along on their date night so we went out to Sol. We had a really eventful night! First we walked around looking at everything. At about 10:30pm they took nus to a tapa bar called "Museo del Jamon." There were Ibericol hams hanging everywhere, and there was a deli with all different kinds of sausage and meats. Brent ordered us all orange juice that they freshly make right in front of you. He also ordered a big platter full of cheese, meats, stuffed mushrooms, and olives. It was 11:00 at night and the place was packed. There is no where to sit at these types of places everyone just stands and eats. From there we went on to the Ritz hotel. This is where the phrase comes from "puttin' on the ritz." Starr and I were thrilled to have an excuse to sing the song. You would not believe how fancy this place was! You walk in and its like chandeliers, fancy furniture, a pianist playing the grand piano, elegant everything. Brent treated us all to cappucinos which were like 8 euros a piece! The tuxedoed waitress brought us mini cookies and our cappucinos were served in china cups. I quite enjoyed myself--Even though I was extremely underdressed for the occcasion in my jeans and hoodie. Everything was perfect; good atmosphere, relaxing music, and most importantly good company. Our final destination was the Hard Rock cafe. Brent and Elaine bought us drinks, nachos and dessert. Sheri-Lee, Starr and I shared an apple cobbler and a brownie sundae. It was so good. At this point is was like 1:30am. Brent and Elaine really know how to have a good time. I felt so spoiled the whole night; they paid for everything.
Yesterday Brent and Elaine drove us out to Salamenca. On the way there a crazy driver in a white delivery truck crossed over his line, took off the side mirror on Brent's really nice Wolkswagon passat, and gave us a flat tire. There was pretty much nothing we could do, it was either chase him or go back for the mirror. We were unable to get a license plate number and we were all looking for one. It could have been a lot worse. We were expecting the whole side of the car to be scratched and dented. This delayed our day a little bit but we still made it to Salamenca. We had a wonderful day there. There was so much to see. We really love all the places we go where we can walk and see everything. We had chiros with chocloate which were just the greatest thing of my life. Today is our last day here, and we feel like we'e seen a lot of Spain. Brent and Elaine have been amazing and we couldn't have seen half of what we did without them. Thank you so much Brent and Elaine for everything. We really enjoyed ourselves and you spoiled us rotten.