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.

Lisbon, Portugal

I LOVE Portugal! On Tuesday night Sherilee, Starr and I slept in the Dublin airport, and caught our 6am flight to Lisbon. We're pretty much in love with our hostel and never want to leave. We're staying at the Travellers House and it's pretty posh I must say. It was voted in the top 10 hostels in Portugal. Not only do we love our room and the amazing breakfast and the incredibly helpful staff, but we have made some really good friends. We decided to stay an extra night in Portugal because we love it here so much. Today was a little sad because all our friends had to leave this morning and go back to school, although we will have a chance to see a couple of them when we are in Spain. Our first night here we went out to dinner at a little place called Fado Maino. It was a really neat experience. While listening to traditional live Fado music we got served dinner, a drink, and dessert all for 20 euro. On Thursday we took the tram to the train station and then took the train out to Sintra. This little town was so gorgeous, words can't even describe how beautiful it was. We first visited the Quinta da Regaleira, which is a palace and gardens. The palace had this spooky book room that looked like it had drop offs all around. I reached my hand down to see and It looked like and arm was reaching up to grab me. Of course I screamed bloody murder and it was ten times louder sounding since it was in a palace. These drop offs turned out to be mirrors in the floor, hence the mysterious hand. The gardens were amazing as well. We hiked around for a long time, it wasn't your everyday forest. Every few steps there would be a random cave to explore or a tower or some historc piece of architecture. After we finished touring the gardens we went to a recomended pastry shop for lunch called Piriquita. I got a mocha cheesecake, some egg tarts and a hot dog in a biscuit, all for 2.85 euro. We toured the town a bit more checking out the clock tower and an art museum. While we were walking to the museum Starr and I were walking ahead and we heard this whang noise. We looked behind us and Sherilee had walked into a pole! The funny part is there was a group of Portuguese guys walking right behind her and they were laughing so hard. Starr and I were pretty much dying.
Well this is just a small part of our many activities over the past few days. We have been blessed by the people God has placed in our path and the adventures he takes us on everyday. We will be taking the train to Porto tomorrow so we are a little bit sad this is our last night in Lisbon. However, we have to keep going or else we will never make it to all our destinations. I would definately recommend coming to Portugal for a fun vacation. Just picture palm trees with midevil buildings, it really is the Hawaii of Europe!

Ireland

Iknow....isn't Ireland so Beautiful!! We went on a bus tour to the Burren and the Moher Cliffs. This was most definately the highlight of Ireland for me. It has rained everyday here; so last night we prayer there would be good weather cuz we didn't want our tour to be cancelled. This is what we woke up to-- a clear blue sunny sky! Pretty much so far we've just been in the city; I was so amazed at the gorgeous countryside. The Moher cliffs are 750 ft above sea level. Last week a lady died there; I guess she was too close to the edge and fell off the cliff. Don't worry mom it was a windy day so we stayed well away from the edge("safety first.") We also made a bunch of other stops. We stopped for lunch to eat traditional Irish food, saw the Dunguaire castle, toured the Ailwee caves and got really educated. I wished I had brought my journal because the bus driver was giving us "information overload" and it was all really interesting. The tour started at 10:30am and ended at 5:30pm. Tonight is our last night staying in this hostel and then PORTUGAL here we come! We are "sleeping" in the airport in Dublin tomorrow night cuz our plane leaves super early and we don't want to pay for a hostel. I guess we'll see how much sleep we get, we'll be too excited!

Galway

We are staying at the Claddagh hostel and we met five girls who are from all different countries but are all O'paring in Dublin. They came to Galway for the weekend just for fun. They invited us to go out with them last night so we had a good time. Two of the girls are from Germany, one from Brazil, one from Polland and one of the girls is from Switzerland. It's funny because everone here thinks that we talk really fast and they can't understand our accents. We think some of the Irish accents are really hard to understand but they are really cool to listen to.
This morning we went to a Methodist church that is right near our hostel. It was very different than what I'm used to but we are glad that we went. This afternoon all three of us fell asleep for three hours. We havn't been getting to bed at a decent hour since we got here so we probably needed the day to rest--it's Sunday anyways!

Dublin

Today we took a three hour train ride from Dublin to Galway. We are staying at a super cheap hostel but it's not nearly as nice as our last one. On Wednesday we moved to the Abraham House in a different part of the city. In Dublin we really enjoyed insane good irish bands and we also got the chance to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was also cool because a friend of Starr's that's going to medical school in Dublin got us in to Trinity college for free to see the Book of Kells. It was really interesting to be able to see the original manuscripts of the four gospels. The college also had a place called the long room. It has 1/4 million of the oldest books. If you've seen "Beauty and the Beast" it reminds me of the part where the beast takes Bell into that room with all those books. Everyday we do an insane amount of walking. Yesterday morning I woke up and the back of my legs were so sore, I'm pretty sure I also pulled a stomach muscle trying to get my 32lbs pack on. Well I hope everyone is doing well. I miss everyone at home and would love to hear from you!

Steph's in Europe!.....

Well, my trip to Europe has begun. Mom and Dawna saw me off on my first EVER plane flight from Kelowna to Calgary @ 10:30am. When I arrived in Calgary I had a couple hours to kill in the airport before meeting Sherilee and Starr at Starbucks. We met up at 2:00pm and Starr's parents saw us off to London. The 9 hour plane ride went by really fast. They fed us supper(chicken casarole) which was actually pretty good; and then I slept for a few hours. At 8:30am London time they woke us up for breakfast. I was totally not hungary because it was 12:30am BC time; but I ate anyways. The plane landed in London @ 11:30 and we found our way through the crazy confusing London airport, and caught our next flight to Dublin. The flight was only 55 minutes which Sherilee and Starr slept the whole time cuz they didn't sleep at all on our 9 hour flight. When we arrived in Dublin it only cost us 1.90 Euro to take a 45min bus ride to our hostel called "The Avalon House." It's a pretty nice hostel, it has free internet and a kitchen and its pretty central to a lot of cool places. It costs 30 Euro a night each so we are hoping to find something a bit cheaper. After checking out the hostel we decided to get some fresh air before going to bed. Dublin looks like a really cool city and besides getting a little bit lost on our walk we had fun chekin' out the place. We went to bed at 7:30pm and now Sherilee and I are wide awake at 4:30am. We get a free breakfast at 7:00am and since we didn't eat supper last night we are really looking foward to the meal.