So here is my travel journal from my backpacking trip to Europe. It's more involved than my day log stuff that's already been up the site. There has been some complaining (you know who you are) that my daylog was rather boring and that it focused too much on the details of transportation. I can't promise that this is less boring, but's there's certainly a hell of lot more of it. Occasional parts of the journal have been omitted to protect the (not-so)innocent. These parts really weren't that common, but hey - use your imagination. Keep in mind that this is a journal and things like punctuation, sentence structure, paragraph breaks, grammar, and spelling may or may not been a part of the writing process. Not to mention my almost criminal use of parenthesis. Like my pictures, the writing is quite erratic as far as consistency of content. The journal style kind of mutates over the course of the trip. Read at your own risk.
 4/28 Cincinnati 4/30 Paris 5/02 Paris 5/03 Paris 5/04 Bayeux 5/06 Toulouse 5/07 Barcelona 5/08 Barcelona 5/09 Madrid 5/11 Salamanca 5/12 Salamanca 5/13 Barcelona 5/14 Portbou 5/15 Narbonne 5/17 Nice 5/18 Venice 5/20 Naples 5/21 Rome 5/22 Rome 5/24 Florence 5/25 La Spezia 5/26 Lucerne 5/29 Interlaken 5/30 Interlaken 6/03 Amsterdam 6/04 London 6/06 Salisbury 6/09 Nottingham 6/11 Edinburgh 6/13 Kyleakin 6/15 Dublin 6/17 Dublin 6/23 Hamburg 6/27 Brussels 6/29 Berlin 7/01 Prague 7/02 Munich 7/03 Munich |
5/8 - Barcelona, Spain I'm sitting in Parc Güell in the northern part of Barcelona. It was designed by(of course) Gaudí, and it is really damn cool. I haven't seen all of it but so far I really like it. It's set up on a hill so you can see almost all of the city from here. It's got everything you need in a park, endless paths  , sculptures, crazy architecture , and plenty of nature. I found a nice quiet place off in a wooded area (the only downside to this park being so nice is that means lots of people) to sit and write. I just came from La Sagrida Familia, an unfinished cathedral with design credit going to (yep) Gaudí. Very interesting. It's a nice change from the standard european cathedral, it actually has color (that doesn't come from stained glass). I decided it wasn't worth the €8 to go inside. I know it probably goes to fund the ongoing construction, but I still didn't do it. I also went and retook a couple pictures I had accidentally deleted yesterday (also Gaudí). -- Last night was much more entertaining than the previous night. I went to an Irish pub to watch a soccer game with some guys from my hostel. Then I went down to a hostel down the street where they were advertising various unlimited alcohols for €10. Since I've been paying around €5 per drink lately this sounded mighty good. The disposable plastic cups they gave out for beer and sangria were ridiculous, probably close to 2 pints. The unlimited vodka orange was available in the form of a couple guys going around with what appeared to be weed sprayers full of alcohol which they would spray directly into your mouth. Quite entertaining. The evening got a little fuzzy after that, but I do remember me and two other guys singing "You've lost that loving feeling" to one of the female bartenders. I got back to the hostel around 1:30 am, early bedtime for this city. This morning around nine my alarm started going off this morning accidentally, apparently it had switched on getting shifted around in my backpack. Unfortunately my pack was inside a locker at this point, so by the time I managed to get it out of there, I had woken everyone else in the room as well. Oh well. After that I went and made hostel reservations in Madrid and a overnight train reservation for tonight before heading out on my Gaudí fest. -- I'm currently waiting sitting in my bunk in the sleeping car, waiting for the train to leave for madrid. It's damn hot in here. But it still seems worth the extra €20 to get a decent nights sleep. We'll see, it's my first time in one of these. After that earlier entry, I managed to get myself lost somewhere that I'm not even sure is part of Parc Güell. It was fun though, climbing up random hills and walls. After finding my way back into the main part of the park and seeing the rest of it, I caught a bus back to Placa Catalunya to go see the MACBA (Mueseu D'Art Contemporani). In a word - boring. I just don't "get" most modern art. I also often wonder if there is actually anything to "get" with a lot of it. There were a couple interesting pieces, but most of it pales when I've been seeing some of history's best art lately. After that I went for a nutritious dinner at McDonalds. Yep, McDonalds. They're all over the place, and I'd been having a fast food craving all week, so I caved. Still, there something sacreligious about eating fast food on a trip like this.
|