Mariscos

Ha ha, tonight Kate and I went to a really good restaurant on the water in Salema, and almost all the dishes were seafood and by the way, I don't like fish. But this is a fishing village, and how often are you in Portugal?, I figured I should try something. I ordered the jumbo prawns, expecting to get some pink jumbo shrimp, nice and easy - but these guys were about 8 inches long each - and served in tact, with the legs, tail, and EYES still on!! I know it's not that crazy, but it was so hysterical for my first time with a whole animal on my plate. I had to look off into a corner of the room while I peeled the shells off, because I couldn't look my meal in the eyes.

Switching // sites

hi folks,
i'm not abandoning you but I am moving over to Kate's blog site for today's entry, since she started a joint blog there.

click on the top link on the right side for "Kate and Lara's Blog".

hasta luego,
Lara

no sleep 'till Lisbon

Hola otra vez,
I am in Lisbon (Lisboa) Portugal, and unfortunately my concerns about getting here were right. It was 12 hours by train, plus 6 hours by bus, including a 3 hour stopover at a station in the middle of nowhere at 1AM which was a little too quiet to try and take a nap in, a little creepy.

My final train which went from 3AM to 10:30AM, didn't even have reclining seats and I was packed in a compartment with 6 other people so no room to lay down. It was really hot, too. I got maybe 5 hours of sleep which is remarkable, until we were woken up at 7AM by a Passport Control guard. but I enjoyed the ride into Portugal after that. Who knew - the countryside here looks like a rainforest!

Spain has been really "hit or miss" for me. Cordoba was wonderful, Granada's Alhambra was magnificent, but the city itself was not too impressive, and then because the trains in Andalucia are few and not very fast, unfortunately I had to go back to Madrid to get to Lisbon which is very out of the way, and the ticket lines were dreadful, even at 1AM.

I actually had a traumatic experience trying to get on the overnight train to Lisbon from Madrid, I'm honestly even trying to just forget it happened, but basically the agent made me get out of line, and back in line 3 times, rather than give me any information about other options for trains when the first train was full... he was like, "If you want a schedule, you have to go to Information. If you want to travel tomorrow, you have to get in the line for travelling tomorrow."

I seriously almost screamed some profanities at him by the 3rd time, except that there was lots of security guards watching people in line. At one point I did yell at the third guy who tried to cut in line within a 20 minute period, "La Linea es ALLI!!" (the line is THERE). People cut in line so badly here.

In my first couple hours here, though, Lisbon seems very quaint and mellow, there was no line for train tickets at the main station, for example. I asked my taxi driver to "please hurry" when going to the hostel, and he laughed. I think there is no such thing as hurrying here, people are low key, people were going about 45mph on the highway. And the 25 minute trip was only 8 euros, amazing.

One thing I learned from Jennie in Istanbul, which was such good advice - if you don't want to get ripped off by a taxi, find out approximately how much the trip should be, and then tell the cabbie, "I need to get to the airport, but I only have 12 euros... can you do it?" and make sure you only have that exact amount showing in your wallet when you pay, hide the rest of your money.

Well I am off to pick up Kate at the airport, yay!!!! She is literally going to feel at home in our hostel because the furnishing is white shag carpets and lots of orange and brown bean bag chairs, just like her parents' house!

On Friday, we are off to a beach town / fishing village called Salema where the food and atmosphere are supposed to be great, and maybe a little removed from the rest of the world. I may be signed off for 3 days then.

My kind of town, Cordoba is

No, no, my English is not getting worse, think about the subject line for a second. and if you still don´t get it, imagine Frank Sinatra belting this out (hope you´re listening, Sharon...). My iPod played this particular song as I was leaving Cordoba on a bus today.

Yesss!! (siiiiiiiiii!!) This is the Spain I´ve been looking for. Cordoba, where have you been and what took you so long?

As you can see, Cordoba was exactly what I needed - a lovely, slow-paced (especially on Sunday), and charming town, extremely photogenic. The town is on a river but the fun was in wandering its streets which are very maze-like, run in every direction, and are very easy to get lost on, even with a map. Each cobblestone street is about 20 feet wide, just enough for one car (or better, one vespa) to zip by on and the sidewalks are between 6 inches to 2 feet wide, just narrow enough for one person (or better, one petite person) to walk on. There are no street signs but just tiled letters on the sides of buildings. I counted only 4 stoplights in the whole city, but on the sidestreets, there´s none at all, and cars are required to stop for pedestrians (ha ha - take THAT, Madrid!) so you can walk wherever you want. ALL the buildings along the streets are apartments with little black terraces and flowers, I felt like I was on the set of "The Legend of Zorro".















One of my favorite things, was that many people have dogs that hang out on their balcony all day, watching the people go by, so I took some photos to demonstrate this (grande perro, pequeño perro).

In Cordoba, I finally ate real Spanish food. I can´t say it was my favorite food experience, and almost definitely even more caloric than McDonalds, but it was still great to try the local cuisine.

One joke is that a typical Spanish meal is "Ham and Pork with a side of Bacon" but it´s really true that some form of pork is in everything, and often with lots of olive oil or deep-fried with cheese. It´s probably a bad idea for someone with heartburn issues to visit here.

Last night I got to Cordoba about 6pm and asked my hotel clerk for a recommendation for good food because I didn´t have time for lunch (long story, keep reading). It turned out most cafes were closed since it was Sunday. When I finally found one cafe in the center of Cordoba´s main plaza, the waiter said they don´t serve any food until 9PM. Oh yeah, I forgot, I´m in Spain!

So I sat and had wine until they served food, made some phone calls to the US finally, and took plenty of time to try and translate the menu, using my Spanish-English dictionary. It´s so funny that I can understand and speak enough Spanish to get by, but menus are still a mystery to me, I guess because they often name dishes regionally.

Keeping in mind everything I ordered was tapas (appetizer) size, and I was starving, I ordered some chorizo (like thickly-sliced Pepperoni), some deep-fried spinach croquettes, and a house salad which I didn´t realize comes with TUNA on it. Gah. Otherwise, all was muy bueno.

This morning I also had a Spanish breakfast which was of course - cafe con leche (coffee with milk, very strong), zumo de aranja (always a fresh-squeezed orange juice, made with Valencia oranges), and a big piece of french-bread style toast with some olive oil mixed with tomato and pepper, plus of course - always of course - with shredded bacon on top. It was very good.

So why did I not eat lunch? If you´ve read this far, you are really a dedicated friend. Sorry for such long entries.

Well in MADRID, my favorite hellhole, a train schedule I had from EURAIL said that trains to Cordoba leave from the Charmatin train station, but they actually leave from the Atocha central station. HOW NICE. And, no, wait - it gets better - the metros were not running to Charmatin today, certain lines were "down" for some unexplained reason, so I was supposed to take the metro, then a bus, to Charmatin, but I got really sick of waiting so I took a cab. And then I found out that the train doesn´t leave from Charmatin. I literally could feel my blood pressure rising, I was getting so fed up. No really, it keeps getting better.

I finally got to Atocha and the lines for "travelling today" were an hour long. There were also lines for "travelling tomorrow" which I thought, "Maybe I´ll take a number and try and get my tomorrow´s travel in advance..." but by the time I got my today´s ticket, the "tomorrow" line had only gone through 8 people and let´s see... they were serving 107 and I had number 286. That would be like, a line of, what, 22 hours?! I can imagine what hell would be like now. Thank you Madrid, for painting me such an accurate picture.

I took a picture of the graffiti in the train station bathroom because I thought it summed up my experience pretty well.

One very humurous note, though - in the Atocha train station, they had an indoor rainforest thing, and while it was a nice idea, it adds an intense level of humidity to an already really hot station. points for trying, though!

I got a kick out of the fact that they had a pond on one end with about 100 turtles. (Even Madrid´s turtle population is out of control!!) And it was especially classic because my friend Luba and I used to have some turtles (um, candles, but they were still our pets) that for some inexplicable reason we gave Spanish names to - Jose, Paco, Miguel, Ricardo, Fernando, etc.

see - i wasn´t kidding about the turtles.

Also pictured below is the "rainforest" with a pile of garbage on the ground in front of it. Nice.

One thing I have to really give credit to Spain for, is in both Barcelona and Madrid, they took the 2004 terrorist attack extremely seriously and now they employ security guards on most of the train platforms, and they make you run your bags through x-rays at train stations and in most of the major sights like the museums.

This is a no-brainer, but it makes me angry that the U.S. doesn´t do enough of this, because we are an even more likely target (and we have tons of money we could be allocating to it). It especially bothers me at large arenas and concert halls that they often don´t even check your bag or pat you down. That is a huge area of vulnerability and it´s scary that we haven´t yet learned a lesson from 9/11.

Anyway, now I am in Granada, which honestly I was hoping to be small and quaint like Cordoba, but Granada is pretty big and spread out. The streets are old and all cobblestones and steps, so oh my gosh, it was a sweaty hike up to my hostel because my lazy rolling bag wouldn´t roll. I´ve totally learned how to yell at my luggage in Spanish already - No! Malo equipaje! Malo bolsa. Malo, malo!

Nevertheless, my hostel is reeeeeally cool, pictured left, it´s in an area of town that has an Arabic population and tons of little tea and shoe shops (so like, I could have bought anything from the Turkish Grand Bazaar also here, and without merchants harassing me). The hostel offered me an all-you-can-eat dinner plus all-you-can-drink Sangria for 3.50 € (or 5 bucks), which of course starts at 9PM, so how can I possibly turn that down???? They also have free internet so I´m in for the night. And, they have a little black dog who has been pacing around me, and dropping his ball on my lap ever since I sat down at this computer. Aww, just like home.

Unfortunately I may have a 12 HOUR combination bus / train trip to Lisbon to meet Kate on Wednesday. Yikes. I guess I´ll catch up on some postcard writing then. And looking at more olive groves than I ever imagined possible. Did you know - most of the world´s olive oil comes from Spain?? SI, it´s true. All those olive oil manufacturers with Italian women on the label are a pack of liars.

And what´s also funny-peculiar is that the Spanish countryside looks a lot like Mexico and like Napa Valley in California, it makes me wonder whether it was any coincidence that Spaniards and Portugese settled in Latin America and the Southwest of the US, as opposed to say, Alabama or Connecticutt.

Oh and one last thing, now that I speak some Spanish, I am SO even more dying to see the movie NACHO LIBRE. In fact, that´s the plan the day I get back to the U.S.

well I am all talked out. enjoy the photos, I will enjoy my sangria.
Lara

and one day was enough!

Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew!
let´s see, how can I best put this?... Madrid sucks. I am posting a few good pictures from there, but I really didn't like the city overall.

Whoever has ever enjoyed or recommended Madrid, must not have been here recently. Maybe I should have been tipped off when I actually read in Rick Steves book on Spain, that prostitution is quite big in Madrid, and he even listed prices (Ahh, Rick!! that´s so not like you!!)

I did notice when I got in last night that the metro smells intensely like piss, and they have no escalators or elevators for (lazy) people like me with rolling luggage, and that teenagers seem to have a favorite hobby of making out in the filthy corners of the metro stations, and I was willing to let my bad first impression go, a little. But after walking maybe 10 miles of the city during the day today, even when it was sunny, no me gusta. Eww.

I can understand the potential for some charm in Madrid. My friend Sara in Barcelona had explained to me that there are beautiful statues and monuments all throughout the city´s parks and plazas, that blend in with the busy city if you don´t stop to notice them. This is the same in Moscow, and I remember especially that the locals would stare at you for taking pictures of their streets. Well there are some really beautiful, old buildings are hidden amongst the Dunkin´Donuts and KFC´s, along the walk to Puerta del Sol, but even in the grassy parks, the sidewalks were very black and grimey, and there´s trash everywhere. The entire city smells like a dumpster, especially the metro.

Another essential phrase that´s not in the language phrasebooks, but I had to learn earlier today is, "Where is the closest H & M store?" because after going through the metros today, my pants were semi-drenched from muddy puddles. Several people directed me by saying, "It´s right under El Corte de Ingles (the Spanish big department store) on La Gran Via." Well that´s funny, because there´s actually 8 different El Corte Ingles stores on La Gran Via, and 6 of them within a half-mile of each other. Weird. It took me forever to find "Ache y Eme", and then they didn´t have any good pants. Just linen. Grr.

The museums in Madrid were the one thing that was good though...

When I left the hostel in the morning, it was pretty chilly (storm clouds were literally over just half the city, pictured) so I figured it´s "good museum weather" which was my plan anyway. I went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum first, because I remember tons of paintings from this museum are in my Sister Wendy´s 1,000 Masterpieces book (shut up - I like Sister Wendy) and I knew The Prado would be really crowded on a Saturday.

For some reason, Thyssen-Bornemisza doesn´t get the fame it deserves. It´s probably only the third or fourth most popular museum in Madrid, but it is an enormous private collection of almost ALL the famous painters - you name him, he´s here, and of course one "she" too, one of my favorites, Georgia O´Keefe. The collection spans many varying periods and styles, so I really enjoyed it, especially the expressionist and modern art, which was every famous name you can think of - Chagall, Gaugin, Degas, Monet, Manet, Pizarro, Picasso, and almost every country you can think of is represented. The entire museum must be close to 1,000 works because it was about 70 rooms on 3 floors.

An unexpected highlight at Thyssen-Bornemisza was a temporary exhibit of Russian Avant-Garde artists, on loan from The Russian Museum in St. Petersberg which is the one musuem I didn´t have time to visit last year in Russia. One of my favorite modern artists is Wassily Kandinsky and they had a whole room of his paintings on loan from Russia.

While I was in the museum, the lights flickered a few times so I assumed it was still raining, but I was a little shocked when I went outside that it was completely sunny and warm like a new day (although this happens in Denver all the time, it's unusual elsewhere), but much weirder, when I started to walk down the street, one side street had little balls of hail all over the ground, piled up like snow in front of the store, but only on this one corner. It´s like a hail cloud was just over the one street.

I took pictures, because it was too weird for you to take my word for it.
I kept thinking, how do you say ¨WTF¨in Español?? another essential phrase not in the phrasebook.

After Thyssen-Bornemisza and some walking around the Plazas, I visited The Prado (Madrid´s much-more-famous art museum) at about 4pm, hoping to miss the crowds. Note to iPod junkies: India.Arie makes a great soundtrack for art museums.

They have a HUGE sign outside The Prado with their hours posted in, like 800 size font, which made me laugh outloud, it's like a loud-and-clear message that they are sick of answering the tourists who call to ask about their hours.

Turns out, the Prado is great for Spanish art and great if you love Renaissance art too, but for me, it felt like a BIT of an overdose on Catholic themes. Honestly it felt like it should be called "The Museum with 1,000 Paintings of the Crucifixtion of Christ". Or "The museum which is 70% GOYA, and 30% other semi-important artists, like Raphael and Ruebens". ha.

I´m exaggerating of course, but they are very proud of Goya, it even seemed like they only sell postcards of Goya in the gift shop. I like Diego Velasquez much better personally, of whom they also have the best collection. The Prado has about 70 rooms too, so it took a couple hours, and I did enjoy it quite a bit, but it is discomforting that the museum allows flash photography of the paintings, or at least they do not discourage it. That seems disrespectful and is super distracting when admiring the paintings.

Now I promise - tonight I walked all around my neighborhood, trying to find a cute, local Spanish cafe to get dinner in, and I swear to you there is nothing but Starbucks, Pan & Company (like Subway), McDonalds, and KFC´s within 20 blocks from my hostel.

I really cringed to do this but I went to McD´s finally and ordered a yogurt with berries, and a happy meal with apples and fruit juice - to try to find something healthy! - but oh my god, the line took 40 minutes and the tables and floors were so disgusting, it looked like maybe they clean it once a week or less. Never been so glad I brought hand sanitizer. Ewww.

Amy: I am totally buying you a zebra-striped fan for a souvenir, it´s so so sexy.

all that being said...Yay... Cordoba tomorrow. Staying in a really cool hotel there at last, even a hotel room with my OWN bathroom, imagine that. check out the place here: http://www.hostallineros38.com/

adios.

Lara es boring

do I even need to comment on the picture at left?

I´m writing from an empty internet cafe in Madrid on a Friday night at almost midnight. I could lie and say I went out and had a great time in Madrid tonight but the truth is, I don´t really feel like it! My train got in at 11pm (which is what time people start the evening in Madrid) but - well - it´s raining for one thing, and I´m tired for another, but it´s really not the same when you´re in a city like this by yourself. And no offense Madrid, but I basically budgeted enough time to see The Prado, one other museum, walk by a couple plazas, and leave the next day.

The area I´m staying in is Madrid´s theater district and just like Times Square used to be, it´s full of strip clubs and smells like crap, but it´s starting to get taken over by "cleaner" companies like Starbucks, etc. My hostel is way cool though, it´s in an apartment building with a really funky Victorian elevator with mahogany doors that they warned me "sometimes gets stuck between floors" and the dorm room has a little balcony overlooking the park below. You would really never know a hostel was there because you have to call up and get buzzed in like a private apartment.

Oh, but I had the best 1st Class train experience for my first train trip in Spain! I was sortof dreading a 5 hour trip to Madrid, but when I got to the platform, it was like an airport. Really weird but they have you wait outside a gate before boarding the train, then an individual person takes your tickets, and then as soon as you get on board, the stewardesses come through with orange juice or champagne and packages of dried fruit! Hello!

And after an hour, they bring a mini-meal which comes with a split of whichever wine you want (unlike our planes, they had a wine list! at least 12 wines and 2 champagnes!!) In Spain, when you order wine anywhere, you usually get a whole split bottle to yourself. Si. I realllllllllllly like it here.

It´s completely hilarious to me that Eurail passes now require you to be in 1st Class when you´re older than age 26. It´s so funny because I am totally travelling er, um, "economically", so it´s not like I fit in with the 1st Class crowd. But it´s nice to sit in the bigger seats and get the few perks even though I look like a slob.

As I was ordering my food in this internet cafe tonight (where they speak very little English), I thought to myself, "how do you say 'Can I take this beer with me to the internet terminal?' in Spanish??" I mean, come on now, the phrase books these days really don´t provide you with enough essential phrases!

Oh - by the way - everybody who has an iPod is familiar with the mysterious phenomenon, that iPods have a sixth sense and when they´re on shuffle, they occassionally choose the most appropriate song for the environment or situation you´re in. This happens to me enough that no one could ever possibly chaulk it up to coincidence, especially considering the sheer amount of music in my iPod. Perfect example today - as I came up the metro to look for my hostel in this semi-sketchy neighborhood in Madrid, and my iPod was on a random mix, and it goes to the Gipsy Kings' Spanish version of "hotel california" - the one that plays in Big Lebowski while Jesus dances on the bowling alley... yup! I was like, "Uh, I hope this isn´t a Hotel California experience... "

So while I have a minute, I thought I´d write about a few travel tips for anyone who visits Europe at all - mostly things I wish I knew ahead of time:

- if you can carry it / afford it, a laptop is great because you can use the internet when sitting on a train for hours, or waiting in airports, and you never have to deal with annoying foreign keyboards, plus obviously a secure server, your own preferences, etc... second best option is to stay with friends who have free internet!

- try to carry 1 Euro coins (and small bills) because so many things like lockers and vending machines and laundry only take that 1 Euro coin.

- pharmacies are freakin´expensive compared to those in "the states", so buy vitamins, cold medicine, sunscreen at home.

- your ipod is your best friend, your watch is your other best friend, be sure to wear both everyday. a rolling bag is also your best friend, even on bumpy streets, i am so glad i didn´t bring a "real" backpack like the hard-core hostellers.

- you don´t really HAVE to learn languages if you ask in English very slowly and very politely, but saying "thank you" or "please" in the language really really helps plus I do like to learn the language, personally. but I´ve been surprised at how genuinely helpful people are if you just smile and ask nicely.

Before I forget, thanks to Kara for suggesting I write a blog on this trip, it is way easier to stay in touch with everyone and maybe when I get back, people will say "wow, I loved reading about Barcelona" instead of like, "So, where did you go in Europe?" which is a hard one to answer in 5 minutes or less.

Ah, España!

Ah dios mio, me gusta mucho Espana!! Lo adoro! I absolutely LOVE Barcelona. Love it lots. Want to move here. Well, maybe that´s a little extreme. But one of my friends should definitely move here so I can visit them a lot - I nominate Luba.

Somehow I knew I would love Barcelona before I even walked off my plane, everything I had read about this city, it seemed like a place that´s my speed, my style. The city has a really good personality, and an appreciation for modern art, very similar to Chicago, San Francisco, or Boston (like Boston without all the gay guys maybe?).

It was very exciting for me, yet it made me nervous, to come to a country where I could try to speak the language. I have never been to a Spanish-speaking country, so I have never had the opportunity to try out my 5 years of Spanish from high school. Turns out, my Spanish is not too bad! I know a lot of nouns at least. Verbs are harder. After 24 hours here, it started to come back to me, I even wrote in my diary in Spanish, and I think Mr. Rios would be very proud!

However, it´s funny that he used to always say "In Spain, they pronounce things with a TH, but don´t worry about that, those Spaniards are weird ones." (that´s a direct quote).
Well, ha ha, Rios, now I am learning to say the C sound with a TH. Believe it or not, the locals call this city "Barthelona".

I´m posting some pictures of buildings in Barcelona by the architect Antoni Gaudi who built very modern, very colorful and curvy, parks and buildings, often with beautiful mosaics too. Most of you have probably heard of him, he is the pride and joy of the city, because he has many buildings here and really, it´s plain to see he was one of the most brilliant architects ever to live - probably the word "genius" is even an understatement. It´s like Gaudi was the Albert Einstein of modern art. He was incredibly innovative, not just creative and imaginative.

The two buildings I saw here by Gaudi were the most famous. One is Casa Mila, an apartment-building (now a museum) in the center of the city on the main drag, Passeig de Gracia. Casa Mila is probably on the most postcards because it has this crazy terrace of statues on top which look like they are from another planet (some statues pictured above, and the front entrance is above left).

The other building I visited was the Temple of Sagrada Familia which is a world-famous work in progress. Much like the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, this building has an incredible story and is a very magical place. I´ll try to sum it up.

Gaudi started building this church to be the largest in Barcelona and he had a very specific vision for the church which is still being carried out, or at least interpreted, today. He started it when he was 31 years old only, around 1880 and he worked on it for 40 years until his death in 1926. Gaudi knew that it was too large of a project to be finished in his lifetime, so he dedicated a lot of time to making models and blueprints of the vision.

Unfortunately during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930´s, many of the plans were lost so the architecture has had to be interpreted throughout the century by future builders. Nevertheless, based on blueprints and models I saw in the musuem, it´s very easy to conclude that this building is completely in line with Gaudi´s vision.

Most people are fascinated by the temple´s sand castle-like look, but even more impressive is the sheer size of the sculptures on either side, in the pictures I posted here, each of the statues are actually life size!! There are 3 facades, and only 2 are completed so far. Each facade shows a biblical story, one side is "the nativity", one side is "the passion", and one side will be "the glory".

Gaudi´s inspiration was always nature, so the pillars that support the structure are designed like Eucalyptus trees on the inside, and outside, where they go into the ground, they are designed like Sequoia trees, my favorite!

Before I left for Barcelona, I remember telling Chris that maybe we´ll come back to Barcelona in 20 years, because it´s possible Sagrada will be done by then. I wasn´t sure, but it turns out, that is the expected timeframe that they will finish it, and also it will be the 100th anniversary of Gaudi´s death so... consider that on my calendar already for 2026, seriously.

When I come back to Barcelona with Kate in a couple weeks, there is still so much I want to see. At least three other places just by Gaudi, especially his outdoor mosaic masterpiece, Parc Guell.

This has been a long blog, but I can´t sign off before saying that I stayed with some friends of my mom´s here in Barcelona, and they were absolutely the most amazing and beautiful people. Couldn´t have had a better stay. Albert is a bit of a John Denver groupie, but otherwise has such a wonderful personality, and his wife Sara just had a bebe named Jan (the name "John" in Catalan) who is also una muy muy bonito persona with enormous blue eyes. precious. I am so glad I visited them, it was very good for my Spanish, but also a relief to have friends here.

P.S. later note...
If any of you are skeptical about the iPod having psychic powers, when I came up from the metro to SAGRADA FAMILIA, and looked up at all the cranes and builders hammering away, my iPod mix jumped to, "This is the house that Jack Built" by Aretha Franklin. So the iPod is not only psychic, it has a very good sense of humor.

Istanbul (a little culture shock)

Merhaba! or more like - oh my god I can´t believe I´m in Istanbul!!

so, Luba and I flew from Ljubljana on separate flights, and at insane times of day, with insane layovers in the airports, but we got here. Getting to Istanbul is half the battle. Getting into the main part of the city from the airport is the other half of the battle! It is a huge, sprawling city. Flying over it, it looked like Tokyo. The city just never ends.

I was really lucky that the week before leaving Denver, I happened to vaguely remember that a friend of mine from high school, Jennie (pictured center), lives in Turkey with her fiance, and as a complete surprise, I found out she lives in Istanbul! This worked out really well since the city is not extremely user-friendly for foreigners.

Jennie picked me up at the airport and we tried to head over to her apartment which literally is on a different continent - because of course the airport is on the "Europe side" of Istanbul and her house is on the "Asia side". The continents of the city are divided by a beautiful sea, the Bosphorus. I lost track, but I think it took us 2 1/2 hours to get to her house just because the city was so traficky, and this was on a Saturday without rush hour!!

Driving around Istanbul is completely scary and not because of Jennie personally - everyone drives like a complete maniac with no regard for any kind of courtesies or even common sense mechanisms such as looking in the lane before changing. It is really frightening, although the same in lots of huge cities, I suppose. Still, I am comfortable with the insanity in New York - this insanity was like playing a sped-up Frogger with your life, seriously.

Really awesome was that Jennie and her fiance, Baris invited me to a friend of a friend's engagement party the first night, which was a lot like a wedding, a big family gathering. I tried the Turkish specialty raki, which is an anise-flavored liquor sort of like schnapps and danced with the father of one of Baris' friends - woo hoo!

After another ride of hanging on for dear life, I checked into my very cute little hotel in the center of town and slept like a rock.

On day two, I was woken up by the unique sound of minarets ringing from a mosque (actually, several mosques) in our neighborhood who sound a prayer call, "the ezan" at various times of day, the first time being at sunrise. For those of you who have never been to a Muslim country (any of you?!), well it sounds almost exactly like a goose being strangled.

At first I thought it was an instrument like a bagpipe, but it's actually someone singing, and it lasts about 15 minutes. Fascinating is that each mosque starts theirs based on where the sun is in the sky, so it not only changes daily but each of the mosques in Istanbul is a few seconds off each other, so at certain times of day, you hear them all going at slightly different intervals. Found out later, the one I heard in the morning was from The Blue Mosque, Istanbul's most famous active mosque which is just a quarter-mile from our hotel.

Later in the day we visited the Hagia Sophia (pronounced Aya Sofia) which was originally the inspiration for my visit to Turkey (see dark interior shot below). As soon as I saw this former-church / former-mosque in my Art History book last year, I knew I had to see it. There's just too much to say about this building, but it is truely a one-of-a-kind wonder of the world, dating from Roman times and its fascinating aspect is the building has changed its affiliated religion multiple times since 500 AD, and so finally in 1923, it was converted into a monument-only, no affiliation. You can read more about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia

It was truely a huge moment for me to walk into this building, I can't help but feel it exudes an indescribable power when you're near it. The fact that the building still stands from so many years ago despite wars and endless make-overs is incredible. You have to see it to believe it, but take my word for it, it is worth the trip.

On day three, Luba and I visited the "Grand Bazaar" which was completely insane. It's beyond bizaare!! I knew what it looked like, and I was prepared to have to haggle for goods, but I was not prepared for how aggressive the sellers are. Whether it's carpets or vases or pashmina scarves or little blue eye charms (Istanbul's top souvenir), you cannot pass a single booth without a sleezy man leaning towards you and shouting "Laaady! Hello! Please see my carpets! Hello! Wouldn't you like a beautiful vase? Lady - Hi, you speak English? Please step inside to see my scarves. 5 Lire - OK, for you 3 Lire"... you get the picture. It's like you can't even look at anything or make eye contact for fear of having to get these men in your face even more.

What was funny was their accents are just like Robin Williams' caricature at the front of Alladin, exaaactly, "It slices, it dices, it makes hundreds of julianne fries! Oh - it broke" but these guys stand so close to you and they don't stop when you walk away, they'll follow you. It felt incredibly invasive and chlaustrophobic after about 2 or 3 hours of consecutive pestering. I am so glad I don't live here because salesmen on the streets do the same thing too, it would really really get to me.

Also every taxi cab honks as they drive past anyone, not to say ¨get out of the way¨but to say ¨need a lift?¨ It is SO annoying, and in fact, I had to laugh when at one point I left my camera in a cab, and the driver was trying to get my attention somehow because honking obviously just blends in to the background.

Anyway, other than that slightly bad taste in my mouth from the creepy sellers, Istanbul was SO incredible. Later in the day, we found a restaurant with a terrace that overlooked the Bosphorous, and the Blue Mosque, and the Hagia Sofia, all within maybe a half-mile and just completely stunning. There was even a tulip festival going on when we were here too, so lots of photo-ops. I am so grateful to have had Jennie to take us around, she knew the best food places, and she's about 6 words short of knowing Turkish fluently.

by the way, pay no attention to the time & dates of posting my blogs - the Ljubljana one is a few days old and usually when it says "10:00 am" that really means it´s "2:00 am" here. I am 8 hours ahead of Colorado normally, and 9 hours in Turkey. : )

Lara

Ljubljana

all i can say is WOW.

this last week has been full of unexpected and wonderful sights. Vienna was a little disappointing for its cold weather & gray atmosphere, so Ljubljana was a breath of fresh air.

first of all I should explain to those of you (like me) who are a little geographically-challenged:
Ljubljana is the capital of SLOVENIA, a small European country just south of Austria. it's pronounced Loo-biyana. One of Slovenia's recent claims to fame was when George W. mistakenly referred to Ljubljana as "in Slovakia" in a speech.

I have to give all the credit to my cousin Vera who insisted that I visit Ljubljana. Turns out, it is a beautiful and extremely clean city where the main form of entertainment for both locals and the very few tourists is to sip coffee, wine, or beer on the banks of a beautiful river. That's about the jist of the city - cafes, cafes, cafes - and that is exactly what I loved about it. The food is also fresh, affordable, and fantastic.

Almost half of the city population is students who are all practically fluent in English, if not German or Italian as well. Venice is only a ferry boat ride away, so if you're ever visiting northern Italy, it's worth it to work Ljubljana into your trip.

I suppose the only downside of the city is there's not a whole lot of sightseeing to do, and not a ton of hotels, but there's plenty of shops and just walking is plenty. Slovenians also have their own mountain range which easily competes with the Alps for beautiful (more affordable) skiing year round.

In a nutshell, I felt that Ljubljana was an un-spoiled, un-touristy European city. Definitely visit if you get the chance!

Austria

ok, the annoyances with foreign keyboards continue...
this time i can only access the blogger website in german. d'oh.

speaking of d'oh - i watched simpsons in german for a couple minutes yesterday, very amusing still. in fact, maybe more so because of all the references to beer.

well, i am in Vienna now with Luba, for those of you don't know, she's my father's brother's uncle's best friend's former roommate (just kidding, she's just my college roommate who has an affinity for spaceballs).

the hostel situtation is going to take some adjusting for me! the beds are fine but the bathroom is about 1/10th of the space i'm used to, maybe like 1/20th the space, so this is wery wery interesting as Freud might say (Vienna's most famous resident).

so - I totally didn't realize that Vienna has more museums than any city I have ever seen or heard of - at least 30 in my brochure - many of which are the "largest collection" of whichever thing they contain.

conveniently, it's been cold & rainy, about 40 degrees fahrenheit, almost even snowing at times, so it's truly "good museum weather" - also good "duck into a pub for beer and goulash" weather.
today we saw the famous "The Kiss" by one of my favorite artists, Gustav Klimt, who is Austrian and hence VERY celebrated here although it's rather unfair that he was shunned by Vienna in his own day & age for being too erotic, too risque and now he's their biggest claim to fame. also we saw quite a few other famous modern / abstract / surreal artists who i really, really dig.

going to Istanbul (not constantinople) this weekend... and even with this frigid weather, i'm having a blasssssssssst.

stay tuned!
Lara

guten tag from switzerland & germany

wow, i am having a great vacation for this first week with chris. i am so glad he came.
we visited Nurnberg (famous from the enormous nazi rallies there) & dachau concentration camp near Munich during the week, which were 2 very fascinating and thought-provoking places. dachau especially, was fascinating since it was more of a "working" camp than an extermination camp so we learned about the various really sick logic that went into the concept of concentration camps, especially the extremely complex psychological torture, which you can imagine was much even more horrifying than physical torture.

pictured above is a monument at Dachau which represents the many camp inhabitants who chose to commit suicide on the electric fence rather than die under such conditions.

one very basic thing which i learned which i never before knew, was that the original plan for the camps was to cage these people up for a number of years until their "spirit was broken" and then release them free back into society where the rest of the world would see them as poor and pitiful idiots, basically, and society could make their own conclusions from there... it's almost an even crueler thought than the idea of mass killing people. dachau i would highly recommend to anyone who visits germany, the monuments are beautiful and the exhibitions shocking yet very appropriate and educational.
on a lighter note, we really enjoyed the beer and pretzel scene in Munchen.

here´s chris with our Liter-sized beir and his favorite, huge pretzels which come with everything...

pictured above is Schloss Neuschwanstein (noosh - van - stein) a castle in the Alps right between the German and Austrian border which was breathtaking, both in the scenery and the very steep 2 miles you hike up to get there.


Saturday we enjoyed beautiful Lucerne (Luzern) in Switzerland with no real plans there but to wander around the streets & explore. pictured above is Luzern´s main drag- so beautiful and it was our one sunny day so far!!


sorry & no offense coloradans - but the Alps are so, so, so much more impressive than colorado´s rockies... like triple the size. I took a 9-hour train trip through the Alps to Austria afterwards. Many people were taking the train as a tourist activity, but I actually needed to get there. The windows were extra large so you could take it all in.

German-speaking countries go crazy for Easter. chocolate bunnies are everywhere, even in the shape of a little smart car (check out its ears!)

o canada

stopping over in toronto right now - just a little 5 hour
layover - and actually i highly recommend a transfer
through canada because it's like the half-europe experience.
you go through customs but really quickly - it's a practice round.

signs are in french, they take US dollars but give you canadian change. you can order a bagel with cream cheese at the cafe but they serve it with a piece of baguette on the side! (???) and everyone drinks tea of course, not soda.

i am having trouble even finding the puctuation marks on this keyboard...

anyway. so far so good. just a bit tired, and getting adjusted real quick to just how much stuff i packed which could have been left at home. so seriously.

also getting adjusted to this weird look of wearing a supposedly slim fanny pack (money belt with my wallet, passport, plane tickets, train tickets) strapped under my clothes for "safety". thieves are either going to spot me right away with this un-natrual kangaroo look, or they will figure i'm pregnant - one or the other!!

it's obvious i am "dressing for comfort" on this trip...
Lara