Another day in Barcelona

Hola!
We decided to stay an extra night in Barcelona once we found out the train schedule to Milan, Italy runs every other night! Therefore instead of leaving last night we added on a hostel night here and take the train Thursday night. This place is hard to beat as far as hostels go; near a metro station, very clean, super nice other travelers (people in our 10 bunk room range from New Zealand, Canada, the US, Taiwan...), free computer use, a TV room with couches, a kitchen and free breakfast! Breakfast is pretty standard but Josh was stoked that they broke out of the international brand of cereal found at every hostel- cornflakes- and also have like puffed corn cereal, real variety. Ive been doing the white toast/ nutella combination which is taking the place of peanut butter over here.
Rain came in today but still managed to find la Sagrada Familia and a few other Gaudi places. Although neither of us are incredibly into fancy architecture, still walking around this town is amazing. All the buildings are beautiful and most places seem very clean for such a huge city. Yesterday we found an amazing, HUGE market called La Boqueria off of La Rambla that is our new favorite place to look and get food. They have all the freshest- as in the seafood is climbing off the table- meat, seafood, veggies, fruit, bread, and chocolate stands ever. We got two large boxes of pastas, bag of dried fruit and nuts, and wine for about 13 euros total. Plus they have fresh things of natural fruit juice for 1 euro each, and 2 for 1 by this afternoon cause they had to get rid of the rest. Once we can get the pictures loaded you can see the huge slabs of pigs legs hanging off the stands, hearts, livers, everything you could use and eat is there.
Tonight were going to a Barcelona FC game at 9pm with a few people from the hostel. They are playing a 2nd tier team so it wont be as huge, but 20 Euros for a good ticket in the largest stadium in Europe- we are pretty excited.
Supposed to clear up tomorrow and I think we will take a day trip to a smaller coast town. By 8pm tomorrow night we get on the train (47 Euros each to just reserve a inclining seat!) and ride straight until 10am Friday when we get to Milan. From there, taking a train to Lucca where we meet Joshs friend from high school, Marco, for the night.
We will probably post again from Italy- hopefully with pictures.

Encontramos el sol (We found the sun!): Barcelona

We made it to Barcelona, the second largest city in Spain, at 6:30 last night after a LONG day on train. We did start some pretty good card games of Speed and War on the train though, resulting in the first every draw tie of Speed for either of us.
They speak Catalan, a mixture of Spanish and French, here but understand Spanish (including my American/ mexican Spanish) most of the time. After we found our hostel last night, near a metro station but out of downtown, we found the famous street, Las Ramblas. There is something for everyone there as far as we could tell. Didn't go back in the day light today but found dinner and our first glass of Sangria there last night. It was fun to see the street with the lights, shopping and restaurants but it is definately a tourist place. We were always greeted in English and menus were in English before any other language everywhere.
Today is turned into a BEAUTIFUL day, in the mid 60's and sunny - finally!! We found a place on the end of a metro line Josh heard about from a friends blog. It is the highest point of the city, the peak of Tibidabo, 512 m (1,680 ft) high. You can get off the metro, take a tram to the top of the city then a Funicular railway to the top (a tram going up the hill). BUT we hoofed it up the whole way, at times blazing our own trail. It was a perfect day, even going up in a tank top and Josh in shorts!! At the top it turns out is an AMAZING view of the city as well as a huge amusement park. Cool to see, but almost a let down with the commercial atmosphere. Since we are here during low season though, this was shut down so there were very few people around. At the top we found a little restaurant off the main attraction area that was finally very Spanish. The lady running the show only spoke Spanish, took our order then went in the back and made it all herself!! All at a very resonable price and Josh got to try the traditional Paella. This is served hot in a skillet with rice, veggies, shrimp and calamari.
This afternoon was spent finding the Olympic village and walking barefoot in the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea!! A beautiful comfertable night, we even saw our first nudist on the beach.

An early night here, the computers cant load pictures from my camera so hopefully soon enough we will catch up on those. A few more days in Barcelona and hopefully a night train to northern italy by wednesday.

Bordeaux

Well thanks to Martin and his family I dont think any trip to Europe will be complete (or acceptable haha) without a trip to Bordeaux. It was a perfect mix of getting a BIG taste of culture, staying busy, getting good rest, and being able to relax like it was home all at the same time. We arrived at lunch time on day 1 and had lunch with Juliet, Martin, and Jacqueline (who was affectionately called grandma or Jacquet). We got our first glimpse of typical french food when martin ordered raw beef and made us try a bite. It was good but we were glad to have chicken and fill our stomachs with something familiar. It was sunny and nice to just hang outside and feel some sun. Went back to the house later and continued to just talk, everything took effort and a lot of simplification of french and english phrases, but it got easier as time went on. Martin wanted to take me to meet some of his friends and play a quick game of soccer, so we did that for an hour and a half or so while christa got lost running around the area. After we just went back and showered and I drove Juliets car (french are scary drivers) downtown to see what it looked like in the evening. Martin had his girlfriend meet up with us while we were there (Mom I approve) and we spent an hour or so just cruising and having Martin be our tour guide. We headed back for some dinner and an early bed time. Of course being the day before the election the dinner conversation was politics, but after a couple glasses of wine the excitement went down a little and it was easy to get some solid shuteye.
Day 2 was a day that Juliete and Jacqueline planned to take us to Cap Ferret and show us the houses they are building along with thier favorite place to vacation in the summer. We woke up to election news...looked like a landslide...some were happy, some were sad. Glad for the majority of that hype and politics in the media junk to be over. The drive to Cap Ferret was a short hour and really nice. Cap Ferret is situated on a small peninsula just west of Bordeaux. It was a little foggy and chilly but very easy to picture how nice it would be with people and a little warm sun. We got to see the houses that Juliet and her family were building and they are AWSOME. They gave us an invite to come back in the summer any time, after seeing it we are gonna have to take them up on the offer some day. Oysters were on the menu for lunch, interesting food, you squirt a little lemon on them and see if they move a tiny bit. If they move then they are good to go and you can eat them, if not then they are no good. They werent bad besides the occasional piece of sand you would grind on, a true sign that it is fresh. Christa and I explored around the town while the others had thier house meeting, then met up later to head back to Bordeaux. Just before we left Juliet took us to a small bakery and had us eat some Canele (i think the spelling is not right) which are really good pasteries, and really hard to explain the taste, you just need to try. Nothing much more exciting for the rest of the evening...besides for Jacqueline driving, pretty good adrenaline rush from the back seat, I can see why Martin wont ride with her haha.
Day 3 Juliet took us to Pauillac to visit the family winery, Lynch-Bages. The country is GORGEOUS with grapes as far as the eye can see, with a Chateau scattered every few kilometers. We got to tour the winery, both old and new, and we were then given a lesson in how to wine taste CORRECTLY. It was all amazing and topped by a visit to the gift shop for a souvenir, meeting the main man John-Michel, and enjoying lunch with the family. Juliet took us to another winery to see how others do it (and wine taste again) while she went to visit her grandfather. It is really sad that I dont remember the second one off the top of my head, but google image Pauillac wine and the first big castle to show up is the one we visited...pretty amazing.
Day 4 was spent just checking out the town during the daylight and doing a little shopping. Not much super exciting, just looking. The exciting part of the day was when Joel (Martins dad) came to pick us up and go out to dinner. He took us to a great place where they just put a half of a huge block of cheese on the table with a heating lamp on it to make it melt. We were given potatoes and ham, then just would put our plate under the block of cheese and just let it melt all over our ham and potatoes. It was REALLY good. We ate until it hurt wich called for an early night to bed.
Day 5 we made breakfast so they could get a taste of "typical" american food, bacon, cheese, and mushroom omlettes were on the menu. It was a good breakfast for Martins afternoon rugby game. The morning was spent digesting breakfast and planning the next couple weeks of our trip. At around 12 it was time to say bye and thanks to Jacqueline, and at 3 Joel picked us up to head to Martins Rugby game. Martin had a really good game, and we were given compliments saying we need to come and cook breakfast more often for good luck. I think the game score was something like 25-0. Directly after we went to the Bordeaux soccer stadium to watch a game. We had awsome seats and it was great weather. The section reserved for the serious Bordeaux supporters puts any college student section I ever seen to shame. They never sat down and they never stopped singing...and I give them style points for lighting up some flares during the game, they were awesome. The Keeper had a collision with the opposing teams striker (foot to head) in the first half and he was knocked out cold! The striker didnt get a red card and I was honestly concerned for officials life, I have never heard a crowd boo like that. The keeper that replaced him was only 18 and started with an amazing save! We finally got to see our first European goal in the second half, hard to find the words to explain the amount of energy that pumped into the crowd as fast as it happened. The game was soon over, final score 2-0, we stuck around and had a couple drinks in the clubhouse, watched the players exit, then headed home. We said our goodbyes and gave our thanks to Joel, then headed to bed so we could catch an early train to Barcelona. Next morning came pretty fast for everyone and Juliet gave us a ride down to the trainstation (Martin wasnt feeling very good so he stayed home...hope you feel better and Ann too!). Juliet walked us all the way into the train and showed us our seats before it was time for a long hug, some last minute pieces of advice, lots of thanks, and an open invitation to come back (preferrebly soon and in the summer haha). 10 hours later we are in Barcelona and in the warm SUN! more updates soon to come