Barcelona in 4 days...

so we left Granada at 10pm on an overnight train to Barcelona. When we arrived the next morning we arrived hit the ground running and saw as much as possible. Park Greull is our favorite sight in Barcelona. The port was pretty cool too! The park has amazing views of the city though and interesting architecture. We left that night to a city about 20 miles north named Mataro. We had a couchsurfing host there. This host was very nice too! He was friendly and very informative about Barcelona another surrounding cities. He introduced us to some of his friends and brought us to a local cafe. Danielle tried a chocolate milk that she is claiming is the best she has ever tried, and she loves that stuff! Lol. Its made right here in northern Spain. We spent the next afternoon with our host, he drive us to some beautiful towns about an hour north of Mataro. One place we went to is called Calella de Palafruegell. It is a beautiful beach town, very populated in the summer time by Spaniards and other Europeans. We took pictures that look like they could be postcards! We went at sunset and had the most amazing views. Just unreal. The second place we went was to a small stone village called Peratallada. It was built back in the 13th century and is still fully functioning! That was like being in a movie or something. I felt like it was all a prop! So awesome! All the places we have seen like this have been museums or just abandoned, not literally livable. Please Google these two towns and look at pictures, etc. They are some really neat towns!and we were so thankful that our host brought us there! Well, wanted to get the bog going for this week....haven't had time to write much this week. Ill finish tonight....need to say what happened through customs in Tangier! Forgot about that, lol so funny!

Pictures from:
Barcelona
Mataró
Girona, Calella de Palafruegell & Costa Brava

Granada

We left Seville on Monday the 13. It was sad to leave. Everyone was so kind and welcoming. We made many friends some of whom I presume we will see again. Even if not, we have Facebook to keep us in contact! It was a 3 hour bus ride to Granada. Danielle gotand I had no issues this time with trying to leave, maybe that was a sign...lol. We arrived and stayed in a hostel our first night. We went out for dinner at a local bar and had delicious bocadillos! The following night we went to our first couchsurfing home. The man I was in contact with was named Hendrick. He is from Germany. He lives in a flat with 4 other people and they all go to school at the university here. They were awesome! Very warm and interesting individuals. They are all from all over the world and have couchsurfed themselves. We drank and played a card game called Bang. It took Danielle and I a bit to understand though once we did Danielle kicked our asses! I cooked a dinner for everyone. It was chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella wrapped with bacon and cheesy mashed potatoes. Boy o boy was it delicious. The following day Danielle and packed up our stuff, said goodbye to everyone and were on our way to our next home in the mountains. The group told us we could stay and even offered to cook us a meal but we wanted to keep moving on with our trip. I kind of think maybe another night there would have been fun. But we didn't. We actually stuck to our plans lol. So we waited for a bus on the other side of town to bring us into the mountains. While we were waiting this homeless drugged up man wouldn't stop talking to us. He had on a pink and orange neon Colombia jacket with gold crosses hanging from his ears. He looked marvelous! He started to sing flamenco for us and then attempted to convince Danielle that she should trade her jacket for his since they were both Colombia jackets, I almost died when I heard him trying to ask her in Spanish. She just kept saying, "no cambio"...it was great. We finally got on the bus and were on our way to our next host in the mountains. We happened to be passing through a tiny town and I saw a man running next to the bus shouting, "I'm Tom!" I realized that was our host! I asked the bus driver to stop. We grabbed our stuff and met Tom. He was with 2 other girls. They were hippies from Sweden, with long dreadlocks and baggy clothing. They had 2 dogs with them. He said he needed to come to town to buy some groceries and saw the bus coming (guess not a lot of buses come through). He said he recognized me from my pictures and figured he would just drive us up. Worked out well, Danielle and I were able to buy some groceries this way. The drive to his house was fun, all of us packed in. The view was amazing! He lives on the top of a hill in a tiny little pueblo called Baes de Granada. He showed us our rooms and ins and outs of his home. He taught me how to make Tortilla Espanola. That is my favorite meal I have had here so far! I wrote down the directions because I can't wait to share this simple meal with everyone at home! We had some wine and shared stories. Tom played his guitar and played some of the music from his band. That was nice. The girls shared some of their stories of hitch hiking from Sweden down to Spain (with 2 dogs), still can't believe they were able to do it. We went to sleep late and slept in the following day. When we woke up we had some coffee and were on our way through the mountains for the day. We started off with the girls too but they found some almond trees and decided to stay there and sick some almonds to eat. They said it was meant to be that they found the trees and needed to stay and eat. So...Danielle and I went on our way up the mountains. We picked a point and walked up. We kind of had to go side to side due to the hills, drops and valleys, etc. We made it though and had the most amazing view ever of the Sierra Nevada mountains!! We had some oranges and sausages and played some music on my cellphone. It was just grand. Once we made our way down I cooked dinner for Danielle, Tom and I. The Swedish girls were vegetarians. I fried potatoes, onions, mushrooms, broccoli, and some cheese together and added chicken towards the end. It was very good. I took a nap afterwards. We have been sitting on the couch listening to the girls sing music for us for a while now. Tom and Danielle got some wood and we are all going to enjoy the fire in the living room and have some drinks! Boy do they like to drink in Spain. So, farewell for now. I'm sure I will have a few more things to add by the weeks end. We were supposed to go to Barcelona tomorrow. We have decided to stay here in Baes for a few days and will probably leave Saturday or Sunday. We have host there too. He lives in a town outside of Barcelona and has offered to show us the city if we stay with him. We will probably do that. So, goodbye, again, lol. Hope you all are doing well! Miss u all! Xoxo

Pictures of our time in Granada!

The Dilemma

Well as I stated in the last post, we must be out of Europe after 90 days in. Since we didnt know this until half way through the trip, we didnt plan accordingly. We decided that since we have only a certain amount of time, we are going to split up for the rest of our time in Europe and do the countries we want to visit on our won since they are not the same. Danielle´s boyfriend Matt is coming to meet up with here while we are in Ireland and will go on with her through Italy and Croacia. I will stay in Ireland for about one week, do London for one day, one week in Amsterdam, a few days in Switzerland and a few days in Germany. We are going to meet in Bordeaux to say a final farewell to our brother and go to Paris for a flight to Beijing. Thats the plan. We are going to Granada, Spain on Monday for a few days. We have heard great things about Granada! There are hotsprings just outside the city, that I am going to make sure we get to! We will only be in Granada for a few days then onto Barcelona for a few days. Our sister-in-law told us the architecture is like nothing else in the world there. A man by the name of Antoni Gaudí created most of the work that you can find online, etc. We have heard so much about it and couldn´t imagine leaving Spain without seeing Barcelona. I am sick right now. I have been drinking tea all day and sleeping. I though I would write a bit on my blog. We have met so many neat people since we have been at this hostel! Many of whom we are now FB friends with. I hope to meet these people again at some point in life. We plan on stopping in Argentina to meet a guy who hosts in couchsurfing. We met him at this hostel in Seville. As I am writing this now I am listening to some great soft rock music being played over the speakers in the common area. Danielle is talking to two great girls we met from Belgium and one of the guys from Texas. This place makes you not want to leave! We had spanish sausage with cheese melted on top of it, on pieces of baguette. We let that heat up for a bit in the toaster then put olive oil on last. It was yummy! It helps that it was spanish sausgae lol...I dont care for american sausage, I have come to figure out. Well, I am going to make some more tea and go lay down for a bit. We have a a movie date with our roommate tonight. She is from Australia! Se is here taking classes trying to learn spanish. She is a very cool lady! Miss you all!! xoxox

My Love...Seville

I will say first, I will be back to this city. It is amazing! I have fallen in love. I wish I could stay. I know that in the real world, it is not possible though. The architecture here is like nothing we have seen. There is new and old. The old is kept up so well. They keep the buildings so clean and fresh. It is so neat to have done the walking tours and learn about the history of the city. It was at one point the worlds largest trading point after Columbus discovered America! They also keep the city as a whole very clean. Which is a nice thing to see, just different. We went to the Museum of the Indies. This is the building where all the important documents are held that have to do with the discovery of the Americas. That was neat to see! It is the 5th UNESCO monument and or city we have seen. I am happy to have the chance to see all of this seeing that it is has to do with the history of our world, not just my home. We have been in Seville since Sunday. We will leave Monday for Barcelona for a few days then be on a flight to Rome. Our time in Eurpoe has been cut short becuase we recently learned about the Schengen Agreement. It kinda screwed us for lack of a better way to put it lol. Please google it for more information, it´s a lot to explain on here. It is fine though, we are taking the time we have and enjoying the last few countries we are able to see. We went out with a bunch of people from the hostel last night. That was a blast! We did a "bar crawl" and ended up at a gay bar! It was the most fun we have had since we left home though. The fact that 10 people from all over the world could come together and drink and have an amazing time was just nice to see! The one thing Danielle and I have come to love about walking the streets here is all the backround mucis you hear. People just play in the streets for money but it is so nice. She says its like being in a movie. You can go from street to street and have music playing on each street. When we dont hear the music we question why lol. We saw a man dressed as a crazy clown with 2 puppets on either hand, with olny the heads popping up from the table. He would jump up at people walking by and making loud screaching noises. We stood there for a while and just laughed at the people who he would scare. It was very entertaining! There was an Irish woman who also loved it and kept coming back, that made me laugh hard too. We have found a starbucks and a Dunkin Donuts since we have been here. I am so happy about that! Well, I was just invited out by some people here in the hostel. I am going to take them up on the offer :)

Miss you all! XOXOX

Pictures from Seville!!

Dashing through Algeciras, Gibraltar and Tarifa...

We arrived in Algeciras after our few days in Tangier. We decided we didn't care very much for Tangier. Algeciras is a very pretty city and modern. There is a lot of Arab influence in the area. We got off the ferry at 10pm. And the 2 closest hotels were closed. We didn't want to walk around the city that late by ourselves, so we found a cozy corner in the port and slept for the night. We took turns sleeping so we didn't take the chance of having our crap taken. When we woke up, we walked around the city and found a decently priced hotel. The area we stayed in was very nice and we enjoyed walking to the street market and looking at all the amazing meats and vegetables for sale. We talked about how we wished we could have bought food to cook. The hostel we were in was a bit different than what we had been staying in, lol. It was our first official "hostel". You know, the kind that people talk about and reference but have never actually seen but in movies. Well, that's what we were in. There was a guard dog downstairs, we called him kujo. He was not friendly at all. He looked like he was on steroids too! The room smelled like someone just sat there for years and smoked 10 packs of cigarettes a day. The blankets looked like they belonged in a nursery and the beds were actually cots. But, at least we had a cheap place to sleep and there were no bed bugs. On our second day, we took the city bus to a small town named Gibraltar. It is actually an English colony in southern Spain. You have to show you passport to enter. They are known for having these wild monkeys all over the massive rock in the middle of the city. The monkeys were cute. A local girl fed them some coke, the drank it pretty fast, I think they had drank it before, its like they knew they would be getting it. Cute thought. We went into a glass making shop. That was cool. It was like watching "how its made" in real life. The process is very intriguing. It captivated Danielle and I for a good 20 mins. We were told by numerous people in France and in Gibraltar to make sure we went to Tarifa. It is a small beach town about 20 mins west of Algeciras. So the next day we took our stuff, got on a bus to Tarifa and spent the afternoon there. The beaches there are the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen! You could see through the waves for about 40-50ft out. The water was just that clear! I have never seen water that color either, it was a light turquoise. We walked through town and stopped at a little cafe to have coffee and a bite of cake. The cake was the best ever! It was made of vanilla cake, dulce de leche and chocolate fronting on top. The best ever! We then jumped on another bus and headed for Cadiz. We were told it was a nice city to visit. When we arrived we saw how modern it was and were discouraged. So we got off the bus and purchased another bus ticket for the next bus leaving to Seville. While we were in the bus station we met some travelers from Canada. They had been traveling for about 9 months already! They were telling us stories of different options on places to stay in some of the cities we will be going to after Seville. The told us about some mountain people who live in caves in this small town just west of Granada, Spain. I guess if you are able to make your way up the mountain they are willing to let you sleep there. They also told us of hot springs just outside of Granada. We plan on going there. I have always wanted to see hot springs! So eventually we made it to Seville. It was late, once again so guess what we did lol....slept in the train station. We didn't know this city at all. Our phones were dead and mostly everything was closed on the side of town we were in. Wasn't so bad. There was a young guy sleeping by us too, he had a train to catch very early. He was from eastern Europe somewhere. We didn't take shifts that night. We just slept on most of our important stuff and passed out. We were both so exhausted from traveling. The one thing we decided after that night, is no more arriving in new cities at night. Its a hassle when you don't know what the hell is going on and everything was is closed and or you don't know what kind of a neighborhood your in and if its safe to just walk around. So, we have learned our lesson and will try to not let that happen again. Anyways, we woke up the following morning. Found our first Starbucks since we have left home and charged our phones over some coffee :-) we were so excited to find a Starbucks! We researched how to get to the hostel we wanted to get to and were off! I cannot describe how happy we were to arrive at this hostel! Its the best yet! The reception manager was so nice and friendly! He gave us a map of the city. Showed us where everything was, hotspots, good tapas bars, free museums and other things to see! Tapas free appetizers you receive here in Spain when you order alcohol or coffee. He even invited us outside with some of the other people in the hostel fro drinks and tapas in the plaza out front. This hostel didn't have kujo sitting in the reception area and we had our own bathrooms with clean WHITE sheets lol. We were just happier than pigs in shit. So, we have now been in Seville about 3 days. We love it! I am taking today to be super lazy! We are going on a free walking tour of the city later today. We did a lot of sightseeing yesterday. We met a group of guys from Texas! They will be joining us later for the tour. Pretty cool to meet Americans. When we do, I feel like Danielle and I just start talking and don't stop. We get way to excited lol. Well, I have to go make lunch for Danielle and I, since she made dinner last night. Miss you all. Xoxo

Pictures from:
Gibraltar
Algeciras & Tarifa

Last few days in Morocco

We decided to go North because the worst too much fighting going on in southern africa. we took a 3 hour bus ride and then rode a train for 10 hours to get to northern morocco. the ride wasn't so bad except on the train we were lucky enough to be next to the only man snoring louder than any human on earth. you can only imagine how that went and we both only got about 2 hours of sleep. tanger was great ! we saw the first american embassy ever created and we went into town called La medina which is so old there is only enough room in the streets for about 3 people to stand side by side. Cars were not even an idea when this town was built. It was neat to see though. We also had an amazing view of Spain from the port in Tangier. The people were not as friendly in Tangier as they were in Agadir. Tangier is a much bigger city though. The hotel we stayed in was very very nice for the cost! We payed $20 a night and that was cheap for the area but some how we were lucky enough to find that hotel!actually it wasn't that we were luck y the taxi driver told us about the hotel so I guess we were lucky to have him pick us up at the train station lol. So we spent 3 days there and left at 6pm on the third day. If you have read the past blogs you know we have not had the best luck leaving places. Well, this wasn't much better. So here I go...we bought our tickets around 3 and were told by the men in the agency we had to be at the bus station by 5 to get through customs and check in, etc. Through this whole trip we haven't gotten sick. Even being in Morocco for 2 weeks unable to drink the water, we managed to not get sick. Just to make everything go the way it did the day we were leaving, Danielle got sick. So, the men also told us that the bus station was right up the road next to a hotel in the right. We walked there and realized pretty quickly it was to the right and about another mile down the road. So we kept walking. Once we made it ri the bus station it was a hot mess. By that point we had to make sure we figured out what was going on in less than 15 mins cause the bus comes every hour to the port we needed to leave from. There were about 20 bus spots with no signs and people everywhere! All the signs were in Arabic or French which didn't help. So we asked different people who all told us different answers. Then we asked a taxi driver which bus we needed and he told us there was no bus that brought us to the port bu that he would bring us! I almost jumped in the car and smacked him. We finally found an employee who told us the bus runs every 45 mins and we had just missed the bus and would have to wait which would have made us late to the port and in turn would keep us in Tangier another night and we would have to buy another set of tickets. Lmao! Writing this now, I'm laughing. When this happened, I literally almost started to cry. I was so pissed. We still decided to try anyways and went to the correct bus stop. When we got there a taxi driver approached us and asked if we wanted to join a few other people and all go to the port together. We had no other choice so we all pilled in and were off. The ride to the port was nerve racking! I wanted to tip the man enough so he could go get an alignment! We were driving through the mountains and I really felt one of the tires were just bound to come flying off because of how hard the car was shaking! Between, the Arabic music blasting, the amount of people piled into the car, no ventilation, and the car shaking vigorously, it was a great moment in my life to arrive at the port and get the hell out of the car. O yes, when we were driving down the highway, the taxi had to pull over because the truck flew open. That was great. Needless to say, we made it safe and pretty sound lol. The process of getting through customs was another mission. My phone is going to die though. I will have to write more later. Hope you all are having a great day! Miss you all! Xoxo