Christmas Vacation

Thursday December 24th 2009 - France
Leidy and me spent the day packing and getting ready for our trip. Then in the evening we caught the last bus from Montmorillon to Poitiers. So we arrived in Poitiers around 9pm. We were catching an overnight train so we still had 2 hours to waste before our train. However our train was a hour late due to the weather, so we sat around for another hour waiting impatiently. Blah. Finally the train rolled into the station at midnight and we quickly boarded, found our beds and nestled in for the night. Leidy went straight off to sleep, but I stayed up reading through my trusted Lonely Planet travel guide for a while planning what we'd be doing once we arrived in Madrid.

Friday December 25th 2009 - Madrid, Spain
Merry Christmas!! Leidy and me woke up with the sun and watched the Spanish countryside slide by. It wasn't how I'd imagined Spain. I'm not quite sure what I expected Spain to look like (maybe a chic Mexico), but what I watched fly by the window was definitely not what I'd had in mind. There were rolling hills with what looked like olive trees covering them. It was very beautiful. We arrived in Madrid around 10am. Milton, Leidy's friend from Colombia, met us at the train station and then we all headed off to the hostel to drop off our bags. From there we grabbed a map and headed to "Plaza Mayor". The plaza has a rich history and the beautiful "Royal Bakery", which is a building covered in intricately decorated murals, but other than that it seems like a huge tourist trap. People constantly offered to draw your portrait for a 'small fee', people were running around in Disney character costumes who charge you money to get a picture with them, vendors were selling souvenirs and junk. When exiting the plaza we took the wrong exit and started heading south instead of west to the Cathedral and Palace. We'd only walked a few blocks before I realized the mistake and we quickly back tracked, but not before finding one of my favorite squares in Madrid, where the building had brightly colored drawings on them. Next stop of the day was "Plaza de la Villa," one of the buildings was where Francois I (King of France) had been held after being captured in a battle and was ransomed back to the French. We ended up at the Cathedral next. Which really wasn't that interesting, because its actually really modern (it was finished being built in 1992), but we checked out the inside anyways and Christmas Mass was being held, so that was kind of neat. Right next to the Cathedral is the Palace. However, since it was Christmas it was closed to visitors, so we snapped some photos and continued on our sight seeing promenade to "Plaza de Oriente" which is a park beside the Palace with a lot of marble statues. Behind the Palace was another park called Jardines de Sabatini which is full of lush, labyrinth gardens with lots of fountains. Once we'd finished our little stroll we started heading back to Plaza Mayor. We found a store along the way and grabbed supplies for sandwiches, then found a bench by the plaza and had a late lunch before heading back to the hostel to catch a couple zzz's before meeting up with my friend Gloria (a Spanish assistant in Angouleme last year that I lived with). We woke up and freshened up, then we went headed out again. We were meeting Gloria at "Puerto del Sol," which is a popular meeting place for everyone so needless to say it was packed. This is also the same square where the Spanish gather on New Years to watch the Gold Ball drop at the stroke of midnight, while eating their 12 grapes. We arrived super early so we choose a road to walk along to see if we could find something to eat. The road we took ended up being "Calle Alcata" which turned out to have a lot of famous sites along it like "Plaza de la Cibeles" which is a huge fountain where the "Real Madrid Soccer" team always gathers and celebrates after a victory, the beautiful "Palacio de Comunicaciones", "Banco de Espana" and ends with the "Puerta de Alcala," which is was built as a 'triumphal gate' (it looks a lot like the bradenburg gate in Berlin). After our walk we headed back toward Puerto del Sol and stopped by a restaurant along the way to eat some Paella, which is a 'must-try' spanish food (specialty rice with some type of meat, I had it with seafood, yum!) before meeting up with Gloria under the 'Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree' which is the symbol of Spain (apparently Madrid used to be full of bears). Gloria took us on a walking tour to the "Templo de Debod" which I found to be really interesting because it is an actual Egyptian Temple that was given to Spain by Egypt (instead of stolen from Egypt like what the Brits, French and Americans did to acquire all the Egyptian artifacts we currently have in museums) when they helped save the Temple of Abu Simbel when Lake Nassar was created by the dam. I actually visited the Temple of Abu Simbel last year and knew all about the history and story behind it, so I really enjoyed this. From there we started heading back to Puerto del Sol via the "Plaza de Espana" on the street called "Gran Via" which is kind of the 'Champs d'Elysee' of Spain. We also passed by a street that is famous for prostitution and was easy to spot because there were girls wearing hardly anything in huge hooker boots. We went looking at Christmas lights for a bit before finding an irish pub for a quick drink and then turned in for the night.

Saturday December 26th 2009 - Madrid, Spain
First stop of the day "Palacio Real de Madrid" (the Royal Palace). When the plans for the palace were originally drawn up it was going to be the largest Palace in the world, even grander than Versailles, but when the King died before completion the plan was thrown out, so the palace only has 2800 rooms. I tagged along behind a english speaking tour group so I actually found out a lot of interesting facts about the palace (and I also now remember why I never pay for the tours, I get bored after a while and wander off). I was glad that I'd shelled out the money to visit the palace, because even though it is much like every other palace I've ever visited (extremely extravagant and over the top) it still had its own 'flair' of extravagances. This palace imparticularly was filled with really amazing clocks. After the palace we decided to grab lunch (we'd been there for 3 hours). I'd read about a cheap little restaurant near Plaza Mayor that I wanted to try, so we headed in that direction and quickly found the little restaurant which is called "100 Montaditos Cerveceria". Montaditos are little bite size sandwiches. We ordered a sampler platter and tried a little of each. After our lunch we headed to "Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reine Sofia" which is a world famous art museum. It holds many famous Spanish artists like Salvador Dali, who is one of my favorite all time painters (he's right up there with Van Gogh in my books) and Picasso (who I'm still not sure if I like his works or not because I like that his works actually make me feel something, but what they make me feel is usually not a very comfortable feeling...if that makes sense). It also introduced me to the works of Jean Gris which I really liked. By the time we finished with the museum it was dark and getting late so we grabbed some dinner to-go as we returned to the hostel to rest before meeting up with Gloria and her friends to spend the night out on the town. Gloria took us to a rowdy, cheap bar to meet up with her friends. This bar was great. Not only were the drinks really cheap and large, they also gave you free food to eat while you were drinking. After hanging out there for a while we all piled into a car and drove across town to a night club that was decorated like a large pirate ship on the inside. We were there until 6am when we finally caught a night bus back to our hostel.

Sunday December 27th 2009 - Madrid, Spain
Needless to say, we ended up sleeping in even though all the museums are free on Sundays (oh well, I wasn't really that bummed to miss them, because I'm not a huge museum person anyways). We finally rolled our hungover butts out of bed around 2pm and then met up with Gloria at 3pm. She took us on a tour of "Parque del Buen Retiro" which was a really busy, lively park full of things going on. We passed by Christmas carolers, some Italian clowns, people playing bongos, magicians, etc. and there were lots of things to see like a massive lake that has a huge monument to Alfonso XII at the end of it, the "Palacio de Cristol" which is a large glass house and the statue/fountain of "El Angel Caido" (The fallen angel; aka lucifer) which is one of the only statues in the world to the devil. After the park we visited "Museo Nacional del Prado" another world famous art museum (Madrid holds 3 of the top ten art museums in the world). Even though this is suppose to be "one of the world's top museums" I wasn't really that impressed, in fact a lot of the works were really 'hit or miss' for me. After that we all turned in for the night. Gloria caught a bus home and Leidy, Milton and me grabbed some dinner before heading back to the hostel to rest (we were all still pretty exhausted from the night before).

Monday December 28th 2009 - Madrid, Spain
We packed up our bags and checked out of our hotel by 11am and then headed to the train station to put our bags into a storage locker. Then we headed back into Madrid to see a few more sights before our evening train to Barcelona. The first place we visited was a square known for its two leaning towers and then off to the "Real Madrid Soccer Stadium". We didn't actually go into the stadium, because there was a really long line and it was really expensive, but we did walk all the way around and watch some kids get busted for smoking pot. Then we jumped on the metro to "Plaza del Toros" which is the stadium where the famous spanish bull fighting takes place. Leidy and Milton are both against bull fighting and think its cruel, but I'd like to see it at least once. Oh did I mention that during the entire trip to Spain I was only talking in French 24/7 so by the end of the day, my brain was always sooooo exhausted. After that we headed back to the Puerto del Sol area to look around in different stores, grab some food (calamari sandwiches, ummm it was delicious) and buy some souvenirs before meeting up with Gloria. Gloria took us out for some real Madrid Hot Chocolate, which she insisted we try before we left. The hot chocolate is actually made from pure melted chocolate so its really strong. We also ordered some churros to dip in the delicious beverage. After we finished our drinks and gossiped for a bit we headed to the train station to catch our train to Barcelona. The train we took to Barcelona was an overnight train, but it only had chairs, not beds so it wasn't that comfortable of a night. Thankfully I've travelled by train like this many a times before so I didn't sleep in my seat, but I snuck out and headed to the Cafe car and fell asleep on a bench laying down instead, so I had a much better night then everyone else (I'd tried to let Leidy and Milton in on the secret of where to sleep, but they had already been sleeping for a while, so when I woke them up and tried to explain to them its better to sleep in the cafe car they were to groggy to understand my french) .

Tuesday December 29th 2009 - Barcelona, Spain
We arrived in Barcelona at 8am, tired and groggy. We slowly made our way out of the train station and to the hostel in order to check in. Everyone took showers before we headed out to see Barcelona. First stop of the day was "Parc de la Citadella" (along the way to the park we also saw the Torre Agbar which is a large egg-shaped skyscraper that lights up different colors at night), which is where the Catalyna Parliament is located. First thing we saw when we entered the parc, was the monumental "Cascada" which is a large fountain designed by a young Antoini Gaudi (my new favorite architect). The park was filled with lots of things like the parliament building, a gigantic mammoth statue, a lake, a zoo and lots of other things. Once we exited the park (after stopping into the "Castell dels Tres Dragons" to look at an exhibit being showed there on zoology) we headed to the waterfront and walked along the boardwalk until we came to the "Port of Barcelona" where there is a huge monument to Christopher Columbus (the people of Barcelona claim that when Columbus sailed and found America, he actually left from this port and not a port in Genoa, Italy). From there we headed along "La Rambla" which is a large pedestrian street that is lined with people dressed in crazy outfits who'll take pictures with you if you drop a few coins into their hats. Then we entered into the "Barri Gotic" (Gothic Neighborhood) to check out the old Cathedral (which we didn't bother entering because you had to pay to get in). We grabbed some lunch at a cafe in front of the Cathedral and then continued to wander the streets of the gothic neighborhood looking at the architecture for a while, before heading to "Placa Catalunya" to take a break and people watch. After the break, we had a long walk to "Sagrada Familia", a huge church designed by Antoni Gaudi. It is still under construction and sadly Gaudi died before its completion. Along the way to the Sagrada Familia, we passed by some other famous houses designed by Gaudi including "Casa Batllo, which I really wanted to visit and see the inside of, but its really expensive to enter and with a forever long line to even get in. After walking around Sagrada Familia (we didn't actually enter, because it was really expensive) we stopped in a cafe and had a coffee and croissant. We wandered around for a bit after that before turning in for the night. At the hostel at 4am, some really obnoxious french boys started pounding on every door in the hostel waking everyone up yelling fire. I was in a room with 8 other people including 2 other french boys, who got up and started yelling at the drunks. Pretty soon a fight erupted which continued out into the street in front of the hostel. That was definitely one of the more amusing hostel stories I've now collected. There were close to 30 people from the hostel brawling in the middle of the street.

Wednesday December 30th 2009 - Barcelona, Spain
I woke up early and checked my luggage into storage and then checked out of the hostel. I was suppose to be meeting up with everyone at the Cathedral around 12:30pm and I wanted to do some shopping and wandering around before the rendez-vous. I meet up with Leidy and Milton outside the Cathedral and shortly afterwards Beto, his brazilian friend Yapunkie and a french boy Kevin showed up. We all decided we wanted to go see Park Guell, which is a park that was completely designed by Gaudi. Gaudi began to design the park in 1900 when Count Eusebi Guell bought up the entire hillside and wanted Gaudi to create it into a miniature garden city of houses for the wealthy. However the project was abandoned in 1914 but not before Gaudi had already constructed 3 km of roads and walks, steps and a plaza. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, which is why Gaudi is now my favorite architect. There are also two houses here that he built (one of which he lived in until his death) that remind me of how I always pictured the gingerbread house in the Hansel and Gretel story. We spent a long time wandering around the park before grabbing something to eat at a nearby cafe and then headed to the metro to go see the Barcelona Soccer Stadium and then a quick walk by the palace. After that it was dark and we decided to head to the camping car to rest before a long night out on the town. When we made it back into town we meet up with the others (three of my french friends who were also staying in the camping car with us: Victor, Adrian and Marion) in front of the Cathedral. There was a small drum circle going and we quickly joined in. We hungout with the group (which included a 5 french people, a guy from the czech republic and a few others that I don't remember where they are from) for a long time before we all headed toward the waterfront to find a bar. We found a bar along the waterfront and stayed there for a while before catching a metro back to the camping car (I have no idea when we arrived back at the camping car but it was late, I think past 5am).

Thursday December 31st 2009 - Barcelona, Spain
Happy New Years Eve!! We woke up surprisingly not that hungover, but we still hung out around the camper resting through the early afternoon (we wanted to make sure we were plenty rested for the NYE celebration). By the time we headed into town, it was pretty late. We all met up at the Sagrada Familia and were planning on looking around inside, but apparently it closed early because of the holiday, so we didn't get to enter :(. From there we just aimlessly wandered around the streets trying to find a open, cheap "Tapas" restaurant. But to no avail, so I headed to Placa Catalunya to meet up with some others and the boys bought a few pizzas and brought them along shortly afterwards for everyone. We spent the New Years Eve celebration in Placa Catalunya, where it was necessary to have the police check our bags for bottles before entering, but I don't think they did a very good job, because I know we snuck in a few bottles and when midnight struck champagne bottles were exploding everywhere and we were soon drenched in champagne. People were lighting off firecrackers right next to us and it was just a crazy, awesome time. We stayed in Plaza Catalunya for a while celebrating/hooting/singing/shouting and generally just being silly drunks before walking down "La Rambla" in search of who knows what (honestly I can't remember where we were headed or if we ever made it there, I think we were just wanting to stroll and see what everyone else was doing). La Rambla was covered with a foot deep of broken glass (I think mainly from champagne bottles). LITERALLY!! You had to step up onto a level of glass instead of sidewalk, it was crazy, I guess that explains why they checked your bags before entering Placa Catalunya or it probably would have looked even worse. When we headed back to the camping car at the end of the night, we took the wrong bus and ended up 4 km away from our camping car so we had a long, cold walk back. This might seem like an unlucky start to a new year, but actually in Spain they say that if you walk a lot during New Years then it means you'll travel a lot in the upcoming year. So I hope that turns out to be true!! We made it back to the camping car at some ungodly hour in the morning and passed out. What an exhausting evening ;-D but definitely another New Years Celebration for the record books.

Friday January 1st 2010 - Barcelona, Spain; Carcassonne, France; Toulouse, France
We had already decided not to stay the weekend in Barcelona, so that we could enjoy the roadtrip back to France. I picked up Leidy at the train station and then the boys went for a very, very, very cold dip in the sea before we started our long journey north. We did a lot of sleeping along the way (we were all pretty tired from the night before). At the border of Spain and France we stopped at a store to buy supplies for lunch and really cheap alcohol, then we continued on our journey. It was my first time ever road tripping in a camping car and it was so much fun, because you're not stuck in one place, you're able to get up and move around, there's a table to play games on and you can drink alcohol if you want too. I think its fun as long as you are not the driver (and thankfully I wasn't!! Beto did most of the driving and Adrian did a little too). We arrived at the Medieval City of Carcassonne after nightfall, so the old city was lit up. We wandered the streets for a while, before stopping for dinner at a little restaurant in the heart of the old city. After dinner we continued on our roadtrip to Toulouse, France. I was a little sad that we didn't stay the night in Carcassonne, because I've always wanted to go there and I'd have liked to see it during the day and done a little more exploring, but oh well. I guess I'll just have to return another time :) We pulled into Toulouse around 10:30pm. We were staying the night at Marion's parents' house (well at least the girls were staying in the house and the boys were staying outside in the camping car). Marion's family greeted us, made us some tea and talked with us for a while before heading to bed. Then we all went out to the camping car to play a french board game. Which I'm guessing is something like Dungeons and Dragons, without the dress-up, so needless to say, I didn't like it very much. But it was fun just hanging out and chatting, before turning in for the night.

Saturday January 2nd 2010 - Toulouse, France
When we woke up in the morning we all showered and got ready for the day. We sat around talking with Marion's family while they prepared a large lunch for us. The lunch consisted of a huge pork roast, potatoes, salad, wine, bread, cheese, coffee, fruit, cake dessert, etc. Basically you're average (way over the top compared to the USA) french hospitality meal. After the delicious, enormously huge and filling lunch we headed into downtown Toulouse to wander around and browse through some shops. We stopped by a boulangerie (bakery) and bought a "Galette de Roi" (King's Cake) and then found a cafe to grab a drink in and have a small Galette de Roi party. Galette de Roi parties are a tradition after the New Years throughout the entire month of January. Basically its a silly holiday, where you buy a cake that has a little figurine cooked inside it and whoever gets the slice with the figurine becomes the king and has to wear a crown. It was a fun, little intimate party. At 6pm, Beto, Yapunkie and I seperated from the group to go watch "Avatar" in 3-D at the cinema (it was playing in english with french subtitles). It was the first time I've ever watched a film in 3-D. I liked the film alright, but I don't understand what all the hype is about. After the film, we met back up with the group (and 2 more french people joined our numbers) and wandered around looking for a place to eat. We finally decided on a kebab shop. After our dinner we hunted around for a private bar (not packed with loud music and lots of people, so we could all sit and talk). We finally found one, had a few drinks before turning in for the night.

Sunday January 3rd 2010 - Toulouse, Angouleme, and Montmorillon
We left Toulouse around 11am after a very filling breakfast of bread and jam and coffee. It was a fun ride back to Angouleme we snacked on food and rocked out to music, took naps and gossiped. When we finally arrived in Angouleme around 4pm everyone was so relieved to be home and done travelling, but as for Leidy and me, we still had a long day of traveling left in front of us. We stayed in Angouleme for a little while visiting, before catching a train to Poitiers and then a bus to Montmorillon. By the time we made it home it was 11pm. What a long, fun but exhausting trip. I hope you've all enjoyed hearing about it. I'll post the pictures soon (although I'm guessing most of you have seen them already on facebook).