Europa - Part 3: La Vuelta a España

~~~               "The whole problem with the world is that               ~~~

~~~          fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves,         ~~~

~~~                    but wiser people so full of doubts.                     ~~~

- Bertrand Russell

More than a year of struggling to communicate basic phrases and questions was about to come to an end. Except for my week visit home for Tony and Michelle's wedding, I had not been anywhere that I knew the native language in 14 long months now! To suddenly be armed with language is like for a man to be given his tongue back after 14 months of being muted - what a relief!
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It may come as a surprise to many, but what we call Spanish - more accurately, Castillan or Castellano - isn't even the local language of many regions of Spain. While all regions have become at least bi-lingual in the last century, many still cling to the language of their ancestors. For example, in Catalunia - the Eastern part of the country containing Barcelona, Valencia and the Baleric Islands - Catalan has been preferred by locals for more than a millennium. This wikipedia link shows a map of the progression of languages and will give you a snap-shot idea the history of the country - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linguistic_map_Southwestern_Europe.gif

I know nothing of Catalan and my Spanish may not be perfect, but it was enough to re-create the feeling of satisfaction from what I now consider to be one of the most taken-for-granted abilities we as a species possess: verbal COMMUNICATION!

We immediately found that Barcelona is an extremely active and excitable city - FULL of young travelers and tourists from all over the world. In particular, the 'Las Ramblas' area is where much of the action takes place, and we found ourselves in a hostel just a block from there. The city has awesome public transport and plenty to see and do so we got our usual tourist map and recommendations from the front desk of our hostel, and dove in.

Our first stop was in Park Güell - a city park designed entirely by Antoni Guadi - an extremely imaginative local designer, architect and artist. Much of the city looks like some kind of tripy 50's fun-house thanks to his swerving lines and attention to detail in his colorful mosaics. The park is not only a massive artwork in itself, it is also a cultural and touristic hub. We passed almost our entire first day enjoying the artists, vendors, musicians and performers!

My babe taking a rest in Park Güell. The artworks of Guadi can be seen all around her.

An artist whipping up a custom-made gift for one of my family members! :)

Tons of unique instruments can be seen everywhere in the park. These two both were of African decent if I recall correctly.

Unmistakable Guadi work everywhere you look in the park.

No straight lines + everything in colorful mosaic = Antoni Guadi was here.

We continued on to one of the most recognizable buildings of Spain - 'La Sagrada Familia Catedral' or 'Holy Family Cathedral'. This is an epic masterpiece of a building and is considered to be a living work of Guadi. Deciding what should be done with the incomplete structure has been one of Barcelona's highly debated topics ever since Guadi meandered out into traffic and was killed by a train in the 20's (yah!). Through the discussions, they have been very slowly working toward completion of the building as closely to what Guadi would have wanted as they can.

Resembling something of a massive, melting sand castle; La Sagrada Familia.

Up closer to show the unusual style and detail that Guadi often used in his work.

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An energetic and entertaining example of Barcelona's main touristic area, Las Ramblas.

Barcelona.

Barcelona's 'Plaza Real' or 'Royal Plaza'. Just a couple blocks from our hostel, we routinely stopped here to enjoy the culture and street performers over a bottle of 4 euro wine.

During my time in Italy, I narrowly missed a chance to go and visit one of my old roomies from my time in Spain 6 years earlier. I was determined not to miss that chance again as another one of them lived in Barcelona! Alicia had been like a big sister to me during my study-abroad, but we had last touch some number of years earlier when my old college email account had expired. The way technology is now, I was able to find her though the internet and make meeting plans all while on the road. It was wonderful for everyone but Sarah who came with me to meet my long lost roomie and her man, despite the massive language barrier.

It was instantly just like old times for Alicia and I. She and Javier, who was her best friend when I was there originally, were now 7 months along with their first child! How great it is to  catch up with lost friends!

My favorite picture of Barcelona came on our last day there, when I learned to shoot up-side-down to deal with that hideous lens scratch that had been ailing me since Thailand sometime.

We had thoroughly enjoyed Barcelona - Sarah's reported favorite city of our European leg - and were ready to move on. Although we had spent a couple extra days in France and Barcelona than originally planned, we still had a full week left before we were set to fly out of Madrid and were not about to spend seven days in the capital city. This is where we would get to cash in on our previous flexibility and add in a whole extra stop. We elected to spend some time on the island of  Mallorca - a return to where I had spent my semester during college! We boarded an overnight boat from Barcelona arrived in the port of Palma early the following morning.

Mallorca serves a similar purpose for Europe that Hawaii does for the Americas - an island vacation and party get-away! I was excited to show Sarah around the city and enjoy some down time in the German touristic beach area of S'Arenal.

Our NEARLY ocean-view balcony in Arenal, Mallorca for less than $30 per night!
'Sol De Mallorca Guesthouse'.

Beautiful sunset on Arenal beach.

The three S's of Mallorca: sand, sangria and a sunset!

Sarah and I snuck in our first ever round of mini-golf together - Arenal, Mallorca.

On more than one occasion, we made the 45 minute bus venture into the city of Palma. This age-old capital city is home to about half of the nearly one million residents on the island. Shown here, 'La Catedral De Santa Maria De Palma' - or just 'La Catedral' locally - has been standing there for almost 700 years!

Just outside the cathedral. Palma tends to have a totally unique feel - almost as though it doesn't know or doesn't care that the rest of the world is out there.

Sarah and I having fun with some of the art at a free museum in central Palma.

Palma's Plaza Mayor - a centrally located meca for street performers and small shop owners.

On our last day there, we rented bikes and headed out along the southern coast line; exploring any beaches and ports that we might find.

Self-timer pic with the entire port of Palma behind us during our bike ride.

After a fun, relaxing and light-hearted stay in Mallorca, it was time to get back to the mainland for our twenty-third and final stop in our long trip! After a brief flight to Madrid, our final stop there would amount to a little more than a long layover, but we had a couch-surfing host and were intent on making the absolute most out of our 36 hours in the capital.

Despite the lack of many distinct attractions, Madrid is beautiful, clean, inviting and highly livable! We enjoyed our full day there, but think that we were right not to invest any long period of time for our visit.

Our first stop was in La Plaza Mayor just to pick up a map, but we stumbled into their mounted police horse show by accident too.

The Royal Cathedral of Madrid



Sarah taking a rest in the Plaza España in front of the wittily-named Spanish sky-scraper, "Edificio España" or "Spain Building".



Plaza Cibeles.

Madrid's Plaza Mayor as the sun sets on the final night of our trip.

It had unmistakably been the adventure of a lifetime, but we were tired and excited to make our way back to the US for the first time in nearly a year. Our first stop would be in Alabama to meet and stay with the future in-laws while exploring the south for a couple of months. We were not sure what the next chapter would hold, but had a very distinct feeling that the previous one had been a great success!!

The 'Nam

~ I try to write not about things that I do; rather things that I learn. ~

Aside from a brief delay in Guangzhou, China and getting ripped off major for our meal there, the first LOOONG day of travel went off without a hitch. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh (or 'Saigon' interchangeably) late at night where we were met by our next big rip off when we accidentally paid triple for our 'taxi' from the airport. Live and learn!

We got to our hostel and were working on blind hope alone that it would be open and able to let us in (it was now about 1 in the morning) and that Muc would have found his way there already as we had planned. To continue our early smooth roll of impressive fortune, BOTH turned out to be true with no hassle at all! We caught up with Muc over a 40-cent beer or two and headed off to bed in our beautiful high ceiling room at the Diep Anh Guesthouse on backpackers' row, old town Saigon.

The next morning we got up early and explored the city by foot. Ho Chi Minh is extremely busy, but is also very accessible. Almost all of the attractions seem to be located within a few blocks which makes for some insanely bustling streets in the downtown area. There are more motorbikes at every intersection than in the entire state of Minnesota, I'm convinced. We had a terrific day exploring the central market, their Notre Dame Cathedral, Vietnam War museum (from the other extreme point of view than we are accustomed to) and a few other popular sites all within a few minutes.

In front of the old City Hall in Ho Chi Minh City. Fresh off the boat!

Vietnam's Notre Dame Cathedral.

We had been previously warned that if you try to wait for a break in the action, you'll literally never cross the road. The only way to get where you need to go is just to step fearlessly into traffic walking slowly but steadily directly through it. Crazy as it sounds, as long as you don't stop, slow down or start to run frantically, your path will be predictable and the 600 motos will pass right by you without incident.

Here is the M.U.C crossing the road in Saigon. Do NOT try this at home!

Since we had only a handful of days in Vietnam, we figured that we would have to decide between a jungle exploration at the Mekong River Delta or the beaches, resorts and famed sand dunes of Mui Ne. But when the time came, we realized it was potentially our only time in Vietnam (ever?), so we decided to cram them both in. We found an abbreviated 1 day tour version of the Delta and left ourselves 2 nights for Mui Ne's resorts, beaches, impressive sand dunes and 'fairy stream' walking.

Paddling down a tiny inlet of the Mekong River near it's delta. A slightly fabricated experience but it was still a really cool day!

Just the fellas hanging out in the 'Fairy Stream' area just outside of Mui Ne, Vietnam.

Our good friend and trusty cousin, Broseph.... riding an ostrich! This little experience set us each back a full dollar!

The Vietnam Austria Guesthouse in the beautiful resort town of Mui Ne. The beautiful paradise resort ran about $7 per person each night.

Even through our side trips, we remained based out of the Diep Anh Guesthouse in Saigon. We just couldn't get ourselves to move from there for its comfortable and private rooms, cheap drinks and surely the most genuine and helpful owners/staff that I have EVER encountered. They arranged all of our excursions we were interested in – and for dirt cheap, kept our bags safe for days at a time while we were away and just generally wanted to make sure we didn't have a care in the world while we were staying at their place. Still not convinced? On our last day there, Joe asked the owner where he might be able to purchase a guitar for cheap. He started to draw a map but then realized it might be a little bit complicated and crunched for time, so he dropped everything, pulled his motorbike out and drove Joe to the guitar shop personally! You just don't see that kind of extreme service – wait, I mean CARE – anywhere else!!

Us and a portion of the staff at the Diep Anh Guesthouse. 10 out of 10

In typical Muc fashion, he put together a mega-rad video to summarize the great times that we had in our week there in Vietnam. Please enjoy it by clicking the youtube link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPjb1TKv4VI :)

Our time was up and we would head next for almost 2 weeks in the Kingdom of Wonder; Cambodia!!!!