What a trip.

It doesn't need to be said... but I'm going to anyway -- we had an awesome time in Spain. Lisa, Josh, Iezzi and Rick were great compadres to travel with and our pockets are overflowing with all the memories we made.

We hope you enjoyed reading Estragos... we never promised this blog would make any sense, but we had fun writing it. :)

Oh yeah, and I was supposed to say Iezzi and Josh are really good looking. Just throwing that out there.

uno..dos..tes... ESTRAGOS!

Barcelona...more than a nut shell.

After arriving in Barcelona pretty late on Thursday night, we metroed to Las Ramblas, found a hotel, got cleaned up and ventured out. We had dinner of over-priced and under-whelming tapas and sangria, then (naturally) found a bar offering 3 euro shots. They were closing up so we grabbed a shot and a drink to go and finished the night at the Christopher Columbus statue. 


Friday morning (errr, any time we mention "morning" it really means more like noon) we grabbed breakfast from La Boqueria, headed to the Picasso museum, taking the scenic route down Las Ramblas, by Christopher Columbus and the marina. After the museum we had a cerveza and tapita at a hole-in-the-wall cafe -- as we were the only Americans in the place, we considered it a pretty good find. Josh left to take a siesta, while Iezzi and I headed to Sagrada Familia (amazing cathedral still under construction) and hunted for Gaudi architecture. We found a lot of it! Probably even more than what Barcelona and Gaudi himself were aware of. Not to be outdone by the fat sandwiches of Tomatina, Iezzi ordered a sweat sandwich at a local shop. And ate every bite. 

Goods at La Boqueria

After naps for everyone, we had dinner at a delicious Chinese restaurant. We wrote down goals for the 3 of us to accomplish that night, then hit the town, stopping for a bit at an Irish pub where we met the nicest Spanish couple on their first date. We met up with Matt and Eric, the DC dudes, at the Columbus statue, had a beer with them there, then strolled up Las Ramblas to find a discotec. That's when the night got a bit more interesting.


Iezzi almost got beat up by Matt... something about airports. But then they made up... something about apples. I don't really know. Meanwhile, Josh was off fulfilling a goal... essentially the only goal that was achieved that night, and it was by far the craziest goal of all. Congrats, Josh, you win! I was just along for the ride, until about 5 AM when I decided to check out the Mediterranean Sea and made it back to the hotel around 7 AM, when the markets were opening and the sun was already up. 

After the airport scuffle, we party-partied.

We spent a lot of Saturday laughing... mostly about airports, apples and chaos. Did some shopping at the street vendors on Las Ramblas, then headed to the airport to catch a flight to Madrid. We got into Madrid around 9 PM, took a shuttle to a hostel near the airport, and headed out to dinner with a new friend, Jake, who we met on the ride from the airport to the hostel. We went to a fantastic Spanish restaurant and let the hostess choose our food for us -- always a good call. We had salad, olives and nomalicious steak. Perfect ending to a great trip.

Last dinner in Espana... grill your own steak. One of our best meals!

In keeping with tradition, we woke up a little late on Sunday but still made it to the airport in plenty of time to catch our flight back to America. Iezzi and I befriended our flight attendant Nelson, and who knows, maybe we'll be taking another trip abroad before we know it! :)  

The Lone Star

Lisa's Lost Story:

so as soon as i said goodbye to you and got down to the metro i realized i just missed the one i needed, no big deal, except the next train was 18 minutes out!! i did not have 18 minutes to waste! but there wasn't a darn thing i could do about it, so i sat on a bench. then i started playing the "what's the worst thing that could happen?" game. i came up w/ someone throwing me in front of the metro train, and since i didn't see that happening i figured anything would be better than that and i would be okay. so i finally get on the metro, ride two stops and get off. i opened my eyes and found the train station. then my ticket didn't work, i didn't even know for sure i was in the right place. so i talked to a guy, he didn't know why it didn't work, talked to another guy who realized my ticket was paid for and gave me another ticket which worked. somehow i was on the bus w/ 15 minutes to spare!! but then i realized i hadn't eaten anything all day... and there was nothing in site... this was a ghetto train w/ no vending machines either! luckily i had half a bag of peanuts from the overnight bus ride in my purse. i had to ration those peanuts for the entire trip!

so i was on the train and figured it was clear sailing until madrid, or so i thought. about an hour in i realized my ticket had two names on it w/ two different train numbers, so i was pretty sure i had to switch trains at the cerca stop or whatever it was called. next thing i know, the train is stopped in the middle of nowhere (there was one building outside) we sat there for awhile, next thing i know some dude is waving his hands speaking spanish and motioning us off the bus. i gathered that we needed to leave but had no idea why. so me and my train companions get off the train, with all of our luggage, walk across the tracks and stand in front of the lone building. everyone is just as confused as i am, some people are laughing, some are in shock, some are shifty eyed. i'm thinking- worst thing that could happen- they rob us and the train leaves and we're all stranded in the middle of espana?? about 10 minutes later another train comes, unloads it's passengers and then we jump on that train. weird.

so we finally get to cerca or whatever, no one speaks english. so i'm looking around trying to figure out if i need to switch trains, there are no signs and no one directing us anywhere. finally a guy who spoke some engligh came on the train. i asked him if this train was going to madrid and all he kept saying was "this isn't madrid"... i knew that! finally we understood each other and he convinced me i was on the right train to madrid. okay stranger, i will believe you.

half hour later a chinese girl wakes up and freaks because she though she missed the train transfer. since she spoke english i told her the dude told me we were on the right train, she was SOOO relieved. (turns out she went to La Tomatina too!!) so just when i'm thinking i'm doing alright, the angry spanish train monitor guy came to check our tickets. he starts going off in spanish, i tell him i don't understand and he only speaks faster and more agitated! i was pretty sure he was telling me i was on the wrong train, but i'm positive he was saying "you are soooo dumb, you are so dumb!!" finally the english speaking guy joined in and told me i was on the right train but i had to take another train to get to madrid, go figure. when i asked the english guy if the spanish guy was making fun of me, he replied, "i speak english, more or less" i just smiled and went back to my seat.

so we finally rolled into the train station and get off the train. me and my chinese friend followed the crowd and i asked my english speaking friend if he lived in madrid, he said, "yes, but this is not madrid" surprise! english guy told me we had to ride the metro into madrid and then he vanished into the night... was he real, i do not know! so we follow the angry spanish man to the metro, because we don't have tickets! he opens a gate and directs us to platform 2. next thing you know, we are at atocha, ahhhh friendly territory! i almost rode the metro straight to sol but realized i didn't have a ticket to get out and probably would have ended up in spanish jail had i tried pulling a fast one! so we got let through another gate and then i bought a ticket to sol.

once i was in familiar terroritory things started to look up. i checked into hostal ivor and then found food, the first other than those peanuts! there were no computers at the hostal so i asked along the way, went back to the metro and no one knew where any phones were. so i sent a subliminal message which holly got that said i was okay! the dude at the hostal creaped me out a little bit... i was in room 14 by the way! and didn't see any sign of human trafficking! buy yeah, he put his hand on mine and left it there for waaaaaaaaay too long! let's just say i barracaded myself in my room for the night! (holly, i realize i forgot that detail last night, haha)

next morning i jumped the metro, couldn't remember if i was terminal 1 or 4, guessed wrong. ran into the nicest lady who spoke english and spanish very fluently and she helped me out. so i got to the airport, caught my plane and got back to the states. would have kissed the american flag but it was on the ceiling! then i had to go through security again and the line was so long, after a half hour i wasn't sure i wasn't going to catch my connecting flight. that's when they 'randomly' pulled me out of line for additional security measures. really, i think the black security guard wanted to hook me up :) so that took 45 seconds, then i got to go straight to the front of the line, JACKPOT!

so then i got back to omaha, with my luggage and all was well! although i've had a nasty cold ever since i got back...

holly filled me in on your adventures! i'm really sad i missed it! but i felt like i was there as holly was telling me the stories! i'm going to try and upload my pics now!

LINEA!!!!!!

later fools,