Zaragoza 7/5 – 7/7

7/5
So we woke up on the 5th at 7:30 am to get to the bus station. This is unheard of in Spain, as the Spanish normally wake up around noon after staying out until about 5am every night. Anyway, we had a nice walk, passed the Arc de Triumf of Barcelona and made it to the bus station.
Arc de Triumf


Here is a picture of what most of the bus stations look like, or something like this.


We arrived in Zaragoza about 4 hours later, and hopped on a local bus to get to our Bed and Breakfast. It worked out perfect and we found it with no difficulty. Our place for the next 2 days was called B&B Siesta. It is right across an old roman bridge from the old city and all of the tourist sites to see. It’s pretty convenient, so we will just walk both days to see the sites, and then come relax back in our room when we get tired.



This room has air conditioning, and we are loving it, in fact it is cold right now in our room! It has everything we need. We are able to use the kitchen and washer, which is great because we haven’t washed our clothes in about 2 weeks! We bought some pasta and sausage to cook for dinner and it was great.

The first day we walked around and saw the basilica and there was a mass going on while we were walking around. It was massive and ridiculously detailed. There sure was a lot of money and time put into making it.


We also saw the murallas romanos, the roman walls. Here are a few pictures.



There is apparently going to be some big cultural event in Zaragoza in 2016, and a lot of the buildings are being renovated, but we have no idea what it is going to be. Oh well.

Barcelona 7/3-7/4

7/3
We slept in today, after a long day in the sun yesterday this was quite refreshing. We headed out for a nice stroll along las Ramblas and did some shopping. We grabbed some fresh fruit and bread and headed back to the house to watch some futbol (soccer)! We watched Germany blank Argentina and then a rollercoaster of a ride through the Spain vs Paraguay game. Spain won!!!


7/4
We celebrated Independence Day by getting up early and jumping in line for the Picasso Museum. It is free the first Sunday of every month and so we got there about an hour early to ensure we would get in. It was a solid plan as there was a line in front of the museum all day. It was cool to learn about Picasso and to see some of his art.


This is the line for the museum, we were in front!



We also visited some other museums. Such as the Museum on Catalonia, Natural History Museum of the city, and a Museum of North, South, and Central America. The museum of Catalonia provided information from the founding of Catalonia and its many changes from Visigoths, Moors, Christians, Franco, and present day issues. The museum about the city had the remains of the original Roman city Barcino and described the layout of the city as well as showed had the original artifacts of a wine and fish factory. The museum of America was quite small and had a few ancient artifacts from tribes of the Incas, Hopi, Apache, Aztec-we were not suppose to take pictures in here but I snuck a few.

Museum of Catalonia






American museum!

SPAIN WON!! Spain Won the World Cup!!!!

in the 27th minute of additional time (which there are a total of 30 minutes) Iniesta scored the winning goal!!

2 Spaniards crying in the bar


After the game in the streets!!!

Barcelona

7/2
The second day we did a full day tour of the city, or at least a bus tour. They have 2 companies offering multiple routes through the city of Barcelona. You can hop on and hop off at a number of spots to see sites such as original Barcelona districts, gothic district, a monastery, the stadium of Barcelona’s futbol club, the Sagrada Familia, and other historical masterpieces by Gaudi or modern day marvels such as Olympic stadiums from the summer of 1992.

Bus tour!


Olympic stadium


Barcelona Futbol Club


Church



By the port is this large monument to Christopher Columbus. He is supposedly pointing to the new world, while in reality his finger is pointed toward Africa-according to my compass.



We toured the Sagrada Familia while doing the bus tour. It was unreal. This is a catholic church being built since 1882 completely by private donations and my admission fee. It was the late Gaudi’s greatest dream. It is rumored to be completed by 2026, but I doubt it. It is one beautiful cathedral and I would love to worship Jesus someday in it.

Sagrada Familia








Gaudi Museums and Architecture



Funny sign

Barcelona 7/1 – 7/5

7/1
Our first days in a new city are all the same.. another day of wandering around a new city.. while this time we did have a place to stay, it was simply a matter of finding it. Which according to their directions on their website, I knew exactly where it was. However, their map lied. Blatantly… haha. So we got to where the map said to go, and no apartment. We asked for directions and luckily I had written down other information from their site just in case this happened. A Spaniard was able to direct us in the right direction, which we also verified after finding a locutorio (internet place), and were quite overjoyed on yet again getting our huge backpacks off.






We were also very content with the location of our apartment. It is a block away from Las Ramblas, a famous street in Barcelona full of souvenirs, street performers, tourists, pickpockets, and more spoken languages overheard than anywhere else I’ve ever been. So we headed out into this chaos wide-eyed and ready for some excitement. We also found a place to buy groceries, as we are on a budget and fresh bread is the best.

Special Update!

We have not yet had a chance to update you'll on Zaragoza and our travels there. HOWEVER, we had to provide a teaser for a post that is soon to come!!

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Running of the bulls! Pamplona, Spain

Valencia 6/26 - 7/1

I have decided and Krystle agrees, we have too much stuff. Let alone the stuff in storage back in the U.S. collecting dust, our backpacks feel heavier each time we wear them.

So we arrived in Valencia from Denia without a guaranteed place to stay. We had a nice gal that had agreed to let us stay with her for Saturday night through Wednesday night, but no money had been exchanged yet. Well, she never responded and we arrived there without a room and on the one of the biggest weekend’s in the year for Valencia. There was a huge Formula 1 race this weekend and every hostal, hotel and spare closet was already booked. So with our 50 lbs bags we walked around looking for any room to rent. We were quite fortunate to find a hostal that had had a cancelation that day and had a open room! Amen!

Downtown Valencia!


Another cathedral


We watched the U.S. lose to Ghana, disappointing to say the least and yet infuriating to the core. However, Spain beat Chile and then Portugal to advance to the Quarter Finals! Go Spain! This has the Spaniards quite excited and this makes us happy because it means that the country is full of nicer people, or hopefully so.

House of God!

16th Century Bridge!!!

A sculpture of a wailing parisher, comical


Valencia is a beautiful city. It has some extravagant museums, especially the City of Arts and Sciences. There are also some amazing old churches and a large Cathedral in the center of town. Around the center of town is a dried river bed that has many soccer fields, walkways, parks, and recreational areas which allowed for a quiet escape from the big city.

Funny looking museums!



We walked around one of the huge Spanish superstores (similar to Macy’s, I guess) called Corte Ingles. Massive! Despite it being the country's only department store, in my opinion it is way over the top. But it provided a nice area of air conditioning during one of our walks around the city. We must have walked down every street in the downtown portion of the city and I am very thankful for the large quantity of benches.

We saw 2 large towers that were part of the original wall around the city. I want a castle.. I will be starting a fund and you can all invest in it :) We walked across some ancient bridges built in the 15th and 16th centuries.
2 towers remain from the original city walls


Where's Jordan?



Another funny sign :)


Next stop Barcelona!