Chillin' on the French Riviera, getting adventurous in Switzerland and, let's face it, drinking beer at Oktoberfest!

After our long stay in Barcelona, we were back on the road again and back to the reality of traveling by train... with a lovely 10 hour trip to Nice, France. It was actually quite a beautiful ride, right along the coast. We made friends with two guys (Chris and Gray) along our ride, who were from the states as well. They were from the East Coast and had both gone to culinary school, so they were especially enjoying the cultural experience when it came to trying different foods throughout Europe. We taught them how to play cribbage, which helped to pass some of the time... and by about 7pm, we finally arrived in Nice. The hostel/hotel we had reserved turned out to be pretty ghetto, so we were happy that we had only reserved it for one night. Hey, a bed is a bed, but let's just say that we looked for a new place to stay for the following evening ASAP.

The next morning, after transferring our luggage to our new accommodations, we were off for a nice walk to see the sights. First, we stopped at a local market, where we grabbed a baguette and a packet of sliced cheese. These convenient (and cheap!) little cheese sandwiches have become one of our favorite snacks on this trip. We snacked on the tram ride down to the main part of the city and then we went for a nice, long walk through the city and along the coast. Nice is a very beautiful, with colorful buildings and wonderful tiled sidewalks. We went to the Place Massena, where there was a vintage car show going on. It was such a beautiful open area, of which you sometimes don't see a lot of here in Europe. Next, we strolled along the water. We were surprised to see that the beaches in this area were covered in pebbles rather than sand. There are definitely both pros and cons to this, but one thing's for sure... it's not quite as beautiful as a big sandy beach! The water was crystal clear and there were still quite a few people at the beach, considering the weather was quite nice even though it was now fall time. We amde our way around the marina, where we admired some amazing yachts and some cruise ships too. Then, we caught a bus over to Villefranche, because we'd heard that this area was a local favorite. As soon as we pulled in, we knew why. It was a great little fisherman's cove, lined with narrow streets and covered with little shops and restaurants. There was a perfect, narrow stretch of beach which wrapped around the inside of the cove, where Mike and I spent a 2-3 hours relaxing and soaking up the sun. The water was so refreshing and we enjoyed every last minute of laying around in the sun, because we thought this may be our last chance to soak it up on this trip!

Once we were through at the beach, we grabbed the quick, 20-minute train to Monaco. Within the first 10 seconds of being in Monaco, we quickly realized that it is a very nice place for people with LOTS of money. Even the train station is impressive. One of the first things you see after exiting the train station is the marina. There had to have been over $1B worth of yachts there. Granted, there was a yacht show going on, but I'm sure it's not irregular to see some of these amazing yachts in the marina year round. One of the yachts we saw, just outside of the marina, Mike swears he saw on the Discovery Channel once. The 4 large masts were all automatic in every fashion, along with everything else on the boat. He said it cost about $90M. The casino was definitely amazing to see as well, and even more impressive were the cars pulling up in front of it. We probably took 50 photos alone of the Aston Martins, Bentleys, Mazzeratis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Rolles Royces we saw. I thought it was a good idea to play just one slot machine to see if we could get lucky while on our trip, but within about 5 minutes, our budget for the day had just decreased by about 20 Euros instead. We decided that we couldn't really afford to do anything while in Monaco, so we made our way back to Nice for dinner and the rest of the evening. The new hostel we were staying at was quite cool. It was formerly a Monastery and the Chapel (which was now the common room) had a huge stained glass window, which was really cool. We went down to the bar for one drink after dinner, and we met a few other people who were from California (near San Diego) and went to Chico State... small world!

The next day, we were off to Switzerland. We had heard lots of great things about Interlaken, so we were really looking forward to it! On our way, we transferred trains in Milan. This was the first time we were actually in Italy, so we figured we should probably take advantage of the Italian food since we wouldn't be back for another month or so. We grabbed a pizza at a restauant near the train station and it was actually really tasty. Here's the only reason I'm really even telling this story: when we got out bill, we had a 6 Euro charge for the pizza (pretty cheap!), a 3 Euro charge for a bottle of water (expensive!), and a 5 Euro charge for a STUPID can of Coca Cola Light (ridiculously expensive!). For anyone who doesn't know the conversioun rate from Euros to Dollars, that was a $7 can of Coke that probably cost them about 10 cents. I was pretty sure he marked it up a bit just because we spoke English, but we were in a hurry to catch our connecting train so we let it be and made up for it by not leaving any tip. I couldn't believe it, but we quickly forgot about it once we started entering the mountain range in Northern Italy on our way to Switzerland. From this point on, our jaws were permanently dropped for about 4 days. Switzerland has got to be one of th emost beautiful place on this planet. We made it into Interlaken after dark the first evening. We still went for a nice little stroll in the chilly mountain air, we loved the change! The next morning, we decided to check out one of the nearby villages, because we had heard about a Sommerrodelbahn, which is a roller luge up in the hills. We enjoyed the train ride to Grindelwald, and after wandering the town for a bit, we caught a short gondola ride to Pfingstegg (where the Sommerrodelbahn is). We admired the views as we climbed higher and higher up in the mountains. When we arrived to the top, we noticed that there was a restaurant with outdoor seating that overlooked the entire valley. We were hungry and we knew we had to take advantage as the view was breathtaking. We enjoyed warm vegetable soup and a meat and cheese platter, which were both ridiculously good! After this, we were good and ready to check out the Sommerrodelbahn we had come all this way for. We each bought a pass for five rides down the 700m (2100ft) roller luge and we were not dissapointed. This was literally like a huge, winding semi-circle slide that you roll down on a roller cart. The cart had a brake you could pull up to slow down, but Mike and I had fun seeing how fast we could go. It wasn't until the last ride, that we each made it down without pulling up the brake...and we were booking it down that thing! The best part about this luge is that there was a lift along the side of it, so you didn't even have to walk back up the hill. This had to be one of the most beautiful spots to place a Sommerrodelbahn, with sweeping views of the Swiss Alps. We were so happy that we made the trip over! Below is a video of my first run down the Sommerrodelbahn:



After our enjoyable trip to the Sommerrodelbahn, we made the trip back to Interlaken. We had wanted to book some outdoor excursions, so once we arrived, we were on a mission to get something booked. We made it to the office just in time before it was closing for the day, and we were talked into a package deal (2 excursions for each of us) that we don't regret one bit! The next morning, we were scheduled to go canyoning. Most of you are probably wondering what canyoning is... it is an extreme sport, where you climb, jump, repel, and slide down through a glacier-fed canyon (with good equipment and a guide of course). For me, it was probably both the scariest and most rewarding thing I've ever done. Mike felt right at home, as he has jumped from 35 feet or higher more than once. When we showed up in the morning, I was elated that there was another girl going on the trip that day! Not that it really made a difference, but somehow it made me feel less crazy for signing up for this. We all loaded up into the van and cruised for about one hour to the canyoning site. We all had come with a bathing suit, and before we began, we got geared up. Our handy dandy canyoning outfit consisted of a wet/dry suit, wet suit booties, a life preserver, a helmet, and a harness (with a slippery tarp-like sliding material for your bum). We went for a short 15-minute hike into the canyon and got started right away! We worked our way down the canyon, abseiling down a 150ft waterfall, jumping off of a 35ft cliff and sliding down natural rock slides that were as long as 80ft or so. It was such an adrenaline rush and unlike anything we'd done before. One of my favorite slides was one that you had to jump into from about 5 feet away. We were standing at the top of a waterfall would jump sideways to get into the slide and fly down into the water. It was a blast! At the end of the trip, we all had lunch together and a few beers before relaxing on the return to Interlaken. The beers tasted especially good after our 4 hour workout.

After showering up, we decided to hit the town for a Swiss Fondue dinner for our last evening in Interlaken. Everything is very expensive in Switzerland, and so we decided to go with soup and an order of fondue (which was still going to cost about $40). Unfortunately, we didn't like the fondue at all, and the service was horrible as well. When we were finally able to ask for our check, it came with a total of $60. Mike was a bit confused and took a closer look at the bill. Upon noticing that he had charged us for 2 orders of fondue, we quickly caught his attention and made him aware of the mistake on the bill. The waiter told us that the price of the fondue was per person ($22ea). We asked to see the menu and it did not note anywhere that you had to pay per person for the fondues. We told him that we only ordered 1 fondue... and we didn't finisht eh fondue he brought out anyway because there was way too much and it sucked. He was upset with us and then said that we didn't say we wanted to share the fondue. He told us that we should have asked why the fondue was so large when it came out. We thought he was crazy.. how are we supposed to know?? It came in one pan! Anyway, we decided to stick strong here and asked him to remove one of the fondues. He wanted to know what he was supposed to do with the extra cheese now because it was made for two people. We apologized, but basically told him that was his problem... because we only ordered one stupid, sucky fondue. Realizing that we weren't giving in, he got upset and crumpled up our bill and told us to leave. We questioned him once more and told him we would pay for our meal, but only for what we ordered... and he repeated that we should just 'get out!' We felt kind of guilty, but we decided that we didn't do anything wrong and we tried to pay for the fair portion of our meal... but instead, we ate for free! Which was really nice after our expensive stay in Interlaken. Needless to say, we slept great that night!

The next morning, we were set up to take part in the second piece of our package deal: Paragliding! Another extreme sport that neither of us had ever participated in! We were looking forward to it, as we had admired others paragliding into the park that was outside our hostel window. We knew that the view must be great, because the paragliders were coming down from high up in the surrounding mountains... and we were exactly right! It only took about 15 minutes to climb the mountain, and the views were unreal! We admired the scenery while our pilots set up the gear on the hill. The town of Interlaken is between two beautiful lakes, hence it's name. These lakes have this awesome tone of aqua blue, which you can tell is runoff from the surrounding glaciers... and it is pristine! Before we knew it, it was time for take off! Mike went first, and I took a video of him running down the hill to catch some air:



Within seconds, he was off and flying away... so I had to catch him! I got set up with my pilot and we ran down the hill as fast as possible when the first gust of wind came up the hill. This had to have been one of the most beautiful places to go paragliding... the scenery was spectacular! We hugged the mountainside to catch the warm air rising from the valley, and we cruised back and forth for as long as the wind would hold us. Mike and I crossed paths a few times, and before I knew it, he and his pilot were spiraling toward the ground. I kept my eye on them to make sure these were tricks they were doing... and, of course, they were. I was lucky enough to catch some good air near the mountainside, so we cruised for a few extra minutes and then made our way down. All in all, it was a great experience! Our only tip would be to take some dramamine before paragliding, because we both felt a little nauseated afterward. :)

All in all, Interlaken turned out to be our adventure stop along our trip. Our budget was fully expended and we were ready to be thrifty for the next few days. As an FYI, the photo packages for these excursions turn out to be ridiculously expensive! Because of this, we decided to buy the photo package of Mike while canyoning, and the photo package of me while paragliding... in case you are wondering why the pics are a bit one-sided.

After our paragliding adventure, we were off to catch the train to Lucerne, Switzerland to relax for a few days. We ended up staying in a little town just outside of Lucerne, called Merlischachen (good luck trying to pronounce that... it's mer - li - shah - khen). We had read online that several people checking into this hotel were given free upgrades. We had booked a bedroom with a shared bathroom, and were hoping to get upgraded when we showed up (since it was not during high season). We waited for the guy at reception to offer an upgrade, but it didn't happen. I decided to give it a whirl instead, and I politely asked, "Any chance there is a special for a couple who recently got engaged?", as I batted my eyelashes at the guy... haha... not really. He took a second to look and then had us follow him to show us the room. As soon as we walked outside, he told us that he had upgraded us to the Honeymoon Suite at no additional cost. HECK YEAH! It was a nice spacious room, and a perfect place for us to relax for a few days. Our last night in Merlischachen, we decided to head into Lucerne for dinner. We checked out the city a bit, and ended up at Rathaus Brewery, along the river. We mostly chose this restaurant because the menu was actually affordable, but it ended up being a pretty good meal. We started by trying a beer broth soup which had pretzel gnocchi in it. It was quite tasty! Mike had some bratwurst and sauerkraut and I had a pretzel sandwich, basically a big doughy pretzel with mustard, meat and cheese. It was a perfect meal to prepare us for the next leg of our trip... OKTOBERFEST in Munich!

OOOH Oktoberfest... where to begin. As we arrived to Munich, it was easy to see that Oktoberfest had taken over the town. There were guys walking around in Lederhosen and ladies in their Dirndl. At first, it seemed weird to us, but by the end of the weekend, we were thinking about buying a set for ourselves. We were crashing on the floor of Mike's friends hotel room... which we were happy to see that it was a nice, new hotel. We were staying quite close to the festival, so once we dropped our bags off, we headed over to check it out. It was everything that we had hoped for, and more. People everywhere, drunk people...everywhere, and food...everywhere. It was like a big fair, but with the main focus on massive beer tents. We quickly found our way to the bratwurst stand, and thoroughly enjoyed some cheesy bratwurst with mustard. It wa probably a good thing we were only in Munich for 3 days, because we had one of these every single day. Next, we wandered the festival and, as it was getting dark, we decided to ride the big carpet slide so we could get a view from up above the action. It was short-lived, but fun and then we made our way to our first beer at Oktoberfest. It came out of a rotating carousel, which you had to get on before you would be served. Easier said than done. Once we got up there, we paid for our beers and we were confused as to why we had to pay for the glass that the beer came in as well. We later found out that there was a glass return booth where you could get your glass deposit back... novel idea. We hung out with some young German guys who we met there and tried to understand their English for a good hour or so, and then we were off to meet up with Mike's friend from England, Sam (the guy who got shit on and egged in the same day... you remember, right?). Sam and his friends had been out for a bit longer than we had, so you can imagine that they were a mess when we showed up. For some reason, we all decided to go to a club downtown to dance for a while and you can probably imagine what happened.... one of the drunk people in our group pissed off the wrong guy and some of the guys in our group got kicked out... so we followed. We decided it was a good time to call it a night and we made our way back to the hotel with intentions of getting up early to reserve a seat in the beer tent in the morning.

Again... you can probably imagine what happened...we slept in a bit, and still took our chances to get into a tent at about noon. You wouldn't think every beer tent which holds about 7,000 people each would be full at noon would you? WRONG! Most of the tents weren't even letting people in... and if you could get in, you probably had to wait for at least 2 hours. I guess the last weekend of Oktoberfest is the busiest weekend of all. We waited for a while and then decided it just wan't worth it. We were going to come back in the morning to see if we could get into a tent before leaving, so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon checking out Munich. We ended up at a great Italian restaurant that evening and we decided to take it easy that night since we had a big day ahead of us. The next day, we were at the Lowenbrau tent at 9:30am. We had a train to catch at 1:15pm, so we had a few hours to enjoy the true Oktoberfest festivies... which we took full advantage of. We met some really cool Australian guys at our table and we each enjoyed 3 liters of beer (which we later realized was almost 9 cans of beer - although 1 of mine was a shandy - half lemonade, half beer). We were having such a good time, that we weren't sure if we would make the train that we were planning to catch. We headed out of the festival at 1pm and made our way to the train station. We got the to station and our train was still there, but our luggage was in storage, so Mike when to pick it up while I went to find the train and waited for him. Within a few minutes, our train pulled away from the station... and we were not on it. I was waiting there after the train left, and I suddenly realized that Mike might not be able to find me because the track our train was on probably was listed on the departure board any longer. I thought I'd check to see if he was still in line for our luggage, but he wasn't there. Meanwhile, he had come back and seen another train that was leaving for Berlin (where we were heading) and he put on luggage on and began to look for me. Luckily, we ran into each other with about ten minutes to spare... and we caught the 1:40pm train to Berlin. Another helpful tip from us: don't go to Oktoberfest and drink 3 liters of beer before getting on a 6 hour train ride... uuuugggghhhh. We slowly made our way to Berlin, where we were looking forward to some R&R, along with some good historical visits. We decided that we would go back to Munich at the end of our trip as well, since we didn't get to see much of the city with the craziness of Oktoberfest!

Cheers and more to come soon!
Love, Mike and Kristin

A Spanish sandwich with some Portugal in between…

We hesitantly left the sun-drenched bay of San Sebastian and caught the train toward Madrid, Spain. We arrived to Madrid rather late so we headed straight to our hotel and called it a night. The next morning we moved to a more centrally located hostel, which turned out to be perfect for us. We had read about a great Mexican restaurant across the street at the reviews for the hostel. We decided to try it out (since we both love our Mexican food!) And it ended up being our favorite restaurant in Madrid. It served four types of tacos (1 euro each), beer and water. Mike was in heaven! Okay, maybe I was too. :) We ate there twice, despite only being in Madrid for two days. After we got our first fix of Mexican food we headed to the Plaza Mayor. It was a picturesque Spanish square surrounded by buildings beautifully colored and filled with restaurants and crazy street performers. Our favorite performer was a Chris Farley-sized Superman. He looked absolutely ridiculous in his blue and red spandex, but we loved it ... And, in fact, we even supported his cause by posing with him in a few photos and donating a few euro cents to his ridiculousness. After this, we strolled through the city and made our way toward the Thyssen museum, which had a large collection of impressive paintings by well known artists. There were paintings by Picasso, Van Gogh, Lichtenstein, Dali, O'Keefe, Mondrian and Monet. Mike recognized more of the artists than I did, because he learned them in a class in high school and (for some reason) he remembers not only the artists names, but some of their specific works as well. That actually made the visit more fun for me as well, because he would get excited about seeing the paintings he knew about. After the museum, we made our way back toward our hostel and checked out some of the local scenery along the way. We knew that Nadal was playing in the quarterfinal match of the U.S. Open and we figured that it might be playing in a bar somewhere since he's from Spain. We came across a great little tavern and watched a few sets of the match, along with some of the Indianapolis Colts game which was also playing. Again, Mike was in Heaven! Sports After getting our fill, we went to find a place for dinner. We ended up at another place that was playing the tennis match, so we were excited to catch the end of it while grabbing a bite to eat. As soon as we sat down, the bartender came over and switched the station for a soccer (football) match that was coming up pretty We were bummed, especially because the match never came on the entire time we were eating! Thus, our food sucked, and we are pretty sure our waitress knew we did not like it because we ended up getting a coupon for a free bottle of wine on our next visit. Needless to say, this still was not enough to draw us back in for another visit.

The next day, we had an overnight train to catch to Lisbon, Portugal, so we checked out of our hostel and were off to soak in the city for the rest of the day. We wandered over to the Palacio Real, but unfortunately our timing was off because it was closed for the day due to some sort of ceremony that was going on. It was still quite impressive to see from the outside, and in the end, it gave us more time to visit the rest of the city that day. The Streets We wandered for a bit and stumbled across this great indoor market, where you could inexpensively try a wide variety of foods / snacks / drinks and then purchase your seafood / produce / meats, etc. at the same time. We enjoyed a plate of various olives and some sangria, but we probably could have hung out in there for hours trying all of the delicious food. Next, we visited the Plaza del Sol, which was sort of under construction, but nevertheless, was impressive as well. For our last stop in Madrid, we went to wander the 300-acre Parque del Buen Retiro (which means the park of the nice retreat). In the middle of the park, was the Estanque Grande, which was a rectangular lake where you could rent rowboats and take in views of the King Alfonso XII monument which was right on the water's edge. We rented one of the row boats and enjoyed watching the bass jumping out of the water trying to snag some food. Mike did most of the rowing, because I almost crashed into another row boat once (since you have to row while facing backward). :) This wrapped up our short stay in Madrid and we caught our first overnight train to Lisbon.

The overnight train was a new experience for us. We went for the cabins with beds (versus just seats), hoping that we'd be able to sleep a bit. It definitely was not the worst night of sleep I've ever gotten, but I would not say it was the best either! We both slept with ear plugs in because the creaking of the train was quite loud, and there was a sort of rocking motion that could either put you to sleep, wake you up, or maybe even make you sick car depending on how you were feeling . Overall, it was worth it so we did not did not have to waste our entire day on a train! Once we got to Lisbon, we stopped at our hostel ... which we were very excited about. Yet this hostel had amazing reviews, and it was BY FAR the best place we've stayed Schm It had music room, where there was an old school radio playing really good mellow music around the clock. The music room had a sofa and a handful of bean bags where you could just 'chill' as they told us on our tour. There was also a great computer room with free internet, and a TV room with more comfy sofas and a nice TV to watch. Our room came with breakfast, where they would cook you eggs and toast as you showed up ... this was something we had not had in all of Europe so far! So, each evening the hostel would have an event that you could participate in for really cheap. On our first night, there was a wine night and you could try 9 Portuguese wines for only 5 euros.

During our second day, we decided to try hitting up a Portuguese restaurant that was in one of our tour books. Luckily, we had read a warning in our book that 'you eat it, you buy it'. The waiter would bring little appetizers and bread to your table. Each one might be 75 cents to 1 euro, but they can add up pretty quickly. We both enjoyed a yummy traditional pork plate. After this, we decided to try hitting up some beach time as we were having withdrawals from our relaxing stay in San Sebastian. We went to the cute little town of Cascais on the beach and hung out for a bit, but the wind picked up and sort of ruined our comfortability factor town, so we headed back to. On our second night in the hostel, there was a pub crawl preceded by a keg at the hostel. For 2 euros, you could drink beer at the hostel until the keg was gone. Then, for slightly more, you could join in on the pub crawl to see the Lisbon nightlife. We were just going to have a few beers and then call it a night, but we made friends with a couple from Brazil and we all ended up going on the pub crawl, which was a great time.

For our last day in Lisbon, we had signed up to rent this GPS guided tour in a golf cart. We showed up (barely) after the pub crawl the night before, and we cruised around Lisbon for a good 4 hours to see the sights. The golf cart would literally start talking to us based on where we were with the GPS. It would tell us directions and fun facts about the next landmark we were about to pass. Cart We felt it was well worth it and Mike really enjoyed driving around town in a golf. It was fun an electric cart, so many people were checking us out and giving a thumbs up after reading the cheesy '100% 0% emissions cart 'tag line on the side of the. :) We really enjoyed all of the tile work throughout Lisbon, and of course, some of the amazing bakery as well. The people were so friendly, which made our stay even more enjoyable. We caught another overnight train back to Madrid on our last day in Lisbon, and from there, we caught a 3 hour train to Barcelona.

Upon our arrival in Barcelona, we met up with Lucas and his dad, Javier. Lucas had stayed in Glenn (near where Mike is from) hometown last summer for 3 weeks, so we were really looking forward to meeting his family and visiting his. We went straight to downtown Barcelona and enjoyed a wonderful tapas lunch. Then, we spent a few hours wandering with Lucas, La Rambla, the pier and the Gothic part of town (which is where there are lots of great cathedrals and an artists quarter). We had a great time. That evening, we went back to Lucas' house and met the rest of his family, including two younger brothers and an older sister. Lucas' family was so welcoming and made us feel so comfortable about staying in their home. We had planned on staying for only a few nights, but they were so friendly that we ended up staying for a week! It was really a nice break from the hostel life we had gotten used to. His mom would cook us dinner every night, we felt like part of the family!

We slept in a bit on our second day, and we hung out with Lucas and his brothers for most of the day. We played Nintendo Wii and had a really fun time relaxing and feeling like we were back at home. Lucas brought us to a great little restaurant near his house that had the best patatas bravas (French fries with a spicy sauce and some garlic) and other yummy tapas as well ... that's the benefit of hanging out with a local ... they know exactly where to go! That evening, we were lucky enough to scalp some tickets for he match against FC Barcelona Atletica Madrid. Javier and Lucas joined us and we had a really great time! It was the ultimate European soccer experience for us, because the Barcelona team won the World Cup last year (along with every other cup championship), so they are considered to be the best in the world right now. We now have a new favorite soccer player, Messi (# 10). He is the equivalent of watching Michael Jordan play basketball ... he made it look sooo easy and he scored or assisted most of the goals.

The next morning, we went with the family to Sitges, a nearby town beach. They had a family get together planned and they invited us to come along. We did not realize it at the time, but the entire Ramon Pont family (the Pont family business is partners with the Carriere - Mike's Uncles - family business) was getting together - as they do on most Sunday-to spend time together. The entire family was amazing, and they all spoke surprisingly good English! The family had planned to take some photos of the kids together, and one of Ramon's sons (Quique) had invited Mike and me to go sailing with him. Without hesitation, we both nodded our heads in touch. We spent about an hour on the sea with Quique and Javier (Lucas's dad) and it was such a neat experience. Neither of us had been sailing before and it was such a different experience as compared to being on a jet boat on the lake. There were times when the wind would catch the sails and you would literally feel like the boat was going to tip over! It was great fun. After this, we spent a few more hours with the family and then we made our way back to Barcelona.

On the drive back to Barcelona Increasingly the weather got worse, and it was DUMPING rain by the time we arrived back to Javier and Cristina's house. Cristina and the younger boys had arrived back home shortly before we did, and she greeted us at the door with big boots on rain and some wet towels in her hand. We immediately knew this was not a good sign. She said that their entire bottom floor of their house was flooded! We spent the next few hours trying to help them get everything cleaned up Luckily, most of their bottom floor had tile flooring, so the water did not cause as much damage as it could have. But, needless to say, a flood in your house is never a good thing. We ended up having dinner that night at about 11pm, and everyone was a bit tired the next morning!

That next day, we checked out the modern cathedral Sagrada Familia. It was absolutely amazing ... unlike any other cathedral. It had a more modern design gothic look to it, and it was easy to see that the architect was influenced by nature in his. The building was still under construction. It has been in progress since the 1800s, and it is expected to be done in approximately 2030th There were currently 8 of the 18 planned towers built ... we took the lift up one of them. The views were great and it was amazing to see the detail that went into building the cathedral. It's truly a masterpiece. It would be so great to go back and check it out once it's finally complete. After our visit to the Sagrada Familia, we headed toward the Plaza Reial and grabbed some paella (rice dish with saffron and seafood) on the way, which was soooo tasty! Then, we went back to the house to relax for a bit with the family. Javier and Cristina have an apartment in Sitges for vacationing, and they offered for us to go and stay there for a few days. We were unable to resist because we had such a great time with their family in Sitges, just a few days ago. We also really wanted to see some of the Borges (the company that is partners with the Carrieres in CA) factories in Spain if possible. Before we knew it, we had 2 tours and an apartment lined up waiting for us in Sitges at the end of the day. We felt so lucky!

Javier and Cristina let us borrow their car to drive to Terraga (where the Olive, Sunflower and Grapeseed Oil factory is), Reus (where the groove packaging facility is) and finally to their apartment in Sitges. We had a really great time, and surprisingly we did not really get lost. It was amazing to see some of the countryside in Spain and the factories were both impressive to say the least. It reminded me a bit of my Rockwell Automation days to see just how some of their processes were automated. Very neat. In between our two tours, we stopped at a restaurant recommended by Cristina and Javier. It was called Casa Perez, so we knew that we really needed to try it out. The food was VERY good and the recommendation could not have been better. We started off with a tortilla (which is like an omlette) filled with cheese as an appetizer. This is quite common in Spain, and is cut up like a pizza. Then, we each got an entrée which included some meat and veggies (Mike got chicken and I chose the Llom, which is sliced pork) ... they were both delicious! Then, we headed onto our second tour, and finally to Sitges to get settled into the apartment. The apartment was soo nice. It had a wonderful balcony where we could relax and, of course, play cribbage. It also had a full kitchen, where we enjoyed cooking and eating in since we do not get to do this much along our trip. We relaxed on the beach during the day, and we stopped by Ramon and Reyes '(Lucas' grandparents) house in the evening as they had invited us to stop by when we were in town. It ended up Lucas and his cousins were coming to spend the night that night (as the next day was a holiday) and so we all hung out together and had a great spaghetti dinner at the Ponts' house. The holiday was called Festa Mayor and each town would celebrate their heritage and have a parade, fireworks, castels (where people form a tall tower by climbing up on one another). It was really neat to see. On our last day in Sitges, we enjoyed one more breakfast on the balcony and then we were on our way back to Barcelona.

On our way back to the house, we decided to check out the tower and amusement park that were just up the hill from Javier and Cristina's house. We went up in the tower, which offered some really great views of the city. It was about 200-something meters tall (600ft), but because it was on top of a large hill, it felt like you were miles above the city. We soaked in the views, and then decided to head back down to the house. We made our way back down the hill, and were about to make our final few turns to their house when a motorcycle cop pulled up in front of us. He looked backward into the car, and then backed up to us and said 'Sigue me, a la derecha'. I looked at Mike and said 'He just told us to follow him, to the right! "We had no idea why we were being pulled over, but we were a little nervous about the situation. He asked for the standard license, registration, insurance. We were digging through Javier and Cristina's paperwork trying to find the information they needed. Once they looked at Mike's license, they told us that we could not drive in Spain without having an additional international license card or something like that. We felt terrible because we had done a little research and thought we were allowed to drive in Europe, but we now realize that every country has its own rules and regulations for this. We tried to tell them that the house was only a short distance away, and we would drive the car and park it there, but they would not let us leave. The officers Went off for a little while and then came back to tell us that the car was not insured and they made a motion like the car was going to be towed away. We thought there was no way this was really happening, and we asked them to call the owners of the car to discuss this further with them before taking the car. Luckily, Cristina and Javier were both home and they came to our rescue. Javier was so worried when a police officer was calling him, thinking that we had been in an accident, that he was all smiles when he showed up They talked to the officers, and it turned out that there was just a mistake in the insurance paperwork, but that the car was definitely insured. They had pulled us over because there is a mandatory mechanical check that you have to get once yearly, and the sticker on the car was outdated. Cristina and Javier talked the officers out of giving us a 600 euro fine for driving without the correct license, which was huge! They walked away with a small fine for the outdated mechanical check and we were SOOO happy that the car did not get towed away. Another thing to add to our 'most interesting experiences in Europe' list, to say the least. We enjoyed a final dinner with the family and Got a good night sleep in order to catch an early train the next morning to Nice, France. All in all, Barcelona was a wonderful place to visit, and we owe Javier and Cristina for the amazing hospitality!

More to come soon! :)

Love, Mike and Kristin

So… we haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, although we may have lost touch with reality!

Before we get started, we have a slight modification to our previous post. During our first day in London, we forgot to mention that Mike’s friend (Sam) got shit on by a bird and egged in the same day!!! Haha. This was absolutely hilarious. We felt bad for him when he got shit on, because we were hanging outside at a bar when we first arrived. But that night, on our way back to Sam’s house (from the metro station), some kids came driving by and threw an egg at us. The egg smothered Sam’s entire backside, and as we had enjoyed a few drinks downtown that night, we LAUGHED OUR ASSES OFF!!!! I mean, really… who gets shit on and egged in the same day?!?! It was hilarious.

Now for the new details… we have really enjoyed our journey from Paris down through Spain and Portugal… so much so that we haven’t written in over 2 weeks! So, where did we leave off? We were just leaving London and heading to Paris… after our early train ride, we headed for our hotel in Paris to see if we could get an early check in. As you all can imagine, hotels in Paris are expensive. This is where Priceline.com came in and became our best friend. All of the hostels in Paris were rather expensive and we decided that if we could get a good rate on a hotel, we’d splurge in Paris to stay near the action. We ended up ‘naming our own price’ for a hotel in Paris and got a discounted room at the Marriott for $139!! We were pretty excited about it and we slept in a bit every day we were in Paris because the bed was SOOOO comfortable. Our first evening in Paris, we met up with a family friend (Mike’s brothers girlfriends dad) and we enjoyed a great dinner at Willi’s Wine Bar in the Champ Elysees area. Our food was very good, and we experienced some of the French culture by ending our 3+ hour meal with a shot of espresso and a digestive (which basically tasted like a really strong alcohol). Then, the three of us were off to check out the Paris nightlife. We stopped at a popular hotspot called the Buddha Bar, where simple, little drinks cost 17 Euro (which is about $25, which is completely INSANE!). But hey, apparently it’s where Madonna goes when she comes to town, so I guess they can get away with it. It was definitely a neat place, and it had a huge 3-story Buddha which was pretty cool. After this, we called it a night and we went back to our comfy bed for a good night of rest.

The next day, we started off with some traditional French cuisine for lunch. We had spotted some people eating lunch at a Brasserie the day before and they had something that looked like an open faced sandwich with an egg on top. Being a breakfast lover, I had to find out what this was and try it for myself. We found a great little spot right down from our hotel where we tried and loved the Croquette Madamoiselle (large piece of bread with ham and melted cheese, topped with an egg). Next, we headed over to check out the Louvre museum, which is absolutely huge! We probably spent at least 3-4 hours there and we are sure we didn’t even see 25% of it. What we did check out was the Mona Lisa, which, as we had heard, was quite small and unimpressive. Cool to see it, but nothing that blows you away. Something about 100 people pushing and shoving to check it out probably makes it even less impressive when you finally get a good view of it. We wandered around town a bit and checked out some of the other sites and then we rested up for another dinner with our family friend, Kenny. This night, Kenny asked us to find a good spot in town, so we went straight to our Concierge. They recommended a place which they described as a great place to try some traditional French food, and that it was! We had another great meal from start to finish. First, we tried to order some dirty martinis, but we were sure the waiter didn’t know what we were asking for when he said ‘red or white?”. Surely everyone knows that a dirty martini consists of vodka and olive juice, right? Not in Europe. We described the martini, asking for vodka it seemed like he knew what we were talking about. Then, we said ‘with olives?’ and he said, no but I can bring you some chips and nuts. I think we were all confused, so we decided to let it go and see what type of drinks showed up to the table. The drink looked an awful lot like a martini, but it sure didn’t taste like one. We loved the new concoction, but weren’t sure what was in it. A few days later, we found that there is a liqueur-type alcohol called Martini (and it comes in Bianco or Rojo – hence him asking White or Red). We liked those martinis so much, we’ve been drinking them ever since….but back to our dinner. We began with a tasty pate and some delicious thin slices of sausage which were served with mini pickles that gave an extra boost of flavor. For our main entrees they had this list of ‘big warm slices of bread’, as it translated, and I got one of these which had thin slices of duck on top, then was covered with cheese and toasted. It was soooo good. Mike had a similar entrée, but his had sardines and tomatoes on top (I liked mine better), and Kenny got a ham hock with lentils, which was also quite tasty. We ended with some dessert and espresso and headed off to relax for the rest of the evening.

The next day, we headed to the Eiffel Tower, with intentions of climbing the stairs to the top. One of the guide books we had mentioned that there were somewhere around 1600 stairs up the Eiffel Tower, so we figured it would be a good test of our athletic ability after a full month of traveling. When we showed up, we found that you were only allowed to climb the stairs to the second of three levels, then you had to take the elevator to the top (for safety reasons). After the 700 some stairs to the second level, we were okay with taking the elevator up the rest of the way. J The views were amazing, and we hit it perfect on a nice, clear day. After our descent down the tower and after making our way through the countless street vendors trying to sell us mini blinking Eiffel towers, mini metal Eiffel towers, roses, etc. we found a great spot to have dinner along the Seine River. There was a floating barge with a cafeteria style restaurant. The food left something to be desired, BUT we sat on the deck with a view of the Eiffel tower and we enjoyed some delicious wine. We finished dinner around 9pm (which is actually early for Europe standards) and, to our surprise, the Eiffel Tower began sparkling…. literally. There must be LED lights all over the tower, and we found out that they go off every hour on the hour for 5 minutes straight. It was really cool to see. The photos don’t really do it justice, but we did take one video that shows off just how neat it really looked.

On our last day in Paris, we checked out the du Pere Lachaise Cemetery, which was absolutely huge! We saw a few famous peoples tombstones (Chopin – music composer, Seurat – Painter, Jim Morrison – we all know him, took some photos just for you Aunt Patti). After this, we went to see the Notre Dame Cathedral. We relaxed in the courtyard in front of the Cathedral and took in the beautiful sights around us. From there, we walked to see the Arc de Triomphe. It felt sort of like Vegas. It looked like it was only a few blocks away, but it took us a good 1 to 1 ½ hours. The Arc was quite impressive, and we counted an astonishing 13 streets that fed into the roundabout encompassing it. The next morning, on our way out of town, we stopped at the Luxembourg Gardens and caught an interesting military ceremony. There was a band playing music and between 100 and 200 military troops marching through the park. We weren’t sure if it was a celebration or a sending off of troops, but either way, it was neat to see. Finally, we said ‘au voir’ to Paris and we caught the train to San Sebastian, Spain.

San Sebastian is in the Northwestern part of Spain, very close to the border of France. It has turned into one of our favorite stops thus far, not only because it is absolutely beautiful, but because it’s where we got ENGAGED!! We stayed in a great place near one of the local beaches and we pretty much just relaxed on the beach during the day, enjoying pitchers of yummy, fresh sangria. One afternoon, we enjoyed the local fare, which consisted mostly of tapas. In the evenings, we’d check out the local scene and enjoy the views of the bay. We especially loved the views in San Sebastian as it was a protected cove with turquoise blue water and extra soft sand. It’s one of those places where you can relax and take in the scenery all day long. Here, we really took the opportunity to relax from our first month of travel… it was great! We came to San Sebastian based on Jake’s (Mike’s brother) recommendation. We planned to stay for one night and relax on the beach, but we found ourselves loving it so much that we extended our stay to 3 nights. On our last day, we hiked up to see the Monte Urgull and the statue of Jesus on top of the nearby hill. The views from the top were stunning. Jake, we took a few photos of some nearby benches that we thought you might have slept on when you were there. Mike even layed down on one for you so that you could envision it better. Hopefully he found the right one! Anyway, this was an amazing place and we’d highly recommend it to anyone traveling Spain or France.

Now for the juicy part… our engagement. J It was the second night in San Sebastian and we had taken a nice little nap after lying on the beach for a few hours that afternoon. When we woke up, we decided that maybe we’d try out one of the nice little restaurants along the beach for dinner that night. We freshened up a little and Mike REALLY wanted to get going so that we could catch the sunset on our way. I thought this was a little suspicious, but knowing how romantic Mike is (ha), I ignored my suspicions and agreed that this would be a GREAT place to catch the sunset based on how gorgeous the scenery was. Luckily, we were planning to go to a nice dinner afterward, so I told Mike he should probably change out of the T-shirt he was wearing into a nicer shirt. He later on admitted that he was glad that I mentioned something about his outfit, realizing we might have a little photo op. We began our stroll along the beach as the sky lit up in beautiful shades of pink and purple. We chatted for a few minutes along our walk, and then Mike began saying lots of nice things to me… and I thought, THIS IS IT! It was really cute because he would give me a little kiss about every third word, taking a nervous little break within each sentence… it was great. After getting down on one knee, he handed me a beautiful ring that belonged to his great grandmother. He secretly had it sized based on one of my rings at home before we left for the trip and it fit perfectly! All right, enough of the mushy gushy stuff. We really enjoyed the rest of our stay in San Sebastian and we look forward to future visits as it will always be a special place for us.

Sorry it’s been so long since we last posted. We are working on another post right now… we will be sure to get it up soon!

Love, Mike and Kristin