The beginning of the end...

Well, thanks Europe, it's been great. Hope to see you again soon. Be good. And put on a sweater, it's cold.

Here comes Santa Claus!

Well, today is our last full day in Edinburgh before we head down to my sister's, so what better to do than dress up like Santa Claus and join 2000 other people for a nice jog around the park.



The Santa run was for the "When you wish upon a Star" foundation.


The weather was a bit windy and rainy, but that didn't stop anyone from having fun. We need to set up something like this in KW.

Does this say we're in Paris?

Homeless in Paris for 12 hours

We took an overnight train from Spain to Paris last night. We arrived in Paris this morning at 7am and don't get the apartment that we have rented for the week until 7pm tonight. There isn't any other city that we would prefer to be homeless in for 12 hours.

What city would you pick to be homeless in for 12 hours?

Magda (not George's mom, but other Magda) - we thought we might do some shopping. We need jeans or warmer pants. Have any recommendations?

A glimpse of Valencia

The weather is horrible today. It is pouring rain and miserable out. The good news is that we have now used everything we have packed at least once. Today we used our rain covers for our backpacks.

On a happier note, here are some photos from Valencia.


A photo of a fountain in Valencia. George and I walked down the park which is a river bed that dried up, so they filled it in. I liked the shadow of the palm trees and the silhouette of the girl with pigtails. Not a bad shot for a little point and shoot! (a slight jab at my friends who have fancy cameras.)


This is one of the futuristic looking buildings in the Sciences park. Feel like you should be able to plug your iPod into it and listen to music or the audio tour? It reminds me of the star trek episode in the first season when they go on this planet and they want to execute Wesley Crusher for stepping on the grass. A nerd at heart ;)


This is what it looks like on the other side of the water.


Me with the building that looks like the architect was a Star Wars fan.

By the way, look at the side bar. We have added a new link that lists out where we have been.

The countdown begins!

It is hard to believe, but I feel like our time in Europe is starting to run out. We are currently exploring Spain (actual location is Seville).

What have we been doing in Spain since Barcelona? After we visited Barcelona, we went to Figueres for a night. This is the birth place of Salvador Dali (think melting clocks). Here we saw a museum that he created that had a a lot of his works. Unfortunately none of his really famous ones, but it was still really cool. Next we went to Valencia. One of the things we saw here was the Aquarium. It is the third largest in the world. After Valencia, we went to Madrid for a couple of days. We saw the three big art museums: The Prado, The Reina Sofia and The Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Last night we stayed in Cordoba. Today we saw the Mezquita Cathedral and then took a train to Seville. In Seville we had time to make Fajitas for diner and then we went to a Flamenco show that was free at a bar near by. Tomorrow we think we will try to see another show, because we are not sure if we saw a good one or not.

Sorry, no photos. I cannot connect the harddrive to the computer. Maybe next time.

Architecture, tapas and tapping feet

We were in Barcelona taking in all the sights, smells and sounds. The city is big but has a nice gothic, modern charm to it. We arrived on a Sunday. Most things close early, so we walked around in the nice weather and ended up a a park. There was a bird that was really noisy up in the palm trees. Finally one came down to say hello.


We are not sure what the name of this bird is. Maybe Frank. But seeing it made us feel like we were in the tropics. (side note: today it was 17 degrees)

George suggested that we take a romantic row boat ride on the pond in the park. It wasn´t as romanitic as expected.


Someone wanted to take pictures of the waterbirds...

Later we switched and I got to play with the expensive camera. I took this picture that I liked.



During the next couple of days, we visited some of Gaudi´s creations. Here are some photos of his designs.


The Sagrada Familia is still being built and will probably take another 100 years before it is done.


This is Casa Mila.


This is from the park.

We managed to take in a Flamenco show at one of the local clubs. We went on a tour from the hostel where we had tapas for dinner and then went to Los Tarantos for the show. I thought that it was going to be a female dancer. To my surprise, it was a male dancer who performed. He really looked like the music was flowing through him as he tapped his feet, turned and clapped his hands. I am looking forward to seeing another performance.


Here is the dancer.

When we were walking around the streets, we went past a church that was advertising a classical guitar performance. We grabbed a flyer and later that night came back for the performance. It was well worth it. Manuel González was the guitarist. He played a theme from Mozart´s ¨Magic Flute¨, Albéniz, Tárrega and many others. It was the perfect closing to our time in Barcelona.


This is Manuel playing his second encore piece. The audience loved him.