Me Encanta Barcelona...¡y más!

Spain is a wonderful place. After a long week-ish of travelling the sounds and sights of Barcelona, Spain are music to my ears and rest to my weary soul. But that might possibly be best discussed a bit later, as many of you are unawares of my current travels and adventures in Wilderland.

First things first, i am on what is called in German, "Frühlingspause" which is nothing short of "Spring Break!" Kirsten and i have had plenty of troubles and also plenty of great experiences along the way.

Secondly, a list and broad detail of our travel schedule thus far, and in the days to come: First destination - Berlin, Germany. 2nd - Amsterdam, The Netherlands (formerly Holland). 3rd - Paris, France. 4th - Toulouse, France. 5th - Barcelona, Spain (current). 6th - (possibly Toulouse again en route to Marseille or Nice France with and ultimate goal of making it to an Italian town called Cinque Terra to meet up with Kirsten´s sister Jenny and her husband Jon! From there we may travel to Pisa and Rome and then back on up to Salzburg to start up classes again.)

Thirdly, some highlights:
1. Our journey to Berlin was long and arduous, namely delayed in Leipzig, German in a mishap where our train was delayed because of us not having understood the announcements made in unclear German. Long story short, i got off the train to ask for directions, and afraid of being left behind, came back before i found anything out. More waiting. Then i decide to get off the train again and find out what the heck is going on. BAD MOVE! There goes the train off into the darkness with Kirsten on it as well as all of our baggage and no ticket to boot. (i had it in my pocket). Gott sei dank we both had cell phones with barely enough credit to get in contact with each other and make a plan. We spent a very inconvenient and mostly sleepless night in the train station and then took a 4 am train to Berlin. Sights include our sweet Berlin-oriented hostal with a Volkswagen Beetle in our bedroom (which was still under constuction as a future bed site!) the TV tower at 300+ meters high and a great view of the city, a free walking tour including the former site of the Berlin wall and fragments, the Brandenburg Tor, and explanations of other buildings and sights of the war-torn city. Berlin was cool, we did some stuff, on to Amsterdam!

2. Not having made a previous reservation, we spent much of our first day walking around the city hauling our bags and gear trying to find a cheap, available hostel. We smelt many a whiff and waft of "weed" or "pot" whose proper name is Marijuana, as the drug and many others are legal in the Netherlands. Also, prostitution is legal and we stumbled unawares upon the Red Light District where prositutes dress up (or dress down) and try to lure "customers" into their bedchambers by standing in front of the street side windows. Crazy. i hate using the term "customers" here, i destest that this is even a business, and am appalled that they stoop to making this a profession. I don´t know what to think or feel or pray about the whole thing actually. One of my first inclinations is to feel sorry for them, and i do, but not in a way that i feel makes any difference. Sort of the same sorry that i feel about the countless homeless/needy people that we´ve been approached by throughout the trip. How do you really help? i am only one person and i can´t help them all. i certainly cannot "help" prostitues, i have no idea where to begin. We walked out of that area as fast as we could, but not without several more sightings of women peddling themselves and the occasional unfortunate sideways glances into sex shops and porn/peep show type places. On a lighter note, the city was very, very beautiful, situated near the Atlantic Coast but on a fresh water bay, created by the ancient system of locks and canals in Amsterdam. We went on a canal cruise, looked at a bunch of shops, and enjoyed our two cheap as cheap budget hotels that we were able to find a bargain for a bit. The first one had and excellent view of the "Raathoos" which is roughly the Dutch version of "Rathaus" which is German for City Hall. On the street below we could watch traffic of cars, pedestrians, bike riders, and anything else that wandered by. Very cool. The clouds and weather were beautiful. Second night we moved to a hotel just next door, only cheaper with a reverse view into secret gardens, skylights, and other dutch-type buildings and things. For the most part, Amsterdam was great!

3. Paris, France. As we found out in the Amsterdam international travel section of the train station, we´d have to make expensive reservations up the wazoo to be able to continue with our plans to Barcelona and Granada Spain, and then back through France into Italy--at least at the rate we were hoping. Anyway, we bit the bullet at least to get to Paris and our reserved two hotels and vowed to take non-reservation slow trains and alter our plans a bit. Sights: Notre Dame, The Seine River, Mont Marte district, Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) Cathedral, Moulin Rouge, Eiffel Tower, and other French-type stuff. Baguettes and cheeses were had. Kirsten and i sang songs on the steps of Sacre Coeur with some French dudes with a guitar. Mostly nineties from the states. Pretty much lots of stuff we knew. i was able to play a bit too, but they didn´t really know the songs i know how to play. pity. The second night we made our way to a little town called Jossigny, which, little did we know, was not exactly a walkable journey, even with the help of the out-of-city train service RER. We had intended to get to Euro Disney, but that never happened. It was a great detour though. i would need library of novels to write every reason why i loved this particular stop and still it would not express them all. i´ll leave it at that.

4. Toulouse, France. The only non-reserve train that went to Toulouse was at 4 or so in the afternoon putting us in Toulous at about 10 or 11-ish. We spent the night at an excellently cheap and very nice place there and spent the morning walking around the city a bit and trying to get ahold of Kyle Warner (!) who is studying in Granda, Spain to try to visit him. All we had is e-mail and we still haven´t got ahold of him and thus we are staying Barcelona for a while... Anyway, then we took a train to La Tour de Carol right near the border, and then a slow train to Barcelona. We have spent LOTS AND LOTS of time on the trains and metros and the like thus far. (but all well worth it) We have learned a lot about the countries, cities, sights, and perhaps more practically, ourselves and each other. Speaking of long train rides, i have spent most of them reading JRR Tolkien´s novel "The Hobbit," a precursor to his "Lord of the Rings" books. It is most excellent. It is probably also the reason why i have written about a novel on this post. Kirsten is reading it too, and started before me, and even though she reads faster than me, my tenacity has paid off and i have caught and surpassed her and am about to finish the book. It has become somewhat of a huge joke where i pretend to steal the book and read it while she´s not looking or to pretend like the book has special powers over us like the famed Ring which plays such an essential role in the both "The Hobbit" and the books to follow. Read them if you can.

5. Barcelona, Spain. Once again having no reservation or any clue as to where we were going to stay, we arrived in Barcelona at 10 pm last night. Since we were largely discouraged on our initial search, we decided to have some Chinese food. (actually it was more like, i saw Chinese food and made a bee-line for it, and luckily kirsten agreed). We were both famished from the largely food-less day and tired of looking. Everything was full to the brim due to the "Semana Santa" and "La Pascua" celebrations (Holy Week and Easter) which are a huge hit in Spain and cause for a great party with much merry-making. i only hope that at least some people don´t forget the reason why Easter is celebrated. After Chinese Food (en español of couse) we headed back out on the streets, still to no avail. We chanced upon some other travels in our same plight, a girl from Michigan, or one of them "M" states (not Mississippi or Maine or Missouri, so either that or Montana i think) and a Canadian dude. They had met on the train only a short while before. Both were doing different things abroad, but both also on Spring Break; she was doing a three-city grad. school architecture program across Europe, and he was going to Bible school, and soon to be changing locations to a small city in the south of Austria. Crazy. i actually was chatting with our cab driver and practicing my Spanish and learing about other stuff (we hailed a cab in our desperation) and i learned most of this information from Kirsten the next day. We had no luck at the first hotel and the second had one opening, and ridiculously expensive at that. i knew we couldn´t afford it, but offered it to the girl and dude and reluctantly and in an act of desperation, they took it. it was a three star hotel i think and it was getting quite late and seemingly impossible to find a place. Kirsten and i stayed with the cabby and got dropped off at Plaza Cataluña (the Castillian name for a very famous square in Barcelona) and had the idea in our heads that we´d just stay up until morning and take a train to Granada and Kyle and relief the next day. Gracias a Dios, that didn´t happen. The clocks changed at two am, so that as our cab driver pointed out, "a las dos..." "son las tres." said i completing his sentence. He was a rather interesting and friendly fellow, though i realized today that he scammed us. He was talking about how cab drivers don´t know where hotels are or at least they pretend not to and that the deceive their fares into exuberant prices for nothing and no lodging. This turns out to be basically what happened to Kirsten and i. We did end up staying up until 430 am and contemplated sleeping near some homeless folk in an alley and ended up on a park bench. that ended right quick when we were approached by some definitely drunk and probably high unfriendly Spaniard punks who tried to touch Kisten. NO YOU DON´T! We were out of there in a flash, not caring where to, but just out of there un-harmed. Wandering about some more and doing a little more searching, a miracle happened to us. His name is Alan. He runs a hostal called "AlBerGuest" which is a combination of his and his business partner´s name and also it is similar to the Spanish word for youth hostel. His doesn´t do much advertising, and he doesn´t have any signs or markings on the door to attract guests, save for a little sticker on the doorbell button which even then, would tell you absolutely nothing if you didn´t already know about it. "How does he get customers then?" you might ask, and rightly so! He simply hangs out around Barcelona and chooses the people who he thinks would be cool to have in his hostal. He does this to keep a safe, fun, relaxed atmosphere. It is sweet! Not too expensive, friendly folk, great facilities and great location: only a few block from the aforementioned Plaza Cataluña! Gracias a Dios he got hungry at 430 in the morning and went down to the Plaza to get something to eat from a street vendor. He chose us, and here we are! There´s even free internet bringing this post to you!

So i suppose i will finally end this record-long post...not that i have explained it all, but i guess i can´t really do that. i hope i´ve been able to at least give a feel for the whole adventure, if only to myself and in so few words with so few readers! ; ) (Smiles and Cheers if you are reading this)

As the Hobbit has found out, adventures are often very hard and not altogether pleasant, but certainly they show you what you are made of. They challenge you in new ways and make you be a better person. That´s what i hope this one has done for me.

Oh, HAPPY EASTER!! Christ has Risen! To God be all the glory.

Love, Aaron