Trippin thru Europe

Early Monday morning Josh and I enjoyed our last walk through chilly Stockholm at 5:30am. As it began to snow we realized we were leaving for Spain on the perfect day. We had a short four hour flight from Stockholms Arlanda Airport to Madrid, Spain. The landscape is like nothing I have seen before except maybe something like the desert around Las Vegas. Very dry looking and different tones of red. When we landed it was about 15degrees celcius. From the airport we took a few different subways to get close to our location the Cats Hostel. Here is a link to copy if you would like to see pictures of the hostel:
http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/CatsHostel-Madrid-6657?

Once we came up to ground level it was soo exciting and intimidating. This is a large dramatic city full of people and traffic and noise. With little to no sleep it was too much to take in speaking for myself anyways. We went directly to the hostel and unpacked and then went on a little walk around our neighborhood. Apparently 10 minutes from our hostel and you are directly in central Madrid. I have heard so much about tapas bars in Spain so I thought I wanted to try one. All of the ones we saw were quite dirty and the food was something to question. But as we have seen over the next few days most are the same way very loud and lively, a little bit scary as they yell at you to take your order and I dont know what to yell back, ENGLISH!!!! The people here really live their l ives out in the street, much different from a more conservative canada. So far as a generalization i would have to say the spainairds really enjoy their salt, fat, and oil something i will have to try and get used to. We went back to our hostel whcih is amazing, it used to be some sort of palace and is newly renovated for a hostel, this is one time I can actually say the real thing was better than the pictures. Tuesday moring we decided that we both wanted to spend more of our time in the smaller beach towns where we could actually relax. I used to think I would love to sepnd all of my time in the cities but once you are here it is quite different. They are so exciting and crazy and I get too nervous about not seeing everything in the time that we have so I do not relax at all. So we are off to Cacias a smaller beach town just outside of Lisbon, Portugal. And they great thing is that we are staying in a bed and breakfast. Because you know this entire week of hostels has just been too much We got a great deal so we are off today on a nine hour train ride, at least it is an overnight train. After our nuturious breakfast a doughnut, we went off to the metro station to get our tickets. Inside was a lush and large jungle of palm trees and tropical plants. In the middle of this is a sanctuary for hundreds of turtles and little fish, it helped pass the time. So we somehow managed to communicate what we needed, unlike stockholm most people do not speak english in madrid. And my spainsh skills leave much to be desired. Afterwards we walked to the Prada musuem another museum full of wonderful sacred art. unfotunatly today was the day dedicated to group tours so we skipped and went into the botanical gardens next door. This was quite an exprience, the city outside faded away and we were in a beautiful jungle. Apparently every specie of plant is in that garden somewhere. Amazing pictures to follow. This was just what the doctor ordered for me it really helped me calm down and put things in perspective. So the pace was set for the rest of the day, we walked across to a square where the Reina Sofia is housed, yet another art musuem that was closed today. So we sat in the hot sunshine in an outdoor cafe in the pavillion and drank delicious sangria for a couple hours. I really dont know if I can do this for two months, haha!

Hello everyone, today is March the 28th so I have a lot of catching up to do.So the day after our big reggae night we accidentaly slept in until after 1pm which really was bad because I did not want to waste a minute here. Anyways we started the day slowly and went to the Old Town and visited the Nobel Prize Museum. Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm and after he passed he left his estate to various family memebers and educationial commitees. And what they did with the money was set up the Nobel Prizes. The museum was dedicated to all those who have won past and present, which was very nice to see and to read about, beautiful interior

Its kind of sad that we never really hear about the Nobel Prize winners even though they contiue to happen every year. So next we went to the Kulturhuset, any guesses on the name?? Here they had some photography exibits on, one being about child obesity not only in America but in the countries it is spreading to like Mexico for instance. And fast foward to the next day we rounded up our visit with the last few stops we wanted to make. We went through a really great aquarium, even Swedens fish are more beautiful than the ours.


We went to the Vasa museum one of stockholms main attractions for the hugest ship you have ever seen in your life that was built in 1632, sunk on its maiden voyage and brought up in 1958. Even I would have to say that this was fantastic to see. Just the size of the ship was amazing and the craftmanship was so detailed for every inch of that boat. Oh yeah and Josh met a nice girl, here he is with her.

Next we went on to the Nationial Muesuem which houses orignal paintings from the 1400 through 1600s including Rembrants. The other side which was my favorite was the design eras of sweden and europe. So we finished off our stay with the most touristic thing possible, a bus tour.

This was ok but I would say Josh and myself would have been better guides and we had pretty much covered all of this ourselves, it was nice to sit down though. So we finshed off our day with the normal rountine a 4 hour nap at 4pm and then up at 2am. Maybe I am not adjusting as well as I thought.......
So to sum up our expreience in Stockholm I would say it was cool, literally. I loved the city and the architecture and the history and the fashion and the design, but the people were not very friendly nor helpful. We did not have too much contact with the genereal public, mostly service industry.And if it is their job to put their best foot forward shouldnt we have seen the best. This city was amazingly efficent and we really saw this in their public transportation, traffice, and environmental control. It was really great for us because everyone speaks english if you ask. I will not look back and and have a negative memory though because this city was beautiful and because I am only here to live the cities so I really enjoyed Stockholm and hope to come back again. I know we were meant to be together, they have the most delicious tap water you could ever imagine!

Hello everyone, I am so glad you are all enjoying this blog idea. I love hearing from you all. The only thing is if you add a comment through this site I am not able to respond to you unless you leave your email address. Sorry I havent kept it up but we have crammed a lot in to the last couple of days. Yesterday Josh and I were up at around five am because we had slept so much the day before so we decided to get an early start on our day. We went and got early breakfast at our favorite place; 7-eleven. I know it sounds terrible but the 7-11's here are gorgeous, clean and they sell really healthy food. So for us it is like a mini grocery store that sells items we can sometimes reconize. I love the Swedish, although the have a completly different language we are sometimes able to understand what signs or literature says. In many case take the english version mash it together, replace the vowels with other vowels, or add some t's or k's then you have the swedish version. For example turistinformation or my favorite place we visited the Arkitekturmuseet. After our gourmet breakfast we went walking with our little maps from the hostel. First we went to Gamlastan or also known as the Old Town where the most beautiful old buildings are.
All the streets here are cobblestone which is very quaint but with my coordination I am lucky to report no injuries. And no Denise and Amina, I have not been running but of course it is only because of the cobblestone
Stockholm itself, is made up of 24 islands. We found out quite quickly that all were within a reasonable walking distance of each other. From Josh you might here a different perspective of how MUCH walking we did that day but he is aging and out of shape...
Next stop was a walk to a small island that had my two very favorite places on it, The Modern Museum of Art and the Museum of Architecture, or in Swedish; Moderna museet & Arkitekturmuseet. The art muesum was amazing, we got to see original Picassos, Salvador Dahli, Kadinsky, and Andy Warhol just to name a few. Of course no pictures were allowed to be taken. The exhibits we really interesting and different, I conside myself extremly open to new ideas and different things but some pieces here were really weird for lack of a better word. The mueseum of Architecture was small but really good to see. It showed the changes in Swedish architecutre from the very beginnings to present. And considering Swedish design which is very innovative and modern this exibit was soooo cool and inspiring! After the mueseums we walked to find a bus stop, got on one and just went for the ride. The bus routes here were extremly confusing so we just decided to hop on see where it took us. Not any where special as it turns out. We got off at the KatarinaHissen a huge lift where you can see a view over the city. Here is a picture we took

This night we decided to splurge and we went to the CentralBatagen a beautiful spa inside a fancy hotel.
Inside was a jungle like bar with a hot tub, warm pool and a normal pool surronding it. The hot tub was what we really went for and it turns out they have a different idea of what is relaxing. There was a maximim of 12 people supposed to be in the hot tub and there always was if not more. But the tub was designed so that you have to lay back and stretch out your feet, so needless to say it was really nice rubbing feet with large, hairy men. The water was warm if not lukewarm and it was hurled into your face by the jets. So for next time maybe we will avoid the " hot tub". We met two of the funniest guys from our room, two Austrailian boys now residing in Scotland. They both work at a hostel bar in Edinburgh so all they wanted to do was drink.

Tonight we were talked into it and we went to the 3rd bar we found that I was allowed in, a large jazz club. You have to be 23 to enter most posher bars. The songs played were classic jazz tunes, not my style and the crowd was older then all of us by lets say half a century. It was boring but we paid 100 kourona to get in so we stayed for a bit. Liquior is severly taxed in Sweden, and only a handful of places actually sell liquior!! You can only imagine what this is like for someone coming from Red Deer. In this particular bar a single shot of bar liquor is 64 kornoa which is 10 dollars canadian!! Again imagine coming from a place where you can pay 50 cents per shot. So then an amazing thing happenend the band got off and the crowd began to change, a younger democraphic was taking over. Turns out one of the hottest reggae djs in Europe was going to be here at 1 am. So we stayed and the placed was packed along with at least one hundred people lined up outside. The best music was played all night and we had a blast.... I love Stockholm.