Spring Break Trip: Take Two

Well I updated on the first half of my spring break trip in Italy, and now we’re moving on to Spain and France. Again, there is too much to write about, so I’m going to try to make it short so I can start writing about more interesting things that are more recent.

So the picture you see above was taken in Madrid, and seeing as that was the first place we went in Spain, I thought it was a good place to start. Before I begin discussing the picture and making fun of Madrid, I think it is only fair to first give the city its justice. I hadn’t heard anything about Madrid prior to going there, so I wasn’t expecting much of anything. It turns out that Madrid ended up being one of my favorite cities on the whole trip. There were definately more beautiful and fun places, but Madrid was far less touristy, and most importantly had some of the best thimbles to add to my collection (yes, I have a thimble collection, and yes, I’ll give you a tour when you come over). I think one day I bought like 4 thimbles because they were all so cool. It was a little out of hand. Spain in general though has one of the best cultures out there, and not starting dinner until 11 or 12 is just flat out better. The entire city though was packed with all of these nice gardens and buildings that just put a smile on your face. Here is a pic outside the palace:

Now back to the picture of the fat man, smoking, dressed up in a spiderman costume. One thing I’ve noticed in Europe, especially in Spain, is that people try to make money doing nothing. Instead of street performers doing fun and exciting tricks that makes your jaw drop, these people just dress up in a costume my mom and dad would have sold at their Halloween store, and ask for money. No juggling, break dancing, card tricks. Just standing. Madrid took it one step further. The spiderman guy was not only doing nothing, but he was overweight and barely fit into his costume, AND would take smoking breaks every 10 minutes. I guess it’s stressful standing there when all those people watching you… Here is the whole line up of Halloween characters doing nothing:

If you ever have a chance to go to Barcelona, do it. Although much more touristy, there is nothing like Barcelona. Besides what most people think of Barcelona with a big beach and everything, the highlight of the city is the architecture. Most of it was done by Gaudi, who designed a church, park, many houses, street lamps, etc. There is really no was to describe it, so you are just going to have to see it yourself. One of the houses we visited didn’t have one straight line in it, so you can just imagine the creativity in every room. Here is a quick picture of a few of his houses at the edge of his famous park, Park Guell:

A couple of my friends who were studying in Barcelona and others who had just visited, kept talking about this go cart tour, so I had to try it. It’s this new company that rents you this tiny go cart, equipped with a GPS and talking guide. You basically just drive it around the city, like any other car, and hear interesting facts along the way. It was a little expensive, but definitely worth every penny.

Enough of Spain, let’s go to France. Before heading off to Paris, we went to the southern coast for a couple days. We stayed in Nice, but took a day trip to Monaco as it was only 1 Euro and a 45 minute bus ride away. I only saw Nice at night, but it was still beautiful. The beaches aren’t gorgeous like Barcelona or Florida, but the city itself is just really nice (no pun intended) and relaxing. I had heard how fancy Monaco is, but I didn’t expect what I saw. Nearly every car on the road is either a Bentley, Mercedes, Porche, or any other car you can think of that’s more than $100,000. A BMW was one of the crappy cars, most likely driven by the servants and housemaids. While we were there, one of the big tennis tournaments was going on with Federer and Nadal and all the other guys, but tickets cost 200 Euros, and my mom and dad don’t love me that much. Anyways, we brought our nice clothes with so we could check out the Monte Carlo casino, and after paying 10 Euros just to get in, decided to donate a little more on a game of roulette. Here we are in front of the casino:

Finally, the trip ended in Paris. Everyone has heard of and seen a million picture of the place, so I’ll try to keep it short. Unfortunately it was really rainy and cold when we were there, but I can see all the potential it has on a nice day. The city is really beautiful, and there are so many fun shops at every corner. We basically just did all of the touristy things as you can only pack so much of Paris into 3 days. My favorite part was Luxembourg gardens. The entire park was filled with all of these great activities for kids, and 20 year old if they would allow it. In the middle, they have a little fountain where you can rent boats and push them across to the other side with sticks. It sounds really stupid, but all the kids there were having the best time, and I was too watching them.

I took the chunnel back to London, and had about a whole 12 hours until the parents arrived. But I don’t want to spoil all the fun in one post, so you’ll just have to keep checking beck to read all about Mark and Debbie’s London adventures…

Cheers