July 12

First of all, I need to start the day off with a correction. To be clear, the guy that died at the San Fermin festival actually died on the day that we ran. We didn’t see any commotion, but must have ran right by him. We only found out later the next afternoon at Tiff’s via the Spanish news. Since we hadn’t picked up Spanish yet, we had just made the assumption that since we didn’t hear anything while we were there, it must have happened the morning of the news telecast.

Today we jumped back into the crazy world of international travel yet again. The day started late when Tiffany’s alarm failed to go off. Ben and I slept on the floor in our room in the Holiday Inn Express. We slept pretty well though. I never imagined we would ever be staying at a Holiday Inn during our two months in Europe, but I guess when you travel with girls, you can’t expect to talk them into sleeping on the beach. The plus side of splitting a hotel room was a free shower, internet access, and a complimentary breakfast. The breakfast was amazing. I ate two muffins, a croissant with awesome foreign chocolate spread goo, a bowl of the Spanish version of Coco Puffs, and a sandwich. Yes I said sandwich. I guess they eat sandwiches for breakfast in Spain. The best part was that it was a build-your-own type thing, so I stacked piles of ham, two types of salami, and two types of cheese between two pieces of toast. If I would have been thinking, I would have made about three of them and lined my pants pockets with plastic bags. However, I was full yet again. I am afraid I have been stretching my stomach out too much over the last couple days which is going to make the next couple weeks that much harder. Either way, I have no regrets…yet.

After we got packed and ready, we walked to the train station and began to navigate the Barcelona mass transit system. It is hard to remember exactly what transgressed due to the large amount of blunders made in a short period of time. We knew we had about an hour and a half to get to the cathedral to get free entry. The first mistake, though, was that we hurriedly jumped on a train just before it left with only a fifty-fifty chance that it was the right one. Of course it turned out to be the wrong one and it took us even farther away from our destination. Once we got turned around, a comedy of errors began to take place. I will not try to explain everything that happened, but we didn’t make it to the cathedral in time and I wasn’t willing to pay 5.00 Euros to see the inside of another cathedral. So we started walking to our next destination, Sangrada Familia (not sure of the spelling here). This is an awesome cathedral still under construction after eighty years or so after it was started. It is predicted to be complete in 2039. I predict that it will be at least fifty years due to the Spanish tradition of Siesta. I still can’t believe that a country can operate efficiently while most businesses take a four hour break every day. This is just attributed to the laid back, live for today attitudes of most Spaniards though.

After we walked around the outside of the cathedral (we didn’t have time or funding for the inside tour), we went back to the train station to find a nearby restaurant to eat at before we parted ways. Ben and I then attempted to find a train to go to Marseilles, France, but found we could only get slightly across the border before having to find another train. They were unable to tell us any information on French train timetables, so our plans after the train were completely up in the air. This is when the experience started to get interesting.

First, we met two guys from Seattle who had just graduated from high school. Their names were Sam and Kurt. I told them that I needed to know their names for the blog; they wanted to be world famous. They had a similar problem to ours since we both didn’t know where exactly the train was headed and we both just wanted to get anywhere in France. We ended up talking to them during the entire two and a half hour trip. They seemed impressed by our stories thus far and were happy to hear that the Spanish trains were the worst we had experienced. After the train arrived, we said “good luck” to each other and headed to the information booth to figure out when the next train to Marseilles left. Unfortunately we found that it didn’t leave until 7:00 am the following morning. The gentleman helping us seemed to not understand what we meant when we told him that we just wanted to go somewhere closer to our destination, even if we can’t get all the way there. We were left to figure everything out for ourselves again. We started walking toward where we were told the town was, but saw nothing but a concrete jungle ahead of us. There were some homes here and there, but the rest seemed to be a wasteland. We decided to walk to the top of the hill to see if there was anything that looked like a place to stay. Once we got to the top, we spotted an old uniquely styled building that said hotel on the top. It looked so cool from a distance that we actually stopped, took out a camera, and took a picture. The videos we took of this place will hopefully tell the tale better than I can. However, I will attempt to explain one of the weirdest things we’ve seen so far. The hotel was build on top of a rocky ledge of a cliff side overhanging the Mediterranean. It was a nice view, but the outside of the hotel was not. As we got closer, we noticed broken windows on the side and nothing but darkness inside. The driveway to the top spiraled around the cliff so the entrance was all the way around to the back. We walked in a screen door flung open wide to see a storage room with junk piled high. We took a staircase up one floor to find a large dining area with a view of the sea. There was what looked like a reception desk inside the dining area, but after closer inspection, we began to get a weird feeling. We still hadn’t seen a light on in the entire building and the reception area looked like it hadn’t been used since 1940. Dust covered everything; including an old operators board you see in black and white films. Ben yelled to see if anyone was around. There was no response. We walked out to find another hallway leading to another set of stairs. The eeriness began to build as we decided that we should walk up to see what was upstairs. This is the point in the story to cue the scary theme music. I think one of us actually made a comment at the time about how if felt like something was going to jump out at us with a chainsaw soon. Once we made it to the top, there was a weird sitting area that resembled some sort of indoor miniature garden thing that was all made of plastic. Ben and I both took about five minutes to come up with an explanation of it, but that was all we could muster. There were about a dozen numbered rooms up there and we could actually hear people talking somewhere. At that point we decided to walk quickly back to the train station to see if we could find a train to anywhere. We videotaped nearly the entire experience, so I hope everyone can check it out sometime to build their own opinion.

Once we made it back to the train station, we quickly read the big board to learn that the last train departing for the day was leaving in two minutes. We had no clue where it went, but we were going to try to get on if it was the last thing we did. Of course, it had to be on the platform farthest away from our location, so we found ourselves sprinting toward a train yet again. We made it in time, although we got yelled at by the ticket takers since we ran right by them without showing our tickets. They did help us explain where the train was going though. They seemed confused that we were sprinting toward a train in which we didn’t even know its destination or direction. We just explained that we hoped to get as close to Marseilles as possible, but would settle for anything outside of the town we were in. He told us where we should get off. Right now, we are riding on an old train headed east. That is about all we know. I’m sure it will be after midnight before we get off based on the pace we are making thus far. I really hope the reputation of the Italian train system holds true as we could use a change from the trains we have been riding on the last couple of days.

July 13

When we got to Montpellier, we walked around until we found a decent park to sleep in. Our train didn’t leave until 6:00 am the next morning so we had about five hours of sleep to muster up somewhere. We ended up finding a spot overhanging a highway. We had to step over a small fence and push through some bushes to get a nice hidden spot. It was so hot that I just laid on top of my blanket and didn’t even cover up. We woke up at about 5:15 am and then walked back to the train station to catch our train. To save everyone the boring details, I will try to some up our travels in one sentence. We went from Montpellier to Marseilles, from Marseilles to Nice, from Nice to Vertiglia, Italy (finally crossed the border to Italy), from Vertiglia (no idea on that spelling and I’m too lazy to check) to Genova, from Genova to Pisa, and now we are on a train to Grosseto (about half way to Rome). We have no idea what we are going to do in Grosseto, but we couldn’t find any parks in Pisa so we had to try somewhere else. To sum up the day, we have traveled a few hundred miles, taken six trains, been through three countries (counting Monoco), and have been on a train for about ten hours.

There were a few interesting tidbits from the day, however. First, the reason why we had to take so many trains was because the Italians are apparently on strike for something and you can’t get a ticket for an Italian train until you cross the border. Since all those need to be reserved, we were unable to plan multiple destinations at once. Also, I find the need to comment on the toilets we have experienced thus far in Italy. First, at one of the train stations, I walked into a stall to find a hole in the floor with two platforms for your feet. Apparently you are expected to do your business while squatting and standing. To flush, you needed to reach up and pull a chain. Luckily I only had to take a #1 because I’m not sure if I was ready for that type of culture shock. Ben on the other hand, really had no choice in whether to partake in his culture shock. He went to use the bathroom on the train and opened the lid to see the ground passing by at about sixty miles per hour. Needless to say, he left his mark on the Italian train tracks.
The other touristy thing we did was go to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was about a half hour walk from the train station and we figured we would have to catch another train yet tonight so we had a brisk pace. By the time we walked all the way there, snapped off some photos, and walked back, we were pouring with sweat. We then proceeded to take a shower in the public drinking fountain we found near the train station. We both felt so much better and we decided that we weren’t going to put a shirt on until somebody made us. Right now we are riding on a train in first class with our shirts off. Now that’s what I call first class.

July 14


Anyway, since we made it to the train station in Grosseto around 12:30 am. There was hardly anybody there with the exception of some bodies littering ground in sleeping bags. We found that the next train to Rome was not until 4:18 am. We decided to go survey the town for something to eat. Luckily, we found some sort of bar that was still open and they decided to make us a cold-cut sandwich. We had the hardest time trying to decipher what they were trying to tell us, but eventually we managed to understand how much they would cost. We were starving so it didn’t matter too much.

After we got done eating, we went in search of a place to nap for a couple hours. We went to the hotel outside the train station to look for a map. We got a map, but could not find any parks in the area. We then went into the train station and found a couple benches next to our train. Even though the train didn’t leave for three hours yet, it was still parked inside the station waiting for departure. I couldn’t talk Ben into just getting on the train and sleeping in there. Instead we stayed outside on the benches. I did fall asleep, but only for a little while before Ben and his new friend came and woke me up. Apparently Ben found an Italian that spoke English and happened to be waiting for the same train. A little bit later, the Italian got the attention of the conductor and asked him if it would be alright if we boarded the train an hour early. He said it was no problem, which made me wish that I could have talked Ben into getting on the train the first time. We got on and Ben and the Italian kept talking until his stop. He really was a nice and extremely knowledgeable guy, but I just wanted to sleep, so I was very talkative. I believe he and Ben exchanged some contact info so they may be staying in touch. By the time the Italian got off the train, it was already about 5:00 am and I still hadn’t really slept. I tried to sleep on the train, but our empty train car quickly began to fill up with more and more people headed toward Rome with every stop. Once we got to Rome, we had to decide which of the five stops in Rome would be closest to our destination. Since, again, we didn’t know where our destination was, it looked like we had ourselves another crapshoot. We got off at the last stop in Rome and asked directions as to how to get to the address of our hostel. We found that we had to go four stops backward and the stop was right on the road we needed. Once we got back to that station, we got directions to the hostel. The man suggested taking a bus, so we were fearing the worst. Of course we were too cheap to pay the 1.00 Euro a piece to take the bus, so we started walking. There were no sidewalks or even a shoulder from the road, which eventually grew into a main highway. It was kind of scary walking that close to traffic, but it turned out to only be for about a half mile or so. We eventually got to a crosswalk when a couple fellow backpackers saw that we looked confused so they asked us if we were looking for the campground. They directed us around the corner right to the place.

Once we got there, it was about 8:30 am. We hadn’t eaten anything since our sandwiches in Grosseto, so Ben went in search of food while I checked up a few things using the campground’s WiFi connection. We had to wait until noon to check in, but we could use the pool, Jacuzzi, and internet before then. By the time we ate up and got our internet updates done, the pool was open, so we checked our bags and went for a swim. I fought the urge to fall asleep on a deck chair in the sun, but still managed to get a little red. The sun here is like I have never experienced. I literally got burnt in about fifteen minutes lying on my back. We will need to be extremely careful over the next two weeks or so to make sure this sun doesn’t get the better of us. It already feels like we can’t drink enough water.

Once checked in, we checked out the facilities a little more and bought a little bit of snack food to hold us over for the day. Our tents were too hot to stay in, so we moved back to pool deck to look for some shade. We both ended up falling asleep for a couple hours under the awning by the pool. I then went and used the internet for a couple hours to update some more pictures and videos and ended up talking to my mom for a half hour on Skype. I’m sure this made her happy since it had been at least a week before the last time she talked to me face to face. After this, we went back to our tents and sat outside in the shade for a half hour before we went to bed. It was only 7:00 pm. All in all, it was a pretty uneventful day…just what we needed.

July 15

We woke up at about 6:30 am after falling asleep at 7:00 pm. I guess we were tired puppies. We got up and got ready and had to hurry to catch the first bus to the Vatican. Ben actually had to tell the bus driver to wait until I got back with the tickets. Since the bus driver didn’t speak any English, he actually pulled him over to the security guard to translate for him. It worked out pretty well for us and we were at the Vatican by 9:00 am. The museum and the Sistine Chapel weren’t really as impressive as we had hoped. There were a few impressive things, but it was relatively small and only took us about an hour and a half to get through. We weren’t supposed to take any pictures inside the Sistine Chapel, but we managed to snap a few low quality ones off anyway. Once we got through and caught the last bus back to our campground, we did our best to escape the heat. We first went and got some more groceries, then we used the internet for a while, and then went to eat our dinner. We bought a loaf of bread that was about the size of a basketball. We have grown accustomed to eating a lot of bread (I ate two, two foot long baguettes myself one night), but we still couldn’t finish this one between the two of us. After lunch, we went to hang out by the pool and cool off. Once the sun got a little closer to the horizon, we began making our way toward the Coliseum. We had to walk a little less than a mile to get to the train station, ride a train for about forty-five minutes (due to a delay we never found cause for), and then walk another couple miles to get to the Coliseum. Before we left the train station, we had to wait in line for about an hour to get tickets toward Brindisi for the following day. We were not happy about having to pay 10.00 Euro apiece to reserve our spot on a train. The Eurail passes that were supposed to be for unlimited free travel are not really all they were chalked up to be. I’m sure we will get our money’s worth; just not as much as I had hoped.

The Coliseum was pretty cool actually. We didn’t get to go in unfortunately because it was already closed, but we did get to take quite a few pictures of it as the sun was going down. We also saw the Arc of Constantine and a few other neat pieces of ancient architecture. On our way back, I told Ben that I wanted to see if I could break off a loose piece of the Coliseum. He didn’t know why but I went in search of a loose piece while he went to take some photos. I searched hard and eventually was able to get a small chunk. When I got back, Ben had ripped off an entire corner of a brick. I’m sure he didn’t even want it, but he had to out do me. We had to hustle back to the train, which meant we were dripping with sweat yet again. The train ride back took less time than the trip there, which was nice since we were both pretty tired. Once we got back, Ben got on the internet and I went to check out the live band which turned out to be one dude with a guitar. He wasn’t very good; I felt like getting up there and showing how it was done. We’ve found that foreigners singing American songs don’t usually fair too well. Well that about sums up the day. It was just another day as a tourist. Hopefully we can make it to Greece in a couple days and start having some more adventures in the Mediterranean sun.