Careful, It's a long one!

Venice, Barcelona, Madrid…

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Hello!! It’s been a while since I’ve written. But I’ll try to do a good job remembering and explaining…So here goes! I left off with us on the ferry traveling to Venice. Well, the ferry was pretty uneventful. It tried to look/feel like a cruise ship but it was very different. We were lounging around on the top deck and saw a girl with her boyfriend pumping up an air mattress right there in the corner of the deck. Kind of funny. And they had all these benches with tables so we could just tell that a lot of people were just camping out on the decks. I’m really glad we were able to get beds. It was also a little icky because everywhere outside there was smoke. I couldn’t even catch my breath, so we spent most of the ferry ride inside and that was fine by me.

We were separated into male and female dorms, so Sam and I were sleeping with about 5 other people in our dorms…kind of silly, but it was cheap, and that was good. Anyways, so we were getting close to our arrival time and the ship announced that we would get into Ancona at 11:30. This was not good, because we had a train to catch at 11:15. We were told that the ship was going to arrive at 10:30 which gave us 45 minutes to get there, but there was a delay and it was running an hour late…ugh! So thankfully there was another train leaving to Venice at 12:40, so we were able to make it on that one and have a nice trip into Venice…well, kind of. We ended up being a lot later than expected, so we didn’t have the evening to spend in Venice…kind of disappointing, but what can you do?

We didn’t call ahead to our hotel to find out where we needed to go, so we just kind of winged it. Not a good idea!! We should have gotten off in Venice Mestre, but we went over the water to actually be in Venice. From there we were all sorts of confused and were told we could take a bus to get to Malcontenta, where our hotel was. We were waiting patiently for our bus, it arrived, and we got on. We then had absolutely no idea which stop to get off on, so Sam asked a guy standing next to us. He said that he would tell us where to get off, and we were appreciative. Then a few minutes later, in his broken English, he said, I think you got on the wrong bus. Oh great!! But he was extremely helpful and told us to get off and find a different stop that would take us to Malcontenta. We got off and waited and waited. Finally, a bus came and we made sure to ask if it was going where we wanted to. Thankfully it was.

So we have arrived in Malcontenta, still with no knowledge of where our hotel is…We then proceed to ask a woman at a pharmacy. She tells Sam and we head off. Come to find out we walk about 20 minutes in the wrong direction with no sign of a hotel. We then go back to where we came from, and I ask a man at a pizzeria. He tells me it’s in the opposite direction of where we were going and so we make our way that way. We end up getting lost again, but I think he called a woman near the area, because she stuck her head out of her house and told us to go around the building and it’s over there. So that was really nice.

We FINALLY find it!! It was a great sight to see. The name of the road printed on our paper for the hotel was wrong, so that didn’t help in the least! But we got there and were a little upset, but we had a nice room and shower and were happy to be there. We then went back to the Pizzeria for dinner.

Oh was that a great decision!! I got a “Bufala” pizza. I was a little timid, but it sounded so good, so I went for it, and I’m sure glad I did. It had buffalo mozzarella, some really yummy mushrooms (kind that I’ve never had before, but they were SO good!) and some truflle oil drizzled on top. I was in heaven. And it was really pretty inexpensive, so that made us happy too! Sam got a salad – kind of funny, they don’t really use dressings, just give you olive oil and red wine vinegar, so it was a little different, but quite yummy too. He got a pizza with cheese and tomatoes, he was a little sad, because he thought he was getting fresh tomatoes which he did, but they were cooked, and he really doesn’t like cooked tomatoes…but he was still pretty happy.

We slept pretty well and had a free breakfast at the hotel which was pretty good. And then we finally made it into Venice. The problem with our hotel was that it was a lot farther from Venice than I expected it to be. I was also really mad at myself because on my agenda I put down a place to stay at, but they didn’t have internet bookings, so we would have to call to make the reservation…I didn’t realize this until we were already in Malcontenta at our far and away hotel.

Oh well, not much I could do at that point…we just had to realize that unfortunately we were trying to do to much in a short period of time, so something wasn’t going to go quite right, but we survived even though it wasn’t quite how we would have like it

OK! So now onto Venice…when we finally got to the city, it was amazing! We were so happy to be there and to really get a feel for the city. We had planned to go to Piazza San Marco and see St. Mark’s Basillica and the Ducal Palace. It took us quite a long time to get there, but we enjoyed weaving our way through the small streets (if you can even call them streets), almost more of a corridor type feel. There were way too many shops to distract us, but that was ok. We enjoyed seeing what Venice had to offer and appeal to us.

We stopped at this nice little restaurant for lunch and boy was I happy I stumbled upon it. It was delish!! I ordered gnocchi with a four cheese sauce. I’ve never had gnocchi before and it was quite the experience. It was really tasty. The 4 cheese sauce was a little too heavy for my liking, and it had blue cheese, which I’m not too fond of, but it was still really good. Sam got a delicious Panini. Now, I know, a Panini – that can’t be delicious, but it was really yummy. It had some kind of sausage with tomatoes and lettuce, looked a little plain when it arrived, but it was really good. We were both very content and ready to walk some more after that. Oh, it was also really nice, because it felt like there were a lot of Italians eating there, so that’s always a good sign.

So we were walking in and out of shops enjoying all the sights and sounds. There were carnevale masks after carnevale masks shops everywhere. It was so much fun to see all the different shapes, sizes, and colors. I just couldn’t stop looking at all of them. Sam said we needed to quickly buy one so that I would stop browsing through every shop, but they were constantly keeping my attention.

We finally made it to Piazza San Marco and boy was it a sight to see. There were SO many people, along with a lot more shops and cafes. We stood in line for the Basillica, which was pretty cool. It’s hard, because we were getting a little “churched” out, but it was different from St. Peter’s Basillica in Rome, so that was fun to compare.

We then headed over to the Ducal Palace and Sam got an audioguide. It was very interesting and pretty enjoyable. Lots more walking…it was a really big Palace, but fun to see what different Doge’s did in their time period.

We then wandered around to find a place for dinner – BAD IDEA! We are very bad at wandering and have since realized that we need to have a plan, but it’s a little hard to do when things keep changing, but we’ve done pretty good since. Anyways, we were looking for a place with some ambiance and found a place near the water to eat. There were many different café type restaurants to eat at and we finally chose one.

Once we sat down, I think we realized it wasn’t such a great choice, but were so hungry by this point that we just went for it. Well, this time, it didn’t pay off. Boy was this some nasty food! It should not be allowed to be in business. It was definitely a touristy place meant for stupid Americans who want to ambiance of Venice. It was about $40 for the two of us, which included 2 meals and a $5 cover charge. That’s a ridiculous thing, that we have to watch out for over here. Anyways, the food was horrible. Mine wasn’t even hot and felt like it came from a box. Sam’s got a lasagna that was like 2 layers - the flattest lasagna I’d ever seen. It was just ridiculous. We were so mad at ourselves after making such a stupid mistake, but what can you do?? So we swore off any type of café for the rest of the trip, and felt a little better….

We then took a taxi-boat to the bus station. We waited for our bus, and made sure it was the right one this time, and were on our way to Malcontenta…or so we thought! We were sitting on the bus, and thankfully there was an older couple who also needed to go to Malcontenta, and the husband went and asked the bus driver if this bus went to Malcontenta…HAHAHA, NOPE!! We were on the bus that said “Padova” which is what we were told to get on, but we made the mistake of not getting on the “Padova per Malcontenta” bus that was 30 minutes after the one we got on. So we were then told to sit and wait and return to Venice to then switch buses and get on the right one to Malcontenta…

Well, we decided to be adventurous, and get off at our favorite bus stop – the one that we got off of yesterday because we were on the wrong bus…So we wished the other couple good luck, and headed out into the unknown. Not such a smart idea when it’s like 10:00pm and we have no way to make a phone call. But we walked to our bus stop and waited…and waited…and waited. I finally snapped and asked Sam if we could try to find a hotel or restaurant that could call us a taxi. Well, we found a hotel, and went in. Come to find out, there are no taxis! Haahah!! Of course, right?!?!

So they told us that they had no idea when the next bus would be coming, we thanked them and walked back to the bus station. I was getting really cranky and quite ornery by this time. I’m glad Sam put up with me though…I think we had to of made enough noise, because all of the sudden, this car comes whipping around and stops right in front of our bus stop. It was the guy from the hotel!! He was coming to our rescue! He was so nice, spoke very little English, and dropped us off at our “hotel”. I put hotel in quotation marks, because he dropped us off at the nice big hotel in Malcontenta, that he assumed we were staying at. We thanked Andrea profusely, and pretended to walk up to our “hotel”. Haha, really kind of funny.

So as soon as he drove off, we walked towards our real hotel. WE were once again, pretty unhappy with Malcontenta. We realized it was really the perfect name for the place – discontent! That made me laugh a little. We slept alright that night, and then woke up to enjoy our 2^nd day in Venice. Unfortunately, we awoke to a lot of rain and grey clouds. We decided to be adventurous and check our luggage near the train station and walk through Venice again. BAD IDEA!!

The city, although is on an island and surrounded by water has the worst drainage system known to man. There was puddle after puddle, and when I say puddle, I mean PUDDLE! By the time we walked/wandered for about an hour, my jeans were soaked all over the bottom and we only had one umbrella, so I was pretty soaked all over. It was also pretty cold, so that wasn’t helpful. We felt really defeated and made our way back to the train station.

We found some food and a little place table to eat at, but there were so many people packed into the train station that it was a little uncomfortable. We felt a bit better and decided we’d try to do some shopping. We stayed on the side of the water that the train station was on, so basically just one main street and ended up finding a really cool blown glass design from Morano. I was happy and we were on our way back to the station.

I was thinking it was about 2:00, we’d get our luggage and have just enough time to get on our train at 3:00. Unfortunately, it was only 1:00, so we still had 2 hours to spare. We really didn’t want to walk around anymore, so we got some gelato at the station and sat…and sat…and sat. Finally, we made our way over to the checked luggage and found a little place to get some hot chocolate. Man, that was a good decision – until we got the check. The hot chocolate was so yummy, but they charged us 7euros (about $10) for a small cup of hot chocolate and a croissant. That’s Venice for ya!!

Well, we left the restaurant and grabbed our luggage. When we got out, it was POURING! Oh no!! We had all our luggage, back pack, and purse to lug all a pretty long way. When we left the station it wasn’t raining, but all of the sudden, down pour. Well, we didn’t have time to sit and wait it out, so we made a break for it…Not a good one, to say the least.

We got to the crosswalk and had no choice but to step into a 3 foot puddle. It was terrible. I basically yelled and cursed at that moment, and then on we went…Had to climb a lot of stairs to get over the Grand Canal and to the station. This was definitely not something I signed up for!! But we made it to the train station in one piece, soaking wet, and a little unhappy with Venice…

Our jeans were soaked up to our knees and shoes/socks were drenched. Not much we could really do at that point, so we got on the train and tried to dry off.

Looking back, I am glad that we went to Venice, but it was a bit of a bummer the way that things worked out, so I think that was the biggest downfall. The fact that I was so upset by different things just made it not so fun. But we made it on our train to Milan just fine, Sam went and found us some yummy, and much needed McDonald’s for dinner…and then we were on our way to Barcelona.

We weren’t sure what our accomodations were going to be like in the “reclining seat” that we reserved, but they were pretty nice. Quie a bit better than a plan seat…there was a leg rest and the seat went back pretty far, not as far as I’d have liked, but it was pretty nice. The train ride had one flaw…it was about 3 ½ hours late getting into Barcelona.

There was some kind of accident that held up all the trains on the France à Spain tracks, so we were stopped in one spot for about 3 hours, then made our way to Spain. We were supposed to have a full day and a half in Barcelona, but we ended up not having near as much time as we would have liked.

After arriving at our train station we had to take another train to a different station to get to where our hostel was. It was not very far from the train station, which was nice. We cheked in and had booked the room with 16 beds. Sam was hoping that we could get a private room because we didn’t get a lot of sleep on the train, but they were all full. It was funny because the girl who worked the counter knew exactly what Sam was thinking…It’s all fine and dandy when you’re home and feeling adventurous, (going for the 16 beds dorm) but when you’re actually in the moment, you don’t really want it. But it was just fine. It was actually a pretty good night’s sleep. I don’t even remember hearing everyone else come in after we fell asleep. We were quite content to have saved some money and to have it pay off.

Sorry – I skipped a little ahead…So we arrived at the hostel, showered, and got ready to see some of Barcelona. It was now about 4:00pm, unfortunately A LOT later than we had wanted it to be. We were starving by this point, so we grabbed a sandwich at the corner of the train station…pretty good, but not Spanish food like we wanted. Again, because of the time, a lot of things were closed and so our choices were very few and we wanted food now.

After our sandwiches, we headed on the metro to see La Sagrada Familia. It is basically Barcelona’s temple. It was pretty amazing. My book called it a life-size sand castle, and that’s exactly what it looked like. Pretty amazing, but there is still a TON of construction being done to try to finish it in 20 years. We did a guided tour here, which was fun and made it much more interesting.

The entrance of the “temple” has many sculptures to do with “The Passion” or things to do with the last weeks of Christ’s life. There was the kiss from Judas, and Jesus on the cross, along with a statue of Veronica – that was pretty interesting. We then entered and saw a lot more construction. The construction stopped when the original architect for La Sagrada died about 70 years ago, then it stopped again when the wars were going on, and only about 30 years ago did construction begin and continue on for a long period of time.

There are many detailed drawings left from the original architect which helps them to carry out his design and make it all cohesive. It’s interesting though because although the other architects follow his plan, they still put their own touches on it, so it’s not as cohesive as it probably could have been. There is one full window completed with stained glass work, which was really pretty. It was good to have that there because you could really get a feel for what the place will look like in many more years.

There is also a lot to do with nature, like the columns inside are supposed to be Sequoia trees and they do look like trunks. Also, outside the columns have elements from trees that are native to Spain – maybe Sequoia trees too, but I can’t quite remember. The stained glass also had to do with water and earth, so it was very pretty.

There was a balcony on the 2^nd floor that surrounded the entire circumference of the inside. There could eventually be a choir of 1500 people surrounding the attendees of the meetings. I’m sure it would be a sight to behold – and to hear!

We made our way to the back of the building, which had many sculptures to do with “The Nativity”. It was really cool. I liked the angels they had in the corners with horns and the wise men and shepherds. It was very interesting though, how we were supposed to be at a “temple” and yet there was no feeling of the spirit whatsoever. There was so much money and work being done to make this amazing building, but it didn’t seem like it was really worth it to me. The tour guide told us that there are many people who donate to help the work progress, because of course they need money for this extravagant building…but she said that those who do donate are in return receiving forgiveness for their sins. Doesn’t seem to quite fit together.

We never actually saw “The Glory” section, but saw a few drawings of it. I’m sure it’ll be really great too. The final building sure have 4 chapels and like 18 towers. A pretty incredible feet, but I don’t know if it’s all worth it…

So after that, we walked around for a little bit, and found the Palau de la Musica Catalana to get tickets for a show. I checked online before we left and saw that there was supposed to be some kind of Flamenco concert on Thursday. We were excited because this was a place meant for music, and it was very beautiful inside – based on the pictures I saw. Anyways, we finally found it and went to the ticket counter. We asked to get tickets for tonight’s show and they said…”No show tonight!” Of course! Oh it was a sad, sad day!

Well, that put a bit of a damper on our night…But thankfully we were able to find a newsstand, with a little effort, Sam spoke to the guy in his new “Barcelona Spanish” and we found out that there was a show on the other side of town. We made our way to the Victoria Theatre. There was a show called “Rock the Ballet”. I was really happy and we bought some really good tickets. By this time we were running pretty short on time, and there really weren’t any restaurants around the area, so we had to settle for another sandwich shop. We picked out a type of bread pizza, that looked good, but when it arrived, I could only eat like 3 bites. It was not very tasty, and I couldn’t pin point what was even on it. Then, I finally realized that they had put hot dog slices on the pizza!! Oh my, that was different! I do like hot dogs, but they just don’t go well with bread and pizza sauce and cheese…so Sam finished that one…

Well, we found our seats and waited for the show to begin. The show had about 5 guys and 1 girl and they were dancing to U2, Coldplay, Queen, Prince, and Michael Jackson. The first number was a little disappointing, I must say. I was really worried that we just wasted money on something that was so not worth it. But the 2^nd number was a lot better. The music was really fun, and kind of cool that we knew all the songs. I’m sure we would have also enjoyed a more traditional Barcelona type of concert, but we were happy with what we found.

The audience took any and every cue to begin clapping. That was fun too. There was also a huge screen behind the dancers that was different with every song. It really was very creative, and kept me quite intrigued. The first act was over and we were both quite happy. Then the second act began. Boy, was this fun!! So, I really don’t know why there was such a difference in energy from the first to second act, but I wanted to get up and dance with them during the 2^nd act. Sam was a little worried he would have to restrain me during Bohemian Rhapsody, but I was good and kept my clam as best I could. J The main dancer and creator, Rasta Thomas was an amazing and incredible dancer. He was doing moves that I have never really seen before. I kept shouting when I was very impressed, so he would know that I really liked what he was doing.

We were really happy by the end of the night. I had a lot of fun, and was glad we were able to see some kind of show while we were on our vacation. We made it back to the hostel, and like I said earlier, slept quite well. We woke up pretty early and tried to get a start on our day, but it was a short day already, so we didn’t have a lot of time.

We really didn’t do much, which was kind of sad. I feel like we did a disservice to ourselves by trying to do both Barcelona and Madrid. It was hard to be logical when I wanted to see everything back home, but we had barely any time in Barcelona and I feel like we missed so much. I really can’t even say that I liked or disliked it, because I was hardly there…We did a little shopping, didn’t buy anything, and then were once again short on time and had to eat a sandwich so that we would make it to our train on time.

We got to the train station, Sam ended up running to our hostel and getting all of our luggage while I stayed and figured out where we were supposed to go. We had about 8 minutes when Sam arrived with our luggage and booked it to make it on our train. It was quite a nice train, very high tech, and pretty comfy. It was only about a 3 ½ hour ride, and we were able to find our hostel pretty easily.

This hostel we had a private room with our own shower. That was quite nice. After getting settled, we had one goal – to find good Spanish food! We looked at my book for a suggestion, found one that was open before 9:00pm and then headed out. We first went to see the Madrid temple, but on the train ride, we suddenly became big bums and decided we weren’t going to do a session. I really don’t understand why we decided this, as it was a really stupid and sill decision, but it was nice that we were at least able to see the temple. I was really sad that we weren’t prepared to go inside once we go there though.

It was a really gorgeous temple from the outside and I can only imagine how gorgeous it actually is inside. After the temple, we made our way to our restaurant. We asked a few people how to get to the right plaza, and then when we were there we could really find the place. We walked into a hotel, Sam asked, and they said they had not heard of the place…Of course!! By this time, we were really getting mad at my book. A few things that just weren’t going right and was really getting annoying. Well, we chose a place to eat, and thankfully Sam was with me.

The whole menu was in Spanish, along with our waitress only speaking Spanish. Sam took a guess at a few things, and we ordered. When our food arrived, we had some type of bread with what I think may have been duck liver and a piece of prosciutto on top. I couldn’t eat mine, it was just a little too off for me. But we did order some sausages with rice, which were yummy, and some nachos. We were laughing at ourselves for ordered nachos, but they were good. Sam couldn’t get over the yummy jalapenos, in fact, I even ate a few. We ordered a delicious chocolate soufflé for dessert. It came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and my goodness, it was so good! The chocolate was cold, the top of the soufflé was nicely cooked, and the inside was some ooey gooey fudgey chocolate. We were in heaven! That made the night for me.

I'll write more real soon....