Our Travels

danasonia @ 2006-02-08T22:10:00

2006-02-09T06:12:37Z

So.

We're back. Been back for a couple weeks actually. We've been busy looking for places to live in Seattle. Dana is back to work, and Sonia is too. We'll be saving up and studying so we can go back longer and maybe even work there. We love Spain. Updates to come? Of Course.

danasonia @ 2006-01-25T10:04:00

2006-01-25T18:11:21Z

Well. We landed in Sea-Tac last night. We're back in the USA. Our luggage is still in London, but no big deal. We had to run a timed mile in Heathrow to make our connection. The luggage didn't run as fast as we did.

Now to find a place to live and plug ourselves back into the hive mind, I mean get cell phone(s). Back to work too. Time to make money so we can do it all again. Seattle has a lot of restaurants we need to re-aquaint ourselves with. Please join us, we'd love your company. Email is the way to go until we have a phone. See you all soon.

Tiny

2006-01-18T18:36:53Z

Smart Car
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

Cars are tiny here. We saw what would be a small SUV on the road here in Valencia from our room and thought, "What is that huge thing!?" About ninety percent of the cars here are diesel too. Used to the sound by now.

Any way. We're wrapping things up here. Going to head back to the states at the end of the month. Finishing classes, cramming all the spanish we can into our heads. Eating all the wierd food we can. We'll be coming home soon soon soon. Wish we were staying longer, but we'll be back for longer when we can.

Loving Life, loving travel, loving everything, signing out.

I want to wish you a...

2005-12-29T19:01:50Z

Sagunto
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

This was a couple days before Christmas. We had an early Christmas with our flatmates and their friends because they are all students from the rest of Europe and were going home for the real Christmas. We went to Sagunto with two flatmates and then had dinner at our place for 11 people. Dinner ended at two in the morning and then everyone went out on the town. The streets/bars/discos were crazy packed that night with people having a good time.

Feliz Navidad, from the bottom of my heart.
Update: Added a bunch more photos to the photo site, which you can find here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danasonia/

Valencia's plumbing

2005-12-14T19:14:45Z

Valencia's plumbing
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

These are all over Valencia. They appear to be the signature of individual plumbers, as there are many different faces. Interesante.

Update: Oh yeah, added a bunch of pictures again.

La Albufera

2005-12-14T19:08:28Z

Sunset
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

We went to La Albufera this weekend. It was amazing. La Albufera is a nature preserve just south of Valencia. It is a large freshwater lake very close to the Mediterranean; which is separated from it by locks. The surrounding area is full of birds and I assume other wildlife. Being a nature preserve in Spain is a little different from in the States. Fishermen can still fish here for some kind of freshwater eel. They use nets that look like butterfly nets and are about the same size.

Class is going well. We're in the same class now. I'm not so much lost as much as I'm having my brain swell to dangerous sizes with all this new knowledge. A year of spanish classes in three weeks?

danasonia @ 2005-12-02T13:29:00

2005-12-02T12:22:28Z

On the 24th, we moved into an apartment/flat in Valencia for a month. It is nice. Our flatmates are cool. A french guy, a polish girl and a belgian girl, plus two might-as-well-be-roommates from Belgium also. We've been cooking a lot; the local market is so nice. We start spanish classes again tomorrow morning. For a month this time. I can't wait.

The first night in the flat was Thanksgiving and the might-as-well-be-roommates cooked a nice dinner for all of us, with a couple friends of theirs, one if which is from Sonia's home town, Ithaca, NY. Apparently it is a weekly tradition to all sit down to a communal dinner. We like it here. Pictures to come.

I miss home too.

Our classes are going well. I learned five new tenses in the first three days. Yikes.

Aliens!

2005-11-17T21:33:44Z

Aliens!
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

Sonia and I are in Valencia now. We love it. The food is much fresher here. Fresh oranges, picked from literally down the road. The hostel we are staying at has a kitchen and we've been taking advantage. We may try and stay here for a while, maybe take some more classes.

We rented bikes today and rode through the old riverbed. Valencia re-directed their river around the other side of town a long time ago, and the old riverbed is now a park. While we were riding towards the beach, aliens landed. They are pictured here. I don't know what the trident was for, but thankfully they were peace-loving aliens in search of paella. Mmmmmm paella.

Patrick and Jackie

2005-11-17T21:29:26Z

Patrick and Jackie
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

Well, you saw no mention of this for a reason. We went up to Paris on Friday/Saturday for Sonia's Uncle Patrick's surprise 50th birthday party. His wife Jackie flew in family and friends from all over. Lots of her family came from down from Ireland. You put them anywhere and it is an instant party. Some people may have been scared away by the riots, but there was no trouble at all. Of course, we were in the opposite of the poor neighborhoods. Le Vésinet is a fairy-tale land.

Some pictures up from the party. It was a ton of fun. Very much worth the travel. Also: Paris is not as bad as it seems in the news. The rioters have apparently been going out of their way to make sure people do not get hurt. Thus the small amount of deaths/injuries. There are always people taking advantage of such situations to get away with things they normally wouldn't, but it isn't as bad as it would be in the States.

Gaudi and Barcelona

2005-11-11T12:39:36Z

Gaudi's Casa Batllo
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

We have been visiting some of Gaudi's stuff here in Barcelona. The Sagrada Familia is enormous. Parc Guell is such an amazing park, everything was so fluid. We've uploaded lots of Gaudi pictures from Barcelona; take a look. We only went in one of the houses he made, Casa Batllo. It was seriously impressive though. Really can't be described.
Barcelona has been nice. We went to the beach yesterday, it was very windy. Some surfers, windsurfers, kite-boarders were all enjoying it. We're looking into signing up for language classes again. We learned so much from them that we want to keep going and going. That's all for now I guess.

Bilbao Bridge

2005-11-06T17:34:19Z

Imagen 049_resize
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

We uploaded a lot of pictures today. Some leftovers from San Sebastian, all of: Bilbao, Madrid, and a bit of Barcelona. You can find them all at our flickr account, I'll be posting details of the photos later.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danasonia

danasonia @ 2005-11-03T21:23:00

2005-11-03T20:23:55Z

That's right I said Museo del Jamon. As in Museum of Ham.

Hey hey hey

2005-11-03T20:23:14Z

Tomorrow is our last day of Spanish classes for a bit. We're going to Barcelona tomorrow night. We're going to take the night train. Back to the beaches.

We went to the Museo del Prado today. The Museo del Jamon was yesterday. Some interesting old stuff at the Prado. Saw a bunch of paintings by "El Greco," Goya, one Rembrandt, and a bunch of other paintings of Jesus being put through the standard tortures... There were also a bunch of nice statues: both marble and bronze.

Madrid is a nice city, but it is landlocked. I miss the water.

Joltin' Joe has left and gone away.

Madrid

2005-11-02T20:31:16Z

Well, we've been taking Spanish classes, homework and everything. The classes are going well, but they are not easy. My class is all in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish obviously, but they are pretty good at explaining things. In Spanish. I'm actually learning a lot. The class is divided into three sections. Grammar and Conversion are connected in the morning from 10AM to 1PM and then a "survival Spanish" class from 1:30PM to 3:00PM. Four and a half hours of spanish class a day requires a lot of intake.

We've also been hanging out with some Australians we met here at the hostel. This city never sleeps. There are still long lines to get into dance clubs at six in the morning. There is a whole economy built around it too. Walking around our neighborhood at four in the morning there were people all over the place selling sandwiches, candy, and little bowls of rice with meat on the sidewalks. Also, there doesn't seem to be as much drugs. Clothing is interesting too. At the dance clubs people seem to dress much more conservatively than in the States. Except the bartenders... they weren't wearing shirts.

We went to the local flea market on Sunday. Um... Wow. It seemed to go on for miles and miles over a large section of the city. You couldn't choose what stalls you looked at either, you just had to flow in the river of people. We forgot the camera.

Dana does the Flamenco

2005-10-29T17:15:52Z

That's right our first night in Madrid we were enjoying a flamenco show when Dana was pulled on stage for a group lesson. After two Amestel´s he put on a great show. I´m sorry to say that there no photos. But I will remember forever.

Madrid

2005-10-29T17:05:16Z

Sonia and I are in Madrid now. We're staying in a hostel in what seems like Times Square (I've only been in Times Square once, but Sonia agrees). Madrid is big. We've walked around a bit of it now, haven't been to the myriad museums yet, but the big park is nice. Their metro is nice, if a bit dirtier than Bilbao's.

Bilbao. I still have more to say about that city. They have spent a LOT of money on that city recently. They have a brand new subway system, new trams around the city too. They have tons of new bridges and nifty art centers (museums, concert halls, theaters, etc.). I can't believe the amount of nice and pretty new construction there. Also... on Wednesday it was 31 Celsius (that's 88 Fahrenheit). I like Bilbao. It is like they took Seattle; built functional formS (stress on plural) of public transportation, put parks and bike paths all over the city (you can walk a park from most destinations to most destinations), and gave it nice weather.

Back to Madrid though. We just signed up for intensive Spanish classes. 3-4 hours a day. Tuesday is a holiday though, so no class then. I can't wait to see what the holiday is like here. All Saint's Day in a Catholic country should be interesting.

danasonia @ 2005-10-26T22:23:00

2005-10-26T20:24:44Z

Walked all over Bilbao today. The locals call it Bilbo. Heh.

Went to a Families of the World photography exhibit by National Geographic. They took pictures of one family each from a broad range of countries. The pictures were interesting because the families took all their belongings outside their homes to pose for the picture. For the U.S. they chose a family from Texas.

Then we walked to the the Maritime Museum. There were some boats in the old dry-dock on display: an old tug, a couple fishing boats, a rescue boat, and a sailing racer from 93. The old pumphouse for pumping water out of the dry-dock had been restored. And there was a crazy boat/contraption still in the water, but the plaque was missing, don´t know what it was.

Then we walked past the old topless ladies sunbathing on the docks as we walked upriver. There is a long long stretch of park along the river there. A park attached to this park had a cool fountain that had the nozzles timed to the music they had playing. First song we heard was a remix of the 2001 Space Odyssey theme. Continued in the park along the river past the Guggenheim (this is not a short walk). Then onto a nifty pedestrian bridge. (There were more pedestrian bridges than car bridges in this town.) Once across the river we took the funicular up a steep steep hill to look back down at the town from a park up there.

Back down the funicular and along the river again (other side this time) to the odl part of town and our room for a late lunch and a nap. Oh yeah, we went to (supposedly) the largest public food market in Europe this morning to get breakfast and lunch fixings. So many butcher shops, fish shops, vegetable/fruit shops. One butcher shop we saw had a bunch of smiling pig heads on the counter, a bunch had "cute" tasty animals hanging up all over. The whole bottom floor of the market was for the fish (to contain the aroma I'm sure). It was interesting, all the fish sellers were female. Sonia said it looked like some of them were cursing themselves for marrying a fisherman as they chopped up stinky fish with giant cleavers for customers.

danasonia @ 2005-10-26T22:21:00

2005-10-26T20:12:04Z

Posted some backdated entries today:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/danasonia/4514.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/danasonia/4694.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/danasonia/5075.html

San Sebastian

2005-10-23T18:05:02Z

Wow San Sebastian sure is beautiful, but strange. A few things we observed:
Mullets.
Hamburgers being eaten with fork and knife.
Pizza eaten with a little piece of card board shaped like a slice.
And lots of prams.

Well on to the next town. I hope for better hair cuts.

Photos

2005-10-20T18:16:02Z

Just a friendly reminder that you can view more photos of our travels at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danasonia

Ciao

San Sebastian's Island

2005-10-20T18:08:03Z

San Sebastian's Island
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

We walked up "Mount" Urgull in San Sebastien today. This is a picture from near the top. We took this picture in the park that is the whole "mountain." About 20 feet below us (in the park mind you) is a tiny bar. Complete with beer. Different cultures sometimes are nice.

Sonia Hydrates

2005-10-20T18:03:27Z

Sonia Hydrates
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

Keeping hydrated is very important. Also, we went to San Sebastien by train today and walked all over the old part of town.

The Empire of the Dead

2005-10-20T18:02:29Z

The Empire of the Dead
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

Tuesday:
We went to the Moulin Rouge today. Then things took on a darker note. We went to the Père Lachaise Cemetary to peer at the graves. Jim Morrison was buried there along with many other famous folk. His grave had armed guards last time I was there, this time a fence. Someone hasn't been paying their bills. Then we went down. Down to the Catacombs. Millions upon millions of skulls and other piled ones. Supposed to be over 6 million dead re-buried there. Not really buried though. The bones are all piled up in old Limestone mines, sometimes the skulls are arranged into patterns and the like. Creepy is not a strong word here, there are no words that strong. Yikes.

danasonia @ 2005-10-19T00:22:00

2005-10-18T22:26:00Z

Posted a couple back-dated entries, more coming soon. Tomorrow we catch a train to San Sebastien (well, a train to Irun and then another to San Sebastien). We'll be in Spain tomorrow. Maybe their keyboards won't be so wacky.

Sacré Coeur

2005-10-13T11:38:41Z

Sacré Coeur
Originally uploaded by Dana & Sonia.

We made it safe and sound. The flight wasn't too long. This picture is from our first day in Paris; if you look hard enough you can see the Eifel Tower in the background.

We started with a french breakfast at Sonia's aunt and uncle's house. Then we took the train into the city and got off at the Arc de Triomphe. We walked down the Champs Elysées to the Louvre. Then across the river to the Rive Gauche. Then to Pont Neuf and Notre Dame. Then took the Metro up to Sacré Coeur. We had a snack there and climbed the endless strairs to the top of the dome, taking this picture on the way back down. Then we ate crepes and drank wine in a piano bar in Montmartre near Sacré Coeur. After dinner there were a bunch of people hanging out on the steps of the basilica and we sat there a bit before heading down to the Metro again to ride to the Eifel Tower to see its flashing lights on the hour of 9pm. Then it was walking up to the Palais Chaillot to watch the Eifel Tower again at 10pm before heading back to the Metro stop there to ride to the RER train station to head back to Patrick and Jackie's (Sonia's uncle and aunt) for sleeping and soothing blisters.