¡Hola!
I hope everyone is doing alright today.
its been awhile since the last one, so some things will be skipped. sorry, thats how it goes sometimes.
lisbon was a great place. my day trip to Sintra for a castle and a palace turned out beautiful but had a crazy amount of walking--sometimes signs are made only for people in cars and not for people walking. but the however many uphill kilometers through the forest was worth it. the next day, back in lisbon, i relaxed at the oceanarium. favorite animal: the manta ray. it was cool to see it and not have to swim my heart out to keep up with it (as in fiji). although, the rockhopper penguin was a close second. the cute little guy really does just hop all around, and for his size, he makes some pretty big jumps.
so, then it was lagos...i'm not exactly sure what i can say (there's going to be a few details missing) about my extended-by-one-day stay (for a total of 3 nights) at the hostel called Rising Cock--one symbol of portugal is a black rooster, which the hostel has a live one as a sort of mascot, and they just kind of played with the name a bit. out of all the places i have stayed, i have never seen anything like this hostel. first of all, the people are the most open, nicest people in one hostel. by the second day, it was one big family that you could talk to anyone about anything. the days consisted of the beach. and thats it. the nights....were long.... on the last night a group of us were going to go to the beach to see the moon and the ocean, but on the way there we ran into someone that said, "hey, its portugals independence day at midnight. there's a fado concert and fireworks." that was a nice surprise and ran into even more people at the concert. the firework show had the oddest selection of music i've ever heard for that kind of shindig. i laughed so much that night that in the morning it felt like somebody punched me in the ribs (which could have been possible).
the three nights were good, but it was the kind of place where, when you leave, you run as fast as you can. the bus to seville, spain (sevilla) flew by because i talked with three awesome french people (they were also at the same hostel, we were sort of roommates). i don't think i'm ever going to forget sevilla and it was a perfect introduction to spain. the sights are beautiful--a cathedral that makes you feel like an ant, and a palace that takes hours to explore--and you can feel the culture in the people walking the streets. definitely one of my favorites, but again, a good place depends on a lot of other things and this one had people. the best kind of people.
time for a siesta! with the siesta, spain may beat out portugal in coolness. although, there is no list. really, i just like siestas. i guess its a holiday weekend in spain this weekend (meaning thursday to sunday, and a bit of wednesday), which means i need all the sleep i can find. you eat dinner here at 10pm and go out at 12. crazy spain. tomorrow i'll be going to madrid for a few days and then its valencia for my birthday! (4 may) i don't know what it is going to be like, but i'm easily amused so i won't worry to much about it.
have a good day
your friend
chad
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Monday, April 18, 2005
Bom Dia!
ciao a tutti!
Bom Dia! (hello)
i am in love with portugal. i've only been here a few days but i know i will want to stay longer. the only problem is that i have been having difficulties finding rooms. i guess april is the month for schools from everywhere to take over all hostels. it kind of sucks because if (and thats usually a tough if) i can get in, the environment is quite different. so, the solution (as to not sleep in too many train or bus stations) was to book way in advance. i'm not a huge fan of this because it makes things a lot less flexible, but, oh well.
i don't know why, but portugal just feels really good to be in. every interaction is always fun and full of smiles--if we are able to understand each other or not, it doesn't matter). yesterday i tried to catch some sort of musical concert thing, i don't really know what it was, the paper was all in portugese; it turned out to be a few more miles away than i thought. i came much too late, but the place it was at was full of art and music. the people that really know me, know that i like the acoustic meaningful music, and portugal caught on to the cool acoustic music trend quite a long time ago. (for anyone that has seen The Life Aquatic, those david bowe songs sung in portugese--thats the kind of music that is all around. it even has its own name--"Fado").
the fun part of portugal is that most of the streets are nearly parallel. key word being "nearly." so, when you think you are just one street off of where you need to be, depending on time walked, you could actually be far, far from where you want to be. on saturday night, in porto, i tried to get to an irish pub to watch the local soccer game. i walked in the door just as they turned the tv off, due to my tardiness from a 4 kilometer detour. no worries though, about 10 minutes later some guy with a guitar started playing good portugese music.
i did a few days in porto and now im in lisbon (lisboa) for a few more days to do some day trips to different towns around here, and then i'll go to the southern coast for some beach towns. then its spain! i was thinking about going to morocco for a day or two, but i have decided against it. vatican city and san marino (both incredibly small countries) are one thing to go to just to say, "yeah, i went to those 'countries'." but i think my real reason of wanting to go to morocco is to say "yeah, i went to africa." thats a lame reason, so i'll wait and do a proper visit later.
i wish i could write more about how cool portugal is, but my internet time is up.
have a good day
your friend
chad
Bom Dia! (hello)
i am in love with portugal. i've only been here a few days but i know i will want to stay longer. the only problem is that i have been having difficulties finding rooms. i guess april is the month for schools from everywhere to take over all hostels. it kind of sucks because if (and thats usually a tough if) i can get in, the environment is quite different. so, the solution (as to not sleep in too many train or bus stations) was to book way in advance. i'm not a huge fan of this because it makes things a lot less flexible, but, oh well.
i don't know why, but portugal just feels really good to be in. every interaction is always fun and full of smiles--if we are able to understand each other or not, it doesn't matter). yesterday i tried to catch some sort of musical concert thing, i don't really know what it was, the paper was all in portugese; it turned out to be a few more miles away than i thought. i came much too late, but the place it was at was full of art and music. the people that really know me, know that i like the acoustic meaningful music, and portugal caught on to the cool acoustic music trend quite a long time ago. (for anyone that has seen The Life Aquatic, those david bowe songs sung in portugese--thats the kind of music that is all around. it even has its own name--"Fado").
the fun part of portugal is that most of the streets are nearly parallel. key word being "nearly." so, when you think you are just one street off of where you need to be, depending on time walked, you could actually be far, far from where you want to be. on saturday night, in porto, i tried to get to an irish pub to watch the local soccer game. i walked in the door just as they turned the tv off, due to my tardiness from a 4 kilometer detour. no worries though, about 10 minutes later some guy with a guitar started playing good portugese music.
i did a few days in porto and now im in lisbon (lisboa) for a few more days to do some day trips to different towns around here, and then i'll go to the southern coast for some beach towns. then its spain! i was thinking about going to morocco for a day or two, but i have decided against it. vatican city and san marino (both incredibly small countries) are one thing to go to just to say, "yeah, i went to those 'countries'." but i think my real reason of wanting to go to morocco is to say "yeah, i went to africa." thats a lame reason, so i'll wait and do a proper visit later.
i wish i could write more about how cool portugal is, but my internet time is up.
have a good day
your friend
chad
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
lamb and pickles
ciao!
i hope everyone had a good weekend.
the transitions in croatia have been sudden and crazy. one minute i'm having a great conversation with an english traveler on the boat from hvar to split. less than 15 minutes later, drinking some strange juice, i'm having a much more awkward conversation in the home of a croatian family that i will be sleeping at for the night.
they took really good care of me there including feeding me. this normally would be a good thing. not quite so this time: boiled rack of lamb (so its kind of a dead fleshy grey color) and pickles--all moments before my overnight bus ride to trieste, italy. i'm not the best at eating meat with a high fat content (something about the texture of it)...naturally lamb has a lot of fat. i'm sorry to say, i gagged once but was able to cover it up by acting like i was choking from eating too fast.
i wasn't feeling too well on the bus. luckily i got on the wrong one, and an hour later they dropped me off in the middle of croatia and told me to wait a half an hour for my real bus to arrive. that gave me time to mellow out my mind and body (and digest the lamb and pickles). the rest of the ride went much smoother.
i enjoyed my i-can-understand-everything hour in italy, only to catch a bus back into i-don't-understand-anything slovenia to visit piran, a cool town by the sea. about the same time some wicked wind from the north brought frigid air and waves that broke all of the chairs at the restaraunts on the sea. the wind even has a slovenian name (that means it must not be good) so i'll be happy to go to portugal where they have no knowledge of this wind.
today i went to the skocjanske caves with an american girl i met at breakfast. i'm so glad i went because they were everything that i would want cool caves to be. it looked like it was straight out of indiana jones. there were massive caverns, a great path through them that gave crazy perspectives on the size of everything, and a powerful river going through one of them. re-reading this, it all sounds not that exciting, but trust me on this one. these caves, that i cannot pronounce, receive my "coolest caves in the world(that i've seen)" award even with 3 more months left of my travels. its just going to be too hard to compete.
i fly to portugal on the 15th from trieste, but the hostel is booked for a group tomorrow so i've got to go somewhere. i think i'll head to trieste on the bus and if i see a place that looks good (this usually means a sign that has the word "hostel" on it), then i'll get off and stay there.
have a good day
your friend
chad
i hope everyone had a good weekend.
the transitions in croatia have been sudden and crazy. one minute i'm having a great conversation with an english traveler on the boat from hvar to split. less than 15 minutes later, drinking some strange juice, i'm having a much more awkward conversation in the home of a croatian family that i will be sleeping at for the night.
they took really good care of me there including feeding me. this normally would be a good thing. not quite so this time: boiled rack of lamb (so its kind of a dead fleshy grey color) and pickles--all moments before my overnight bus ride to trieste, italy. i'm not the best at eating meat with a high fat content (something about the texture of it)...naturally lamb has a lot of fat. i'm sorry to say, i gagged once but was able to cover it up by acting like i was choking from eating too fast.
i wasn't feeling too well on the bus. luckily i got on the wrong one, and an hour later they dropped me off in the middle of croatia and told me to wait a half an hour for my real bus to arrive. that gave me time to mellow out my mind and body (and digest the lamb and pickles). the rest of the ride went much smoother.
i enjoyed my i-can-understand-everything hour in italy, only to catch a bus back into i-don't-understand-anything slovenia to visit piran, a cool town by the sea. about the same time some wicked wind from the north brought frigid air and waves that broke all of the chairs at the restaraunts on the sea. the wind even has a slovenian name (that means it must not be good) so i'll be happy to go to portugal where they have no knowledge of this wind.
today i went to the skocjanske caves with an american girl i met at breakfast. i'm so glad i went because they were everything that i would want cool caves to be. it looked like it was straight out of indiana jones. there were massive caverns, a great path through them that gave crazy perspectives on the size of everything, and a powerful river going through one of them. re-reading this, it all sounds not that exciting, but trust me on this one. these caves, that i cannot pronounce, receive my "coolest caves in the world(that i've seen)" award even with 3 more months left of my travels. its just going to be too hard to compete.
i fly to portugal on the 15th from trieste, but the hostel is booked for a group tomorrow so i've got to go somewhere. i think i'll head to trieste on the bus and if i see a place that looks good (this usually means a sign that has the word "hostel" on it), then i'll get off and stay there.
have a good day
your friend
chad
Thursday, April 07, 2005
bullet holes, hypothermia, and a sunburn
ciao everyone!
i hope april has been enjoyable for everyone.
croatia has turned out to be one of my favorite places yet. after a wicked 23 hours of bus and train travel with a quick stop in bosnia, i ended up in dubrovnik (its a city near the bottom of croatia). its hard to say now because its too soon after being there, but it may just be my favorite city in the world (so far). but then again, its always hard to fairly judge a city because the people you meet there count for so much.
it was great being at a hostel again. i hung out with one of my roommates for nearly the whole time there: Urban, a cool swedish snowboarder traveler. i'm really glad he was there because our other roommate "old man," didn't get along with either of us. we had a bit of communication difficulties.
its a bit difficult to describe why dubrovnik is one of my favorite places. its just perfectly beautiful. a small walled "old town" with marble streets and red tile roofs...all right on the sea. the first day urban and i walked the top of the city walls for a few hours and then climbed a mountain to see an old fort where a lot of fighting happened in the early 90s. it was really strange up there because they just left it after the fighting, so you can explore the building and imagine what it was like. the best part was bullet holes and the ends of each hallway and on one side a desk turned on its side, to be used as a shield, with more bullet holes. it was like walking onto a movie set but creepy because it was real.
the next day was relaxation day with some time at the beach. we asked an english family if it was alright if we left our stuff with them while we swam, which turned into them adopting us for the rest of our time there. it was great because the oldest daughter traveled in thailand and australia, so her family understood how things were for us. it was one mom, three daughters and one friend of the youngest daughter. my favorite moment at the beach was a competition between Urban (aged 27) and the friend of the youngest daughter (aged 14) of who can stay in the water (ice cold water) the longest. i think Urban did the right thing by walking out of the water first, only because i'm pretty sure hypothermia was setting in for both of them. his core body temperature dropped a bit because he was still shaking about 25 minutes later. that night we (Urban, me and the english family) went to an irish pub and talked for about 6 hours. they are some good people--and incredibly honest with each other. I'll be visiting them in england someday.
After such a good day, urban and i decided to stay another and visit an island just off of dubrovnik. i guess he's also into rockclimbing so we took the long way around. there's a nude beach (although, in my mind beach implies sand, which this place had none. only big rocky levels). i think we scared the crap out of the one naked man on the island because we weren't on the look out for naked people (the water is freezing!). he was on the boat back, but fully clothed and sunburned. i think we had a moment of "oh, you're the naked guy" and "oh, you're the ones that snuck up on me." One more night at the irish pub, but with even more random people. it started to feel like dubrovnik was getting to be a home.
Urban left in the morning for montenegro and i went to the beach (the non-nude one just outside of the wall) where i met amy and jess (two of the daughters). it was a great last day of dubrovnik.
for the past three days, i've been on islands off of croatia: korcula and hvar. in korcula i got an amazing room in someones house that was right on the sea and had the best view of the old town at sunset, and it was only about 1.75$ more than the one that looked at a wall--probably my most well spent 3.50 of the trip (i stayed two nights). tonight i go to a city called Split for a night and then its another overnight bus to Trieste, italy. i think it is easier to get there and then go back to Slovenia to see Piran. i'm not sure really, i just point at the map and they point at a bus.
i'm happy i chose to go to slovenia and croatia. slovenia was exactly what i was hoping for and croatia was probably the coolest surprise country of the trip (so far).
well, have a good day.
your friend
chad
i hope april has been enjoyable for everyone.
croatia has turned out to be one of my favorite places yet. after a wicked 23 hours of bus and train travel with a quick stop in bosnia, i ended up in dubrovnik (its a city near the bottom of croatia). its hard to say now because its too soon after being there, but it may just be my favorite city in the world (so far). but then again, its always hard to fairly judge a city because the people you meet there count for so much.
it was great being at a hostel again. i hung out with one of my roommates for nearly the whole time there: Urban, a cool swedish snowboarder traveler. i'm really glad he was there because our other roommate "old man," didn't get along with either of us. we had a bit of communication difficulties.
its a bit difficult to describe why dubrovnik is one of my favorite places. its just perfectly beautiful. a small walled "old town" with marble streets and red tile roofs...all right on the sea. the first day urban and i walked the top of the city walls for a few hours and then climbed a mountain to see an old fort where a lot of fighting happened in the early 90s. it was really strange up there because they just left it after the fighting, so you can explore the building and imagine what it was like. the best part was bullet holes and the ends of each hallway and on one side a desk turned on its side, to be used as a shield, with more bullet holes. it was like walking onto a movie set but creepy because it was real.
the next day was relaxation day with some time at the beach. we asked an english family if it was alright if we left our stuff with them while we swam, which turned into them adopting us for the rest of our time there. it was great because the oldest daughter traveled in thailand and australia, so her family understood how things were for us. it was one mom, three daughters and one friend of the youngest daughter. my favorite moment at the beach was a competition between Urban (aged 27) and the friend of the youngest daughter (aged 14) of who can stay in the water (ice cold water) the longest. i think Urban did the right thing by walking out of the water first, only because i'm pretty sure hypothermia was setting in for both of them. his core body temperature dropped a bit because he was still shaking about 25 minutes later. that night we (Urban, me and the english family) went to an irish pub and talked for about 6 hours. they are some good people--and incredibly honest with each other. I'll be visiting them in england someday.
After such a good day, urban and i decided to stay another and visit an island just off of dubrovnik. i guess he's also into rockclimbing so we took the long way around. there's a nude beach (although, in my mind beach implies sand, which this place had none. only big rocky levels). i think we scared the crap out of the one naked man on the island because we weren't on the look out for naked people (the water is freezing!). he was on the boat back, but fully clothed and sunburned. i think we had a moment of "oh, you're the naked guy" and "oh, you're the ones that snuck up on me." One more night at the irish pub, but with even more random people. it started to feel like dubrovnik was getting to be a home.
Urban left in the morning for montenegro and i went to the beach (the non-nude one just outside of the wall) where i met amy and jess (two of the daughters). it was a great last day of dubrovnik.
for the past three days, i've been on islands off of croatia: korcula and hvar. in korcula i got an amazing room in someones house that was right on the sea and had the best view of the old town at sunset, and it was only about 1.75$ more than the one that looked at a wall--probably my most well spent 3.50 of the trip (i stayed two nights). tonight i go to a city called Split for a night and then its another overnight bus to Trieste, italy. i think it is easier to get there and then go back to Slovenia to see Piran. i'm not sure really, i just point at the map and they point at a bus.
i'm happy i chose to go to slovenia and croatia. slovenia was exactly what i was hoping for and croatia was probably the coolest surprise country of the trip (so far).
well, have a good day.
your friend
chad
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