France is off. At least for now. I may not be able to get to Fontgombault for Easter, which would really suck. I guess if that happened I would just go to Norcia and see Father Andrew. I mean Benedictines are Benedictines, right?

If you haven´t heard, there are huge strikes going on right now in France, and most of them have to do with public transportation. This means my rail pass is virtually useless right now because to get to another country from Spain by ground, you have to pass through France. I will be taking a boat instead from Barcelona to Rome tonight instead. I leave at 7 and get there at 3 in the afternoon.

The French really piss me off. It seems like a beautiful place, but I am starting to think I wouldn´t like most the people.

Seville, March 10th - March 13th

Seville was simply amazing. As soon as I got off of the bus from Faro in Seville at night I knew i was going to love the city. There were people everywhere, and that included dark skinned, dark-haired, light-eyed senoritas. Ahhh. Not to mention the fact that I was now in a country where I could communicate decently in the native language.

I met Jared the following night at the train station, but I showed up about an hour late because I forgot to move my watch ahead when I entered Spain. Typical. But luckily we found each other. Our hostel was located in an old Jewish quarter of the city, and we had to go through some cool back alleys to get there. Jared was hungry so we went out for some tapas and beer at a very popular place, Cafe Levies, and ate out in the plaza. The weather was great, and Jared constantly pointed that out. He liked it, but also felt a bit guilty that Maria was back in Austria, where it was snowing.

Highlights to come.

Hey all,
Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but internet is expensive here in Barcelona. I had a great Birthday and wil be heading to Provence, France tomorrow. I am alive and well.
Cheers!

March 9th-
I wake up bright and early at 7:30, and the city is already awake. I get up and packed as quickly as possible so that no one sees me there. I made my way over toward the cathedral, and arrived there right as Mass was beginning. After that I grabbed some much needed espresso before heading to the Chapel of Bones. This place was built in 1810, but somehow wasn´t discovered until the 1950´s. There was an inscription over the door way that read, ¨Your bones will be joining our bones soon.¨ The walls and pillars of the chapel were lined with the bones of 5,000 monks! I have no idea how they got around the whole idea of a body needing to be buried in the ground, or respect for the dead. The place was insane. The walls were mainly lined with what looked like humerus amd femur bones, while the pillars had the skulls, and some smaler bones. I took a bunch of photos, so I will post them soon.

I went back to the center square after that. There were 3 kids walking around in police uniforms with a local cop. They were under 10, I am guessing. I took a photo of them, and you can see it if you scroll down a bit. They are all saluting, but only the girl is doing it right. The boy in the middle is doing a German salute or something, and the boy on the right is using his left arm. I think the boy on the right had down syndrome, and it made me think of my twin brothers and laugh when I saw him.

I hopped on the afternoon train to Faro from there. I was met at the train staion by an old couple who ran a local hostel, so I took them up on their offer for a room. I dropped my baggage off and went to call Jared from a payphone. In between calls to Jared, I was asked by a little Irish guy if I had a light. He was clearly intoxicated, but seemed like a good guy. I told him I didn´t. He heard that I spoke English and proceeded to ask me if I´m Canadian. I laughed and asked him if he was British. We ended up talking for a while, and he even bought me some beers. His name was Brendan, and he was from Kilarney. He was only 22 (I thought he was about 26) and had made some decent money in real estate investments. He was also travelling solo through Portugal, so we ended up hanging out for a bit. He was cool, and even let me use his phone to call Jared again.

About an hour after I met Brendan, some local drunk pops up and starts talking to us. He had a typical French accent and his name was Geoffrey. He was quite old, problably around 60. He was drinking port straight from the bottle (classic) and he kept referring to it as "nitro-glycerine." He offered us some of it. Brendan accepted, but I declined, as I had no idea where this guy came from. It turned out that Geoffrey was from Brittany, and had served in the French Legion in India. He was still quite strong, and had the tendency to get a bit close, so that you could clearly smell the port on his breath. Brendan, it turned out, was an amateur boxer, and he kept telling me to keep Geoffrey at a "left-arm´s length" or else "he´s liable to head butt you like THAT!" he kept repeating as he showed me the motion it would involve. I wasn´t really worried about this guy doing anything like that, as he was quite a joyful drunk. I stood there wondering what a sight we must be to those passing by. A drunk Irishman, a drunk old local with a strong French accent, and me, a, for the most part, sober American. Not your typical gathering.

Brendan wanted to go to a bar so we left Geoffrey and headed in that direction. We came across one and went in. I ordered 2 beers from a pretty cure bartendress, and sat down at a table. Brendan returned from the restroom and joined me there. He started drinking and noticed the bartender. "She´s really cute!" he said, and I would catch him staring at her every couple minutes just totally spaced out. When he noticed me laughing at him, he told me that he was definitely in love with her. We started talking and it was obvious that he was a man ruled by his passions. He told me that he felt that if he didn´t chase after everything he saw that he liked, that would likely be his greatest regret later on. He even called himself a player. During this conversation he called the bartendress over and oredered 2 brandies and a coke, I think just so that the waitress woudl have to come over. But then quickly after that he spilled his beer, so she had to come over and clean it up. I don´t think that one was intended. He started talking about happiness, so I busted out a little Nichomachean Ethics on him about virtue and happiness. He followed for a while, but I think he was pretty engrained in current ways, plus he was a bit drunk, so I don´t think he wanted to talk about that. Who knows though, maybe it will pop up in his head at some point in the future. He invited the bartendress to go to a club next door, but she had classes the next day so she said no. He stuck around around and ordered an espresso as we were leaving, so I decided to head back to the hostel.

March 8th-
I decided it was time to leave Lisbon. Before I left the states, a friend told me that I should go to a place just because I liked the name. I had heard some people talking about a place called Evora, so I thought I would check it out. I had to take a late train and then a bus to get there, but it wasn´t too bad since it was sort of on the way to Faro, which is where I wanted to go next. I stopped at a supermarket and grabbed some salami, Brie, bread, and, of course, a 1 liter bottle of Portugal´s own Super Bock for the train ride. The beer definitely made the trip fly by.

I get near the town at about 9pm, and I enter the actual city. See, the main part of the city, or the old quarter, is walled. I had looked into the town before leaving to make sure there were hostels there, and there was supposedly a pretty cheap one there. So I´m walking around this town late at night, and I come across the place where this hostel is supposed to be. Of course it isn´t actually there. It´s an apartment complex now. Dejected, I start looking for another place to sleep. I find another hostel, but they are full, on a Wednesday for some reason. They direct me to another hostel nearby, so I head over. Of course this one is booked solid as well! I have no idea what is going on in this small town (pop. 40,000) that would cause this. I did notice that there were a lot of people in the streets for it being so late in this place, and that was at about 11. I then realized that there was a Portugal vs Liverpool game going on, and everyone has their TV´s on. I still don´t see how this would have affected the city, since it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. But then at about 1am waves and waves of people start coming back into the city, perhaps from larger bars outside the walled area.

By this point I had already given up on finding a hostel, and I had found a small area in front of a museum where I could sleep. I pulled out my sleeping bag and crashed there. Unfortunately, pèople kept coming in pretty solidly until at least 2:30, and they were either yelling or honking. I was worried that I was going to be spotted at some point, and I was actually only 100 yards or so from the police station. Eventually my sleepiness overpowered any worries, and I fell asleep. Nothing ended up happening to me during the night, thank God. It was actually pretty fun, and i saved about 25€.

There are some photos of the train ride, the market, and a photo of the old Roman Temple there, if you scroll down.

I came across these kids in Evora. They were accompanying a local police officer and were dressed the same as he. I love this photo. I´ll explain why when I get to a post about Evora.
 

This is the ruins of the Roman Temple of Diana, with the Tower of the Cathedral in the back. This was in Evora.
 

I don´t know what Tamboril is, but, quite frankly, I don´t really want to.
 

This is what 10€ gets you in Portugal.
 

It may have been a second class car, but it felt like I was travelling first. Super Bock:Portugal´s finest. Only 1€ too.
 

The tomb of some patron of the Monasteiro
 

Baptismal Font at Monasteiro Jeronimos in Lisbon
 

3 of the 5
 

Port tasting in Porto.
 

looks liek my time is up for now. I will try and get back to present date by tomorrow. Once again this place won´t let me upload photos, so I apologize.

So I have not had the time or access to be able to update this everyday, so I will quickly catch everyone up to speed.

March 6th- I went to Fatima. I took a 2 hour bus ride there from Lisbon. The place is, as you expect, way too touristy, with souvenir shops everywhere. I saw the place where our Lady appeared. The chapel was nice and they have the 3 tombs of the visionaries in there so that was really cool. 2 of them are blessed (the 3rd isn´t becaused she died only last year.) For the most part though, it didn´t live up to the expectations I had for it. And they are building one of the ugliest, most modern churches right there. It is going to be huge, and looks like a sports arena. I did get to go to confession in English, though, so that was a blessing. I am not sure if confession is valid if you go in another language, but I don´t see why it wouldn´t be. Plus this priest´s englsih wasn´t too good. I think I could have told him I killed someone and he would have given me the same penance. I went back to Lisbon at about 8 and walked around a bit before going to bed.

March 7th- I took a train to a local little gem called Sintra. It is only 45 minutes away by train, but it looks like a totally different place. It was all foggy when I got there, but you could still see a pretty good distance. The town was spread out, lush, and large old mansions dotted the mountainside. I went into the National Palace, which was the nicest I had seen so far. This is where I took the photo of the blonde, so that whole adventure made the tour quite memorable. After that I hiked about 2 miles up a twisty mountain road. The fog made the walk very pleasant and was a nice complement to the greenery that was all around. The point of this hike was to reach a palace, the Palace da Pena, which was at the top of a large hill. Unfortunately I couldn´t see the great panoramic view from the top because it was so foggy. I couldn´t even see the tops of the towers from the entrance to the palace. They had kept the rooms original, and even had original furniture in them. This palace definitely had more of a medievil feel to it than the last. After that i went back to town via a different route and checked out some Moorish Castle ruins. The castle was used to defend the area back in the 11th century. The walls were still well intact.

This is for Josh, regarding his comment earlier.

Josh,
I went to a palace right after I read your comment on the blog, and I laughed to myself when I saw her. I believe this is what you were looking for. I am rather pleased with the outcome since 1)There was no photography allowed inside, 2)She was with a tour guide (on the right), and 3) I obviously could not let her see that I was taking a picture of her. ThereforeI had to take the picture from my chest, which is where the camera was hanging. I couldn´t even tell if she was in frame or not. It´s a tad blurry because I couldn´t use a flash, but it´s pretty good considering. Enjoy!

PS She was from Italy, just so you know.
PPS I am not sure if she is your type, since she is more like the blonde from Wicker Park than that brunette. lol.

March 5th, 2006

My bottle of port is half empty, or half full. I haven´t decided which yet. Let´s just agree that it is at the half-way mark.

I had no idea what time the local Sunday Masses were, or even where exactly the nearest church was. But with all the churches in Europe I just said a prayer and headed in one direction. I ended up finding a church and walked in right as Mass started, the only one of th day at that church.

After that I caught a bus to the west end of town, where the main cathedral is. It is called Mosteiro de Jeronimos, and it also served as a cloister back in the day. This was by far the largest cathedral I have ever seen, and it was impressive all around. I took some photos but I don´t think they do it justice. I didn´t know this, but I found out that Lisbon was the wealthiest city in Europe, up until Spain took it over for 90 years beginning in 1580. That 90 years crippled the spirit of the Portuguese, and I guess they were never able to fully recover.



I stopped in to a famous local cafe for some of their Pasteis de Nata, a local pastry specialty. I must say they were quite tasty, especially with a good espresso. I went out to wait at the bus stop. Right as I finished reading the map, I turned around, only to see a local girl about my age get nailed by a water balloon. Apparently it was thrown from a passing car. Reminded me of my younger years when my brother and I would do the same thing. I guess I avoided Karma´s attempt at balance this time. I have a feeling it was aimed at me, but I thnk right after they threw it I moved aside. I felt bad for the girl though, it was not your normal sized water balloon.

Today I was again offered more hash, and twice it was that little shizer from yesterday. Apparently all the drugs this guy does heavily affect his short-term memory. I mean come on. Unfortunately, this would not be the last time my little friend and I would meet.

Back to the room for some more port and Brothers K.

March 4th, 2006

It was overcast once again. We met up for a quick breakfast downstairs and then packed up our room. We arrived at the train station with plenty of time to spare. As we were waiting we both noticed a cute Portuguese girl standing and smoking by herself. Jonathan made some comment about double checking what track our train was leaving from. He walked over in her direction, glancing back over his shoulder and giving me a sly smile. The advantages of speaking Portuguese, I suppose.

The train ride was pleasant but uneventful. We passed through some nice towns but, for the most part, it was green hills. Jonathan exited at Coimbra as planned and I stayed on for 2 more hours.

I boarded a bus to Central Lisbon, and right as I stepped off it began to pour. The timing was especially great because I had no clue where my hostel was at this point. I took cover under a canopy at a nearby cafe. I suddenly heard what sounded like someone `shhshing´ me (telling me to be quiet). I turned around and saw this little arab looking at me. Confused, I just kind of stared at him, since I had been making no noise at all. I then realized that he was actually saying `sheesh´or `hashish´, and this was confirmed when he showed it to me in his hand. I told him no and quickly stepped out in to the square. I noticed he was following me, so I grabbed hold of my camera bag and checked to make sure my knife was still on my belt. He popped up beside me, again offering me hash. I refused once again, saying, "I don´t smoke." He then proceeded to offer me cocaine. "No," I replied. "I only drink" I told him as I illustrated the motion with my hand. He smiled a strange smile at me and headed off for good, or so I thought at the time. I found out later that it is legal to posess and use any drug, but it is still illegal to sell it. Makes no sense, but what can you do.

I found my hostel, and it was nice for €15, although not as nice as Porto since there was no breakfast or heating. I went next door to the local store and picked up some cheese, bread, and salami for dinner. On the way back, I was once again offered hash, this time by a different arab. I went up to my room and ate dinner, opened my bottle of port, and read some Brothers K by the window. (Yes, I know it was part of the program, and no, I did not read it then.)
Won´t you join me? I´ll even read it aloud. lol.

March 3rd, 2006

Woke up around 9, and headed down to the hostel´s kitchen for some breakfast. Fresh coffee and some pastries go a long way, and we definitely would need the energy. For, you see, today was our port-tasting adventure! We navigated the now somewhat familiar alley-ways and made our way once again to the river Duoro. However this time we crossed the double decker suspension bridge. It starter to pour on us. It was one of those quick European storms, but man was it coming down hard. Thankfully the new rain jacket I had bought for this trip was doing it´s job. We stopped in at Calem, Fonseca, and Sandeman. We checked out the museums, but decided against tasting at that time, since we wanted to see what port-houses there were along the river, and then stop at the ones we wanted to on the way back (and pay the €3 or €4.)

Graham´s ended up being quite a hike past the others, but I had drank a bottle of their Six Grapes Port a few years ago and was impressed, so I defintiely wanted to see the winery. We made up to the top of the hill and were rewarded with not only a spectacular view of the bridge and Porto across the river, but even the port houses dotting the hillside where we had just passed. In addition to that, the winery was quite pleasing in itself.

We asked for a tour and tasting (Graham´s, by the way, was the only free one we came across.) They didn´t have an English tour starting for a bit, so they asked us to wait. We obliged, and then about 10 minutes later one of the guides came over apologizing that it would be about 10 more minutes. She did not come empty handed handed though. She brought a bottle of white port for us to taste. For a bribe like that I would wait an hour (as long as it came every 10 minutes.) I had never had white port before, but it reminded me of sherry.

Soon enough we were taken on our tour, along with an older couple from London. We learned of the different types of port (white, tawny, ruby) and also about the vintage and reserve ports. I found out that ruby and tawny ports are the same port, but the ruby is just younger and hasn´t changed color yet. Then we felt sufficiently prepared for our tasting. We were given a dryer white port, a Late Bottle Vintage, and a 10 year Tawny. Jonathan was trying to decide if he wanted to buy the regular tawny (which we had not tasted) and the LBV, so he asked the server to bring us some of the tawny too. She obliged, and we decided that I would buy the tawny and he would get the LBV. In the end we had tasted 5 ports, and decided what we needed now was an espresso. We stumbled along the long walk path to the bridge with our new English aquaintances, said goodbye to them, and drank outside along the riverfront. The rain began again, so we rushed back to the hostel for a nice siesta.

We woke up and decided to do a little bar hopping. Now don´t get the wrong idea, Porto is a very quiet city at night, so this was more akin to getting to know the locals than having a crazy time. We decided to have one beer per bar/cafe, and we visited 4 before the night was over. The 2nd, which, like all the bars, we happened to stumble across while wandering, was my favorite by far. We happened to be the only non-locals in there, but the sight of John Paul II and Our Lady of Fatima sitting above the liquor rack made me feel surprisingly comfortable. We ordered our beers at the bar, then sat down at a table in the back room. There were 3 old men sitting in there drinking and playing, what appeared to be, the most energetic game of dominos I have ever seen. Of course this was the one time I had been out of the hostel that I decided not to bring my camera. There would have been some great pictures of these guys.

That was it for the night, and we decided that it would be our final night in Porto. We would catch the 11:30 train, with Jonathan getting off at Coimbra, and me staying on til the last stop, in Lisbon.

Stupid Lisbon with their overpriced internet charges and prehistoric computers with no usb ports (grumble, grumble). And why can´t they just speak Spanish? Actually, the city is very nice, and I am having a good time here. Tomorrow: Fatima, Tuesday: Sintra. I´ll post more when I find a decent/modern internet cafe.

I´ll update these posts with some photos in the morning. I´m going to dinner now. Pierson and Gisla, I responded to your posts in that comments section.

March 2nd, 2006

When I walked into the airport, the first thought that came to my mind was, ¨This looks like a disaster relief area.¨ There were people all over the place, sleeping along every wall, playing soccer, or just talking and laughing. I joined the first group and slpet for about 2 hours. I checked in when the gates opened at 5, and then made the mile long trek to the actual gate, Stansted sucks. I slept the entire flight.

Getting onto the the bus into town, I met a 22 year old German named Jonathan who was also travelling solo. He asked me if I wanted to split a room with him, and I thought to myself ¨when in Rome.¨ We checked out one hostel that was advertised at €9, but it was pretty nasty and she was telling us it was €20 per person. We bid her adieu and headed into the heart of the city. We wandered around for a bit, and spotted a neon sign flashing ¨residencia.¨ The place was very nice. It had a private bathroom, heater, tv, balcony, and even breakfast. At €15 pp, it was a steal.

We dropped off our bags in the room and took off into the city. We were in dire need of some good coffee as we had both had little sleep the night before. He had woken up at 2 to make the flight from Frankfurt. We spotted an espresso shop, and headed in. We both ordered an espresso as well as a local pastry. We sat for a while talking as we drank, and Jonathan rolled cigarettes. I paid my €2 bill, and we headed out. Our next stop was a Church built in the 18th century, which has a tower 76 meters tall, and 225 steps to the top. It is the highest tower in Portugal, as well as the highest point in Porto. The panorama from the top was incredible. At least 10 other churches were visible on the horizon, as well as the Duoro river, the Port Houses, and the Atlantic Ocean.

From there it was on to The Se. This was another church, but had also served as a cloister back in the day. The outside was somewhat deteriorated, but the interior was incredible. I can´t really describe it, as I don´t think I will be able to properly describe any of these amazing European churches.

We headed down to the river, spotted another cafe, and stopped for another espresso. We made our may through the maze of alleyways and happened across a shop where there were 2 men, one young, one old, constucting model wooden ships. We spoke with them for a bit before making our way to the trolley stop. Once on board, we followed the river toward the ocean, and got off where they met. We walked out to the lighthouse, and admired the stormy seas, which Jonathan would soon be at the mercy of when he sails from Lisbon to Belgium in mid-march.

After that it was back to the Hostel, where we quickly passed out.

March 1st, 2006

My hotel room, like many in London, was underground. I woke up at 7:30 so that I could eat breakfast, get to Mass, and then check out in time. I showered and headed upstairs to the lobby for breakfast. Oddly enough though, the restaurant was closed and it was dark outside. Somewhat confused, I slowly made it back to my room. Was it always dark in London at 7:30? I though to myself. I checked the tv when I got back into the room and it said that it was 2:30am. Somehow my watch had been moved ahead 6 hours. I know it had been correct at 5pm the previous evening, and I still have no clue what happened.

I woke at 730. Again. I had been told by someone I met in Santa Barbara the week before I left that I had to go to Mass at the Oratory, so I took that advice and headed out for the mile long walk. It was quite brisk, and ice was scattered on the ground in random, places. After communion I happened to spot Liz Grimm (yes, one of those Grimm's). Actually, her married name is Liz Forrester. Her eyes opened wide as she saw me, and she kind of mouthed ¨what the...¨at me. I met up with her after Mass and she invited me over for dinner that evening. I accepted the offer eventually made my way over there in the evening.

Liz was the only one there, other than the 3 kids. She was making dinner, so I helped blow dry Geoargianna´s hair, and then held Aloysius for the rest of the time. See, I am sooo domisticated. Michael showed up a bit later, as did some of their friends, a married couple: Hugh Guy, and Mary Mae. The dinner was quite tasty for it being Ash Wednesday. We ate soup and some vegetarian dish, with bread. We told stories, jokes, and complained about how ridiculously expensive London is. It was a great time, and I felt very fortunate to have been at the same Mass as Liz that morning (there were 5 that morning at the Oratory).

My flight left for Porto at 6:40 the next morning, and it flew out of Stansted, which is about 2 hours outside of Central London. Liz offered that I could sleep until 2, and then head out, but I decided against it. Michael was kind enough to take me to the coach station, which was 2 miles away. Not even his expired license could keep him from doing what he wanted on those roads, including going the wrong way down a one way street. I jumped on the 11 o´clock bus and slept the majority of the ride to Stansted.