The rought plan is
Madrid then off to Sevilla and then Cordoba, Grenada, and some other place. Then back to Madrid then Barcelona then Paris for xmas!!! YEAH BABY! Then London! WOOT.
I am super excited. I am in process of trying to put of the pictures for like the last five months of my life. Be awhere that I have gotten behind. So, it will take me awhile. I hope that I will have it all done soon. SOON I say...
Till Later,
Patrick L. Cavins
I will writing somenthing in english the most important things just to make sure, you my friends who do not know spanish can follow us.I really apreciated your follow.
Keep in touch.
Inge, I really look forward to seeing you soon in Jakarta, after hardly 8 years. It was a really nice to meet you, London was great on that time, and you was there. Thank you!
See you soon!
So far everything in Barcelona is great. I'm staying in this mansion run by four friends. Pablo who is from Spain, Thijs and Paul who are from Holland and Greg who is from Manchester. The place is really cool. It is sort of like a hostel and mainly fellow couchsurfers are staying here at the moment. Some of the guests and I went to la playa naturalista. It's pretty much the nude beach of Barcelona where all of the tourist that spill off of the cruise lines avoid or don't know about. La playa is really a huge beach party. After that we wandered around Las Ramblas which is the main street here in Barcelona. We missed the train that night because the last train runs at 12a and the first train doesn't start until 5a. It was a long night so I stayed on the beach with my friends Niels and Tina who were catching their bus back home in Denmark at 3. They were really nice and they said I can stay with them if I go to Denmark, so I think I'll take them up on that offer.
Yesterday I walked around Las Ramblas and found some cool little alleyways to explore. I found a small tapas restaurant that is kind of off the beaten path and had a good Catalan meal and read my book. About 2 hours later I was standing near the Christopher Columbus statue and someone bumped into me. My first reaction was to check my pockets and sure enough € 20 was missing from pocket. I sprinted after him and he grabbed another man's bag on the way. I chased him down through the metro and hopped the gates after him. He dropped the man's bag on the platform and then jumped across the tracks right before the train came and he got away. I returned the man's bag to him and as it turns out he is a wealthy architect and resort owner in Mexico. He owns a 5 star hotel in Nueva Vallarta and after posing in some pictures for him he handed me a business card and said I am welcome to stay in his hotel anytime I am in Mexico. That night the neighbors invited us over for a dinner party and paella.
Today François and I explored the west side of Barcelona on foot and walked around the gardens on the outskirts on the residential areas. We saw the olympic statdium and a really cool Greek theater. After a meal at a tapas we took the metro to see Camp Nou. Camp Nou is the massive soccer stadium that is home to the pretigous FC Barcelona.
In the next couple days I am going to try and catch a train to Portugal or the south of France. Depending on which is cheaper. I apologize for updating everyone as often as I should. I will try to update more frequently in the future. I would upload some pictures for you but it's currently 2:30a and I don't feel like doing it. No worries though, I promise to show you some pictures soon.
chao
I was going through my camera today and came across my mate Pete. He was a cool guy and we parted ways several days ago. Hopefully we should be in Amsterdam the same week though.
I've also been getting quite a few questions and emails about the mansion I'm living in. It's a huge villa located a short train ride from the city center in a suburb of Barcelona called Montmeló.
Today has been a lot of fun. I met these two Canadian girls a couple days ago and we've been hanging out all day. We went for a swim in the pool and then took a walk around Park Güell.
It's a famous park in Spain, but I don't want to bore you so I'll spare the details. We took the metro to the beach and chilled there and just watched people for a couple hours. We came home around 8:30p because all of Paul's and Thijs's old school mates came to visit for a few nights and Greg, the house chef, cooked us a paella feast to celebrate. This weekend will be an interesting one. Not only are there a bunch of crazy dutch guys running around, but Greg's mates from Manchester will be arriving soon too. And to top it all off, Sunday is the final match of the UEFA Euro; Spain vs. Germany. Luckily both England and Holland have already been eliminated or it would be a blood bath in the house. The last few games when Spain progressed through the quarter and semi finals Barcelona has turned completely chaotic. Whenever a goal is scored the entire city erupts with fireworks and cheers of joy. I'm looking forward to seeing the game from the city center.
-Patrick
Also I put a couple videos I filmed on YouTube. You can see them both by visiting the following links.Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEk4I7q6segVideo 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkqHi0f6k8w
By the way, I love this picture. The yellow stuff on the ground are flower petals that fell from the trees. The trees were in full bloom and the entire city was covered in these yellow flower petals.
When I got back that night we had a video in honor of me. It was fun and here are a couple memorable photos. On the left you'll see an egg dripping from my face, it's pretty self explanatory. Then on the right you see Paul, myself, Carly, and Paulina.
Also I took a couple videos of Las Ramblas literally about five minutes after Spain beat Germany.Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx-rk1EwffMVideo 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f5MsmTU4pk&NR=1
Unfortunately my time in this city has come to an end. I woke up early Tuesday morning and caught the train to Barcelona Sants to catch the bus to the city of Reus, where my flight was. At the bus terminal a goofy short man started speaking to me in Spanish.
Now this was a challenge because I speak a very broken Spanish. Meaning I can somewhat understand and somewhat communicate with him. I usually just pick out key nouns and verbs and piece them together into one sentence and hope for the best. And to speak the language is another thing. For example when you go to a restaurant you say, "I would like a water and the paella." When I speak it though it sounds like this, "I want water and paella." But I always seem to be excited when speaking Spanish so it comes out as, "I WANT WATER AND PAELLA!........please." All in Spanish of course.
Anyways the man told me that I had missed the bus to Reus. I was freaking out because the next bus wasn't until 4:00p, several hours after my flight. Then he offered to take me in his taxi to Reus... By then I knew something was up so I told him to go away. He was trying to trick me into a nice €70 ride. Well low and behold when the bus finally showed up I was able to relax and all the anxiety of travel disappeared. I awoke to the sudden stopping of the bus and I was in hell... The Reus airport. It was very small and seemed nice. When I stepped through the front door I was greeted by a frenzy of Scottish, Irish, and German tourists. It was sooo incredibly loud and there were too many accents for one room. I stood in a long line to check my bags. Well as it turns out my bag was 2 kgs over the limit so I crammed some stuff into my carry on and then had to file back into the end of the line and made my way back to the front. I guess I didn't realize how much a kilo was because I was still over by one when they weighed my bag again. I tried to take some more stuff but they said I had to pay for it because they didn't have enough time... It was already 12:15 by this point and my flight departed at 12:30. So I had to go to another desk and pay €15 and then file back into line again. Well I made it to the terminal and the plane hadn't even arrived yet. I noticed the sign on the wall for Ryanair. The banner read Ryanair: The on time airline. It was 12:20 ten minutes until departure when the plane arrived. I thought the banner was ironic but somehow we were in the air at 12:31. And not only were we on time, but I think they made everyone with small children and babies sit in the back of the plane! That was the best part about it. However it was like all the crying children were eerily in sync with one another.
Well when I landed my cousin Lara picked me up at the airport and now I'm sitting on her couch writing this blog. Lara and Kevin have a cool little apartment in Queidersbach, Germany. Let me tell you, this is wine country. The hour long ride from the airport was very scenic and had rolling hills as far as the eye can see that were covered with vineyards. I'm really looking forward to my time here. Sometime soon is Chicken Fest. I can't remember the German name for the festival but you basically walk around, drink beer, and eat fried chicken. That's all I have for now from Germany.
Adé,Patrick
Un beso a todos
Noemi
Esta noche marchamos a Argentina, concretamente pisaremos Buenos Aires; ya os iremos contando qué tal nos va la vida por esos lares. Seguro que bien. Todo lo que no sea trabajar siempre va bien jajajjaja.....
A Barcelona la hemos encontrado exactamente igual este verano, sinceramente, no creo que mejore nada; al contrario, creo que cada vez va a peor. Así que, habrá que plantearse las cosas. No quiero enfadarme más de lo que siempre me enfado (yo de por sí nací enfadada con todo, no tengo remedio), pero al menos, que sea menos, no?
Adrianita Nadurille: A ver si me escribes, que con el dichoso facebook no me entero de nada.
Jaume (del tren de Delhi): El Carles ha vist el teu missatge, segú que ens trobarem un altre vegada per parlar molt més de India y estem d`accord: anem a menjar tots junts. Un petonet per tu i la Bertha.
Tania: Tú tranquila, nos veremos pronto en México (Tengo unas ganas de unos taquitos al pastorrrrr!!! mmmmm!!!!) y un pozolito, tamales...y también claro, de respirar smog en la Ciudad, lo que pasa es que creo que Delhi le ha ganado a D.F. en esto último jejeje...
Chuspy: A ver si nos vienes a visitar un día de estos no?
Vivi and Dave: Thanks so much to keep in tounch! We hope one day you can come to Barcelona and visit us! Carlos and I will be so happy to take you our favorite restaurants in Barcelona! and show you more than that even! Have a nice trip in Thailand and let me konw if you need any help in any case. Big kiss for you two.
Nerea & Txori: Quedan pendientes esos pinchos con un delicioso txacolí en San Sebastián. Nos vemos más pronto de lo que pensáis!
A toda la gente del Duquesa de Cardona: Ya no trabajéis tanto! os vais a cansar! jajajjajaja
Esta soy yo, haciendome una "limpia" en Ciudad de México, mis raíces indígenas no me las puedo quitar de encima ni que me muera en estos lares occidentales
Seguimos en contacto gente!
un beso enorme