Okay, I'm a few countries behind.  FINE.  Only like 1.5 people are reading this anyway.  And apparently, those 1.5 people only read the goat posting, anyway.  So, technically, I am talking to myself.  So isn't it better that I'm talking less to myself...?

DO YOU SEE THE LOGIC????

I came over with Brandon a week ago on the little train that goes underneath the big ocean to London.  Forget what it's called.

Fabulous though, as I got to hang out with my football gals for three days!  I have posted below 2003/2004 photos of us and photos of us now.  yes, time has not been kind... (ohhhhhh!!!!  i *SO* went there...)

I'm just kidding, ladies, we all look way hotter with fifteen extra pounds and, as Nate puts it, our "less innocent looking" selves...

Guess which are old and which are new.

 

Okay, I got a little bit bad about posting...  It's *very* hard to write when your sole purpose everyday is to travel all over a country and find as many beers as you've never heard of as possible and then consume them...

I'm a little sad that I lost my driver's license while horse back riding but things picked up when I met Brandon in Brussels (and I had a fantastic excuse for not having to drive).  We basically covered the entire country of Belgium in four days.  We woke up every morning and went around knocking on breweries' doors (okay, so we weren't that well organized).  Some were located next to old abbeys and such, so we got a little bit cultural in our beer drinking.  My tastes aren't so sophisticated, so all I asked for at every place was their darkest beer - apparently this is very anti-girl of me, hmph.  On the final day, we went to Luxembourg for dinner, sadly, I only thought this was a city in Belgium (it is), and not it's own country (it is); how very american of me. 

Strange pictures below...

well, had a bit of a rough start on July 1.

the short story - i rented an automatic to drive up to san sebastian to go surfing and then on to llavorsi for five days.  they gave away my automatic before i got there, i tried to drive a manual (no, i've only tried to drive stick once before and i was 18).  it did not end well.  someone cried (okay, it was me), but it could have been someone else.  thankfully, i realized my limitations and returned the car. 

since that took the day i caught the next bus out to llavorsi at 7 am.  it's been fabulous since.  Llavorsi is stunningly beautiful.  It's a very small town in the Pyrenees mountains with only 2000 people.  The houses are pretty much all old brown or white brick cottages that dot the cliff side down to the edge of the river.  My "hostal" is anything but ("hostal" means small hotel in spanish).  I have a very pretty room in one of the cottages that is right on the river.  In fact, I was contemplating if I could miss the rocks and make it into the river from my patio.  Hmmm... tempting...

My first day here I just walked and saw the entire town, then went part way up the nearest mountain.  It's so pretty because they have these trees here that are blooming and the air is filled with these small little white puffs of cotton flowers that float down into the river.  Not many people speak Spanish here (Catalonian only), so I'm increasingly relying on gesturing and acting out scenes.  Banana was funny to get across.  hehe.

Yesterday, I went white water rafting in the morning for a 15 km run.  My guide's name was Ramon (pronounced Raaammonnnnne) who had long black hair and I swear looked like he came out of some ad trying to sell expensive Spanish cologne.  I was happily in the front of the raft (the best because you hit all of the rocks first and have a much better chance of going airborne).  Now Ramon is my kinda crazy.  Ten minutes after we set off he decides to screw with us a bit.  He tells us to 'paddle, paddle, paddle!' right into a wall.  a very very big wall.  of rock...  Go Ramon.

about five seconds before we hit, i'm like, he's gonna turn.  he's gonna turn.  oh my god, he's not turning.  oh my god, he's crazy.  god dammit!  and then i hear him laughing his ass off right before we hit the wall.  we smash into it (okay, it was awesome) and the two people next to me go overboard and both grabbed onto me.  I still had my foot locked in my foot strap but it dragged me half way out of the boat and i'm going in and out of the water.  glad i can be used as a human rope to climb back into a boat...  (check for future reference)

Ramon was the best guide ever.  He kept aiming for the biggest rapids, setting us into spins, and trying to flip us wherever possible.  he almost accomplished this when he launched us up at a 45 degree angle.  So close!  made me wonder if he and the other river guides have bets on how many occupants they can dunk per trip.  I bet he's right at the top.  5/8.  not bad!

Today, I went for an all day (60 km) rafting trip.  While the guide was _boring_ the trip was awesome and the people with me even better.  There were five us in the boat.  Myself and four bomb squad police officers (three male, one female).  They were one rowdy bunch and i loved it.  we kept jumping over board and playing in the rapids.  one of our favorite games was dog piling right before we hit a big rapid.  we'd all run to the front of the boat and pile on top of each other.  now, mind, i was on bottom most of the time since i was at the front.  and having two big guys laying on top of me was a wee bit of uncomfortable.  in fact, that's how i got the "Jolie lips".  During one of the piles, we ran forward, piled, and one of them smacked me in the face with his oar.  Then we almost flipped the boat forward as we went down a big rapid and i was pushed underwater.  fun game!

it was a long rafting trip, 7 hours, so we had lots of time to screw around and play on it.  we stopped at one of the bigger bridges and went "puenting" which is just bridge diving.  then found some other places to jump off of and try to catch the boat before it left us.  one of the guys, i swear, had a death wish (well, he does work on a bomb squad so why am i surprised?).  he kept jumping off, even in the middle of rapids and rocks and seeing if he could catch the boat before we hit the big ones.  they also played 'last man standing' while i tried to stay at the helm (no, i am not going to fight 200 pound officers and try to throw them overboard). 

We took a two hour lunch break and had about half a bottle of wine a piece.  I like the Spanish lunch tradition, I could get used to it... 
We hit some bigger rapids afterwards and the female officer hit her eye socket with her oar when we crashed down a few feet.  It split it open and I looked back and there was blood running down one side of her face.  It's not a good trip unless there's at least two minor injuries is my motto.

So now I have some great disposable pictures (I hope), some sexy lips (not so much), and a wicked wetsuit sunburn.  Sweet!

Photos below, courtesy of Jose!




Tomorrow, I'm going horseback riding up to the top of one of the smaller mountains.  Then I have to catch a bus to Barcelona in the afternoon.  Off to Brussels the morning after. 

Viva la Espana!  There is chaos in the streets!  I think I've seen it all now - people scaling lamposts, climbing onto roofs, throwing firecrackers into crowds.  The streets are still full of madness.  I went down to an Irish pub and saw the amazing win by the Spanish over the Germans.  Jacquie, Brooke, and I kind of sidled back home afterwards - trying to enjoy the chaotic celebrations whilst not ending up with a firecracker in our face (my ears are still ringing).

Well, things took a slight downturn.  Jacquie got her purse snatched yesterday - money, credit cards, camera, keys - all gone. :(  Poor thing!  She has to stay in Barcelona until her new cards and cash arrive, so she can't come with me to Llavorsi tomorrow.  Very sad! 

My camera broke, so I guess no more pretty digital pictures (I think I'm going to go for a cheapo disposable to replace). 

I've rented a car for five days and I leave for Llavorsi tomorrow.  I'm leaving behind my computer with Jacquie so that it doesn't get stolen while I'm camping up in the mountains.  If someone robs me in Llavorsi, they're only going to get a pack of almonds and some cheap shampoo.  Swear to god.  That and I fight like a ninja. 

Yay, white water rafting!  Boo flat water in San Sebastian (booooooo!).

All of my hard earned work in learning Spanish and piece-mealing sentences together may be for nought - the local language is Catalan as Barcelona is the capital.  hrmm...

Well, it turns out I have some psychotic roommates in the apartment I'm living in (two canadians and an american).  Frankly, I'm just not going to talk about it, except to say that it makes me very grateful that I met Jacquie in Sevilla and she is here in Barcelona for the same two weeks I am.  We've been hanging out like crazy because she's incredibly sweet and a lot of fun.  Yesterday, Jacquie, Brooke, and I hit the beach for the day (ahh, sunburn).  I thought just the three of us were headed out to drinks last night when Brooke showed up with a whole posse, and well, madness ensued. 

We went by a winery and bought four wine bottles straight from the barrel for only 2 euros(!) each.  So with four bottles, and eight people, well, let's just say that I may have gotten evveerrrrr so slightly drunk.  Which was a first for this trip.  We walked up to the "magic fountain" that had gorgeous lights and music playing and hung out by the fountain.  Then we headed down to the beach to find some clubs (20 euros really seems to be the minimum entry fee).  As we were making this very long journey, I got to talking to one of the guys who is Polish.  I don't know why but he talks like Borat when he's drunk.  I think it's because he sounds a little bit like him while he's sober too.  All of a sudden, I couldn't talk in any other accent either.  Stupid alcohol, why do you make me act a fool?  There may have been a *teensy* bit of skinny dipping that followed, after which I told Jacquie it was probably best I make my way home.  I was still cold and wet when I ended up in bed, sigh.

For some ungodly reason, I made plans to meet her and Brooke this morning to go see Gaudi's Mira Casa, which was incredibly beautiful but somewhat harder to enjoy with a massive hangover and the tendency to bump into things as I walked in diagonal lines.  I hit up the market place again (which is absolutely enormous, why don't we have one of these?) afterwards.  Okay, super creepy: I was taking pictures of the lobsters and crabs on the ice when they started moving.  Why?  WHY???  That's going to haunt my dreams tonight.

Tomorrow is the Eurocup final - Spain versus Germany.  It's going to be INSANE here.  Admittedly, less so than if I was in Madrid or Sevilla for instance (aka, not Catalonia), but still.  I'm meeting up with the girls to watch the game and either go celebrate afterwards or go hide from the Spanish wrath.

I'm just polishing off my travel plans to the Pyrenees and Jacquie seems pretty adamant about joining me for the whitewater rafting portion of my trip in the mountains.  I'm headed up there to the small town of Llavarsi to raft down 50 km of the river on Day 1.  Day 2 I'm going canyoning up there.  Afterwards, Jacquie has to head back down to Barcelona to meet up with some friends and I'm going to head to the north coast for Mundaka; I hear that the famous and mysteriously disappeared left is now back.  Here's hoping it's not a monster (I draw the line of going in if it's over my head).  Even if it is, I'll get to see some nice waves and I hope some great surfing. 

Three  cities in two days is a bit staggering.  On my second and last full day in Malaga, I went to the beach with the two Aussies I met - Steve and Josh.  Turns out most Spanish beaches are very much top-optional.  I thought this was pretty sweet but wasn't exactly keen on doing it in front of them.  After we went swimming (the Mediterranean is cold!) we headed back to the hostel and I slipped out back to the beach.  Going nude was actually very comfortable, something I could get used to.  And as I looked around, I noticed that there were more women with their tops off than on.  I guess it was inevitable given the searing heat here.  Still, a little hard to think that just a skip and a jump across Gibraltar I was warned to cover my knees...

Later I headed up to the Alcazaba - the Moroccan fortress on the hilltop overlooking the town of Malaga.  I now know why they picked that location.  After climbing up it in the blazing heat I would totally thrown down my sword and shield and sit in the shade for awhile.  No wonder the Muslims held onto it but lost Sevilla (very flat and near the river). 

Spain was playing Italy in the Eurocup futbol later that night (viva la Espana!).  I seriously almost got injured by Spanish flags being whipped around my face - twice.  Jesus christ, calm down people.  As the players were running out onto the field, one of them came up with their name - "Fernando".  Stevie, the very persistent Aussie chap, exclaimed - "Fernando!  That's such a cool name.  I think I'm going to go by that for the rest of my trip!"  I burst out laughing. 

Fernando.  Nice. 

I left for Granada the next morning and Josh decided to join me there.  He's seven months into his journey around the world.  Four months left to go I take it.  He kept me pretty entertained for the whole time, and I was impressed by how worldly he was for being so much younger than me (21).  I guess going to thirty countries on your own gives you pretty good sense of the world and a good sense of humor.  Although, I didn't appreciate how much he made fun of my name.  Bastard.

In Granada, we walked around the town, saw the Catedral (yes, there's one in every town), and hit up the tapas bars followed by a yummy Moroccan restaurant for dinner.  I saw three other hostel goers from two past cities I had visited within two minutes of arriving at my new hostel.  I guess most of us are going the same way...

I woke up at 5 am this morning, and caught a plane from Granada to Barcelona.  I haven't done much here yet, due to sheer exhaustion. I went walking down to the marina and watched live salsa and guitar playing.  That's one thing different here from anywhere else I've been - it's seems on almost every street corner there's music filling the air.  Hard to beat.

My last night in Sevilla was pretty funny.  The guys and the gals in the hostel split off into two separate groups.  I ended up hanging out with five or six girls on the terrace for most of the night before we headed down to the town across the river to go dancing.  Unfortunately, it is typical for clubs to charge 30 euro ($50!) for club entry (gasp!) so that didn't happen so much.  But we ended up at a nice bar anyway.  I chatted up the girls for quite awhile and I'm headed to Barcelona for the same two weeks as one of the chicas - Jackie - who is awesome, so I'll know a couple of people in Barcelona. 

I got on a bus to Malaga in the morning, but it took almost four hours to get here so I didn't arrive until the late afternoon.  Then I walked into town and saw the Cathedral (yes, more Jesuses).  I got there a little bit late and they locked the church while I was in it.  When I realized that, I started to panic ever so slightly (sleeping in a church would give me the willies), so I started going around trying all the doors.  I finally found someone working there who let me out and I stumbled out into the still extremely bright sunlight (at 6 pm) upon a full blown Spanish Catholic wedding.  They were filming the bride coming in and I was standing there right in the door, definitely not in wedding clothes and with the wedding party just staring at me.  At that point, what could I do?  I just smiled and waved and tried to work my way down the bridal train, without stepping on too many people's feet and trying to avoid the mass of video cameras.  I am totally in these people's wedding footage...

 Afterwards, I went to the Museo de Picasso, which was the singly most powerful place I have visited.  Three hours later I didn't want to leave but  I thought it best not to repeat the locked in experience.  Apparently, Pablo was born here in Malaga, so the amount of paintings and sketches they have of his is pretty staggering. 

Last night was yet another eurocup soccer game, which has been playing every night at every hostel I'm staying at, so I've just given in.  The parties in spain don't even start until midnight or 1 am, so we headed out then to a bar first.  Unlike the previous night, this time it was four guys and me (as opposed to all chicas).  Much different dynamic but still a lot of fun.  The different accents and the different stories every night is simply amazing.  I've met so many people traveling for a year across the world and the influx of new people each night always keeps things fresh and riotous.  But the more I go along the more I find people headed the same way tomorrow. 

Okay, time to take a dip into the mediterranean. 

A final, beautiful, albeit balmy (over 40 C!) day in Sevilla.  Today was perhaps the best, I met a lot of great people and saw the outskirts of the city.  I went to Real Alcazar (the palace and gardens of Pedro the Cruel), down along the river to the Muslim Tower of Gold, to the Plaza de Espana, the Barrio del Santa Cruz, and to the Museo de Archaeologica.   I get a weakness in the knees when it comes to archaeology (how did astronomy win out?) and the museum had some truly beautiful artifacts, although I was sad to learn that over half of it was closed for renovations.  I'm escaping the afternoon heat for a couple of hours before going out again.  I'm torn between going to see Flamenco or to tapas bars tonight.  hmm....

It's amazing how quickly plans change. I've met a lot of other girls traveling for a few months and, on recommendations, i'm headed down to the coastal town of Malaga next.  I'm incredibly tempted to go down to Morocco after that.  I ran into someone who said that there's surfing down there!  And here I thought I had to go up to the Pyrenees...

Hasta Luego!

Well, I couldn't wait to get to Spain (no conferences and no work for three weeks!), so I hopped on the first flight out of Paris to Sevilla.  Oy oy oy!  Esta grande!  Seriously, I was like a kid in a candy store.  I literally ran around the city for six hours straight until I realized, heck I'm 26 not 6 and my knees are starting to hurt...

I've got to say, Spain is much more to my taste than Paris ever was.  I got in at noon, took two minutes to throw my luggage in my hostal room (please don't let me get robbed, please....) and booked it out wandering aimlessly from El Centro down south to the famous Catedral and Barrio de la Santa Cruz.  The catedral y giralda tower were amazing - man when the spanish do it they DO IT.  Check out my pictures below of the bling stored in this holy place.  I'd like to string that on a big gold chain and where it around, well for thirty seconds until I got mugged, but STILL.  Also, apparently 26 is the age limit for discounts for students, so hoorah - I am not as old and ancient as I thought I was.  Hello 75% discounts.

Oh yes, and they love Jesus.  They love LOVE him.  More than the French - true story.

I came back to my hostal ever so briefly to see who was around.  Since when did 21 year olds become so unidentifiable?  After about five minutes I quietly exited and went back to exploring the city.  I had a great dinner in an outdoor cafe called El Porton.  The buildings are built very close and towering next to each other and sunshades are strung between.  Turns out there *is* a reason that the Spanish don't eat until 10 pm, it's blistering hot until then (33 degrees celsius, which I don't need math to tell me that's a bit on the toasty side...).  I drank a wee bit too much Sangria (wheeeeeee!!!!) and listened to flamenco music for about an hour over dinner. 

I certainly hope the rest of Spain is as fabulous as this place.  I'm going to try and hunt down a moped rental shop tomorrow to explore further outside the city.  On Saturday, I'll likely leave for Granada for a few days. 

Unlike Paris, most people here don't speak a lick of English, so it's certainly forced me to break out my spanish (yay, high school forced language classes).  People seem to be able to understand me (or they're just nodding politely), and I hope I haven't horribly mistranslated anything yet.

More tomorrow after I go mobile!  Early night tonight since I got up at 6 am and headed out.  I'm going to try a flamenco show tomorrow and then a discoteca on Friday night (i'm not too old for that, right?).

Young at heart but old in the knees,
Dagny

ps - check out my new pics added to past postings, yay creepy skulls!

That's it.  No more walking.  I'm not kidding!  Zero, zilch, I'm done...

I revisited the Crypte du Catacombs today - It gives me some weird eerie feeling walking around down there amongst 5000 stacked human remains.  Some skulls had obvious puncture wounds that looked suspiciously like spear marks.  Others were just broken in half from time and mishandling, maybe kids playing catch.   It's fascinating the artistic ways that they stacked some of the remains  (someone had a bit of fun doing this I suspect).  Apparently, the French hid in the catacombs for a couple of wars.  Yes, it seems like a good hiding place at first, but would you really not be feeling like you were facing your eminent demise in such a place?  And what kind of conversation would you have?  "Hey, I found some skulls that were put together to form a heart!" 

So that might really have been what a six year old kept repeating to me, but whatever.  I guess it would be okay, until the skulls started talking back.  Normal people could probably last a war without this happening, I'd give myself +/-3 days or the first bomb dropping before I was babbling to my new skull friend Frank - "Frankie, we're not going to make it, Frankie, we're not going to make it...." as I cradled him and rocked back and forth.  If this sounds weird, welcome to being inside my head.
 
Unfortunately, Jeyhan didn't seem so into this...  At least, she didn't laugh at any of my jokes, but I guess that isn't too unusual - most people don't (except for Scoville, he's too easy).  Afterwards, we visited Parc du Monceau, where we discovered just where everyone in Paris spends their Sundays (creepy skull pics plus photos of cute kids coming soon, does that sound like a weird combination?  Okay, they're really not in the photos together.). 

I'm supposedly going to work at the IAP for the next two days, and I hope rewarding myself everyday for it.  Starting on Wednesday, no more astronomy/astronomers for three weeks and no more hotels - somewhat a relief, no young people here...  On my new responsible kick, I just got my plane ticket to Seville and a hostel for three nights.  I'm hoping to make it at least four days without getting robbed.  That would be fantastic.  If I do get robbed, all I'm going to ask is that they leave me my dignity and a euro to call my dad and cry about it.  Seems reasonable.  I'm going to have to look up "dignity" in my English to Spanish dictionary and hope that it translates okay, and not into something like, "Just please leave me my donkey."  I don't want to come off weird.

Don't worry Rita, I haven't forgotten our promise.  Although, I can only say "I'll try." 

Rachel, I swear to god I tried to find you a monkey.  I went to five different stores and none of them had any (and they call this place France - pfff!).  I did see one, however, on a street singer's cart with the little cymbals (see pic below).  I thought about stealing said monkey for you, but she looked like she could take me in a street fight.  That and I fight like a girl.

I hope they have monkeys in Seville.  If not, will you settle for a small donkey?

After flying into Paris early in the morning on Sunday (a two day journey) I decided to try and get on the current time zone.  So I went back to see Il de Cite (Olivier laughs at me every time I say this) since it has been three years since I've been here.  I strangely ran into Herve Aussel at a fair in the parc (sure, I'm only in a strange city with a few million people, why shouldn't I run into someone I know?).  I mostly listened to live music and watched the boats go by in the river to stay awake, then took Kartik and Jeyhan to my favorite creperie by Notre Dame (mmmmm, nutella and bananas). 

Boy, the French are quite social!  Every day has been extragalactic COSMOS talks from 9 am - 6 pm, followed by dinners that don't start until 9 pm and don't get out until midnight.  It's strange because it doesn't get dark until 10:30 pm, so I can never tell what time it is. 

The conference dinner was Wed. night at Le Train de Bleu in the old train station.  The vaulted ceilings are painted like the Sistine chapel with sculptures hanging precariously from the windows.  After much too much good wine, we went to a salsa club where my desire for a pina colada was strangely fulfilled. 

I gave my talk on asteroids ("Low-z objects in COSMOS") to a room of 99 extragalactic people + me.  Quite enjoyable.  It always helps to amuse the crowd when you make fun of your former and current advisors in one go.  I also made friends quickly by saying I need to name 65 or so of the asteroids (people become interested in what you're doing when you offer to immortalize them).  I told them I'd only name one after myself if it turned out it was hurtling towards Earth and likely to wipe out humanity - if you're going to go out, go out with a bang!

I'm looking forward to my first day of vacation starting tomorrow.  I'm going to see Paris with Jeyhan (new and old places - I have to revisit the lair of 5000 skulls underground, eerily cool).  On Sunday, I am leaving Paris to go to the Castle Chenonceau:

http://www.chenonceau.com/media/fr/index_fr.php

Diane tells me that I am two days over my personal allocation of one month for the year (blegh), so I am going to work at Observatoire de Paris on Monday and Tuesday.

I've finally settled on going to Barcelona first.  I think I've found a flat there for two weeks.  It's on the Mediterranean coast (hard to beat) but still very close to all of the surfing and white water rafting spots up north (near the Pyrenees) if I want to spend a couple of days up there.

Afterwards, I think I'll backpack down to Granada on the southern coast and stay down south for a week or two.  I'm skipping Madrid since I'm more interested in the outdoor stuff than another museum (so uncultured, yes, yes, yes).

Au revoir, next week Adios!

There is something to be said about squares who plan everything and wankers who plan little to nothing...

One of these days, my free-spiritedness will result in something positive instead of realizing on the flight over as I open my Lonely Planet guide for the first time, that I am apparently *OLD* and do not qualify for <26 travel passes available in EU countries plus Great Britain.  I think 26 was my first birthday that I lost instead of gained a privilege/benefit...

Anyway, I do have some idea of where/when I'm going for the next two months:

in transit - June 6 to June 8
Paris - June 8 to June 18
Spain - June 18 to July 9  (really need to figure this out)
Brussels - July 9 to July 11
England - July 11 to July 17
Scotland - July 17 to July 26
Hawaii - July 27 onwards

Jan made me realize that the Southern coast of Spain is not where I want to go if I want to surf every day.  So I am now re-evaluating a north of Spain coastal tour in lieu of the more historic (party) south of Spain.  I think my mind was further swayed when I read that there's great white water rafting in the north as well.  Hard to beat. 

Also, really must learn how to tend goats in lieu of rent - come on country roots!