One Month!

November 16, 2009


We’ve reached our one month mark in Ecuador! Usually, when you look back over time, it goes by much faster than you realize, as is the case with our last month. It’s been full of moments of complete confusion and self-doubt: What were thinking by coming here? Why did we leave our family and friends, our routine, our life? These questions have not not gone away, and I think we both will continue to self interrogate, but there have been experiences that have allowed us to bond with people outside of our families and friends.  On our first weekend here, we went on a day trip to Otavalo, a huge outdoor market, where for five dollars you can buy two hand knitted ski hats and two pairs of hand knitted gloves. The local artisans sell artwork, jewelry, hand knitted items, and of course, food. It’s paradise! On this trip we met a woman, with long gray hair to her waist that she wore in a pony tail. We connected from the beginning. She was sitting next to us on the mini bus. Through our conversation we found out that she was working here through UNESCO, and that her IQ is double ours put together! She’s working here to analyze the constitution for the five Andean countries: Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Columbia. Apparently, the constitution is sound, but whenever a new president comes into office, conveniently enough, they’re allowed to change the constitution, not amend it, but change it. Her perception is that the constitution isn’t the problem as much as the lack of enforcement. (Ie. When a newspaper company puts out negative press on the President and it gets burned down, oh well!) Needless to say, when she presents her results to the powers that be, she will be making the strong recommendation that this document can not be changed every few years to the likings of the current president and that it must be enforced or it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.

SO ALL THAT’S PRETTY INTERESTING, BUT HERE’S THE BEST PART: She’s a graduate English professor for WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY! GO COUGS!  She and her husband, who is a physicist professor, live on the Idaho and Washington border! They both teach at WSU!

We kept in touch after our day trip together, and she offered us a free ride to Mindo with her our last weekend in Quito. It’s two and a half hours from Quito in the middle of the Cloud Forest. We had been wanting to go there, not for the world renowned bird watching which was the reason she was going there, but for the zip lining and waterfalls! We went in the private van she had reserved and chatted the entire way there, with Dan every now and then admitting that she needed to translate, not that she was speaking in Spanish, but when one has a PHD in media law, the level of vocabulary is a bit above ours! She’s also a writer, so I’m sure he’s going to end up one of her characters in her book!

Once in Mindo, we got dropped off at our lovely little family run hostel and she went further on into a beautiful little reserve. In order to get to the lodge she was staying, you have to cross a river in a mini self-pulled cable car fifteen feet above the rapid water. There is usually someone there to pull the ropes, so you don’t have to do it yourself, so you just sit down, swing your legs over the side, and enjoy the swift moving water below! We will attach pictures of this, because it is a must see! Once on the mainland, there is only hydro-electric power, a huge garden to feed the guests, three cabins, a beautiful lodge/kitchen area with a thatched roof, surrounded by a lush green tropical forest. The man and wife who own it live there. He is a former biology professor from Mississippi and she is  Ecuadorian raised in a rainforest that was destroyed. Together, their mission in life is to live modernly yet in a way that causes the least destruction to the land as possible and educate others how to do so.

We were lucky enough to get to walk around and breathe in the fresh air. After spending a month in a city where the car exhaust makes you dizzy after only a few minutes walk outside, this place was heavenly. They offer alternative cooking classes to the locals, in an attempt to help change the diet of the people. They also offer an apprenticeship for bird watching, training the locals on how to be guides, allowing them an opportunity to make a decent wage. It was such a short meeting with the couple, but they’re mission is an admirable one. We left there hoping that one day we might return.

We made sure to enjoy the activities that help keep the city on the map, so we went zip lining! We went with two other ladies and one lady’s 9 year old daughter, who was hysterically dramatic about the whole feat of flying through the air across the canopy, hanging by a harness, getting a bird’s eye view of the forest. As if flying across the cables in a sitting position wasn’t enough of a rush, apparently no self-respecting zip liner goes zip lining without trying the “Superman,” where you are attached to the guide and you lay face down, with your arms straight out at your sides, flying through the air like superman! We didn’t chicken out, we agreed to fly through the air like superman, and it was amazingly fun!

The next day we hiked to a waterfall where they had a slide built into the cliff that dumps you off into the river below. The water was absolutely heart stopping cold. We couldn’t catch our breath when we landed in its frigidness. There was also cliff jumping, but neither of us had much desire to attempt it. After banging our feet on the bottom of the river with the 10 ft. high slide, we didn’t want to risk it off the 30-40 ft. cliff. We watched as one frightened guy would go to the edge ready to jump, and stop. Then he would go to the edge again, look over, and stop. It was incredibly painful to watch, and after 20 minutes, it was just too much. He had girls and guys passing him up, giving him false courage that he too could do it, and then he’d build up the courage to try again, looking determined to do it, and then he’d start walking fast to go off, and he’d stop at the edge. We spent at least 30 minutes watching from the rocks below, and he never did jump, but he stayed at the top! Seriously, it’s alright that you don’t want to jump, it’s really a dumb thing to do, but come down already! Watching him was torture!

We headed back in the early evening just in time for the Texas Hold Em’ game with the family and cousins. Dan walked in the door and the whole house went crazy with questions about our trip! They have really made this first month feel welcoming. Although it’s really made both of us miss our families terribly, it’s been so nice being here with them, and they’ve really included us as a part of their family.

We will be leaving on Wed. Nov.18th to the Galapagos Islands where we will work as volunteers for the New Era Galapagos Foundation. We will work with the locals on English, both children and adults, since tourism is the main source of revenue for the islands, the more English one knows, the more opportunities for higher paying jobs.

Dan has no problem impressing the people here, they ABSOULTELY ADORE him! He is a giant in comparison, and they look up at him with gaga eyes! Our Ecuadorian family, the teachers at the school, the cousins, EVERYONE just loves him! He will have no problem meeting the right people to allow us to work and travel through the Galapagos. Hopefully, he can trade work for free tours. For the first month, we have a family that we will be renting a room from, so we will continue to practice our Spanish and be a part of the culture.

Hasta luego a Quito y hola a Las Galapagos!

We Are Terrible bloggers but the pictures are public now.

So we´ve been a lot of place that we´ve not been able to write about but! I put some pictures of Cotapaxi and Otivalo and all of Germany on Picasa so you can at least see what we did.

I little bit about Cotipaxi. It´s a volcano in ecuador and it´s base resides at 14,000 feet. Ginny and I climbed to about 14,800 in just under 2 hours. That´s right less than have a mile took us 2 hours! We basically climbed for 20 to 30 seconds and had to rest for 2-5 minutes.  It was absolutely beautiful but that mountain was evil. Ginny had to stay at the 14,800 mark do to absolute exhaustion and I proceed up to the 15k mark to check out the "glaciar". It was quite tiny compared to those in alaska but nevertheless cool to say we were at 15K!  The day before we went to a pretty cool outdoor market where all the local crafts were sold cheaply. we bought a painting by Guayasimin which we love. Can´t wait to show it to you all.

LASTLY, we tried cuey OR GINEAPIG! Tastes like chicken looks like Gineapig. LITTERALLY!  they gut it, deskull it, fry it and serve it up!  I must say that I had trouble putting kiki´s thigh in my mouth and enjoying.  That´s right Ginny named the por little guy.  that´s it for now!  Enjoy the picks


Our pics so far

September 15, 2009 Seville Spain

From Algecirias, we traveled to Seville at 6:30am and got to Seville at 9:30am, to see the Bascilica de Seville and the Muslim influence from the time of the Moors. The Bascilica has the world’s largest alter. Southern Spain is referred to by the Muslim name, Andalucia, and this influence is recognizable in the architecture and décor. Much of Sevlille reminded us of the Alhambra. We were able to take in a small flamenco show where a very shapely woman entertained us with her quick steps to the Flamenco music. When she needed a break, an even quicker stepped young man took over, and he was awesome! We ended our last night in Spain with some really good sangria! Our last night in Seville was one of my favorite hostel experiences ever. Ginny and I got to sleep with two others in our 4 bunk bed room and when we got home from our Flamanco date night Ginny had the pleasure of walking in on our flat makes while they were trying to procreate. We gave them an hour or so while we checked e-mails and then ventured in again to find the girl spralled across him while he watched tv. Just as we were about to go to sleep, Seville decided to clean all the horse crap off the streets with the most foul chemical I’ve ever smelled. I am quite certain I’d rather have slept with a fresh loaf of horse crap deposited in the middle of the room than endure that poison in my lungs. By the time the smell had subsided it was 2 hours before we needed to wake up anyway, which was just about the time our flatmate woke us sawing logs and ripping some loud ones. (For the lay person that means snoring and passing gas loudly.) Luckily for Ginny, she manages to sleep through such things, but I was left to choke on the stale air. Off to Madrid and then Rome!

September 14, 2009 Morocco and Gibraltar

We had to rush around quite a bit but we were able to go to the main market in Morocco via a bus from Algeceras to the main ferry port that takes people to Tangier. (We decided that we didn’t want to risk having something happen to our precious camera, so we didn’t’ bring it with us to Morocco.) When we got to the port town where we were to catch the ferry, the first thing I saw was a guy dry heaving and his girl friend patting his back. Needless to say I shielded Ginny from seeing such a thing to ensure she didn’t have a change of heart about crossing the Straight of Gibraltar. We then had an hour wait for the fast ferry very due to some technical difficulties. When we arrived in Tangier, Ginny was really on edge. She had dressed that day covering everything, even bringing a scarf as a head cover. Although not all the women were completely covered, most were. I definitely had the upper hand that day! We ended up having lunch on the second story of a shack; it was some kind of chicken and rice dish. Other than the mini cockroaches and flies dinning with us, the food was really good. We hiked up to see what was probably the only Christian cemetery in the city and heard the 12 o’clock bell ring calling everyone in the city to prayer. We got to take a look in a mosque where everyone had their foreheads pressed to the ground and Ginny had a chance to buy a cool Morrocan plate. We missed the next ferry back to the port town due to a wrong turn at the massive maritime port of Tangier, but got to see what looked like a boat grave yard, that was actually where the boats were repaired. After we returned to Algecirias, we grabbed the camera and headed to the rock of Gibralter. With only 2 more hours of daylight, Morocco being two hours ahead of Spain despite being directly south, we had to hurry. The rock was immense! Of course we had to cross an airplane runway to get there, but that was an excellent opportunity to take our first pictures on an airplane road. Then we hustled our way right up to the base of the mountain where we could see no monkeys but could hear them chattering as the light was disappearing from the sky. We heard that there were tours that took you into the miles of natural and Britain made tunnels but just to see the rock in all it’s glory was enough for me. We also walked around the mini city and saw all the pubs. While I’ve never been to great Britain, I have to think that this was as close to being there that I’ve ever been. Everything looked British, the only thing missing was they did not drive on the wrong side of the road.

September 13, 2009 Granada, Spain: The Alhambra and the EESB

Granada, the Alhambra, and the Ever Elusive Spanish Bruha(Witch) AKA EESB.
This story actually begins just over a year ago when Ginny and I traveled Guatemala and made our rigorous Journey to the top of Antigua’s active volcano. When we came down we spent an hour riffling through our otherworldly pictures with great excitement. They were like something out of an old Star Trek episode, the one that might have had Kirk beaming down to a molten lava planet with no vegetation or life. It wasn’t until we sat to watch a movie that we realized the camera was missing, immediately, we took the steps of any ultra annoying tourist couple; the steps that ultimately led us to the door of the hostel that sold us our volcanic excursion, accompanied of course, by 6 Antiguan policemen. Needless to say when I uploaded our pictures to Picasa we had every day documented except our most adventurous: the pictures that had us standing at 3,000 feet above Antigua looking down at the city and the flowing lava not more than 10 feet below.
Fast-forward to yesterday please where you will find us traveling down a street that sucked us back in time, to say 1,200 AD when the Christians had finally gained a foothold on the city of Granada by thus erecting a gigantic medieval Cathedral/Fortress under the looming shadow of the Muslim Fortress: The Alhambra. The second we saw the massive cathedral Ginny requested the camera. With both of us downtrodden with 4 backpacks, exhausted from only 4 hours of sleep and a 5 hour bus ride, I suggested that we drop our gear, grab our camera, and come outside for an amazing nighttime picture of the gigantic edifice. As Ginny got directions to various bars and flamenco shows I began preparing for our photo shoot. When the camera was not in its “assigned” place in our bags, the clink of an unknown object sounded in my head. I’d heard the noise about 20 minutes before it was time to get off that incredibly long bus ride. I had given the floor a brief once over and decided it was nothing of importance. I flashed to the last time I had used the camera, which was to take the picture of the sunset on our 30 minute bus break at some arbitrary restaurant somewhere between Madrid and Granada. I must have put it between my legs rather than in its assigned spot. I was tired, sleeping and in a hurry to get off the bus. Those where my justifications as I performed a pointless and futile search through all 20 pockets of our 4 brand new REI bags, knowing full well I’d come up empty handed. “Do you have the camera” was how I interrupted my beautiful wife as she tried to get info on all the places we needed to go in the next 24 hours. With a quick pat-down of her pockets she said no. When she was done with our helpful hostel clerk she turned to me and asked all the questions she’d asked only a year ago. Satisfied that I was able to lose the same model camera again on some mode of transportation on the night before our most picture worthy day in Spain, she rushed off to call the bus station.
With the Alhambra online ticket office closed and the traditional “you can check with lost and found when it opens,” Ginny and I decided, once again, that we would take matters into our own hands. We were going to go back to the station and find our bus, of the hundred that were parked there, and we were going to recover our goods, because God knows if someone had found it before us, it was gone. When arrived back at the bus station around half past twelve, only to find it nearly empty. We asked a ticket window attendant if our camera had been turned in, “Come back tomorrow morning at 9:30.” Rather than leave, making all this work a complete waste of time, we decided we’d go find our bus since they were parked for the night. I found an open bus that looked kinda like our bus, got on, went to our seats, got down on my hands and knees and found it! Wait, that was the big sticky puddle of soda. Defeated again, we took the “Nocturnal” bus back to our hostel where we were able to get in a 4 hour nap before our day at the Alhambra.
We woke at 6:30 am to make sure we got two of the 2000 tickets sold daily to enter the Alhambra. As we drove towards the massive Muslim fortress with a picture worthy sunrise behind us above the Serra Nevada to our left, and the medieval cathedral to our right, I thought, damn it would be nice to have a camera right now, and this thought continued all day with the Alhambra, screaming with its 13th century armories, palaces, reflection pools, mosaic tile, and 12 foot wide wall. The only thing missing was the water from the moat that protected the palace from Crusaders. The architecture was absolutely beautiful. The amount of detail put into every aspect of its creation was most impressive - absolutely exquisite.
With the amazing Alhambra behind us, it was time to get to the bus station and head for a new city. Next stop Algeciras, so we can head to Morocco and Gibraltar. (But first, I’m going to check to see if anyone turned in our camera. Dumb. I know.) When we got to the bus station my poor bride was starving and drawn to the McDonalds by an almost supernatural force which would leave me to try to get the camera back by myself. As I stood in front of the 50 year old heavy set woman with a frown instead of a smile, I knew this interaction was not going to be pleasant. First I asked her if she could print out my tickets and she lazily said I could but it was not necessary. This is when I knew getting her to get up and check the lost and found was going to be a challenge. Through my broken Spanish, I asked pleadingly if anyone had turned in a camera. “No!” So, I asked her if she could check in the back to see, “POR FAVOR “and again, she said “NO”, then I explained to her that my camera was “muy importante para mi,” urging her to at least check. Ginny had our hostel call the night before, and supervisor of the station had already explained the lost and found process, which required the bus driver to turn any left items by 12 the next day. My pleas had finally reached her and she was forced to leave her chair, or she was trying to look somewhat helpful in front of her co-workers. NOTE: I was super nice and sweet to this woman as I needed her to do something for me…(I smiled extra big, showing my dimples, fluffed up my curls, and batted my eyes.) I knew the camera would not be back there but she was kind enough to bring the lost and found book out and show me that only books and phones had been found in the last 10 years! I gave her a very sad thank you and headed off to tell Ginny of the bad news and recommend that she go to a nicer bus ticket clerk, one last ditch hope on my part. As I sat 50 yards away from the ticket counter, I sent Ginny back after explaining that she hadn’t even looked. Ginny was somewhat reluctant to go, but since she was able to eat her cheeseburger while she waited in line, she agreed. Ginny later told me that she waited until the young cute guy was free, allowing others to go in front of her, until she could go to his window. Once there, I saw Ginny waving her hands and just chatting the guys ear off. After about 5 minutes of Ginny standing up there, I saw the guy hand her a book and a pen. Oh woopie-doo, they’re taking her info so that when they do find the damn camera they can kindly ship it to us when we’re in Rome…..False, that thing is gone! Damn it!!!!
As Ginny was heading back towards me, I realized she was carrying something in her hand. The camera? How? Huh? No way! She was urging me to get up in a panic nervous tone, so we could get the heck out of there before someone came and took OUR camera back away from us. I was stuck. I was in disbelief that in her hand was our camera, relived that I didn’t lose another one, and PISSED that 30 minutes earlier, I wasn’t given it. As I walked with her, I pressed her for answers, and through clinched teeth she said, “that lady had the camera the whole time.” I begged Ginny to let me go say something…..but all she would let me do was call her names from afar, which is where the scientific classification of “THE ELUSIVE SPANISH HOG” TESH, was formed. TESH had eluded me but was no match for my wife who used her powers of persuasion on a nice young man. While the man was helping Ginny, Ginny realized he was acting weird, like he was pretending to look while making eye contact across the station. He hadn’t said anything to the woman, when she started yelling at him about “la camera.” He yelled back at her, calling her “mala!” With her heavy heels dragging, she came to the window with the camera in her hand! Even after Ginny exhaled with elation, jumped up and down, shouting, “Yes, that’s my camera! Thank you!” She still didn’t let the man have the camera until he grabbed it from her hands, again saying, “Mala---the camera is hers!” Needless to say TESH had seen the camera and claimed if for her own, hoping nobody would show up to get it. She knew exactly what I was looking for, and I’m sure the rest of the workers did as well….SO all this just to say I have made a habit of losing things!
We bought postcards of our camera-less day at the Alhambra, so the pics we will post will be of postcards. As for the beautiful sites, breathtaking architecture, and intriguing history, we are in awe of it all. Now that I’m cooled down from my experience with TESH, it’s time to board the bus!
After our day at the Alhambra, we had to decide if we wanted to travel for another five hours to Algeciras where we could catch a ferry across to Tangier, Morocco, entering Africa, and also head to see the famous rock of Gibraltar. With both of these stops on my must see list, we headed south.

Roma Italia

(We're a little off on our timeline.  We've been able to type, but unable to transfer what we've written to our blog.)  We'll post that when we figure out the problem!  (By "we," I mean Dan.)

Rome! We love it!
We arrived here on a late flight from Madrid.  However, our very inexpensive tickets got us to the airport late, too late for the bus that we needed to get to our hotel on the outskirts of Rome. In our limited Spanish, we tried to ask some of the Italians when the #33 bus would be coming, and yes, we are aware that they speak Italian and not Spanish, but it's close! Even with a huge language barrier, we understood the message clearly, "There are NO more buses tonight!"  There were four taxi drivers, but they wanted us to pay them the same price we had paid for one of our plane tickets, and we were way too stubborn to give in to that.  We decided we would go sit on the steps, maybe sleep a few hours like some of the other passengers were doing, and wait until the buses started running again in the morning.  A few minutes into our defeat, we saw a woman who cleans the airport take a seat outside. Again, we attempted our Spanish, while she spoke Italian, and somehow she understood that we were stuck and the taxi wasn't an option.  About he same time, a bus pulled up making its final drop off for the night.  The cleaning lady sent a man over to inquire about us getting on, but the driver said it had been his final stop.  We went ahead and walked over anyway, and Dan told me to get on and ask him if he could take us to our stop.  Lucky me! So without having to fake sounding desperate, I asked him if he could help us.  Again, he said he was done for the night. As I was about to step down from the bus, allowing this poor guy to go home, one of the Italian girls who had originally told us we needed to take a taxi came over and said something to the driver.  I assumed she was complaining that she along with a handful of others had already explained that the only way we were going anywhere at that time was a taxi.  I just wanted off the bus, feeling embarrassed to have wasted his time.  Not sure what exactly happened next, but the driver motioned to us to hurry and get on with a big smile across his face.  Oh great, he's going to drop us off where even the taxis won't go!  Instead, he put on the radio, gave us a somewhat narrated tour of Ciampino, and dropped us off at the front door to our hotel.  When Dan tried to give him money, he refused and welcomed us to Italia!

On Thursday we arrived in Rome, a bit hot and tired from the poor directions we had been given, leaving us hauling our things a couple extra miles.   Once we dropped off our things, we needed to eat.  Since pizza is advertised everywhere, we had no problem deciding on where to eat.  Oh my gosh, it may have been the fact that we were starving, but this pizza was out of this world good!  The crust was both salty and buttery.  Needless to say, pizza has been a steady part of our daily routine here!  After our late lunch, we headed to the Colosseo so Dan could pretend he was Maximus Decimus Meridius and shout, "Roma Victa!"

For dinner, we ate right outside the Colosseo, where again our appreciation for food was taken to a whole new level.  Dan ordered spaghetti carbonara which was hands down the best meal yet, and  I had spinach and goat cheese stuffed raviolis in a pink sauce - almost as good as Dan's.  Additionally, the red wine and tiramisu were heavenly!  After talking about how ridiculously good our dinner had been, we decided to go again the next night!

Our first day in Rome was spent in awe at the Vatican.  We first waited in a line that wrapped around the entire square to enter St. Peter's Basilica.  After getting the approval that we were dressed appropriately, covering our knees and shoulders, we entered.

I am going to attach pictures from St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistene Chapel.  Words will not due justice to the magnificence of the Vatican.  I will save that for Dan to attempt.


                                                        Nuns with Ginny -St. Peter's Square

The School of Athens - Sistene Chapel


La Pieta - Michelangelo, St. Peter's

090909

After leaving SD on Tuesday the 8th at 8am, we arrived in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday the 9th at 8am.  Ginny slept most of the flight, in between her comas, she dealt with getting crushed at UNO.  Kole met us at the airport and took us to his place using the extremely clean train which was only about 10 minutes and a couple blocks from his house. After getting charged $5 Swiss Franks equivalent to $5 dollars, for a 24oz water bottle, we realized this place would be tough on the wallet, or let me correct myself, tough on a very MANLY fanny pack. Indeed, a nap was in order.  Our first stop after leaving Kole’s was a place to eat, of course. It was lovely, but we found that although the exchange rate is 1 to 1 everything costs twice as much. Kole took us to see St. Pierre’s Cathedral, the big fountain in Lake Geneva, and the flower clock.

091009 Going to Madrid

 We slept in and Ginny made reservations at a hostel in Rome and booked a flight from Pisa to Munich for next week.  Our plane for Madrid departed at 3:15 and we both passed out for most of that flight.  When we got to Madrid we had to run the gambit of public transportation which was fairly easy after we figured out that we needed to take a subway, a bus, ask a few people for help, and then the subway again.  When we finally got to Puerta Del Sol we walked right past our hostel, which was no surprise being that the sign advertising our hostel was the size of a small menu.  Surrounding it however were huge brightly lit signs, most welcoming.  This part of the city is referenced as the Time Square of Madrid.  As it turned out, we had to stay at the sister hostel, because that dive had been completely sold out, so they upgraded us to a room with its own shower!  During the evening, we walked around Madrid,  watched a breathtaking sunset, had some tapas for dinner, consisting of albondigas(meatballs with rice) and vino tinto (red wine) and hit the sack.


***WARNING*** you may want to skip the next bit of info and scroll down to the following dated entry if you ever want to look at Dan the same again.  Hehehehe
Before heading to Europe, we made lists, checked them off, made new lists, and researched.  We consulted REI for the best backpack, day pack, travel bag, foot gear, pants, you name it, even down to the best underwear.  After reading, interviewing, and thorough research, we bought Dan $50 dollars worth of REI Under Armour, which should prove to help keep his body cool and chaffing to a minimum. Money well spent!  In fact, they even advertise that one pair of underwear can last 30 days by hand washing and a quick air dry.  Disgusting!  The night before we left, we decided that Dan's pack was too heavy and needed to be downsized. The 12 pairs of underwear that had originally been packed were cut down, saving them for Ecuador.  Now there were about eight or so, consisting of at least 6 pair of good humidity controlled skivies.  This made a huge difference in the pack, because the first thing Dan said the next day was, "Man, I packed this good!"
Well, as you can now guess, my lovely husband somehow realized this morning that in his attempts to lighten his load, he packed ALL his underwear in a suitcase that we will not see until October 8th, leaving him with ONE pair of REI Under Armour for 30 days!
Dan has already washed them and true to REI's word, they dried overnight!  Here's to 30 days with the same pair of undies!

091109

Jet lag still in effect. Got up at 2pm. 12 and a half hours of sleep.   Apparently the jet lag had not subsided.  We both hope that’s the end. We stopped by a market, which was really more like a deli/wine bar/food co-op. where the rest of Madrid was enjoying tapas beer and wine, so  we had a plate of olives and una copa de sangria! The rest of the day was spent at the magnificent Palacio Real de Madrid, and La Catedral.  For dinner, we had our first plate of seafood paella along with more vino tinto. Oops, part of the ceiling just landed on the bed!  As for the mighty Under Armour, three days, and going strong!

Things to Come

We will be posting pictures from the wedding and honeymoon soon. Here are a couple to hold you over.