Madrid & heading home...

Well, I fly home tomorrow! It's been a great 3 weeks (feels like more), but there's something nice about the comforts of home. Even better, my flights start and end at reasonable times of day (Theoretically. I did some research a while back and found that all airlines are late about 20% of the time and none were better than 18%... how depressing.).

I missed blogging about Madrid, but I feel justified in doing it now since I'm back there briefly. The city itself didn't impress me much (every city I've ever been to pales in comparison to London), but it does have some cool stuff. The Prado Museum is one of the best of the world, and given that I've now been to several of the best museums in the world (MNAC in Barcelona, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Royal Gallery and British Museum in London), I can justifiably talk about it. The Prado was my personal favorite of all of them because I really love some of the Spanish paintings of the past few hundred years. I found that most of the super famous painters didn't seem that great to me, especially compared with the excellent but relatively unknown works sitting side-by-side the famous ones. The creativity involved with creating some of the Spanish landscape paintings and the emotion portrayed in some paintings of significant moments in history and fiction affected me a lot more than the endless rooms filled with various artists' interpretations of Christ's crucifixion. Honestly, I think there must have been at least 500 years where no one painted anything except for Jesus being born and Jesus dying. What about the rest of His life (and the rest of the world)? Isn't that what makes His birth and death so relevant? Alas...

Another interesting sight in Madrid is the old royal palace. Unfortunately, they don't allow you to take pictures of the inside, but the pics below are of the courtyard. The inside is possibly the most opulent space in the world (I haven't seen the Vatican, though -- that might put up a fight). It puts the phrase "living like a king" to shame. It's hard to find anything in that place that isn't covered in gold or silver. There's a whole room which is covered with uncracked porcelain. The king's bedroom is larger than most houses. And so are his dressing chambers. And every room in the place. There's a 400-year-old string quartet where each instrument is worth over $30 million. It's just crazy.

Segovia

04/06:

Well, it's just about the end of my trip (tomorrow is my last day), and I couldn't think of a better place to end it. I'm sitting now in a stone-walled garden all to myself with a little fountain, warm sun, cool breeze, and green grass peppered with bright red little poppies. Little cottony seeds from some tree float freely in the wind. The valley beyond the stone wall holds remnants of a 2000-year-old Roman aqueduct, and to top it all off, there's an old castle just up the hill. Yes, this really is the way to finish this memorable adventure.

Segovia is a quaint place. It's amazing how a little town like this can change so little over the millennia. Madrid was too much "city" for me (people shouting all the time, everyone in a rush, prostitutes and shady gold buyers lining the streets...), but this is the Spain of legends. Of course, you can't really have a modern job here (career options include selling things to tourists, and providing services for people who sell things to tourists), but it's great to visit.

Late post: La Sagrada Familia

This is from a few days ago, but bear with me :)

On my second (and last) day in Barcelona, I followed the advice of some friends (and every tourist guide in the world) and coughed up the admission fee to go inside La Sagrada Familia church. Simply put, it is amazing. Maybe even awe-inspiring. I've gone inside several of the great & famous churches here in Europe (and plenty of ordinary ones in America), and none of them hold a candle to La Sagrada Familia. While it looks a bit like a mud sculpture on the outside, it is an uplifting hall of light and color within.

Espana: Another World

31/05:

Flew into Barcelona this morning, which meant getting up at 4am... curse you easyJet! First thing I noticed is that people weren't exaggerating when they said that everyone speaks English here. It took a few hours before I could actually get someone to speak to me in Spanish. Of course, all that changed when I ventured out to my hostel this evening, which is in a "real" Spanish neighborhood to the north of Park Guell (pronounced like "gway"). Out here away from the tourist-driven downtown, you really get a feel for what Spanish life is like (as much as possible without living it yourself, anyway). And in that Spanish life, they don't speak English. I was made humorously aware of this when the lady at the hostel's check-in desk couldn't pronounce my name. (Native Spanish speakers can't make the "th" sound)

The sights today included a few rides on a hop-on, hop-off bus tour, a pass through the Picasso museum (really interesting to see stuff from his childhood through to the crazy weird stuff most people know him for), an awesome Catalan lunch, and lots of wandering around the streets of the Barri Gotica.

CERN

29/05:

A friend of a friend (shout-outs to Stefanie and Gianluca!) gave me a great tour of CERN today. CERN, by the way, stands for Csomethingfrench Esomethingfrench Rsomethingfrench Nsomethingfrench -- it's a research center with a few thousand scientists working away at solving some of physics' big questions by smashing protons and/or lead ions together at about 99.9% of the speed of light.

In the evening, the rain which had been plaguing the country since I arrived let up and let the sun shine spectacularly through. Switzerland may be the most beautiful place I've ever seen (and that's saying something).

Hiking Montreux

Feeling a bit under the weather today, I decided to get over the weather by hiking up a mountain! Okay, maybe the logic doesn't work there, but it's what happened anyway. It was a tough choice today: tour one of the world's most delicious chocolate factories, or hike some of the world's most beautiful mountains? My compromise was to hike the mountains, then buy a whole bunch of chocolate.

The hike was spectacular. Most of it was very similar to what can be found in the Pacific Northwest in America, but it all had a unique Swiss character (especially the views at the top).

After the hike (about 10 miles), I came back down to Montreux and walked along the shores of Lake Geneva. There is a beautiful pedestrian area that stretches for a few miles, lined with little shops, a casino, and what must be ridiculously expensive hotels. There were also some swans which moved into attack formation and hissed at me when I tried to sit by the peaceful lake.

I don't speak French

28/05:

After expertly navigating a train connection in Paris (believe me, it was tricky), I made it all the way from Amsterdam to Lausanne, Switzerland by rail. The journey took about 8 hours. Unfortunately, I didn't have a window seat, but I could still see some countryside rolling by. Actually, more like flying by -- the trains I took cruised most of the way at about 160 mph (this sets a new personal land speed record).

Upon making it into Lausanne, I was picked up by some distant relatives (I think technically they are my step-aunt/uncle-in-law), who I will be staying with for the next few nights.

Delft

My Dutch roommate Jon gave me a nice overview tour of the university town Delft (where he studied for several years). Then, we split up for the day so he could get some work done and I could dive into some of the more typical tourist activities.

The town is not that large, but it's got a ton of history and beautiful areas. I toured its 2 huge churches (the "Old Church" from 1200-something and the "New Church" from a hundred years later -- the Dutch are not very creative with their names), even climbing all the way up to the top of the New Church (see pictures)! There's a veeery small old spiral staircase which winds up through the center of the tower to give access to the bells and lets you get almost to the very top. By the time you climb the 30 stories or so of stairs, you are certainly aware of how high you are, and when you lean over the railing, you get a healthy dose of vertigo.

I should also mention that the Dutch make really good food that's bad for you. I've had sizable "samples" of their cheese, apple pie (x2), ice cream (x3), cookies (x8?), stroopwafels (x3... so far), and a whole host of meat-based yummies (of which the locals have learned to never inquire about ingredients).

Sailing

To escape from the Ghost of Slot Assumburg (and all attendant dragons, witches, and medieval tax-collectors), I caught a train to meet up with my Dutch housemate, Jon. Being the Dutch sea warrior that he is, he took me sailing with some of his buddies from his Scouts club (basically Boy/Girl Scouts in a sailboat). I felt a lot like Bob from the movie "What About Bob?".

Also got to see some real Dutch windmills here! Just need my Sancho Panza...

Amsterdam

Got to explore the once-great city of Amsterdam today. I say "once-great" because it's hay-day was really 400 years ago, when it was the seat of the society which ruled the world at the time. Now it's still pretty cool, especially the canals which connect everything (and make it very difficult to navigate the city on land.

Last night and tonight, I am sleeping in a castle. It was built sometime in the 13th century. Yeah. (see pictures)

Cycling

20/5/2013

I learned a few important lessons today:

1. The English countryside is very beautiful.
2. So beautiful, that it's easy to get distracted while cycling.
3. The front and back brakes are reversed on U.K. bikes.
4. Doing a front flip over the handlebars still hurts, even in a foreign country.

Yes, it's true. While admiring the quaint countryside passing me by, I looked back at the road to discover with horror that my bike was no longer aligned with the road and was, in fact, heading straight into a rut off the side. Being somewhat of an expert in not crashing bikes, I used my failsafe move: lock up the back wheel, apply moderate pressure to the front brakes, and hope for the best. Except that in the U.K., what should be the back brake is actually the front brake. Thus, I was sent hurling over the handlebars of my bike. Don't worry, no major injuries -- just some minor scrapes.

22/5/2013:
Quick update: I'm now back in London for another day before I fly to Amsterdam tomorrow.

Cambridge

I took the train up from London to Cambridge this morning (about 1.5 hours). Cambridge is like every university town I've been to, except the buildings are several hundred years old and way more awesome looking. I think if there were a zombie apocalypse, England would be pretty safe with all its impenetrable stone fortresses.

When I first got to Cambridge, I found this amazingly talented kid playing guitar and singing some of my favorite songs. The whole downtown area was speckled with talented street performers separated by hearing distance.

London part 2

I'm a day late posting this (didn't really have a chance earlier):

I started today off with a beautiful walk through some of the royal gardens (specifically, Holland Park, Kensington Gardens, and Hyde Park). It's amazing how big the gardens are -- I think Kensington Gardens covers about half a square mile.

Then, I went to the Royal Gallery at Trafalgar Square, which is a great (free) museum of paintings from throughout the centuries. This was followed by a trip to the Tower of London. It's a huuuuge castle/fortress right in the heart of London. Lots of people have died there. After that, I went to yet another world treasure: the British Museum. I only got to spend a short time there, but the best part was the giant collection of ancient Greek and Roman ruins. Seeing such advanced art from thousands of years ago was inspiring but also worrisome. There have been several times in human history when civilization has fallen backwards by hundreds or thousands of years; let's not let it happen again.

The day finished off with seeing the Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre. Londoners really know how to be classy.