Tight Butt Toldeo

I'm pretty certain that everyone who lives in Toledo has buns of steel.  Unfortunately we didn't do any hands-on experiments to test this theory but Im sure I'm right.  This city is on a high hill and climbing around that place all day it felt like it was uphill in all directions.  Pretty much like doing the stairmaster for eight hours straight...and we loved it!!

The city is extremely ancient and was actually the capital of Spain at one time. They want to preserve it so they don't allow new buildings to be built there at all, it's like stepping into the past.  The city is small, but because of the zigzagging roads and the guarantee of getting lost, you can spend hours and hours there just wandering around.  Oh the city is also surrounded by a river which was so beautiful! You can walk along the river or cross it from above on cool looking bridges.  We loved this place and I couldn't get over the old architecture so I took way too many pictures...and many of are the same thing over and over again. Just trying to get the right angle, ya know? So here are a few for you. 

View from outside the city 

Welcome to Toledo!  "Holy Toledo" was coined from this city because it is believed to be holy land.  

Picking his nose? Only zoom will tell

Amazing details, how did they build this back then?!

I have become obsessed with doors on this trip. You will notice as we post more pictures.  There are some cool doors out there.

Once again taking spontaneous naps wherever we please!

Where's Waldo?

They have these treats called Marzapan that are SOOO GOOD!!! Don't underestimate them by their size. They are tiny and made of almond paste and some other good stuff and they have different renditions of it, some covered in almonds and some plain.  I haven't really tasted anything like it and now I know it's something Im going to crave but I don't know where else you can find them!! If you ever see them anywhere buy them and eat them immediately.

   

    

Just as I was becoming fluent in Spanish it was time to leave for Morocco! But it's okay because after Morocco we came back to Barcelona (where I am writing this now).  We flew out to Morocco the day after Toledo and wow Morocco was intense!!! The craziest adventure that I need some good time to put into words!

Off With a Pit Stop in London!

We are off to Madrid...Spain? First and foremost I gotta do a shout out to Virgin Airlines.  They make peasants like us who sit in 2nd class feel like first class people for those few hours in the sky. Seriously they are awesome, you get a welcome kit with a toothbrush, an eye mask, ear plugs, a pen, some other stuff I can't remember (maybe an iPad?) and a blanket so awesome we had to keep it and stuff it in our bag. This red blanket has come in handy many a times already.  Their meals were amazing too, when Heidi and I flew them to London a few years ago we both agreed that the airplane food on the way over was the best we had our whole trip. Maybe it means that food in England sucks, or maybe Virgin is that good.  K done with the advertising, I guess just having flown RyanAir to Morocco (we are now in Marrakech we have some catch up posts to make) we have an even stronger appreciation for good airlines.  I'll get to this more later, but we were laughing that RyanAir likes to "punish" their customers for trying to book such cheap flights. Their slogan "You can fly cheap with us, but there will be hell to pay for it." hahah more on that later!

One thing we did realize when buying our flight to Madrid was that we had a layover in London.  One thing we did not realize was that the flight leaving after the layover in London was out of a DIFFERENT airport than the one we landed in.  Who would've thought that?? Kayak did us wrong but maybe that's why our flight was so cheap.  Good thing our flight attendant on our LA flight pointed it out to us.  Details. Apparently this small airport outside of London called Gatwik was an hour bus ride from Heathrow.  At that point we were very grateful for the five hour layover.  We made the most of it and instead of taking a bus straight to Gatwick we took the "tube" into the city and figured we would catch a bus from there to this random airport.

 

We picked a random stop to get off at and when we got up from the tube it was rainy and cold! This is why we picked mostly Southern Europe countries to hit up this time of year.  We noticed some cool buildings in front of us so figured we made a good choice on the tube stop and started to walk around.

"Is there anything cool to see nearby?" Robby asked an old couple next to us.  "Um, yes you're standing right in front of Buckingham Palace." I'm sure they were thinking "stupid tourists" but come on shouldn't the palace have a sign and some red carpet leading in?? Or shouldnt the Queen be outside greeting people? Let's pretend that I had never been there before too.  Haha so there you go- before catching the train to Gatwick we got a tour of the palace and had one of the best ham and cheese sandwiches I've ever had! Both Robby and I agree that a couple hours roaming London totally counts as another city/country hit on this trip.  Add it to the list, it was a great pit stop!

                          It's a fake out guard!!

This wasn't even the start of our real adventures, we are already having the time of our lives but I'll write more later! Typing on an IPad is rough! Next up is Spain- Toledo and Madrid!

El Spaino Part Uno - Madrid!

After our quick stint in London and then wandering around the gigantic Madrid airport we made it to our hostel for our first night abroad! We were kind of spoiled with how nice our hostel was (although from the picture you may wonder what I'm taking about!) but Robby warned me that not all of our hostels would be like this. We had our own room and our very own shower and sink in the room!  The bathroom was just around the corner too and since the hostel was totally empty except for us and maybe one other person we pretty much had that to ourselves too.  I would learn quickly that as far as hostels go this is as good as it gets! I mean check this out we even had an extra twin bed in our room for guests!

Although we only spent a couple days in Madrid I will tell you that I noticed a couple things right away:

1) it never sleeps!  We got in at midnight that night and walked around for a bit and stores were open, people were hustling and bustling as if the sun had just gone down.  Old people, young people, teenagers that looked like (and sadly may have been) prostitutes were all just chillin in the plazas and streets. And restaurants were open way late too.  One night we were walking around at 2am (in my mind it couldve easily been 8pm) with a ton of sit down restaurants still open and people sitting and eating who were probably going to be there for hours longer. This was a week night too... I don't get how they ever go to work. 

2) we feel tall in Spain!  I've never felt tall before, but there I did.  And Robby was totally the tallest guy on the street, or at least in the top three...depending on the street.

3) Spaniards are way nice and helpful! at first we thought people were going to be mean and hate tourists but most of them were so nice! Our very first encounter at the airport led us to believe people would hate on us but it only went up from there.  We were trying to catch a bus out of the airport to take us into town (and we were waiting at the bus stop forever!) Finally the bus pulls up and we walk towards it.  The bus driver opens the door and once I started speaking English he waved his hand as if to tell us to go somewhere else and drove off!  First encounter was no bueno, maybe we were just that disgusting after 24 hours of travel and maybe our showers and a full nights sleep helped us be more tolerable the next day?  

4) some Spainairds are weird.  They have these huge outdoor squares they call Plazas.  Some have restaurants and vendors and some occasional entertainers.  Well here are a couple we passed.  The goat thing moved and made this crazy screeching noise too! Totally freaked us out!! I still don't get it.

Robby was so freaked out he wouldn't go near it!! Hahahaha sooo creepy!

Two other weirdos in the plaza

The first full day we were there just happened to be my travel buddys birthday!! It was awesome celebrating in Spain.  He opened a couple gifts in the morning and the rest of the day we did normal birthday stuff like explore the Palacia Real where I think the old King of Spain lived. Either him or the Emperor of China- hard to keep straight.  We also walked and walked and walked around Madrid checking out the different parks and plazas. Oh and one of Robbys favorite parts was probably the chocolate croissants and amazing pastries at bakeries that are everywhere out there!! A birthday pastry is just as good as a birthday cake.

We got busted for even holding a camera in the palace so we had to be discreet. So much gold and awesome chandeliers in this place! Reminds me of our house back home....

Palacio Real!

Pastry paradise - pure love

Gotta say- he is the best travel partner and life partner that I could ever ask for!  He makes everywhere feel like home and everything so much fun! So glad this guy was born - thanks Liz and Greg for an amazing creation who brightens my life.

After a full day of walking all we wanted to do was lay down and eat.  At the same time.  Perfectly enough we knew about this restaurant called "the Laydown" where you were literally served your dinner on comfortable beds.  We knew a couple that went to Madrid and ate there and it looked awesome so we thought it would be the perfect birthday dinner spot!  Well after about two hours of walking trying to find this mystical address and asking people on the street (not one person had heard of it which was kind of a red flag) we finally found the spot.  It was supposed to look like this:

But it looked like this:

We were so sad it had been shut down!! The website was still up and running and everything. How could a concept like that not have survived??! Come on!! I bet it would have in America, we are lazy like that ;)

At this point we were STARVING and it was close to midnight.  The first place we saw was none other than KFC.  And yes we did have 1 Euro chicken sandwiches for his birthday dinner that night and we were both ok with it in that desperate moment.

Oh one last thought- the parks in Madrid were so pretty!! One perk to being "homeless" and carrying all your essentials on your back is that in a matter of seconds anywhere can be your temporary home.  We've found napping or reading a book in parks and other pretty places to be one of our favorite pastimes!  It's so liberating not to be on a time schedule or really have anywhere to be at all!

Home sweet home!!!

Beautiful sunset in Madrid! And check out those magestic cranes! Too bad the cathedral totally got in the way.

I have to touch on our day trip to Toledo too!  I'll do that next in a much shorter post I promise!

The Best Day Ever

Was May 24, 2013.  This was the day Fast & the Furious 6 came out.  As a side note it was also the day of our wedding.  I could write lengthy Japanese sonnets of how awesome it was.  But I will keep those beauties in my journal because that's not what this is about.  We want to write about our adventures we are bound to have over the next 3 months.  We are both lovers of travel and have always dreamed of quitting normal life one day to spend a good amount of time exploring this planet, but we just didn't know when we'd ever get the chance.  So after having the best day of our lives we decided why not make it the best year of our lives by taking a break from the routine and start living out what might never happen if we put it off.  So I quit my job, he's taking a break from school and we are going to travel our hearts out.  I'm sure we will come back kissing American soil and probably even the toilets (they really are so much better here!) but until then I want to be drowned in culture, see some amazing places, eat lots of authentic food (I packed stretchy pants), meet some interesting people, ruin some shoes and be run into the ground by a heavy backpack.