Status Update

From Morocco we took another overnight train which was a million times better- like the four seasons of train travel! we had 5 great hours in madrid to see a few things and then were off for 24 hours in lisbon, portugal. this computer has now decided to eat my pictures so i will upload those later but thought we would at least say hello. in lisbon we toured their so-called highlights, not much- do not take a trip to only there and we finally ate at a Hard Rock cafe. It had been a joke along the way until we finally founf one and then it was like a taste of heaven! gotta love a standard menu. sadly the next morning the kings and stephen flew home- and then there were two.
now dave and i are in paradise. his sis amy put us up with her points in a fabulous hotel with robes and plenty of amenities. nice if beauitful, romantic and charming - a great way to finish the trip. my bag sadly did not make it but i got a cute dress and sandals in the meantime. here are some google pics of nice for now until i find another computer- ourvoir! or however you spell it...

How hot is it in Morocco?

words can not explain it- stick yourself in a sauna, add sun and then walk around in it all day- hot, very hot. these pics should help...

1. here is a man painting/ burning a sheet of paper via the sun

2. dk passed out in a corner of the airport due to heat exhaustion- not really but funny

3. ash and jenny clinging to the only morsel of shade to be found the entire time

feeling hot hot hot!!

Marrakesh, Morocco- wow!

i just dont know what else to say. i am super glad we went there but i felt stressed out about 90% of the time due to the mopeds that literally brushed your legs, talk of bombings in the largest market in africa and the locals who would throw snakes or monkeys on you at any moment.

we had a blast and stayed at the cutest place with colorfully decorated rooms and free breakfast delieverd by the two young guys who ran the place- so sweet. the first day we scoured the market for deals where jenny was told she was a hard woman but we got the deal closed on the items we wanted- go jenny!

the second day we took a three hour car ride to a kazba which is a large sand fortress- very large and intricate. it was worth the drive and ended with some delicious local cuisine. we had a little trouble with our driver when he took us to a very overpriced restaurant- he obviously made commission- we refused and chose a place on our own. upon arrival he sat across the room from us, took off his shoes and propped his feet up at us just staring. stephen was pissed to say the least as it is apparently very bad when muslims show the bottom of their feet and is seen as a huge sign of disrespect- dont worry- stephen showed his right back! very funny...

a highlight for ash was for sure the encounters with the local animals including this nice monkey and beauitful orange, green and yellow iguana!

Beachin and Boozin

we were fortunate enough to have a local guide essentially in barcelona! one of jenny's best friends, rebecca, has a sister who lives in spain and married into a major wine family- torres.

they live in a sleepy seaside town, sitges, so we hopped a train down their way and spent the day at the beach enjoying the spanish paella- a delicious seafood-rice meal! the kings and haases stayed for dinner where we experienced local spanish cuisine at its finest complete with a sausage tree and lots of torres wine of course!

the next day we joined back up with the family and visited the family winery- what a treat- we privately toured and tasted of course at torres and then a smaller winery they bought- jean leon, which was my personal favorite.

a fantastic time in spain was had by all- upon leaving we hopped a flight to morocco...

Barcelona Part Dos

Barcelona is a wonderful place, one of our favorite cities we have seen...wanted to update all of you a little more on some of our highlights- ps, i am on the wierdest keyboard ever so please excuse the lack of punctuation

our first night in barcelona we celebrated jenny's 28th bday at a wonderful restaurant by the shore. dave and i sent her out in style with a new shirt from the ever-popular european store- mango.

another major highlight of our time here was a fresh market full of fruits and veggies and smoothies and the most delicious bran muffins of your life. we spent every morning eating breakfast here and visiting the various booths.

the ultimate highlight had to be running into a 4 month old Boxer who looked exactly like zeta. i of course smiled and cried.


our top 10 list of barcelona
1. empanadas- eat them now- like a spanish hot pocket

2. spanish discotecas- yes we went to a 5story dance club and partied till 4am- the hilarious part was that people were just arriving when we were leaving- it didnt even open until 1am

3. a fantastic apartment found by jenny complete with air con

4. meeting up with luke and annie baxter- luke is carrying a 40 pound house on his back complete with tent, stove, pots, gas...

5. a bar that looked like a rain forest- complete with thunderstorms inside

6. euro-outfits- for the boys for our clubbing night- dave rocked white pants while dk got ripped skinny eurojeans

7. people watching on la rambla- street performers and locals making out constantly which we decided is really more like licking each other

8. gaudi architecture- he is a nut but cool

9. dave on the stage alone at the disco- while ash was being hit on by a strange man- when i told him i was married he said no trouble here i am just looking for a little japanese girl wearing a small dress??

10. while walking home from the disco dave got hit on by a man who said honey those trousers look great on you!

we loved barcelona!!

Pics Pics and More Pics!

Behold! You now have access to all of our pictures from Athens - Prague thanks to the incredible Stephen Houghton! He complied all of our pics and loaded them into his personal web gallery for your viewing pleasure. If you have some free time, there are at least a thousand for your enjoyment!

http://gallery.me.com/stephen_houghton#gallery

Welcome to the world Audrey Claire!

We just had to give a personal hug and shout out via the blog to our dear friends, the Boldens. Today they gave birth to their second beautiful daughter, Audrey Claire! We are so excited to meet her! As you can see from the pictures, Elise is a proud and happy big sister, I am sure. Welcome, Audrey!! JB and Laurie- we love you!

Me Encanta Barthelona!

Oh do I love Barcelona! By far my favorite place we have been yet and maybe one of my favorite cities I have ever been to. The city has so much energy and is absolutely fascinating to walk around. You can not take it all in! From hundreds of interesting people, to street performers, to flower stands, markets, palm trees, boats, etc... there is just so much to experience! Lucky for me, Dave mentioned that Spain is a huge Pharma industry and Lilly has a big affiliate here, so now I am all about moving to Barcelona for an international assignment! Not too mention as of today alone, we have seen 5 Boxers!!! You don't see that many Boxers in the USA! So fun! Zeta would love it here and she already knows "Ven aqui!" Perfecto! I also have loved practicing my Spanish, which obviously we have not gotten to do at all yet! There are so major differences between "mexican spanish" (which I learned) and "spain spanish." Today I got called out by a local for speaking to him in mexican Spanish! Oh well, at least I am trying! I will not go into detail yet about our trip solely because our pictures aren't posted yet, but I will tell of one adventure and post those pics (as shown) since I had to pull them from Google because my street photography skills could not even begin to do it justice! Meet Gaudi- a crazy artist who must have been on drugs! He designed this massive church in Barcelona- Sagrada Familia that is ginormous and a little wierd, yet beautiful! It has 12 spires for each apostle and each face of the building tells a different story. Some of the spires have lizards or snails crawling up them and some some have balls of various colored fruits perched at the top. Before Gaudi was done building his masterpiece, he was killed by a tram and his plans for the church were burned. Ever since the city has been fighting on how to complete it and they now hope to have it complete in some way by 2020. It is an immaculate site! We also swung by an apartment complex, above, that he built to resemble caves! Amazing- this guy is a nut!

Aha Praha!

In case you were unaware before, Prague is really referred to as Praha over in these parts! As in Aha Praha, a phrase coined by Jenny King! We only had two days in Prague which turned out to be plenty, as there is not too much to "see" in Prague. We decided it is more known for the culture, nightlife and just general spirit of the city. Sadly we did not embrace the nightlife in Prague, although this is supposed to be one of the top attractions. Wouldn't you know we met up with some GSBers from Dave's class there, as well. That now makes Istanbul, Prague, Barcelona and Nice that we will randomly have other students traveling along with us! Some of the highlights of Prague were:

- a large castle on a hill (literally)- see Dave in the knight's helmet?
- village-esque scenery nestled on the water
- celebrating Stephen's birthday at an American restaurant with great eats- Red Hot Blues- we dined here along with the other GSB students pictured
- finding an all-american store complete with Jif peanut butter- I literally did not know what to do with myself, except take a picture of course- I also did a small dance for the lady upon entering the store, to which she replied "well, I have never seen that reaction before!"
- the best hot dog you have ever had in your life
- a jazz festival in the center of town sponsored by the one and only Google (we got a pic of Jenny with sign, of course)
- seeing Angelina's new movie- Wanted (in honor of Knox and Viv's births)
- the best Mexican restaurant we have been to yet with a nice waitress for a change- no one in Eastern Europe is friendly for some reason, and I mean no one (except the Turks- God Bless the Turks!!)
- a sign for a restaurant called "Czech Mex" in honor of Tex Mex, which we thought was hilarious

Such fun times in Praha! Then we jetted off to Barcelona- better pronounced as Barthelona!

Let's Talk About Train Travel

Wow! So let me just keep this short. We trained overnight from Budapest to Prague in a 10x10 compartment with 6 beds. You might be wondering logistically how this worked out- try stacking people on top of each other and not moving- that is how you cram them all in there!! Dave and Dave enjoyed a brewski while I took a Tylenol PM and tryed desperately to knock myself out! Upon boarding the train, Jenny King- world travel extraordinare laughs and looks at me and tells me how this is the nicest train she has ever been on. I just looked at her and said "I can do this, I am just going to need a minute to gather myself. " :) All in all it was not that bad once you got settled but I for sure would rather fly first class any day, but seeing as how I don't get to do that very often at all, I will stick to the overnight trains!

Budalicious Budapest

Dave did a great job of updating you on what we did in Budapest. Honestly, it was fairly mellow- it was as if there are no people living in the whole city! We know this is not true, but we found it so strange that there were not many people surfacing! Some of the more interesting and unique highlights of the city were captured in two of the pictures above.

1. In talking with some nice folks outside of Parliament, Jenny and I realized they were Young Life leaders and we had a ton in common. After chatting more, we realized we all went to school together in Singapore- had the same teachers and knew a million of the same people. Meet my "Singaporean" friends. :)

2. We had a serious lack of snacks up until now... it was almost as if granola bars did not exist anywhere. Pictured above is Dave with his trophy- might I add he was sent to the store alone and came back bearing a glorious plethera of snacks!

Also pictured above are the beautiful Kings at the baths. I am pretty sure Dave touched on the baths earlier but my take was- yes, they were fun and definitely a cultural experience, but I for sure needed to not focus on the grimy details lurking in the locker room and pool. :) Nothing like sharing a bath with a whole city of your closest friends who don't shower regularly!

Anywho- Budapest was great and lots to see and enjoy. We miss all of our friends! Hugs to all!

Budapest

From Slovenia we had the great fortune of taking a train to the beautiful city of Budapest, Hungary. This was an awesome town with great things to see, but few tourists to create crowds. We enjoyed the Parliament, and the Museum of Terror, which depicts the Nazi and Communist occupation of Hungary from WWII until 1990. It is amazing to think these things were just happening less than twenty years ago!

We also enjoyed the baths, Hungarian style! This is basically a public outdoor pool, but there were some funny quirks to keep us entertained (pics to come). First, jets everywhere that people used for massages and to sit on...
There were also many hairy, overweight Hungarian people in small suits. Our favorite was a woman (in her 70's) in her leopard bra and panties. There were also old men everywhere playing chess in their speedos. Finally, there was a "Circle of inappropriate touching". This was a lazy river, on a small scale, where people ran in circles and jets pushed them into one another. This seems innocent enough, but when you fill it with hairy, barely covered bodies it turns into your worst nightmare! You'll love the pics that we'll load later today.

OK, out of time here, but wait for the pics of budapest and prague to come...

We fled to Bled (Slovenia that is)

Hello all! Just wanted to update you guys on our time in Slovenia. What a gem of the world- a hidden gem to me. A place that no one ever thinks to vacation but it is absolutely charming, beautiful and friendly. We had a few days there and mainly spent them hiking, walking around the famous lake with the chapel in the middle (pictured in our former blog post with the caves) and relaxing. The boys went white water rafting and were thrilled to know they passed two different areas where people had recently died! Of course they love the unknown adventure in that. I am pleased to report all is well though.

We hiked with the Kings in an area around Mount Triglav and it was just expansively beautiful and unlike anything I had seen before. The Houghtons stayed back due to our 7th or 6 1/2 member of the group (she is 7 months preggo and we all decided scaling the rocks might not be in her best interest!) I walked across my first glacier- which I decided makes me a Glaciator! Jenny and I trailed the boys and let them hike up- rather crawl the rocks up to the high point. We were perfectly happy to sit and chat near the bottom. :)

We left Slovenia and trained to Budapest, which has been fantastic. Look forward to a blog post about that next- you have to wait for my pictures to upload! The train ride was quite interesting and made us all appreciate true air conditioning and the non-smoking laws being passed all over the USA. At this point, I am still loving traveling but starting to miss certain things now known as "luxuries." I can think of a few...

1. Air conditioning
2. Ice
3. Magazines in English
4. Mexican food
5. Showering without shoes on
6. A kitchen full of food whenever you would like
7. Ice (yes it is on here twice for a reason)
8. Visa accepted EVERYWHERE
9. Ice (I know, but try living without it)
10. MY ZETA!!!!!! I play with every dog I see and accept kisses from all of them- even Dave is starting to join me- my favorite foreign puppy thus far has been an old beagle named Fanta- as in "Wanta Fanta, don't you wanta- wanta Fanta!"

Look forward to Buda and Pest. :) A thought to leave you with though- if you live in Buda- is your address Buda, Budapest, Hungary? Or just Budapest, Hungary... think about it.

R.I.P. and Happy B day Tim

It is time we start to honor those travelers who have gone before us back into the land of the dead, the USA. We will start with a member of our crew who celebrates his birthday today, Tim Murphy.

Here is our limerick tribute to Timothy...

He rolled his Tumi all over the nations
And enforced the rules of sunscreen application
When he chooses hostels there’s bedbugs …don’t sleep!
When he parties you know he’s taking it deep
He’s the high-octane, high-decibel, Murph-sensation.

Tim, we'd say we miss you, but we can still hear you.

Love, Everyone!

Channy R.I.P.

Our third traveler who has left us behind is without question our favorite. Here's a limerick for Channy...

If you ask a tough question she might fake an ache
She’s loves leading tours or power walking by the lake
The lady of the harem finally drove a smart car
Singing Elena la ballena que vive en el mar
Tim just buy her a Smart, for Gilly’s sake!!!

Channy, please come back. We miss you!!

R.I.P. Chris

We lost another good traveling friend today, and would like to honor some of our memories of him on this trip. Here's our limerick for Chris...

He came with a calculator built into his brain
And searched the paper for the daily rate of exchange
He spent hours in the market bargaining for deals
He ate off the floor and finished foreigners’ meals
But he never found a bed to fit his 6’6 frame

Chris, enjoy your rest in Portland (all 48 hours of it) before you fly back to Africa. I’d say we missed you, but we have the strange feeling you’ll be sleeping in one of our homes soon since you are homeless in San Francisco!

Hair-Update...the CroHawk

Due to recent violent outbreaks in Eastern Europe that may or may not be related to the sweet EuroHawk I have been sporting, I have decided that it is in the best interest of our European friends that I change hairstyles. As you can see in the pic above, I am now sporting a CroHawk.

The CroHawk was modeled to show my devotion and love for the nation of Croatians. The rugged semi-hawk represents the miles of untouched coastline and rocky shores. The non-hawk portion of my hair remains uncultured like the customer service one will receive in this sometimes unfriendly land. Finally, stray hairs poke out from the sides to remind us all that the rocky mountains of Croatia are something that will never be tamed.

We hope this new hairstyle will bring peace to Eastern Europe again, and that it will show our love and sorrow for those who have been hurt by our good looks and great hair.

A Wake of Violence

We knew the turkish people were sorry to see us leave. However, we underestimated how upset they would be, and what they would do to show their scorn. As most of you have likely seen, there was a shooting in istanbul just a few days after we left at the US consulate (see pic above). We cannot say for sure, but there is a strong likelihood this happened because the people of turkey hoped to see us stay with them forever. I have to take the blame on this one, because my Eurohawk does make me seem like a man who will eventually call this continent home, and I got their hopes up and crushed them. I had no idea how much I meant to the people of this wonderful continent...

We expect similar violence to break out in Croatia and Slovenia in the next few days. We will keep you posted.

More pics- Skocjan Caves in Slovenia and the town of Bled

One more note in addition to all explained below- it is crazy to think that embarrassingly enough I had never heard of these two places prior to this trip much less had a desire to visit them- who knew there are so many glorious places out there in the world that are potentially unheard of and unvisited?! Is Bled not the prettiest town you have seen?