May 1, 2007

Vienna, Austria



Most of my posts of travels start out with a picture of the hostel, and this one is no different. Unfortunately, neither Charla or myself took one of the outside.






Oh well, in any case, this is the Wombats Hostel in Vienna. It was very nice. Our roommates were two single travelers and I can't remember where they were from: After dropping our stuff off at the hostel, I realized that the clothes I brought were not really for the weather we encounted. It was sooo sunny and about 80-85 degrees! I bought a couple tanks and was set. Our first stop was the Museum Quartier (a nice area with a bunch of museums, as you've probably already guessed). We didn't go in any of them; I think I'm museum'd out, if that's possible.
This area is called the Heldenplatz (according to labeling on Charla's pictures--I'm not very good at keeping track of what everything is called, but the pics are good...hehe). There were a ton of people laying on the lawn, sunbathing, sleeping, or playing a little American football.
On almost every street corner was a guy that was dressed as this guy is, and he was selling tickets to opera shows for the evening. We were sold on the first greeting and saw an opera/ballet/orchestra concert that evening:
We decided on a sightseeing bus tour, as they seem to work well for us, and did in Vienna, as well.
One stop was a visit to Schonnbrunn Palace. We took a tour; it was neat. ('nuff said)

Stephansdom and the famous St. Stephan's Cathedral--strange pattern on the outside for a church (to me anyway): Stadtpark and Mozart:

April 25, 2007

Barcelona, Spain

Over Easter, I made my first trip to Spain...Barcelona specifically. The main area of interest (probably for tourists) is a road called La Rambla. There were tapas restaurants and street entertainers everywhere! The week before we arrived, Barcelona's weather was horrible--rain, rain, rain...so luck was on my side when the weather straightened up and the skies were clear and sunny. Here are some pictures. I had a hard time narrowing down what to post, so there's a lot on here.

Our hostel was really great--not directly on La Rambla, but very close and the rooms were clean with a great bathroom in our four-bed dorm room:

One of the many street entertainers on La Rambla:

One of Gaudi's works, La Pedrera:

Another work of Gaudi, but this one continues to be built, La Segrada Familia:

Yummmm, Sangria!:

Charla and I spent an entire afternoon at this park (Parc Guell). It was amazing!:

La Barceloneta:

Our experience with tapas the second time wasn't so great, but I did get to try the famous grilled octopus! I think I ate about 6 or 7 just because we paid for them and I was hungry:This is a picture from the worst Flamenco show on Earth. Okay, I've only seen one Flamenco show, but this was pretty bad; luckily, it was less than 10euros: After the horrible show, we went to the TRAVEL BAR and ended up staying there till the wee hours of the morning--the two girls in the pic are from Malta.

Okay, I now see that the pictures are out of sequence, but right now, I'm just happy they're getting on the blog, so I'm not going to change the order.

These are pics from Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona futbol team (soccer). We took a tour of the stadium--very nice:


Barcelona was amazing and I would like to do a little more traveling in Spain--maybe Madrid sometime. I was impressed how much Spanish was actually sitting in the back of my brain waiting to come out--it was fun to use it (finally).

April 1, 2007

Flowers, flowers, and more flowers...

Today was the most gorgeous day in Holland and perfect for a trip to Keukenhof. These are a some of the pictures taken (out of the 200 I took). : ) I wish you could smell what I did when I saw them.









Mom, I'm sorry you missed this.

March 28, 2007

Sunny day in Scheveningen

Here are some pictures from a stroll I took today in Scheveningen (where I live). It was a gorgeous day!!