Viva Madrid

Just a quick post, we made it to Madrid today after a 17 hour bus ride....it went suprisingly fast. Our good friend Nerea picked us up in the city and we are staying with her tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day, and so on....when we told her we were thinking of staying two weeks she responded with, "Only two weeks? Why not longer?" and she was absolutely sincere. We are going to a show tonight at the Joy Eslava Theatre where she is doing film work for the concert and her boyfriend is managing the performers. Should be a lot of fun. Hey mom, she has the blanket you made her on the couch....she is still very thankful. Well, we are in good hands here. Hasta la proxima!

Weathering A Difficult Day!

Yesterday was a rough day on the travel front. We decided to head back to the beaches to see some more sights and had read, as we found out on our previous journey, that bus service to the area is sporadic and unreliable. So we decided to rent bikes and take on the journey on two wheels ( we considered hitching again but figured a bike would suffice and allow us to travel at our own pace). All was well to start, we got the bikes and made it out of town without getting lost or run over (not too many bike paths through the city). We decided to go to Arromanches and the beaches East of Omaha before visiting the American Cemetary. Not too long after this decision, G's gear thing-a-majig snapped in half. We were now stuck in the small town of Comme, a really quaint village but not our destination nor our preferred method of having to stay there. Luckily, an ederly couple was walking by and called the rental guy to tell him what happened and where we were. We spent the next hour hanging out while the owner brought us a new bike, or so we hoped. He got there and told us it broke because you can't shift into first gear, which didn't seem right at all....but we ventured on. It soon began to drizzle and the temperature started to drop. We got to the beach and enjoyed lunch on the coastal rocks. This is when it really started raining and the wind got going gale force style. We had no other option than to keep on trucking, yet we were about 15 km out of town. After another hour we were soaked with no sign of the rain letting up; now we could see our breath. It was still going okay but the final stretch, a road of about 7 km, was rough. The wind really got going and there was a lot of uphill to conquer. By this point we were just pushing to get back to the shop. We finally made it and returned the bikes; they charged us for the damage 'we caused' to the first bike. Not being able to speak fluent French made trying to argue the charge a mute point. It was just a bummer as the bike was rented to us in disrepair. We then walked back to the train station to get back home. We had about 20 minutes til the next train left (19 of which were spent in quiet, anxiety in line ( we were beat and ready to get home) luckily the first woman in line offered anyone catching the next bus to pass her so they could get a ticket in time. This was cool...a much needed break. We got back to town and hoofed it to the closest bus stop, still soaked and getting moreso with every step (which can be fun and enjoyable on a summer afternoon, almost romantic...but on a cold, February evening it feels about as warm and fluffy as Poe's literature). We caught the bus and got within a ten minute walk of the hotel. We buckled down and made it. Hot showers and canned ravioli for all... we couldn't have been happier! We decided to change our train tickets the next day to be able to relax for a day. Tomorrow it is back to Paris to catch a bus to Madrid where we will meet up with Dori and Nerea! Should be really great! We ate looking forward to the fast approaching Spring and southern lands! Well, there you have it!

One Way or Another....It Always Works Out!

Well, today was a really good day! As we mentioned in the last update, our plan today was to visit Omaha Beach in Normandy. The web information about buses made the trip look very straight forward and seamless, but reality always seems to drop right in between those adjectives and shake things up a bit. We could always take the tours, but they are pretty pricey and we figured we could do just as well on our own. First reality: sleeping longer than expected and waking to heavy rains (we had decided to try hitchhiking today). Once we realized that we would be completely soaked by the time we got to the main road, with no guarentee that we could get a ride, we decided to head into town and check out the bus. The first bus stop we got to was not the line we needed, so we hoofed it to the central station and found the bus to Bayeux, where we would then change to a second bus for the second half of the journey. The first part falls into the seamless category, they even gave us the student discounts!!! Once we got to Bayeux, the bus driver told us the connecting bus did not come to that stop and told us where to catch it. As far as we were able to find, the second bus did not run anywhere from the local stops, at least not during the hours that we needed...nor were there any posted return times. After the final hope that the bus would arrive (reality) we decided we would do our best to walk out of town and resume the original plan of hitchhiking. We had gottne that far and paid a bus fare already; we weren't about to give up! We walked the direction of the route out of town, stopped at a wine store to double-check our directional intuition and kept on trucking. Shortly there after we saw a sign for Omaha Beach (we were only about 4 miles from the goal!). We then immediatly stuck out our thumbs and hoped for the best,. Within ten minutes a van pulled over and woman by the ne of Isabelle, and her little dog Croquette, picked us up and we were on our way to Omaha Beach. Through broken English/French we talked along the way. She dropped us off and we agreed that if she was there when got back, great, if not, we still appreciated the ride. Omaha Beach is a beautiful beach with blue green waters that tumble gently onto the shore with such tranquility that it ses to betray the horror of June 6, 1944. Seeing the beach was an incredible experience; as you look up the hillside that gradually slopes up from the sand you can see the reminents of the Nazi bunkers, like massive gavestones rising from the grasses. There are a number of memorials on the hill, including an American cemetary (unfortunately it was closed already). Looking out on the sea, you can't help to imagine what it must have looked like to be a German soldier and see thousands of troops, planes and boats coming ashore. The battle lasted about 6hr 30min. When stand on the beach looking up, you have to wonder what it would have Bern like to be one of the first to reach the beach and have to endure so many hours of being bombarded by German artillery. It was a weird experience to be there, yet a great experience at the same time. After a while, we decided it was time to go home. We walked back to the parking lot and found that our ride had continued on and we turned our attention to the trek back home, thumbs out at every car that passed. As the sun set and the sky grew darker, we realized getting a ride was gonna be difficult, but the buses were no longer running and we had no other option...we could always try to call a cab, but that was financial suicide that was more of a last resort than an option. We walked for quite a while in what we thought was the right direction. Eventually, a driver stop and gave us a swift ride to highway that could get us home. To our dismay, our destination was 44 km away and Bayuex (where we started) was now 15 km away. It was about 8pm and we still had a ways to go. Luckily, being an on ramp to the highway, there was fairly regular traffic. We made a small sign with our destination ( smiley face and all...just to show we are friendly) and decided to wait it out with thumbs held high. After about an hour, we began to wonder how this all might pan out, walking was an option but it was not appealing and would probably mean we would get home in time to check out of the hotel and the taxi, well that has already been said. At that moment, when it seemed like it wasn't going to happen.. a small white car pulled over and offered us a ride. He was going all the way to Carn and knew exactly where our lodging was....oh yeah! We hade a great conversation in French- English-Spanish all chopped up just enough to get the main idea across. It was great! We made it home and cooked some ready made pasta in the room... it could have been the tastiest, packaged pasta of all time (it had been cheese sandwiches and oranges up to this point). We made it back happy and tired and are going to try and stay a couple more days in Normandy...if we can change our train tickets. That's all for now. Tune in again later for further updates!

Updating Like a Mad Man! Yeah!

Well, today we headed into town to catch a bus tp thr D-Day beaches, namely Omaha beach and the American Cemetary in the area, as well as the many memorials. We got into town fine, yet when we walked towards the bus station we had been to on Friday we quickly realized that it was Sunday and we were in a town that still operated on a different schedule on Sunday. Very refreshing to see, actually. Where the bus station had previously rose from the open square, there were now hundreds of vendors in a traditional open air market. There were now people buying fresh fish and whole pig heads where the buses were picking up people a day ago. We pretty much figured that today was not the day to make this trip and walked the market a bit and decided to find the local tourist office for more complete bus information to the beaches. We ended up asking some police officers for some help, but not speaking French too well usually causes one to get a general idea of where to go and necessitates leaving the precise details to fate. We ended up asking another woman for directios about ten minutes later and she graciously asked another woman for directions, another woman who spoke English and had taught a summer camp in the States many years ago. They got us to the tourist office, which was closed...Sunday...., yet proceeded to take us through the market to a bus information station, which was closed....Sunday. The one woman gave us great instructions through the city to free museums and sites, confirming the notion that Monday would be a better day to take the bus. She said she would take us around but she was really hoping to do some shopping, almost apologising for it. We told her that was fine, but if we got lost again it was all her fault (obviously this is not true) but we did thank and told not to worry. We spent the day at several different attractions and museums. We saw the spot where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and a lot of art dating back to the 1500's. We ended our day by going to a Memorial Museum, but it recommended 4 hours to see wveryhting and we only had an hour and a half, which we occupied reading the books in the gift shop (we figured we had taken the time to get there and might as well enjoy it a bit). If we have time tomorrow we will pay the entrance fee and see the museum. So, until tomorrow....

And Now....The Rest of the Story

So, we ended up catching the bus from Calais, France to Dunkurque, France and slowly continued north towards Bruges. It took a bit of work to find a bus from there into Belgium as it was getting late but a helpful man at the bus stop helped us out and we got a bus to Adinkerque (not quite Bruges, but in Belgium). When we arrived at the bus stop there was a train waiting, which we promptly boarded as it was the last train from that station heading towards Brujes. A group of young Belgian travelers were on the train and they gave us some tips, mostly about Belgian beer and fries, for our travels. So far people in the Dutch speaking countries have been some of the most helpful and friendly people on our travels. They are very cool people in general, A #1 in My book. The attendant told us we would have to make a transfer and that we would have to make the next train as it was the last one to Bruges. We hit the ground running and made the train with minutes to spare. After a short ride we arrived in Bruges, but we still had to figure out a bus to get to the center of the city. Luckily, a bus drive saw us sitting there and helped us out and got us to the central plaza and gave us directions to the hostel. We got a room and some fries and a bratwurst, they were really good. (apparently fries were invented in Belgium, but the name French Fries stuck as British and American soldiers during the first World War remembered them as French Fries as French was the official language of the Belgian Army). We spent the next day riding bikes around the city, complete with little bell ringers and all. It was great! A lot, I mean a lot , of people ride bikes around the city, which consists of narrow, cobblestone roads that twist between the buildings. At night you will see lines of bikes parked in front of the bars. We also did a brewery tour of a local brewery and then spent the night with a deck of cards and a couple beers in the hostel lobby. Another side note about the hostel. The guy who was working the front desk and bar spoke to us in English, the locals in Dutch, Spanish to the Spaniards, Italian to the Italians, and we heard him speaking French on the phone...pretty impressive! Overall, Bruges was a great city. We then decided to head into the Netherlands. A few bus rides and train rides, some on the wrong direction, and we made it to our hostel in the coastal city of Noordwijk. We spent a few days here and just relaxed. The staff was great and since it was the off season it was hard to determine who worked there and who didn't. It was like that house in high school that everyone shows up at to just hang out, nobody is really doing anything but just hanging out. One of the workers had a friend that was going to watch the Super Bowl and invited us to go. Crazy thing is that the game started at midnight out here, and we couldn't catch a bus home til 7 the next morning. It was a lot of fun and we ended up meeting some great people from England, Holland, and Poland. The bartender let everyone stay til 7 am and then we all went home to sleep. Good times. From there we took the free hostel shuttle into Amsterdam. Funny thing was that there was a group of six of us waiting to go and the shuttle driver was still sleeping. Best part is that the manager said, "Well, let me see if I can wake her up, but she's gonna need some coffee first, so it will be a little bit". Funny group working there! She got us into the city and left us with these wonderful words of wisdom, "If some guy comes up to you on the street and offers you cocaine, don't buy it...you'll get ripped off". That had us laughing pretty good. Another really cool thing was that the shuttle had a Zebra Junction CD in the stereo, which is a band that used to be a neighbor in Littleton...small world. We stayed a few nights in Amsterdam and saw the Anne Frank House. We got some fresh snow while we were there, it was really cold in the Nerherlands. Overall, Amsterdam is okay as a city. It's kind of like Las Vegas in that it is a party city and kind of dirty like a major industrial city. It was cool to see but wasediocre overall, at least for us...of course I think it would be very different in summer. Again, like Belgium, there were a lot of bikes. When you leave the central station there are literally thosands of bikes parked on giant terraced parking structures, it's pretty cool to see. I think something like 55% of all transportation in Amsterdam is by bike and 85% of the population in the Netherlands owns a bike, and uses it at some point. After a few days it was time to move on to somewhere a little more quiet and we found a hikers cabin at a campground and we hunkered down for four days and just relaxed. We got more snow but we didn't have anywhere to be so it was just fine. We met a German that was going to drive a 70's fire truck from Germany to India this summer. Freaking awesome! We decided that we should head south towards the Mediterranean to catch some warm weather. We have heard great things about morocco so we think that is where we will head. First stop on this journey was Paris. I was less than enthusiastic about this one.... it's France with their over protective language and always looking down on the non-French vagabonds....but now I must admit that Paris is a guilty pleasure and I hold no animosity towards the French, but rather I found them to be fairly nice. It kind of sucks when traveling and experiences force you to lose stereotypes that you enjoy...I mean the French are am easy target, right? While the lodging is expensive in Paris, the variety and affordability of food was great. That said, we still weren't eating in sit down style restaurants, but small vendors and stores offered fresh, filling meals that were great! The bread was excellent and every morning the bakeries, butchers, fruit stands etc would open into narrow streets. It was a really great sight. We got to see the Eiffel Tower, the Arc of Triumph (which is surrounded by the world's largesttraffic circle... it is absolute chaos to the casual observer and has enough room for at least ten lanes of traffic, all rnterin from 8 separate, major roads), famous graves like Jim Morrison and Chopin and a whole gambit of good things. From there we decided that we wanted to visit the D- Day beaches in Normandy. This where we are now, in the town of Caen, south of the beaches. Tomorrow we are going to walk the beaches and memorials. Looking forward to this experience. Well, for now that is the summary... next stop is Spain to meet up with our friends Dori and Nerea! Until the next post! Team Lowry

Hello Followers My Old Friends!

Hey Y'all, we are still cruising along...finally got us some free Internet access to do us some updating! (We are inFramce so I figured some good ol' country twang was in order, you know, just for the locals!). So the last update was a bit of a cliff notes version, my apologies, so I hope this one will be a bit more thorough (There's just too much to cover). Last we left offer were heading to London, which feels like a month ago..... wait that is about right....okay, it feels like two months ago... yeah that's better. So, we made it to London with a little help from our friends, the ones from the dairy farm. We spent quite a bit of time wandering the city aimlessly in search of our hostel, which is a task that loses much of it's laisse fare, romanticized appeal when you've got a 40 lb (18.18 kg...so European) strapped to your back. We eventually found the right place and settled in, albeit after a slight miscommunication over the price (the girl working there quoted us for all three nights, which we took as the per night rate.., 'bout had a heart attack). We really enjoyed London ( surprisingly so...I mean I
it's British) and got to see a lot of sights. All our bunk mates were cool to, which is huge. We walked across Abbey Road (if you're there you gotta) and all the regular hot spots (by the way Rob, it was 9 o'clock last I saw on Big Ben...you're not alone, I made sure the group waited around to hear the bell ring to mark the hour). The Tower of London was a great sight to see, lots if history and such... the Crown Jewels were there too, which are a bit outrageous...we are talking close to 200 carat diamonds with perfect clarity just for rituals to celebrate a largely symbolic dynasty....still cool to see... but really?! The prison art in the old cells was really impressive and a great peice of history. We also went to visit the hotel/house where Jimmy Hendrix died (couldn't find the exact place, but we walked the entire streetso we passed by it, good enough I suppose). After London, we took a ferry from Dover, England to Calais, France (my first experience being in a country where I couldn't speak the language...a bit more intimidating than I originally thought it would be...but it's France, they love it when you butcher their language through Lonely Planet phrase book pronunciation...oh man). We managed to findour way though and found that the people that were supposed to be helpful, i.e. tourist info and bus station attendants were just opposite, while most people on the street were very willing to help. Small side note: while trying to figure out a bus schedule we met two other guys trying to do the same thing. We ended up talking a little and they asked if we were from Belgium, we told them we were American and they said they were from Afghanistan....not gonna lie, there was a slight pause on both sides...that moment of both sides going "okay, what's the rest of this interaction going to look like?"...but we shook hands and exchanged names and realized we were just four people at a bus stop....we ended catching the bus north with the intention of making it from London, England to Bruges, Belgium in a single journey...tune in tomorrow to find out! ( It's almost 1 a.m. here and it was a long day of travel...to be continued...from where is the mystery you can try and figure out!).