We're Back!!!

The blog is in limbo for the time being; it's all about travel, and Mary and I are firmly planted in Southern California (sadly) searching for long-term employment. However, since the last post, we've actually covered a lot of ground (not to mention the Atlantic Ocean). As always, take some time to check out our flickr pics, and enjoy the conclusion of our Eurotrip!

After departing the beautiful beaches of Marbella, we spent a few days in Madrid, our last stop before the voyage home. Madrid is one of precious few European locales where I happen to have a good buddy staying. In the middle of the picture is Sam, who has been making a living in Spain teaching English. Sam proved to be an invaluable tour guide/translator, excellent ([American!] English-speaking) company, and, as you can see, he knew where to find the good beer in Spain.

We spent a day touristing around town, notably visiting Spain's premier Prado museum (not in the picture above).

On our last day in Europe, Valentine's Day, we took the initiative to put our heavy baggage in left luggage at the airport so we wouldn't have to haul it across town at 3 AM the following day. This did not go smoothly. We made it back to our hostel in time to catch Daniel Radcliffe across the street for the premiere of his new film, The Woman in Black. After escaping the preteen feminine madness, we lucked-out and found a great, romantic restaurant to cap our experience abroad with a fairy tale ending.

If only that was the end of it, because afterward, we caught precious-few Zs and had to make our way to the airport. This did not go smoothly. We had an itinerary for the night bus, but the night bus never came. After huffing and puffing our way across the city, dodging prostitutes along the way, we made it to the airport shuttle. The shuttle did not accept our city pass public transport tickets, which normally wouldn't have been a problem beside the fact that we had specifically spent all of our Euros knowing they would only be useful in America as fodder to bank exchange fees. Our initial flight to Brussels went smoothly, but at the airport we had only fifteen minutes to make our way across the airport, through security and customs. The ladder gave us a scare as the officer informed us that we had most likely violated our Schengen visa for the past three months. No worries- we were already en route to deporting ourselves. We had an overall positive experience on the long flight home aboard Jet airways, an Indian airline company.

The next week was spent in Long Island, on American soil, with Mary's best friend Leah (back-right). The lively folks that make up her boisterous Greek/Italian family were incredibly accommodating, entertaining, and unforgettable. Mary and I will be back in Long Island for sure! Trying to find light under the shadow cast over planet Earth by the passing of Whitney Houston, we ventured into the city, staying with Mary's friend Lauren (front-right).

It was a little chilly, but we made a couple touristic nods to the city, before diving into its buzzing nightlife. For me, the highlight here was eating real Mexican food (more real than its non-existence in Europe, less real than if we were in Mexico).

At the end of our visit to the Big Apple, Mary and I, for the first time in over six months, parted ways. Mary boarded a plane headed straight for California, and I took the next week to visit family & friends in Indiana.

I visited my grandmother's house in Brownstown, where I had the chance to catch-up with all the family I missed over the holidays. I quickly grew attached to one of Grandma's farm cats. This little guy is a dwarf cat: half the size of his siblings, fully-grown, and fits in the palm of your hand. I hope my little Penelope doesn't get jealous.

Before I had time to process the jet lag, I was headed three time zones west, where I hit the ground running helping everyone get ready for Mary's mom's wedding. I shmoozed as much as I could, everyone had a good time, and Mary read a segment from "The Velveteen Rabbit." Mary looked great in her bridesmaid's dress ;)

After the wedding, Mary's friend Lindsey came to visit for a few days. We hit a couple of the big touristy spots: downtown Hollywood, the beach in Santa Monica and...

...the sunset in Santa Barbara!

One day, we took a trip to Vasquez Rocks, a popular Hollywood set location about a half-hour north out of LA.

There were great views and easy climbs.

This biome doesn't exist in Indiana.

Some readers may recognize this cliff as the place were Bill & Ted died to kick off their Bogus Journey.

That catches things up to ~ a month ago. I'll keep the faithful posted about anything adventuresome we get into, look forward to a post concerning the jungle that is Los Angeles, and maybe some snobby summaries of California wine tours. Check out the flickr pics!

Hang ten!

-Jake

Adventures in Andalusia

Mary and I are returning to the United States of America this coming Wednesday- now we are seriously running out of European time! The blog has fallen a bit behind but by the end of this post our loyal readers should be 100% caught-up. This time we've got our photos divvied up into two separate albums- the Andalusia flickr pics cover a variety of our adventures throughout the southern Spanish region, while the Ronda flickr pics are more specifically representative of our day-trip in Ronda.

One of my goals since we arrived in our little Spanish town was to go and see the wind turbines firsthand; that opportunity was finally granted to me as Mary and I went on a lovely hike. This was really about showing people how Green we both are...

A couple days later we took a day-trip to ancient and beautiful Andalusian city of Antequera. Our devout followers may have spotted the Indian Head in our flickr albums, but I'm taking this chance to formally point him out (inside the green circle).

The almond tree atop La Atalaya's one-tree hill was in bloom after we returned from Antequera. For more pictures of our windmill hike, Antequera, and the one-tree hill, don't miss our Andalusia flickr pics.

Our time in La Atalaya had to, like all workaways, come to an end. Luckily for us, we already had a big beach house to spend the next ten days in, more or less for free! If we tell you how we came upon this ideal deal, we'd have to kill you. So our host very kindly carted us down to Malaga, the largest city on Spain's Costa del Sol. Once there we picked up a rental car. To rent this car for ten days the total cost was only seventy-four euro. To put that in perspective, our rental in Germany, for one day, cost over two hundred euro. Basically, it was super-cheap! We hopped on the highway and headed to our destination of Marbella, a ritzy beachside playground city renowned for its affiliation with organized crime. On the way, we stopped by the grocery store to load up on food & wine. When we arrived at our house, it was everything we thought it could be, complete with multiple terraces, a gazebo, fountain, swimming pool, plasma TV & accompanying Bose surround-sound system. Before we could even settle in, Mary and I took it upon ourselves to find an adapter to connect the laptop to the TV, so we could Netflix the week away. We found the amazing La Cañada shopping mall, complete with a giant grocery store! We certainly did watch our fair share of Netflix, but that's not all... read on!

Marbella is home to a famous Bonzai garden. This particular specimen has been painstakingly pruned for over 400 years. As Mary pointed out, that means that artisans have been tending to this little tree since before the founding of the USA.

Later in the week, we took a hike up to the summit of one of the mountains overlooking Marbella, Cruz Juanar. Mind you, at the top of this mountain, both our camera lense and image sensor were pushed to their limits, and to put things in perspective, I've circled the Rock of Gibraltar- which is no less than twenty-five miles away in the distance. It was clearly visible to us.

Apart from the beautiful view of Marbella and the Mediterranean, in this photo I've circled what is, if you look closely, the northern shores of Morocco in Africa.

This was the view of the mountain valleys to the north, see them all in our Andalusia flickr pics.

These are Mary's double-dark-chocolate-white-chocolate-chunk-ginger cookies. Boy, were they tasty!

One afternoon (before siesta) we went downtown to Marbella's market where we picked up spices, a couple fresh squids, and some salmon. I fried up the calamari (above) and Mary cooked the salmon the following evening. All of our cooking was one of the best parts of the trip!

German poet Rainier Maria Rilke describes Ronda best (though the city was also an inspiration for part-time residents Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles): "I have sought everywhere the city of my dreams, and I have finally found it in Ronda" and "There is nothing that is more startling in Spain than this wild and mountainous city." Personally, I think the bridge looks like something pulled straight out of The Lord of the Rings. Ronda is nestled up high in a mountain valley, where it really makes you wonder how people came to create such a beautiful fantasy world so deep in the middle of nowhere. The drive up the mountains from Marbella is gorgeous. It's probably worth your time to take a look at our Ronda flickr pics, keep in my mind that they are a separate photo-set than the previously referenced Andalusia flickr pics.

We've just arrived at our hostal in Madrid. Thankfully, here we have maybe the best internet connection  I've come across in Europe (making blogging and uploading photos a breeze). In a couple days we'll be flying in to New York City! Hopefully, soon thereafter, we'll be able to discuss our adventures in person!

Have a Happy Valentine's Day!

-Jake

A weekend visit to Granada

Hello, all! Jake and I have been having a wonderful time in southern Spain!  Last weekend, we took a short trip to Granada, home of the famous Alhambra. The city of Granada has a strong Moorish influence stemming from the Nasrid dynasty (12th-15th century). The influence is still very apparent in the architecture being that most of it has not changed since ancient times. 

One of the most obvious examples of the Nasrid influence in Granada is the Alhambra palace, seen in the picture above. Building began in 1238 by Muhammad I al-Ahmar and it served as a palace and fortress to the Moorish Emirs in Spain until 1492 during the Reconquista by the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. 

Here is another view of the Alhambra palace from the opposite side. We ventured off in true tourist fashion and discovered Carmen de los Mártires. It was a home built in the 19th century with gardens that featured exquisite views of both the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the Alhambra palace. The garden site was used for military jousts and tournaments, but also as a place to hold the Christian prisoners that were building the Royal Palace. At least they had a nice view...

Now, we did actually go inside the Alhambra. It is such a popular attraction that you have to book your tickets in advance. The Nasrid Palace is the most popular attraction inside the Alhambra and you are given a specific time that you are allowed to enter. I felt bad for a couple who queued up just to find out that they had their time wrong and had missed their entrance. The ticket collector wouldn't budge and the poor couple just trudged away. On the other hand, Jake and I did not suffer this demise and we quite happily toured around the magnificent palace with our mouths opened in awe. The picture above is of the typical design seen throughout the palace. 

One of the most famous courtyards in the Nasrid Palace, Pateo de los Leones, or the Patio of the Lions. Much to our dismay, it was under construction...humpf. The Fountain of the Lions is in the center and represents strength and courage.

This was a view from the Alcazaba, the military fortress and one of the oldest parts of the Alhambra. This picture was taken from the Torre de la Vela, or the Watch Tower. The Sierra Nevada mountain range is featured in the background.

Outside of the Alhambra we enjoyed great walks, fun shops, and delicious food. Tapas was our culinary staple of choice for this trip. We would stop about once ever couple of hours for a beer and a small bar snack. The food was generally pretty nice and it cost us nothing more than 2 euro each! It was great and I fully endorse this way of eating. 

After the Reconquista, Christian influence spread all over Granada and the rest of Spain. Many of the mosques were converted to churches, and Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity. Our host recommended that we take the time to scope out the Basilica de San Juan de Dios and we are so glad that we did. The Basilica was built in the 15th century and is the final resting place of San Juan de Dios, the founder of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller. It is adorned from top to bottom in pure gold and is truly a sight to see! If this isn't an example of Catholic indulgence, then I don't know what is!

This was a view from the terrace on top of our hostel. To the left is the Cathedral of Granada, which was built on top of the Nasrid Great Mosque of Granada in the 16th century, and in the background you can catch another good view of the Sierra Nevada. We enjoyed a good glass of wine or four on this terrace.

I wanted to end with this picture. This is for my family.

For more pictures click here.

Hasta Luego!

Mary

The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain!

Mary and I have safely made it to Spain, and we've been here for a little over a week. This post covers how we got here and what we've been doing. If you just want to look through our pictures, check out the flickr pics.

                                                                                                  

We made another incursion into downtown Copenhagen, because, well, you can't possibly see the whole city in one day. This time we could cover a lot more ground because our host outfitted us with bicycles! After visiting Parliament and the famous library, we wandered across the bridge...

How do I explain Christiania? It's a community (rather, its own parliamentary-represented district) of free-spirits, where cannabis is sold willy-nilly on the streets. Beyond a certain point we were not allowed to take pictures. Sorry :(

Carlsberg, brewed in Copenhagen, boldly assumes the label of "Probably the Best Beer in the World."

We finished up our top-secret marketing work for our host, and then, just as quick as we'd arrived, it was time to leave Copenhagen.

Mary awoke from her airborne slumber just in time to notice Paris outside the window, the Eiffel Tower is visible in the center of the picture. You can find more of Mary's mile-high photography in our flickr pics.

This is the top of the one-tree hill residing in the backyard of our current place of dwelling in Spain. Specifically, we are residing in La Atalaya, a sort-of suburb of Villanueva de Algaidas, which is a sort-of suburb of Antequera. Furthermore, Antequera lies within the jurisdiction of Malaga, a province of the autonomous Spanish community of Andalusia (occupying the south/southeastern most area of the country). To make it easier on yourself, click here to see it on a map. It's both warm (in contrast to Copenhagen) and beautiful; we're not too far from the mountains or the beach, but we are back in olive country. We took some great pictures from the top of the hill of the surrounding valleys, click through our latest flickr pics!

Spain is the final European country on our itinerary, and thus our journey is approaching its conclusion. We've a month to spend here, and we intend to make the most of it! Our new hosts are English expats who are involved in an adventure-sports business. They share the house with Mary, myself, their five-year-old, and a pair of his retired grandparents. When Mary and I are doing odd jobs in exchange for food & shelter, we watch the little boy (more often then not, I'm playing Wii with him). While he may appear to be a perfectly normal English child, he always surprises us in that he's fluent in Spanish!

Our new hosts are the proud owners of five wonderful dogs! The little one in the top-left, number six, is being looked after while its owners are away.

On the way between La Atalaya and Villanueva de Algaidas, there lies the old ruin of a monastery. We really enjoyed the fact that it is open to the public! As always you can see more in our flickr pics.

For those of you who didn't know, Andalusia is where the dining concept of tapas originated. What this means for Mary and I is that we can walk into most bars (including one practically across the street) and have a couple beers and few small-plate appetizers for less than five euro- an unbelievable turnaround from Copenhagen, where a cup of coffee was the equivalent of ten US dollars. We'll try to get out another blog post as quickly as possible to tell everyone about our wonderful weekend in Granada!

Adios,

Jake

Christmas Markets, Panda Bears, and Vikings, Oh My!

As promised, here's our follow-up post, including the climactic conclusion of our holiday in Berlin! Bear with me, it's a long one. However, if you make it through all the pretty pictures and storied adventure, you'll find yourself treated to two videos!

We had a lot of footage from the last few weeks that I was worried no one would ever see. I hope someone sees it now...

On New Year's Eve, after sleeping off our Prague voyage, we enjoyed the premium (they charged us an entrance fee!) Christmas market in the Gendarmenmarkt- "Berlin's Most Beautiful Square", consisting of two matching cathedrals intersected by the Concert Hall. Check out the flickr pics!

In between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day...let's just say champagne can sometimes get in the way of remembering to take pictures. Mary, Emily, Sam, and I did find our way to the largest New Year's Eve party in the world, just outside of Berlin's famous Brandenburg Gate. Rather, we got as close as we could; there were so many people present that it wasn't possible to situate ourselves any place near the actual gate. The next day, aside from it being New Year's Day, it was Sunday, and on Sunday it is mandated by German  law that no shops may be open (so we couldn't go to the grocery store...). So, instead of shopping, we went downtown to the Sony Center and saw the latest Mission Impossible. We may have been in Europe, but we'll never forget where we came from. That was our last night with Emily & Sam. The next morning, Mary and I made our fond farewell and made good use of the rest our day. We began with a tour of the New Wing of Charlottenburg Palace in West Berlin. I was feeling cheap and decided not to buy the photo pass. It  was a fantastic way to spend the morning, but if anyone wants to see pictures, they'll either have to go there or enjoy the outside views in our flickr pics.

If there was any climactic conclusion to our time spent in Berlin, KaDeWe creates a considerable case to constitute that climax. What is KaDeWe? I thought you'd never ask! Imagine a shopping mall (not your average Pass Pets/GameStop shopping mall, but one of those ritzy malls- where they sell Lamborghinis), but only this mall isn't just full of designer clothing; oh no! Within this high-end shopping center lies Earth's finest bastion of decadence- a seemingly endless labyrinth of food. Here it is possible to find entire halls dedicated to cakes, chocolate, and sausage. When I say cakes, I'm describing the sort of confections guaranteed to cause gastronomical giggles in the guts of the greatest gourmands.

Went to the Berlin Zoo! I hope everyone checked-out the video at the beginning of the blog and saw some of the animals in action. We were given a royal welcome from the King of the Jungle himself- a lion was roaring, high on a rock, as we entered through the front gates. You can imagine what's in a zoo, leave the rest to the flickr pics.

I said goodbye to all of the animals, and then Mary and I boarded our flight and bounded north to Copenhagen! Here, we are again involved in a workaway. This isn't exactly a holiday, but it's not manual labor, either! We've been helping a Danish businessman with marketing! Some of it has genuinely been a lot of fun, but, now that I think about it, most of our workaways turn out that way.

We just finished up an advertisement concerning our marketing project, check it out (watch in HD)!

Rosenborg Castle was our first stop in Copenhagen; we sort of stumbled across it, not knowing how magnificent it would be on the inside! Again, I was too cheap for the photo pass, but this castle alone is a perfect reason to make a stop in Copenhagen during your next Euro-trip. Within the castle, aside from the numerous silver cuckoo clocks, one may visit the Danish throne room. This is pretty much the best throne room I've ever seen; there's a throne made of narwhal tusks and three good-sized silver lions (such lions have been associated with Scandinavia since the viking era).

In America, we have the Statue of Liberty. In Copenhagen, they have the Little Mermaid. We paid our respects, but it was getting cold- this far north, it is dark by 3:30 in the afternoon.

Our host had a business venture (long ago) whose aim was to sell these wooden frogs from Thailand, but that's a story for another day.

This is how Mary's tall, Nordic ancestors would've looked sailing their longships to harry the coasts of Great Britain. A couple days ago we visited the charming Danish town of Roskilde, which features an awesome Viking Ship Museum. It was built around the discovery of five well-preserved viking ships which were scuttled here and chronicles the battle resulting in their demise. For more on our trip to Roskilde, click through our flickr pics.

I'll end this mega-post with an old viking proverb, wherein lies the key to a happy life:

Be not over-wary, but wary enough,

First, of the foaming ale,

Second, of a woman wed to another,

Third, of the tricks of thieves.

-Jake

Once you Czech in, you don't Czech out

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is enjoying the new year! We've been busy bees since we last posted from Italy; I feel we've already done too much for me to discuss in one blog! Let me try and bring everyone up to speed in a quick & dirty recap of the past two weeks, and anyone reading can expect another post to pop in the next couple days. I cannot cover everything, so I encourage anyone & everyone to hop over to our flickr pics to fill in the gaps (mind the captions, which require great effort!).

During our last days in Tuscany, Mary and I took the opportunity to do a last bit of sightseeing. After visiting the hilltop town of Massa Marittima (beautiful views of Tuscany's rolling hills for miles with the Mediterranean in the distance), we stopped at the Etruscan Necropolis near Vetulonia, which have been dated to be more than 2000 years old.

We took another adventure to Castel del Piano, a lovely town nestled near the peak of Mt. Amiata. It didn't make the cut for the featured blog photos, but in no way does that mean it's not worth checking out in our flickr pics.

On Christmas Eve, after greeting an Italian family on holiday at Bodo's (who also intend to purchase Il Poderone), we took a quick getaway to nearby Montorsaio, which features spectacular views of the area where we had been staying. I think the above snapshot looks like Mount Doom- on a sunny afternoon.

The actual town of Montorsaio plays host to what is, in my experience, the world's most enthusiastic collection of nativity scenes (flickr pics).

That evening (on Christmas Eve), we were invited to a traditional Italian dinner at Il Poderone with the visitors (soon to be owners). It had everything you'd expect from such an experience- loads on antipasti, heaps of pasta, loud banter, and (after enough wine) even a musical performance- complete with accordion. On Christmas morning, the Italians very kindly dropped us off at the train station in Grosseto. We rode the train to Rome, where our plane was waiting to take us to Berlin. After finally arriving at our hotel, it was late, we were tired, and we had Burger King for our Christmas meal; after almost half a year without fast food, few meals could have tasted better.

The next day, we headed downtown to Berlin's central Potsdamer Platz to kill some time before picking up Mary's little sister and her friend at the airport. We immediately noticed that in Germany they do Christmas the right way- Christmas was everywhere; Christmas markets had popped up in all of the popular locales.

Potsdamer Platz had a small exhibit on a section of the Berlin Wall that once resided there. It was covered in chewing gum.

After picking up Emily and her friend, Sam, everyone was tired, and the new arrivals were jet-lagged. We went to the Christmas market in Alexanderplatz, where we enjoyed delicious sausages and Gluhwein (hot, spiced wine; mulled wine; what have you). Then it was off to bed.

The following day, we grabbed the train to Potsdam, which featured a most-excellent Christmas market. For all our exploits there- flickr pics.

After leaving the market, we touristed our way across the beautiful gardens of Sanssouci. In the picture you can see Sanssouci palace, the summer home of Frederick the Great- decorated in the Rococo style.

We took the next day to explore East Berlin. In the above picture, you can see the Berliner Dome, Berlin's great cathedral (though, being a Protestant church, it isn't really a cathedral because it isn't the seat of a bishop), and the TV Tower to the right of it (off in the distance).

We stumbled across a Mercedes-Benz museum. Directly across the street was the Bentley dealership. More in the flickr pics.

The Brandenburg Gate! Around the corner we found an interesting concrete park which might warrant a visit to our flickr pics.

The next day, we woke up early and made our way to the airport to pick up our rental Mercedes. I raced it down the autobahn to Prague, capital of The Czech Republic, once the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Kings of Bohemia. There were no more euros here; we were rolling with fat stacks of hundreds of koruna. 

If Prague isn't known for it's venerable and aristocratic history, then it is known for the world's best Pilsner beers. Only in Ireland does the the average citizen drink more.

This is the New Town in Prague. For a city with so much history "New" is a relative term.

Just down the street from New Town is Old Town, which can best be described as real-life Disney World.

The sisters, reunited. It was cold. We enjoyed yet another Christmas market- this was the one setup in Old Town. The central Christmas tree, aside from being the best we'd seen in Europe, was the star of the show.

We spent our second day in Prague sightseeing across the Vltava River, to Prague Castle. Rain, freezing rain, and snow all tried to thwart us, but the women just put on their headscarves and we marched on.

Don't they look like refugees?

We took a zillion pictures of Prague Castle, which can found in our flickr pics. I chose this one for the blog- the most-excellent tomb of John of Nepomuk, inside St. Vitus Cathedral. Prague Castle also contains St. George's Basilica. I want everyone on Earth to know that St. George was canonized because he slew the last dragon. Awesome.

On our way back to Berlin, we became lost on the strange, still-forming Czech highway system. Before we reached the German border, we were caught in a blizzard. It was obvious that The Czech Republic didn't approve of our Czeching-out. What should've been a three and a half hour journey lingered on for well over five hours, but, eventually, we made it back to Berlin in one piece.

Mary and I are already in Copenhagen, so I'll have to quickly catch everyone up on our last few days of travel- expect another post soon! We will elaborate on the splendor that is Berlin's KaDeWe.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Jake