Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona… where do I begin? First of all this place is the warmest of my travels as of yet with a consistant temperature of like 65-70 degrees with not a cloud in the sky! The first day we were there we decided it would be a good idea to walk down to the boardwalk and lay out in the sun for the remainder of the day and then go see all the sights the following day when the fifth person could join us.

Upon arrival we were surrounded by sun and palm trees... basically anything but clouds

We started the day out renting some bikes so we could travel around the town easier. This trip was more interesting for me than most because I took over what my roommate Felix (The human encyclopedia) usually does and attempted to find our way around town with the girls. We wanted to see the most impressive sight first so we biked up the hill towards “La Sagrada Familia”. When we arrived to the cathedral it was quite an impressive sight:

Walking through a park towards "La Sagrada Familia"

Four of us in front of the enormous building

Three of the four people didn’t want to venture into the cathedral with us because of the long line and decided to once again soak up the sun. While they were doing this, Nadia and I waited in the long line and finally got to witness the most amazing internal structure ever:

Every window looked like this...

Words and pictures dont do this justice

While we walked through the cathedral, we were in awe constantly turning our heads from side to side marveling the stained glass windows and statues. When we finished our tour of La Sagrada Familia, we returned to the other three patiently waiting for us outside and proceeded to bike up a mountain to “Parc Guell”. I cant even begin to describe both the park it self and the view of the city, so here are some pictures:

Taking a break from biking up the mountain towards the park

In Parc Guell, overlooking Barcelona

The most depressing part of the trip came the following morning when we had to leave Barcelona. It was the first time in my travels that I actually thought about “missing my flight” in order to stay for a few extra days, sadly the prices for the returning flights within the next few days were out of my price limit so I had to return to Torino, Italy…. Which of course is a vacation in itself so im not complaining! 

Eating some gelato before dinner

view looking inwards towards town from the boardwalk

I am traveling to Sicily, Italy this upcoming Friday so hopefully I can get back on track with my blogging!

Ciao!

I AMsterdam

Amsterdam is the greenest city I have been in for two reasons… Nearly everyone living in Amsterdam rides bikes wherever they need to go, there are bikes everywhere you look. With bikes comes the chance of being ran over by one, which quickly found out that if we didn’t want to get hit my an oncoming bicyclist we would need to quickly jump to the side of the street when we heard a bell ring, and this happened quite often! The second reason why Amsterdam is a green city is of course the fact that marijuana is legal to buy, grow, and smoke. While we decided not to try any, you could still smell it in the air when we were walking through the streets or nearby coffeeshops.

Have you ever seen a two story parking garages for bikes?!

At a local coffeeshop, they had this painting, I thought that it was interesting, look closely to what he is reaching for

There were two main things that I enjoyed in Amsterdam, the Van Gogh Museum and the architecture in and around the city. I could not believe that I actually got to see the Van Gogh Museum! We rented bikes for the day and took a short ride over to the museum, I didn’t think much about the reality of the situation while cruising through streets with only triangular shaped roof buildings, but once we arrived to the museum, it just kind of hit me that I was actually in Amsterdam getting a chance to see some real life paintings of one of the most famous artists. The only thing about the Van Gogh Museum that was a let down is that we were unable to find the “Starry Night” painting.

Biking to the Van Gogh Museum

Their "I AMsterdam" monument was difficult to get to

Finally, the Van Gogh Museum

As I mentioned, all of the buildings had triangular shaped roofs, I felt that this was unique because I had never seen a place where nearly every single house had the same basic design. Another thing that I noticed was how nearly every other building had either sunk on one side or had began leaning out into the street a little bit. I found this is be very interesting. Lastly, I noticed how similar Amsterdam is to Venice simply because of the fact of the numerous canals weaving and winding throughout the city.

Perfect Picture of Amsterdam, the bikes, the canals, the buildings...

Notice the Triangular Shaped Roofs

The last and probably most funny part of the trip was the Red Light District. We left from our hostel, took an immediate right and we were already in the Red Light District, I quickly began disgusted when I saw 350 pound woman after 350 pound woman flaunting their large bodies behind a door and waving at me to come near them, luckily we had no trouble getting away because they didnt leave their booths so we just continued walking. We eventually wandered around and found the real Red Light District. I felt a little uneasy and awkward walking around buildings with nearly naked women literally throwing themselves toward passing by men and even women.

The perfect ending to the best day ever!

Looking back on it, it just seems hard to imagine a place that legally allows marijuana and prostitution; I can’t imagine raising a family in an environment like that. All in all it was a great weekend in the “Adult Disneyworld”.

Stockholm Syndrome

YES! We are in Sweden!!!

Stockholm is the furthest northern country that I will have made it to during my European adventures, even further north than Anchorage I believe, don’t hold me to that though. The only thing that I didn’t care for about our trip was the traveling to get there and back. We took a two hour train ride from Torino to Milan, then a 45 minute bus ride to the airport, spent the night in the airport and then a two and a half hour flight to Sweden, followed by an 80 minute bus ride to Stockholm itself...

Good thing im Alaskan, I can handle the cold of Sweden

Once in Stockholm, I put on my warm coat and gloves and preceded to find our way to the “Best Old Town Hostel”, which as you can tell by the name is the best hostel located in Old Town Stockholm, we were literally about two minutes walking distance from the Royal Palace. We spent the first day just venturing around old town and getting lost in the streets with the locals. Nearly everyone in Stockholm spoke perfect English so it wasnt too hard to find our way.

Standing outside the Royal Palace...

The second day we met up with a friend of someone I traveled with (Kevin), he showed us around all the tourist areas as well as other little known areas around town. We finished the day off with a hockey game of AIK vs. Modo, This is the first international game that I had gone to and the away team (Modo) has been known for producing players such as Peter Forsberg, Markus Naslund, Henrik Sedin, and Daniel Sedin. The game was no doubt the highlight of my trip to Sweden and I really hope that I get to see more of them!

After a beautiful day in Stockholm, we walked towards the Hockey Rink

During the 2nd Intermission of the Game

You can tell but on the AIK scarf in quotes it translates to "We Are Everywhere"

The one thing that was really hard to get used to is how the young men dressed themselves, at the bars and clubs they were dressed metro sexually so I became really nervous when we walked into the first club because I thought that we had accidentally walked into a gay bar. All in all, I can see why people love Stockholm, it has some amazing sights and the locals are the nicest people I have come across in Europe.

Last day in Sweden, Kevin and I sat and smoked a Cuban Cigar