Lincoln’s breath taking sunset 5/30/2010
I have a soft spot for sunsets of all types. I am not sure what it is, maybe the intense colors or cool clouds that often occur. Lincoln has a great sunset every once and a while, especially when storms are rolling in. Sunday May 30 2010 this exact thing was happening and I just happened to catch it out the corner of my eye. I grabbed the camera and went out on the deck and snapped a couple of photos. I then decided to drive to Holmes Lake. Unfortunately the lovely pink had disappeared from the sky and the clouds had rolled in more. I still got a couple of nice photos though.
More photos of the trip will be posted over the coming weeks. I am going to make a real effort to keep this blog updated. We will see how that goes.
Granada – Al Alhambra
Wednesday we went to visit Al Alhambra. Al Alhambra is a Moorish military post that includes an impressive palace and grounds. We visited the gardens first and they were very impressive. The entire complex has water features all over it which are feed from the melting snow up on the mountain top and brought down to the palace and grounds by an aqueduct system built by the Moors. Water in the Arabic culture was one of the most important things to the existence of life. Al Alhambra and the gardens feature a great deal of water, many fountains, basins, gutters, to harness the power of water. That evening we went back to tour the main palace. Inside was very detailed and amazing carvings and decorations and many of the rooms had fountains in them.
Health Update: The guys are on the mend but still feeling it a little bit of the bug, the girls on the other hand are feeling the worst of it, and are staying back at the apartment while the guys go out and explore Sevillia. We hope tonight to take in a Flemenco show in Sevillia.
Toledo Part II
Here is a quick update with a few more photos from Toledo. We summed it up pretty good in the previous post about what we did, but here are a few photos from the ride around the city. The train station in town is very impressive. All of its windows are stained glass and much of the inside is decorated with detailed colorful tiles and woodwork. We are currently in Granada and the last photo of this post is from the train ride from Madrid to Granada. Time provided I will be posting a blog update about Granada in the next day or two.
An update on the health of the family. Steve and Jon are both getting better with antibiotics. The girls in the family think that they might be catching it too but only time will tell. Right now we are all trying to get lots of sleep in between sights.
San Isidro festival and Toledo
On Saturday we went to the San Isidro festival in Madrid. San Isidro is the city’s patron saint so they have special activities and most of the city shuts down for the day. We went to the park and walked around with thousands of other people, taking in the sights of the vendors and people in traditional costumes. It was similar to a fair. There were many different stalls with traditional foods as well. It reminded us of Czech days in Wilbur, NE, but much bigger.
Then that night we walked up to the Gran Via (a large street with lots of retail shopping and businesses, kind of like Michigan Avenue). That night it was a celebration of its 100 years. We lucked in to being in exactly the right place to watch a ten minute long light show that was projected on the large Telefonica building. It detailed the history of the Gran Via and the Telefonica building. Jon got video of the entire thing and will post it here when we get back home.
Toledo
Jon came to Toledo in high school as part of a short foreign exchange program during spring break in 2006. He stayed with the Canto family while he was in the city and we had plans to meet them once again for a night of Tapas. However, Steve has been sick most of the trip and had been getting worse. It is not possible to find a clinic here and you must go to the hospital if you want medical care on the weekends. Julia and her family met Steve and Jon at the hospital. Julia acted as translator for the doctors, who did not speak any English. He has a massive infection, and they even called in an ear specialist. Julia says they called him “pobrecito” and said he must have been in quite a lot of pain. They gave him a prescription for pain killers and antibiotics. The night with the Cantos was able to continue as planned, and we hope they are able to come to Nebraska some day. They were invaluable at the hospital and treated us to wonderful local tapas, wine, and great company.
This morning Jon woke up feeling sick as well. However, when we went to the pharmacy they were willing to give us as many antibiotics as we wanted. The price for them was also extremely low; the pharmacist said that many people from the United States come and ask for 15, 20 boxes so they can stock up.
We went to the Cathedral and Toledo and also took a little tourist train ride around the city to get better views of the surrounding countryside. It has all been very beautiful.
Photo & Video update 31.5 GB 1200 Files
This post was ghost written by Christine
Madrid – Atlético de Madrid Championship Celebration!
Today we traveled from Barcelona to Madrid via high speed train, it was a nice ride. Speeds reached 300kmh and it was very quiet and smooth the entire way. It’s a nice way to travel.
When we reached Madrid we happened to get a very talkative taxi driver who told us all about the celebration that was happening near our hotel this evening. The Atlético de Madrid futbol team was celebrating its championship in a large parade through town. Our hotel is right on the puerta de sol which happened to be the ending point for the parade. The players got off the bus and went up into a government building to show off the trophies to the crowd. It was really a cool experience. Everyone was singing the team song, cheering, etc. It reminded me of a Husker football game day back home.
The weather here is cold right now. Today it was about 50F with short bursts of rain and even a little hail. Hopefully tomorrow will be warmer with more sun. We also found our favorite European ice cream bars the “Magnum Bars”, they bring back great memories. I wish that you could get them in the USA.
Today I took a lot of video with the new camera which increased the file count and spaced used for today only to 185 files at 9.26GB for a total of 518 files at 14.9GB. WOW!
Spain 2010 – Barcelona
W made it to Barcelona, Spain after only 7-8 hours of various delays in both Chicago and Zurich, Switzerland. The delays were mostly due with the volcanic ash clouds that are continuing to hamper air traffic across Europe. We got in to Barcelona at about 8pm on Tuesday and after being up for nearly 24 hours everyone was tired so we got a quick sandwich and called it a night.
Today we went and visited Sagrada Familia a very famous church that has been under construction for over 128 years and is not expected to be complete till 2026 if ever. It as was amazing even in its unfinished state. We also visited a very active open air food market and the Olympic site which held the summer games in 1992.
Expect more lightly processed photos along with blog updates as the trip continues as we are able to find time and an internet connection.
Monkey Wrench Cycles Shop Review
Backstory: I bought a Specialized Hardrock bike 4 or 5 years ago and rode it quite a bit but stopped because the drivetrain was not working right. The bike had trouble shifting gears and staying in gear. The place I had bought it from in Lincoln got a chance to fix it twice and really did not do much but charge me to fix it.
Review: So deciding I wanted to bike again I pulled the bike out and found, it was likely (After some Google searches) that I needed a new freewheel because I could peddle put not put any power to the ground. After hearing good things about Monkey Wrench Cycles in downtown Lincoln I gave them a call. Monkey Wrench is a service oriented bike shop. While they will sell you a bike they specialize in repair of any problem, big or small. These guys know their stuff! They are racers and hard core bikers, not some college student who are their just to pay the bills. They were able to get my bike in and explained a possible estimate on the price from the problems I had described over the phone. So the next day I dropped it off and explained all the problems I had been having and was told it would be ready in 2 days.
Two days later I went to pick up the bike. The best part of the service was how they explained to me everything they did and why. Being a detail oriented person and mechanical I like to know why and how things work, so this was great. On my bike they put on the new freewheel, and then went to test drive the bike. The technician felt more vibration in the drivetrain and went on to further diagnose that my chain was way stretched. This was news to me as I had no idea chains stretch but after further explanation this is a very common problem. If you ride your bike for 30-40 minutes a couple times a week they recommend you change your chains every 3 to 4 months. Don’t worry they are cheap about $12. A stretched chain can cause your other drivetrain components to wear prematurely. After replacing the chain they adjusted my brakes. The design of my calipers is poor, and because of this a cap cracks, falls off which causes a critical spring to not function as designed. As a result most of the brakes only pull from one side cutting in ½ your stopping power and causing uneven wear. Since this is a design flaw the part is no longer made so the solution becomes modification of the part. The mounting bracket was taken off and drilled for a new cable run location. Now the brakes work great and pull from each side.
At the end of the day I am very impressed. These guys did quite a bit of work on my bike, they spent time doing great work and then checked their work by going out and putting a couple of miles on it. The bike is now better than it has ever been even brand new from the factory. The price was very reasonable too for the amount of work that was done.
If you live in Lincoln, Nebraska or surrounding areas I cannot recommend Monkey Wrench enough. A+ Local business! Check out their website http://www.monkeywrenchcycles.com/ blog http://monkeywrenchcycles.blogspot.com/ and Google customer reviews as well for their address and phone number.
Monkey Wrench Cycles LLC
1225 P Street, Lincoln, NE 68508-1429
(402) 477-4104