Category: Travel

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Washington DC Day 1

I made it to Washington DC last night after both of my flights were delayed. The good thing was we made up almost all of the delayed time over 1.3 hours. Today Ryan and I went to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving where US Paper money is printed. Sadly photos are not allowed inside the building. We then spent the remainder of the day at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum where we saw tons of great aircraft and space craft.


US Capitol Building

German WWII V2 Rocket

Apollo 11 Module

X-15

Washington Memorial at Sunset

Be sure to check back tomorrow for more.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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!

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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.

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Italian Vacation Update #3

Our Italian holiday continues. On Tuesday, an Italian National holiday, as we were coming down the curvy mountain road we had a tire go flat. Luckily we had a spare donut and in no time were on the road. The journey took a little longer because we drove on slower B roads but we made it to Montepulciano, a hill town.

In Montepulciano we stumbled into an old copper craftsman. He made everything out of copper and was so charming. We bought a heavy beautiful copper frying pan and are very excited to try it out. The town is very, very hilly which made it good exercise but the climbs were worth it for the amazing views of the Tuscan countryside.

The churches, basilicas, and duomos in the country are very impressive. We have seen many treasured relics as well as burial sites of many famous Italians such as Dante, Marconi, Galileo, Michelangelo, assorted popes, and others.

Although we weren’t in Siena for long, we still saw a lot of beautiful things! We stayed in a hotel connected to a sanctuary and run by nuns. The view was amazing. We spent some time at the Piazza del Campo, where the famous Palio horse race takes place. We went to the Duomo here as well which was beautiful and unique.

In Florence, or Firenze as the locals call it, Jon climbed about 450 steps up to take photos at the top of the Duomo. It was a tough climb but worth it. In the Accademia museum we saw the famous David sculpture by Michelangelo as well as many other famous unfinished works by Michelangelo.


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Italian Vacation Update #2

For the past 3 days we have been in the Umbria region. We are staying at an Agritourismo which is a working farm. Its location is very remote. It 14km up a small mountain with 78 turns to reach the agritourismo. This has been a big change from the heat and hustle and bustle of Rome. Here we figure it takes us 5 hours to eat our meals which are eaten with everyone on the farm. Below is a photos of some of the pasta we had as one of the 3 courses for lunch one day. It has been a neat experience. However the past few days it has rained constantly. This has put a damper on some of our plans but today we went to the towns of Montefalco, Assisi, Deruta, and Spoleto. While in Assisi we had a good pizza in a small typical Italian café, see the photo below of the half eaten pizza.

Our car (pictured below) is an Alfa Romeo 159 Estate with a 1.9L turbo diesel. While we are not very impressed with the low clearance of the alfa or the stereotypical Italian electrics the engine is great and the highway driving has been fine. Without the Garmin GPS it would be near impossible.