Semana Santa Parte Tres - London

The last morning of our stay in Paris both of us remaining from the group woke up and ate our last authentic crepes and promptly caught the metro to the airport, which took 30 min. We then caught a flight to London which lasted maybe a couple hours at most. Upon landing in London it was stereotypically grey and chill. We also didn't realize that while London has four different large airports they aren't necessarily all close. After a one hour bus ride we then arrived at the "tube" as London calls its metros, and took the lines to the stop where the apartment rental company said they would meet us. Three of us had looked online and found a site that rents apartments in flexible amounts and we chose a week for $45 each a night. By London standards this was a steal, as the nearby dirty hostels that were available cost about the same a night. The reason we were staying the longest in the most expensive area of the trip so far was that we were going to a concert of some pretty big names the last night of the week.

So we finally got off at our stop and it was raining now, which furthered no doubt in my London preconceptions so far, and waited for the representative to meet us in car. After a little we met with the rep and were driven on the wrong side of the road about 4 mintues down the road into this neighborhood of little brick 2 floor developements that looked pretty well kept, which was reassuring because for the price we were paying we theoretically could have very well been placed in the ghetto. Fortunately we were not in the ghetto.




This is the whole thing, except for the bathroom which was back behind me. True London style it was "quaint". At least it was new looking, spotless, and fully furnished.

Including this kitchen as well which was stocked as well thank god. We used this kitche the whole time in order to save money. There were many halal markets around us because we apparently were in a predominantly arab/muslim section of the outskirts of London, so groceries were often not far away although sometimes strange in nature.

We had a lot of time to explore this massive city, a week to be exact, so we took it casually and saw a couple things a day or so, seeing many important landmarks. One was the London museum.

Here's an example of one of the many artifacts the museum had. It was mainly London history but it went quite far back in time.

Another historical building we went to was St. Paul's cathedral.

We entered the front and were greeted by a very british, older "fellow" standing beside felt rope cordoning off the rest of the interior of the church. I snapped this picture quickly without a flash after I read the 10 pound entry fee sign. $20, no thank you, I'd rather eat. After I took the photo the dour "fellow" by the felt rope gate warned "no photos please!" in a condescendingly polite british manner as was customary.

This is none other than the house of God this is the gate of Heaven -and it costs $20 to enter said gate apparently.

The next day we decided to take the "tube" as the british call their metro, or subway station, to central London to explore part of the city. As you can imagine, like the heart of any major metropolis, it's where the money is at. That grey car pictured there is a new Rolls Royce Phantom, worth around 350,000 euros last I saw in a magazine.

It was parked down the street from the Bentley dealership we came across as we continued on. That there is a Bentley sedan, I forget the model name, but I believe it's in their mid range section of only 250,000 euroes.

I decided to sum up the nerves to enter the dealership after I looked inside and saw this is well.

Price tag: 1,100,000 euro.

Yes, 1.1 million euro, or $1.7 million american if you want to put it that way. What is it you might ask?

This is the Bugatti Veyron.

There are only going to be 300 total in the world. It has an 8.0 L, 4 turbo, W16 engine with about 1,000 hp and a top speed of 253 mph. You do get a 24 hour available mechanic to be flown in included with the deal at least.

That made me quite desensitized to the petty Porsches I walked past at the next dealership and mildly impressed by the Rolls Royce dealership next to that. After that we hopped a double decker red bus and took it back to the apartment to eat. The next day we decided to see Big Ben so we looked up the location and figured out the "tube" and bus routes to get there and got it done.

Here is said Big Ben.

A close up.

On the walk down the street from Big Ben we walked by a row of sculptures. Here is the famous General Monty. All I could think of was the movie Patton and laugh at his stern figure with its goofy moustache.

Not to be confused with this Monty of the Python type however, whose sign I saw farther down the street.

A couple days later we decided to see the royal palace. On the way we found we could go see the London Tower bridge as well, which is not to be confused with the London Bridge which we didn't get to see but were mislead to believe was this one based on it's popularity in photography. The plaque on the support of the Tower Bridge let us know where we actually were. Nonetheless it still looked cool.

Later on we saw the royal palace. This shot was taken with my hand placing the camera through the fence that protected the outer perimeter. I'm not sure what side of the palace I'm on in the photo but it was not as impressive as I imagined so I hope this wasn't the best side of it. It was quite large and we were quite tired so we did not circumnavigate the landmark to find out otherwise.

The guards did change posts while we were there however and do their funny march with the hand swinging and awkwardly high leg movements. Their assault rifles dont look so funny however. This also had to be the back of the palace or something because these guards, while they marched silly, were not dressed silly, like I had heard about, with the giant furry hat/helmet thing and bright red garb.

The day before we were to go to the concert we got an e-mail from the ticket provider that the event got rescheduled to April 15th instead. Wonderful, the whole reason we stayed in one of the most expensive areas of Europe for so long was we were at least going to go see some of the member of Wu-Tang, a hip hop group, perform at the end of the week. Oh well, at least we can just get our money back if we don't want to go, which isn't the problem, it's that we don't live in London. All in all each spot of spring break was amazing and each had certain distinct characteristics that made for some memorable times. If only I had picked warmer places to visit instead, oh well, maybe next time I'm back in Europe.

Semana Santa Parte Dos - Paris

So the next day I woke up and dragged my suitcase down the impossibly steep stairs without bringing it down on myself and possibly ending my spring break, and life, all too early, and proceeded outside to hail a taxi for I did not want to miss my bus to Paris and did not know exactly where the station was. 10 euro and 20 minutes later I got my bus ticket I had booked online the month before and sat down and waited. Only two of my friends from the Amsterdam trip were going to accompany me to Paris. One showed up a bit before departure and the other not at all. The other had arrived 10 minutes after the bus left and had to buy another ticket all over again but still made it to Paris a few hours later than us.


On the way to Paris the bus stopped at Brussels, Belgium's capital. We then continued on to France, where my nap during the total 8 hour ride was interrupted by the French border control. A heavyset French gendarme stepped aboard with a partner to do their "intensive" security check which included looking at everyone's passport, well almost everyone's, they didn't even open my friend's passport which of course had nothing to do with her being a young pretty girl. The gendarme then stepped up to me and said something in french which I didn't catch and then looked at my passport with a surprised face and turned to the other guard saying, "ble bla blu amerikann honh oui oui jeauocqx le pas blah blah" as it sounded to me, and I said, "je ne se pas frances" to which they started laughing and handed my passport back. I guess initially they thought I was french. I tried not to hold it against them.

Finally we got off at the bus station in Paris and made our way to the french metro system to get to our hostel. By the way the metro is handycap-unfriendly, very much so. For some reason there are ups and downs of stairs randomly and frequently, which make it fun to carry your heavy luggage with the tiny useless wheels on up and down.

Fortunately the metro stop for our hostel was literally within view of the hostel once we found it. Checking in was our first true attempt at interacting with the French. The Indian looking man behind the desk became flustered when we explained in broken english lapsing into spanish occasionaly how one friend wasn't here yet and that we couldn't pay yet. In retrospect I seriously think he might have been mentally disabled to an extent as I watched him try to figure out a calendar with only 3 different names on it for the bookings and ours was one of them but to no avail until we pointed at our names. He also said we could pay by credit card which was not the case when we went back down to the front desk later and spoke with a different man who said that eez not posseeble and you can go down street to atm ok real easy you put zee card in and take money real easy ok and come back ok? yes? pay now? - is how our conversation went. Anyhow the room was clean at least once we got to it and had a balcony which was a nice surprise plus.

And here is the view from the 5th floor.

First thing we decided to see as we only had 3 days to explore this immense city was the Notre Dame cathedral. We walked down near the metro and approached this t-shirt seller for directions, who coincidentally was an American selling anti-Bush shirts to recoup some money before flying home.

We learned Notre Dame was only about 20 minutes away by foot so we walked along the famous river Seine to get to it, as it apparently is in the center of it on it's own island. Here is the front that we got to see after waiting in a 45 minute line which wasn't bad by Paris standards.

In front was a man performing acts with kerosene.






Here is a shot from the back looking to the front of the inside. It was free to enter surprisingly.

A shot of some of the stained glass work.

After we explored the inside we went back outside and found another line to wait in that let you pay 4.80 euro to ascend the cathedral up to the top for a view of the city. While we waited in line this very french man performed street humor for us by sneaking up on unaware people passing by. I don't think this would fly to well in America as I imagined him trying this in the Bronx or in Detroit or something and most likely promptly being punched out, stabbed, or sued, or all of the above all at once. The French seemed to take it well however.

Once we climbed to the top here was the view.

And here's a quick clip of the panorama to give you a better idea of the experience.

And here is a shot of the back of the cathedral as we left.

As we walked back down the Seine, one of my friends wanted to stop in this park. As we approached the gate I noticed a small group of American looking kids, one of whom was face down in the dirt in his nice polo sweater. So we approached them to see what was going on. They were Catholic highschool sophmores from Scranton, PA, yes where the hit show The Office takes place; on a trip with their school to Paris to enjoy the cultural and educational experience of traveling, and by that they seemed to mean getting completely wasted off cheap wine and whiskey, as demonstrated by their willingness to sing to the girls and the prone figure of their friend taking a nice break to have a dirt sandwich. Don't worry, he's not dead, they picked him up later and walked him over to a trashcan where he promptly started peeing into it while swaying. Remember, the children are our future.

After the singing interlude we returned to the hostel to rest up, for the next day we wanted to see the Eiffel tower and the Louvre. We asked where the Louvre was from some friendly passersby who coincidentally were American anyway and learned it was about 20 minutes by metro. So we took the train and got off at the Louvre's own dedicated stop, which by itself looked like part of the museum with its sculptures and marble flooring. As we climbed the steps up out of the station I realized the stop actually was part of the museum, literally, it was the basement. We bought our tickets at a stand on our way to the main part of the Louvre and unknowingly at the time were saving ourselves another hour wait in line, as once we got into the center where the reception was, the ticket booth line there had a line snaking on and on.

This is a picture of a room housing some royal jewlery of sorts.

There was nothing in the room at all except for at the very back of it where this case was located.

And here is what was inside the case. It was hard to stare at these things and think of them as real. The amount of jewels and their size looked almost fake because I'd never seen so many like that before. That tiara has about 1,100 diamonds by the way.

We spent about 8 hours walking through the Louvre's various wings so here are just some of the highlights as I did take many photos but also saw a lot more than I captured.

Here is Napoleon Bonaparte's bed. It is really that short, like he was. I thought with all that money he would at least have had a far larger bed.

This is a random painting from one of the many halls lined floor to ceiling with them. It made me laugh to look at this painting and think about how technically any art could practically have as well been painted by a monkey and you would not even know necessarily. Such is art.

One of the wings had a large amount of ancient Egyptian and Sumerian artifacts. Here is a mask from the selection.

And of course the Louvre houses those famous pieces we all know about. Here is the one and only Mona Lisa. What you can't see in this picture of the painting is the extensive multiple protection barriers in front of the painting in a 12 foot radius extending outward. I was dissappointed with this as I wanted an up close shot of the painting but this was the best I could get instead. Honestly I wasn't that impressed. This is one of those items of art that is more important historically I believe. It's also a lot smaller than I imagined, maybe only about 2 feet wide by 3 feet tall.





And here is the sister to the Statue of Liberty. This is the first one that was made that inspired the giant version given to America as a gift.

And this is the Venus de Milo, the supposed classic definition of the pinnacle of beauty. It was quite difficult to take in all this visual information I had seen so far because up until this point all of these famous works were just names and pictures in books. To have the real thing in front of you is completely different.

Included in the 8 hours of our time spent at the Louvre was perusing the sprawling gardens that lay at the front of the outside of the Louvre.

There were many sculptures in the garden both new and old. Note the size of the tree next to this giant spider thing to get an idea of its scale. There was also a hedge maze to the right of this photo. To the left continues the rest of the gardens where at the very end was a large gilded gate that opened up to a direct line of sight of the Arc du Triomphe in the distance.

After we left the Louvre we decided to try to make it to the Eiffel tower, and we did shortly before nightfall. It was truly a grand spectacle, but not grand enough to spend 13 euro to ascend to the top. Sorry Paris, I'm a poor college student on exchange without a job.

We were seated outside the tower getting ready to head back when all of a sudden the tower lit up like a giant Christmas tree. The video clip below shows all, including the voices of my friends who had been sampling some of France's finest red wine after the Louvre.

It really was that cool to actually see the Eiffel tower however. It is freakin huge, to put it poetically. It carried this dominating presence, for you could almost always see it from any point in the city where you were, it was always there in the background somewhere. Made for quite some views of the Parisian skyline. The next morning we had to wake up to catch our flight to London to meet up with one of our friends who had parted ways with us after Amsterdam. From there continues parte tres of my spring break.

Semana Santa Parte 1 - Amsterdam

The first stop for semana santa, which is what they call their spring break, was Amsterdam, Holland. About 7 of us total were meeting up all for the same 4 days there. Two flew from the States, one a boyfriend of one of the girls in our group, and the other a college friend of a guy from our group. We were spread out through Amsterdam in the hostels because we booked things at seperate times. Two of the guys, David and Pete, the ones who know eachother from school in the US, booked the first night before I could talk to them so I had my own place for the first night but stayed with them in a different hostel for the remaining three days. Two of the girls had a place farther down the canal together, and the couple had another place on the other side of the canal down a bit.

My phone couldn't make outgoing calls or send messages, one of the girls dropped her phone into the canal while the other didn't even bring hers, and the girlfriend from the couple ran out of minutes, all of this since the first day...


This is one of said canals that may contain our friend's phone. How beautiful. A side note: this was practically the only sunny day by the way for the rest of the spring break. The temperature at the time was probably about the low 50s, high 40s F from what I recall.


Therefore meeting up was a bit harder than expected and so for the first couple days it was each group on its own. The city was quite small so we ended up bumping into them anyways later on.




These are the stairs leading up to our room in the hostel. Now, normally I wouldn't post such a mundane detail but if you take note of the fact that im standing upright on one stair and pointing the camera at a direct line in front of me you'll realize these stairs incline at a ridiculous rate. It's hard to convey the experience through this photo but basically these are the narrowest and steepest stairs you'll probably run into in your travels. It was a lot of fun lugging a suitcase up.

And these are the luxurious quarters you get to stay in for about $50 american a night in the heart of Amsterdam. The shower in the bathroom was a spigot mounted on the wall and the drain was a hole in the corner. The floor was flat and there was no seperation nor partition between the shower space and the rest of the bathroom, so if you had to go to the bathroom after someone took a shower you best not be wearing pants or mind getting wet.

Here is a view of the street in front of our hostel. We used trams like you see pictured to get around the city, which was quite small anyway. I think we were supposed to pay for it but we kept hopping on the back and no one ever asked us anything. I used the weak dollar in the face of the euro as an anti-guilt remedy for that, that and being a poor college student.

The first day we spent getting our bearings and walking around the city. The people are quite friendly, and almost over-polite to an extent. Almost everyone we spoke to knew english perfectly as well. I read prior to coming here about the many canals of Amsterdam but had not expected there to be quite so many. This city reminded me of a northern european version of Venice to an extent.

On the second day we decided to go check out the Anne Frank house, as it was one of the big tourist things to do in the city. Pictured here is the bookcase which hid the entrance to the secret portion of the house where Anne Frank hid from the Nazis during her time there. To enter the room you step through a doorway not pictured.

This is where you come out to after going behind the bookcase. All over the walls and in various spots were sentences in English and Dutch taken from Anne's diary. The one over this doorway mentions her hearing over the radio about the Jews being gassed in the camps and how terrible she felt.

This is the view out the windows of the room Anne hid in. I took this picture to try to imagine what she saw every day as she hid and looked out this window, imagining how it felt to watch Nazi patrols march down the cobbled streets in search of more Jews to arrest. It was truly a sobering experience. Definately not the typical touristical jaunt through such a famous city. Not quite Disney.

After such a light hearted experience (sic) we decided we needed a few pints of fresh authentic dutch Heineken to un-sober ourselves after having experienced such a sobering sight, and walked to a nearby cafe.

The next day we decided to check out some of Van Gogh's and Rembrandt's works at this museum. They didn't allow pictures inside so this is as much as you'll see of this place right now. The interesting thing was this style of architecture was consistent throughout the city with the other important civil structures as well. The train station we emerged from on the first day was nearly as grand as this museum in its outer appearance.

Here is snapshot of the 'dam on our last night there. There are a lot of other things I could have taken photos of but did not want my camera with me at the time. We did take a stroll through the red light district and it was quite funny actually. You walk down streets and alleys lit up in red neon as girls in lingerie knock on the windows they stand behind as you pass. The whole experience of this city was quite surreal. The apparent unrestricted allowance of such hedonism would suggest this city would fall into utter chaos and ruin after a month but instead what you get is quite the social experiment in action that still continues on without a hitch. Not once did I feel threatened or unsafe, except for being paranoid about my camera, and I did not see anyone seemingly out of line. Everyone generally kept to themselves. Granted if you wanted trouble all you had to do was look for it and it wouldn't be far but at the same time trouble wasn' going to come find you, unlike other places I've seen.

The next morning I had to wake myself up to catch the bus to Paris, as my friend David was going to Ireland from Amsterdam by plane later in the evening and his friend had already left for his plane back to the States as I slept.

Luarca - Santiago de Compostela - Cudillera

This little town named Luarca was a seaside town we stopped off in on the way to Santiago de Compostela.


Here is a few of another small pueblo I saw down below on the way to Luarca.

And here is part of the little town of Luarca. It's built into the edges of the mountain that surrounds it and is inhabited mostly by fishermen.

After a about 40 minutes we hopped back on the bus and continued on our way to Santiago de Compostela.

This is the view from a bridge really high up. The land mass protruding on the left side is actually a town on a small island connected by a little bridge to another part of the mainland which you can't see from here.

Once we finally arrived in Santiago de Compostela and dropped our stuff off at the hotel we went walking. Here is a view of the street our hotel was on. Cars would fly by occasionally doing about 45 mph on the cobble stone surface wide enough for one but meant for two.

So apparently the big attraction to this town is the cathedral. We took an organized tour of the inside later on in the day.

Here is a view of once you first enter through the large front doors.

Here is a snapshot I took of some of the didactic carvings from the inner part of an arch I walked under as I looked up. What you see are demons consuming the damned. When this church was constructed most people were illiterate so the doorways and stained glass windows throughout the church were decorated with various depictions of things the church wanted you to be aware of at that time.

Here is another depiction of some part of the bible. It's just one of several panels on this special door at the back section of the church that is only opened twice a year on two specific days during a holy period.

These are the organs. Note the horizontal angle at which the pipes protrude from. I've never seen a church or cathedral with an organ in this style before.

Here is the backside of the main altar. On the other side is where the priest performs the services. This structure is about 25 feet tall by the way, and yes that's all gold, not just gold leaf either. Where was that money in the collection basket going to all those times again? God right? Anyhow I won't criticize the old catholic church system...

We were in the church touring it long enough for a mass to begin actually. Here is a video clip of the brothers starting up the incense. Note the pulleys and 3 or so brothers it takes to haul the container up into the air.

Here in this clip you can better get an idea of how vigorous the brothers pulled on the lines to get the incense container swinging throughout the massive cathedral.

After the ceremony ended we exited out the back using this doorway.

I was staring at the carvings above the doorway and happened to notice this. Can someone tell me how a flying monkey from the Wizard of Oz managed to get carved into a centuries old church?

Just outside of the church was an open air market. In this part you may note the green basket in front of the woman contains rabbits. No they aren't dead, and no they're not to take home to the kids as pets either, they're just farm fresh... As I walked away I turned around one last time and saw an elderly woman approach the farmer and watched as the farmer grabbed a rabbit by the ears from up out of the basket and held it up showing the quality and size to the prospective hungry housewife.

There wasn't too much more to see in Santiago de Compostela aside from the cathedral. The following day we left. On our way back we stopped off in another seaside pueblo named Cudillero. Note the V-shape of the house staggered down the cliff sides.

The houses literally were built along the incline all up and around, forming almost an ampitheater like shape around you. This was an extremely tiny town, what you see from this shot is basically all you get.

Some of us decided to climb through the alleys between houses and work our way up the incline. Here is a shot part way up right before sunset.

Here is another shot now higher up than before. This is of the whole town.

And lastly, before we left our hilltop perch, I turned around and snapped this photo of the lighthouse guarding there tiny harbor. This shot was taken in complete dark with no flash. I had to set the camera down on a safe spot where the lighthouse was in view, set the shot timer to wait 2 seconds so me pushing the capture button wouldn't shake the camera, and have the lens set to stay open for a full 15 seconds gathering light and pixel data until it closed the lense and rendered and wrote the picture to memory. Try to click on it for an expanded size to get a better view of the detail of the lighthouse.

We then descended, made our way to the bus, and rode it home to Oviedo. Now I must go shower before I walk to the bus station to get to the airport for my flight for Amsterdam. Next update will be the 28th!