Pizza and the Pope

Well, here we are, the last few days in Italy and we have yet to post something about our time here. I think this is due mainly to the fact that the laserbeam intensity sun has sapped us of all our will to do anything except stare blankly at the beautiful architecture with our mouths hanging slack as we welp pitifully for acqua...acqua....needless to say we have really enjoyed the architecture and art inside the many large, COOL churches. :)

So a short recap of our time here...we spent the first 3 days in Rome and managed to see the colusseum, the palatine, the roman forum and the pantheon. We also gazed awestruck at the sistine chapel and saw a 3,000 year old egyptian mummy(whom I have affectionally dubbed as Nick's girlfriend) in the Vatican Museum. We had the incredible priviledge to attend a Latin mass in St. Peter's Basilica--that was quite an experience. There was incense and a hauntingly beautiful choir that echoed amazingly in the vacuous space. To add the experience, as people were going up for communion, we heard a 'psst...kristin' behind us and saw our good friend Molly and her friend Melissa who are visiting in Rome also before MOlly enters a convent in August. We got to have some deliciously cheap pizza and red wine in a hole in the wall in Rome then ate gelato as we watched the Basilica disappear into the sunset...

sounds like a corny chick flick, no? :)

Anyway, our last day in Rome we spent UNDER the Basilica. We managed to score tickets (thanks to Molly letting us know about it) to the 'Scavi Tour' -- the excavations that are going on below the Basilica that revealed an ancient necropolis (amazingly well preserved) and what archeologists have decided is the original tomb of St. Peter and, what some surmise are his actual bones. Regardless, it was phenomenol...our guide, Vladimir, was great. He even let us cut in line at the end to see Pope John Paul II's tomb.

We are now in Tuscany...we are staying at a beautiful campsite outside of Fiesole (about 8km from the center of Florence). We have an amazing view of florence from where we eat dinner and, best of all, it's cheap! Camping in Italy is NOTHING like camping in the states...they have a full service restaurant with their own house wine (very good actually), a swimming pool, bungalows (although we are tenting it).

We wandered the streets of Florence yesterday and today--saw the Duomo and climbed all 493 stairs to the top of the cupola. We also saw David today. Amazing. That is all I can say. Nick and I kept expecting him to turn around and start talking to us. In fact, I am convinced he breathed a couple of times.

We are planning on simply tooling around the Tuscan countryside the next few days before heading out on Friday for Ireland. We'll try to hit up a vineyard. Here are the rest of our photos. Actually, this one may be better:
http://www1.snapfish.com/photolibrary/t_=53866009
Remember, email us if you have trouble getting into the site. Hope all of you are cooler back home and enjoying the summer there!

Just a quick one

Sorry we haven't posted for awhile, but we've been very busy. This one will be short....
So, Tuesday (the 20th) we spent the evening in Switzerland and it was a very nice city (a lot like home, actually). We thought that we would be fine getting by in -geneva of a day without knowing any French, but boy were we wrong...We wound up finding the nearest English bookstore and buying French phrase books. We then sat in a park for 2 hours trying to learn as much french as possible.
The next day we went to Rome and found out that the subway closes at 21:00...so, we were stuck on a hot, hot stinky bus for about 1.5hrs.
We'll talk more about Rome later, but we are going to catch a train to Tuscany shortly. We'll post more later.

Nick & Kristin

Beauty and the Beast

Well, here we are, our last day in Spain...we fly out tomorrow morning for Geneva, Switzerland (where we have yet to find a place to stay...I think it will be camping by Lake Geneva for us...places to stay there are ridiculously expensive!). We are in Malaga, the birthplace of Pablo Picasso...

Anyway, I´m not feeling very poetic right now, but I wanted to share a little bit about the Alhambra and our brief stay in Sevilla.

On Saturday morning, we arose, bright and early (7:00am...an ungodly hour in Spain). We wandered down the desolate streets, up the sharply graded hill to a ticket booth with sleepy people already lined up at least 50 deep...those sad saps who failed to reserve their tickets in advance. hahaha!! At promptly 8:30, the gates opened to a medieval paradise...we sauntered in (as some crazy tourists briskly brushed past us and sprinted down the walk) and made our way over to the Palacios Nazarios (i think i have that right). This is the coveted area to visit...the sultan´s private palace. It was, as my uncle Jack so rightly put it, one of the most beautiful places on earth. The intricate carvings, the amazing geometric architecture, the stunningly manicured gardens, the phenomenal use of water as decoration. It was a celebration of life, of faith, of Allah, of paradise. It was, as Nick likes to say, a wonderful, cleansing sorbet after the festival of death on friday night (a quick note...nick may not be a vegetarian, but I am finding it extremely hard to stomach meat now...the bullfight affected me much more than i realized--I am strong enough to admit that I actually cried--and if anyone would like to discuss my spiritual epiphanies when I return, i would be glad to gab your ear off). After the palace, we went on to the Generalife gardens...an enormous expanse of amazing beauty. Nick got plenty of ideas for our future backyard....

I could write novels (in fact I believe many novels have already been written) about our experience at the Alhambra, but i would start to sound redundant and you have more important things to do with your time.

After 8 hours (yes, that´s right, EIGHT HOURS) we finally peeled ourselves away and wandered back down the streets of Granada, plotting our overthrow of the Spanish government so that we, ourselves, could occupy the Alhambra.

Later that evening, Nick astutely spotted an unassuming poster advertising a Bonsai exhibition put on by La Asociacion de los Amigos de Bonsai de Granada. We found the small exhibition and wandered through the trees on display. On our way out, we asked if we could take a poster and Antonio stopped us and asked us where we were from. This prompted a 3o minute discussion (in spanish, mind you) on bonsai cultivation in spain and minnesota, our travels, the climate changes....you get the picture. Nick was in heaven. We got the email address of the association and left, elated.

Later that night we found a little tea shop that had live flamenco guitar music, had some crepes and hookah and went home, sad that we were leaving Granada.

I won´t bore you much more, but I wanted to share a little about Sevilla. Neither of us liked it at all...where as Granada was big, it retained the feel of a small town...it retained it´s identity. Sevilla had been overrun by the tourist industry. Every few meters we passed some tacky tourist shop where they were selling horrendously gross things (i cán´t post them online).

ON the plus side, we did get to go to a mass in the cavernous Cathedral and got to hear the amazing organ play. And we went to a breathtakingly fantastic flamenco presentation--a guitar player, a singer and two dancers. I was floored...apparently the lady dancer (carmen mesa) won an international flamenco competition...it has inspired me on a new career path...I will now be a flamenco dancer. forget grad school...On the whole, we were not sad to leave Sevilla the next day.

Well, i think that´s about all...if you want to see the most recent photos, click here. And post responses...we like to know people love us!!

Viva el toro

As you will understand after reading this entry, there are no pictures for the bullfight, but there are some of the tour of the Alhambra that we took today (Kristin will probably talk about that later).

Well, last night we went to the Plaza de Toros to watch a bullfight. Neither Kristin or myself were "excited" to go because we kind of knew what to expect. As it turns out, we learned about something very valuable, life.

As we said before, there is this 6 day festival happening here in Granada-each night there is a bullfight with, I think, three Matadors (again, I appologize for any wrong spellings) and six bulls, two for each matador (interesting side note: matadors are now referred to as "torreros." Kristin tells me that matador means "killer.").

We sat in the cheap seats way up top in del sol (the sun). Suprisingly, the stadium was pretty full. Moreover, many of the spectators were women and children.

#Disclaimer: we are not pachoulli loving vegan hippies#

I won´get into all of the details, but it goes a little something like this: the matadores parade out and a bull is released, one at a time. For the first part of the match, the matador busies himself wtih "bull-dodging." Another thing to note here is that the audience will cheer the more the bull charges (or so we thought). This is what they then call a brave bull. However, anyone who knows anything about animals knows that the bull is probably just scared (the only time that it charges is when the matador comes at it quickly).
During the next phase, another man comes out on an amoured horse with blinders on. The matador lures the bull over to the man on the horse and then he stabs it behind the head with a big spear.
Next come the picadores (about 3 more guys) who stick 2 darts each into the bulls neck.
The final phase, and again, many details are being ommitted, is when the bull is killed. When it is done properly, a sword is stuck through the bulls neck were it pierces its heart. All in all, it takes about 30 seconds for the bull to die (which if you think about it, is probably the same amount of time it would take in a kosher or halal butcher shop). Kristin and I both felt horrible during this part, but what really got me was when the torreo patted the bull on the head (or saluted it...each one did something different) as it was dying.
If the match went well, the officiant awards the torreo the bull´s ear.
What do we make of all this? We agreed that the most disturbing part of the whole ordeal was how numb people were to the violence of it all-cheering and applauding every move. In fact, we found ourselves becoming numb towards the end of the night! Maybe, at some point, it is good for someone to learn about death, but I don´t think they should learn about it by killing for sport. (PS I´m not talking about hunting and we are not becoming vegitarians)
Is it right for 10 trained men to make a game out of the death of an animal? You can decide. I´m sure that many people disagree with us, and that´s perfectly ok.
We talked a lot afterwards about how this would impact us and we decided that we really need to be aware (when we eat meat) of how important the "sacrifice" of that animal was. Its life was taken in order to sustain ours.
(I would love to talk more about this, especially philosphically, but someone is waiting to use this computer. maybe i´ll post more later.)

We have decided that life is more valuable than death, especially if it is only for enjoyment.

Viva el toro.

I am a genius...and problems viewing our photo link...

So it turns out that I am a genius. As we were leaving our room last night at around 8:30pm, we were swept up into a massive throng of parents toting around little spanish girls (and some not so little spanish girls as you can see...) dolled up in vibrant flamenco outfits. As we were ushered along, we suddenly found ourselves face to face with Jesus...or a giant float of Jesus and his disciples enjoying the Santa Cena (last supper) along with an entire processional of women and children wearing black, carrying candles, burning incense and, of course, a brass marching band. Not knowing exactly what was going on, but thrilled that we had caught this amazing event, we snapped pictures and followed the processional for awhile. The streets were lit up with what looked like garland and christmas lights. So we had sat down to eat, still puzzled and decided to ask our waitor exactly what was going on. His eyes ablaze, he excitedly spilled out all kinds of information about La Feria de Corpus Christi (some sort of fair for the cathedral...) and how they have a giant fairground and rides and flamenco dancing and drinking and laughing and happiness. He ripped out his order pad and frantically scribbled down instructions for taking the Bus Ferial to the fair site and how we can dance our problems away until 8am if we would like...he informed us that we MUST take a cup of the very special Granadan wine at the fair entrance ("!es riquissimo!!) so that we can enter the fair "muy contentos". After nearly 10 minutes of these instructions (we discovered the key to the Spaniards....ask them a question in Spanish and they never stop talking), he let us go and enjoy the fair. So Nick and I wandered around what was like the Minnesota State Fair times 10,000 and left around 1:30. I am sad to admit that many a 2 and 3 year old outlasted us last night...

Anyway, there are aparently 3 more days of this feria and there are bullfights each night and more flamenco events...so we´ll keep you all updated.

Also, if you have trouble viewing our links to that we posted to view our other photos, please email us and we´ll email you our username and password. (either kristinkwilde@yahoo.com or nick_giuliani@yahoo.com).

It´s Not Swearing Because I Don´t Know Spanish...

First of all, sorry we haven´t posted in what´s all of sudden been a week. As it turns out, it was hard finding internet cafes in rural Spain.
That being said, we have had a lot of fun times, and a few not so fun ones, in the past week.
We left off last time in Santiago. After a fairly short (about 2 hrs) bus ride, we arrived in a small sea-side village called Laxe (pronounced Lashay). We stayed at this hotel that was run by this charming and very talkative man named Manolo. Enter "La Puta Madre." Now, for those of you not wishing to be shocked by what this means, don´t look it up. So we´re at the hotel visiting with Manolo (well, Kristin is) and we´re telling him that we´re there to do a 2 day walk. He gets a lot of people there doing walks and has each one write a little something in this book he has; every one of them makes sure to include "La Puta Madre" somewhere in their ramblings to express just how beautiful the scenery was.
In additon to chatting with Manolo, we experienced our first sampling of Pulpo (octopus). This stuff is not the most appetizing entre in the world and every restaraunt we went to in Gallacia there was an anxious server trying to push the stuff onto us. A similar ritual in the US would be the yearly dumping of zucchini from neighbor to neighbor (or even fruitcake from family to family). Kristin, insisting that we"musn´t say no" because it would be insulting, usually ordered some. I now loathe Pulpo.
We learned a valuable lesson on the walk: never try and walk 40km in two days with heavy packs. Our legs have never been so sore! That being said, we did see lots of beautiful beaches, moumtains, forrests and wildflowers.
At the end our first day (12km) we stayed at an old woman´s house in Camelle. The woman was 83 years old and was taking care of her husband (89) who had demension and couldn´t do anything for himself. That night, we ate at Maria´s (the old woman) daughter´s restaurant and had, you guessed it, more Pulpo. After our meal we were asked if we wanted some licquor or coffe. Kristin had a coffe and I decided to pass on both. Well, a few minutes later the woman came out with a bottle of homemade sugary, lemon booze, set two glasses on the table, and poured us some. Now of course, we can´t say no, so we had some. But she left the bottle...do we finish it? Do we leave it? We thought it best to ask. Kristin asked "to take?" because we weren´t sure if they wanted us to bring home with us. A minute later, we are one full bottle of "Limonsette" richer, and €7 poorer. Kind of a funny story, though.
The second day of our walk (27Km), it misted most of the time, but we trudged on...and on...and on...we wanted to die by the end (check out our pics of the scenary).
We made it to the next town, missed our bus, and had to take a cab for €60 back to Santiago to catch our overnight train to Avilla, just outside of Madrid, we called it our "stupid tax."
The overnight train was terribly uncomfortable, and we subsequently spent the next day sleeping.
Not much funny stuff happened the next few days, except that I managed to ordered "ear-flavored" fanta (oreja insterad of naranja) and refer to the top of our table as "enima" instead of ensima.
We did however, see the Prada and the Reia Sofia (pardon my spellings) in Madridd. For us, the only thing of interest at the Prada was the Piccasso exhibt (it was showing the influenece of Classical works on Picasso). There was also a Picasso exhibit at the Reia Sofia, which housed Guernica, perhaps his most famous work. I could go on and on about how cool this exhibit was, but I´ve already rambled enough. We will hoepfully be posting more frequently, as we are now in Granada, a college town. Take care.

Nick and Kristin

Santiago de Compostela--we´re in España!!

Well hello to all of you who are bored enough to be checking our blog on a Friday afternoon...we survived the trip with only one stalker, whom we dubbed "no personal bubble boy" since he systematically destroyed our personal bubbles by being no more than a pinky´s length away from either of us all the way from Toronto til we managed to ditch him in the snaking corridors of Heathrow airport (we had to do some professional maneuvering to lose him though!).
after 27 hours of traveling (most of those hours were spent trying to sleep or staring blankly at the walls of whatever random airport we were in...) we finally arrived in the northwest part of spain--a city of about 100,000 called Santiago de Compostela. It´s claim to fame is that it supposedly hosts the remains of St. James, the apostle. It´s absolutely beautiful--nick and I kept wandering around thinking we were on a movie set. This is a picture from the balcony of our hotel room.

Last night we ventured out through the beautiful, narrow streets and discovered that, after he finished his stint on "Full House", John Stamos retired to Santiago where he is a waitor at a Tapas restaurant (not really...our waitor just looked exactly like his twin...). Oh, and it stays light here until 11pm...

I am trying to speak spanish, although this is complicated by two factors...1) Spanish in spain (castellano) sounds WAY different to me than the latin american version i am used to and...2) the official language of this region is Gallego...an odd mix of spanish and portugese (or so it sounds to me)...but we are floating by okay. So far I haven´t felt too stupid (the spaniards aren´t exactly the most outwardly friendly people in the world...although the taxi driver we had yesterday was great-i asked him one question and he didn´t stop talking the entire ride to the hotel!). Well, we are in the process of uploading some photos to snapfish. you can access them at:
http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=44222807/a=53866009_53866009/t_=53866009

I promise that our entries will become more interesting and (hopefully) witty and entertaining to read once we get over the "dumbs" of jet lag (my head feels like it´s captured in jello). In about an hour we´re off to the Costa da Morte (coast of death....just to scare our parents) for a few days of walking along the Atlantic Ocean...take care!

Testing, Testing

Hello world! We have finally crawled out from under our rock and started a blog.