We had just enough time to grab some yogurt and a couple muffins from a Starbucks across from our gate before boarding (yes, we ate at Starbucks, but we’d been up for about 4 hours by now with no breakfast so far).   Another single traveler in front of us in the Starbucks line struck up a bit of a conversation by showing us the 3 huge Toblerones he’d purchased and wondering how well they were going to feed us on the plane.  Once we boarded, we discovered that the same guy was actually in the aisle seat for our little group of 3 seats, so we chatted some more while we waited for take off.  He was from Tuscon, Arizona and was returning home after a 6 week archeological project in Greece and then several more weeks of traveling around Europe.  He visited Italy and Switzerland, among others and could speak Swedish, having lived there as part of a student exchange for a while after high school.

On our trip to Europe, we found that Continental was a nice airline, providing lots of free food and drinks, as well as free headphones for the individual t.v.s with numerous viewing and listening options.  They had lots of snacks and food again on this flight, but we were glad we’d gotten the muffins because it took over 1/2 an hour of sitting at the gate and then taxi-ing before we could take off.  It was a little squishy with all 3 seats in our row filled, but we had fun choosing movies and tv shows to watch on our own little tvs.  We got pretzels and drinks right away, then lunch options shortly after (choice of vegetarian or chicken – we chose the chicken, which came with salad, a bun, and some soft cheese like the little cow cubes).  After lunch was cleared away Jenn caught up on some blogging while Colin started a movie.  A while later they brought little ice cream cups with the little wooden sticks for spoons, and then a warm bun/sandwich of chicken and cheese with a bag of chips and a chocolate shortly before landing,

Throughout the flight they came by often with ice water and/or other drink options.  It was a long 10 hour flight, especially since someone else was on the aisle and we had to make him move every time we wanted out.  We had a bit of turbulence as we approached Houston, kind of felt like a roller coaster at times   We landed safely about 4:30, only a few minutes later than scheduled and got off as quickly as possible so we could get to our connecting flight that left at 6pm.  Unfortunately, we had to leave the secured area to get to the next gate, but it wasn’t too bad going through security one last time and we had time to grab some Wendy’s to take on the plane.  Our second plan was definitely smaller than the first one, but still 3 seats on each side and we ended up with someone on the aisle again, but with only 4 hours to go it was ok.  Partway through the flight we were offered tiny, warm turkey-dogs in a cute little bun with some salad and another little chocolate, which we accepted and saved for later in the flight.  This time there were no individual tvs, but they were showing Star Trek so we didn’t mind watching the movie   Jenn was busy catching up on the blog still anyway!  And that brings us to the current time,…we have been traveling for about 19 and 1/2 hours and are scheduled to land in Calgary in another hour or so, 9:30 Calgary time.  We can’t wait to sleep in our own bed with our own dogs in our own house!

For lunch we ate some delicious pitas, typical Spanish ‘fast food’.  Our server was actually from Mexico, just like Pam, so they enjoyed chatting a bit.  Although Spanish is spoken in both Mexico and Spain, there are very different dialects in Spain, particularly in the Malaga area.  People tend to speak very ‘lazy’ Spanish, leaving endings off words and slurring them together, so they instantly identify Pam as a foreigner even though she speaks Spanish.

After lunch we spent some time on the beach.  We both went in the water, though Jenn didn’t go any further than shoulder deep with the waves since the ground dropped off rather steeply and we had to go in one at a time since we had the camera along.  But the water was fun anyway.  Colin enjoyed floating on his back, listening to the sound of the water moving over the rocks on the sea floor as they pushed him slowly toward the shore.  Though the beach was sandy, it got rocky when you entered the water and the sea floor was all rocks.  Getting out was an experience as well, since the waves try to suck you back even when you’re only shin deep, so you have to kind of pause and take a step or two each time a wave rolls in.  Then of course we had to lay on the beach for a while to dry off

At about 4:30 we started heading back to catch the bus, stopping for one last white chocolate Magnum bar and some churros, recommended by Pam.  Churros are those long, fluffy sticks sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, and there you also get a cup of extremely thick hot chocolate to dip them in.  They were tasty, but we had to eat quick to catch our bus and get back in time to pack up and leave for the airport.  We ended up arriving back closer to 6 instead of 5:30, so we didn’t get a chance to interview Dan since we had to fit everything into just 2 carryons, fragile stuff had to be in one carry on and we had to make sure none of the 4 bags were over the weight limit for the low cost airline (we both wore jeans/cargo pants and shoes, and tied 3 jackets around our waists to help reduce the weight).  We finally managed it and took off for the airport, arriving just over an hour early.  As it turned out, our checked bags registered at exactly 19 kgs, 1 pound under the limit and exactly what the portable luggage scale we borrowed from Colin’s parents had said.  The attendant didn’t weigh our carry-ons separately, but rather had us keep adding bags to the conveyer belt/scale.  When it came time to add the last, heaviest carry on, Colin conveniently places it so one end was actually on a metal support at the end rather than the scale to make sure it wouldn’t be over.  It worked and we moved on through security.  It was kind of strange to be boarding a flight we had booked a couple months earlier from our den in Calgary, and hard to believe it was the beginning of our journey back to Canada.

We arrived safely and on schedule at Gatwick airport in London.  It was kind of strange and also very nice to be back in London, where at least people spoke English even if it was a little harder to understand   We collected our luggage and went in search of the first of 2 trains we needed to take to get to the house of Liz’ friend Stephanie.  Stephanie is also a Canadian living in London.  When we arrived at the transfer point we discovered the second train wouldn’t deliver us to the final stop until 1/2 hour later than Liz had thought, so Colin used up a pound to call and let her know while Jenn chatted with the friendly train guard who was on the platform.  He told us about some friends he has in Vancouver and how he could tell we were Canadian by our accent – he was very adamant that Canadian and American accents are completely different =)

When we finally arrived at the Forest Hill station we waited a short time for Liz and her friend, then grabbed some London fast food at a nearby shop.  Stephanie’s house was only about a block from the station, so it was easy to wheel our luggage to it and a little more difficult to drag it up the two steep flights of stairs, but we made it.  We enjoyed catching up and sharing jokes about ‘lions’ (since the British call ‘sleeping in’ a ‘lie in’ and Liz could never get any Londoners to laugh when she said “What about the tigers?”).  After eating Liz had to head home rather than staying with Stephanie as well since it would have taken her 2 hours to get to work the next morning from there, so we said good night and had a quick shower before bed.

Nonetheless, we reached the city of Algeciras on time.  There are actually ferries that leave from there to Tangier (The city we planned to visit in Morocco), but we were warned that there are many Moroccans living in Europe that go home in August, so it’s better to leave from Tarifa, where we thought they didn’t allow vehicles on the ferries so it would be easier to get on.  That being the plan, we left the bus station in search of the ferry terminal so we could buy our ferry tickets, then board their free shuttle for the 30 minute ride to Tarifa.  With a bit of halting Spanish and English at a hotel along the way, we found the terminal and eventually found the FRS ticket booth where we wanted to purchase our tickets (a couple of guys standing by the sidewalk just before all the ticket booths tried to tell us we needed to buy ferry tickets somewhere across the street, but we ignored them and found our own way).  During our 1/2 hour wait for the shuttle, a woman came by on a little golf-cart type vehicle giving out free water and CDs of some Moroccan singer.

The shuttle finally came and we rode to Tarifa, where we had an interesting time boarding the ferry.  There was a rather long, crowded line for the passport control and while we were in line, we noticed that others seemed to have a special form along with their passport.  The people behind us spoke some English and told us we needed those forms, we should have gotten it with our tickets.  Well, we hadn’t so Jenn stayed in line while Colin went in search of the forms, coming back just in time to fill them out before reaching the front of the line.  It turns out we didn’t need them until we were on the ferry, but oh well.

After the passport control, we followed others outside toward the ferry, but couldn’t quite see where we were supposed to get on.  We were expecting to see some sort of gangway leading up to a pedestrian door, but there was none.  The only entry point was the large door where cars drive in (it turns out the do have cars on the Tarifa ferries), and that’s where other passengers were walking on, so we followed them, unchecked by anyone, right onto the ferry.  Once on board, Rick had said to get in a line, probably on the left side of the boat.  Apparently when we had our passport stamped in the terminal, that was the EU officials, then the Moroccan officials stamp your passport on the ferry.  They also took the forms we had filled out.  The ferry still hadn’t moved after we made it through the line, but now many of the window seats were full and the small outside areas were crowded and surrounded by very dirty windows as well, so we found some seats toward the inside of the ferry to enjoy the ride.

Getting off the ferry was also an experience – we followed the crowd (baaaa) down some stairs and ended up in front of the main doors where the vehicles drive in and out (where we had boarded).  There was a large crowd of people, all standing by the closed door in front of the vehicles, many of which were running (very bizarre!)  Fortunately we didn’t have to wait long before the big door finally opened and we walked off.

Almost immediately after walking off we were approached by a man who wanted to be our guide.  We were very glad we had already arranged one and when we told the man we had a guide, he left us alone right away.  Our guide was waiting for us at the exit to the terminal, holding a sign with Colin’s name on it.  We shook hands and followed him out onto the street.  It was a short walk out of the ferry terminal area, inside which you apparently cannot take pictures.  Our guide told us this, but said that we could take whatever pictures we wanted once we were out of that zone.  He did speak English (Pam made sure of that when she booked him for us), but was not exactly fluent and was sometimes hard to understand.  We still communicated well enough and had a great tour.  He led us first across a street toward the beginning of our walk in the ‘new city’, following the outside of the wall which contained the old city.  We were especially glad again to have a guide when we crossed this first street – there were people, cars, motorbikes and carts, and our guide just sort of shuffled along at his fairly slow pace in between the cars.  As we crossed, the cars in each lane stopped for us, but we were momentarily passed on both sides as we reached the middle of the lanes.  We made it across safely and got our first look at the buildings and people of Tangier, Morocco.

The buildings were fascinating.  Our guide explained that there is an older city, perhaps called the Medina, that is surrounded by a wall.  About 200 years ago they opened up the wall, which had been home to military, and people started to build outside the wall, what is not the new city, and also moved into the now vacant places in the wall.  There were taller buildings with narrow streets in between, but probably only 2-4 stories high rather than 5+like in Europe, and the appearance of the outside was very different.  Often you could see the bricks they had been built with through cracks/large holes in the plaster they put overtop.  The streets were often quite uneven (not just hilly, but not level from side to side).  It was common to see people sitting on steps/stoops just outside buildings, often with items for sale.  Every store/space that we could see into was completely packed, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with things to sell (clothing, fabric, thread, shoes, jewellery, trinkets, etc.).   There were lots of children around, sitting on stoops, playing with yo-yos, etc.

Our guide let us through 2 markets, they call them ‘suiks’, I think, they have different markets for different types of items like leather, food, clothing, etc.  The most interesting one was the food market.  Although everything is open to the outside, we went down some stairs to an area that seemed to be kind of like the basement of the building, so there were beams/scaffolding above us, covered with layers of dust.  The skinny walking path was lined with booths of food, particularly beets, chicken, and some other meat.  There are people behind the front counters chopping up meat and then just setting it out on the boards, or wiping a freshly plucked chicken with a rag to get the few remaining feathers off before hanging it up in the heat of the open air or laying it out on the ‘display counter’.  One booth with red meat had slabs of it laying on top of a steel shelving unit.  The front of the unit was open so we could see the lower to shelves, each of which contained a cat that was sitting there, looking around.  Flies, wasps, etc. were buzzing around most of the food counters.  A few were covered with plastic (like they do at subway), but there were flies, etc. on the inside of those.  The beet booths had all kinds of beets, each kind piled high in it’s wooden box section.  Our guide pointed out some baskets of sweet potatoes (smaller than they are in Canada), and he picked one up and broke the end open so we could see the inside of it before tossing it back in the basket.

Our guide continued to point out the wall around the old city each time we glimpsed it in our walk around it.  At one point we came to a real live snake charmer, though he just had the snakes in boxes an was playing the flute or whatever it is just beside it.  When he saw us, he took a boa out of the box and put it on the ground, poking it a few times to make it move a bit.  Then he put it back and took a smaller snake out of a bag and when our guide told us to stand in and he’d take a picture of us, the charmer draped the tail end of the snake around Colin’s shoulders and held the head while the guide took our picture.  Our guide recommended we give him 2 euros.

When we passed a small mosque, our guide asked if Colin would like to take a picture of the inside.  He said he would just ask the ‘priest’ inside if that would be alright.  He said yes, so Colin took the picture, then the guide told us we should give the priest 1 euro.  We learned quickly that no one will give you a price up front, and you should assume nothing is free.  Some sort of tip or compensation will be expected, so you need lots of small change and good bartering skills!  For stores, guides get a percentage of whatever you spend there, so they like to take you to places you might buy stuff.

On that note, our guide led us to a spice store and a carpet store along our route.  At each place, our guide sat to the side while someone from that store gave us a little presentation about their product – telling us what all the spices are, letting us smell them, telling us what they’re used for, etc, and also the differences in style, color, texture, etc. of the rugs.  Fortunately both presentations were quite short and we felt they were kind of part of experiencing the culture there, and they really didn’t pressure us to buy when we said we weren’t interested.  The carpet guy did make a joke about showing us the magic carpets and Jenn asked if they could fly, so they guy pretended to wave it as though it flew, but we didn’t buy it

Our guide led us to a restaurant for lunch.  We were a little nervous about eating there, but felt that guides recommended through Rick’s book would take us somewhere safe, so we just enjoyed the local cuisine.  It was difficult to eat the plate of beets they brought, though, especially after seeing the market!  We each tried one, but decided we don’t like beets anyway.  We were served a 4 course meal, starting with a special kind of soup that they eat during Ramadan (September-ish, I think).  It was very good!  Next came a sort of round cake with a meat/curry mixture inside and what seemed to be icing sugar on top.  It was an interesting combination of flavors and was very good.  We were told later that the meat was probably pigeon…Next came a plate of chicken shish kabobs.  By this point we were already getting full, and we hadn’t even gotten our main course yet, which was _______ (chicken in a broth with potato), and ___________ (chicken leg with rice).  At the very end we were served some watermelon.  We asked for coke with the meal, and our server brought about a 255ml glass bottle of it  for us to pour into our classes throughout the meal.  Everything was very good, very authentic, and we felt fine afterward!  We were a little surprised at the end, though, to find out that we owed 30 euros for the meal as we had thought that lunch was included.  We paid without even thinking about bartering, but figured we would have spent at least that had we stayed in Spain for the day and the meal really was worth it.  As Rick says, eat clean, not cheap!

As we were walking along after lunch, we passed by one particular hole in the wall place that was probably only 3-4 feet wide but quite deep, with one lone man sitting way at the back, completely surrounded by shoes.  They lined the walls from top to bottom and tables between him and the doorway.  It was such a fascinating scene that Colin raised his camera to take a picture, but the guy started yelling and waving a shoe at him!  That’s when they guide, who up to this point had been continually saying ‘take all the pictures you want, take photo here, take all the photos you want’, now told us to ask him before taking any pictures.  He said we can’t just take a picture like that, we need to check with him first (he re-iterated this several times).  He compared it to walking into someone’s home and taking a picture of them, but from our perspective it is an open store on the street, so it seemed a bit strange.  In any case, you will have to imagine the scene for yourself =)

Later on we passed 2 women sitting on a step, one of them applying henna to the other.  We asked the guide if we could take a picture and the woman was more than happy to comply, jumping up immediately after the picture and grabbing Jenn’s arm to apply some as an example.  Of course, she was so eager because she would then expect some euros for it, but Jenn was interested and figured it was worth it.  As it turned out, we were getting short on euros so our guide paid her.  At first he gave one euro, but she wasn’t happy so he gave her another.  She still wanted more, but he refused and we moved on.

One of the things we really wanted to do while we were there was to ride a camel.  Our guide said we didn’t have time to walk there, but we could take a cab and we’d get to drive past a few things along the way and then also see the beach on the way back to the ferry afterward.  We tried to find out how much that might cost, but he just said ‘not too much’.  We figured the camels were important enough that it would be worth it, and it was.  Also, riding a cab in Africa was an interesting experience!  Clouds of dust poufed up as we sat on the seats.  The seatbelts were not wearable, and the driver wove in and around all the people, carts, and other vehicles on the road, honking frequently.  Made Spain look positively tame!  The camels were in kind of a dirt field across the road from the beach and the cab stopped in the right lane of the road while we got out to see them. There was a guy there with the two camels, each of which had a colorful blanket/saddle on it’s back.  They were both laying down with a small box to step on beside them.  Jenn got to go first, and Colin recorded and snapped pictures while she climbed on, held on as the camel got up on it’s back legs first and then the front, and as the trainer/owner led the camel in a small circle.  Camels move quite differently than horses, much more lumbering side to side movement.  It was a short ride, but fantastic and worth the 2 euros each.  Then it was Colin’s turn and Jenn tried to capture the video and photos while he rode around.  Our guide also took our picture with the camel and we had a brief opportunity to tough the camel’s neck and feel how soft the hair/fur was.  The camel looked so peaceful and calm, laying there in the dirt as we walked back to the cab.

The cab turned around and stopped a short distance down the road so we could get out to take some picture of the beach and water.  The whole beach, as well as where the camel’s were, was extremely windy and with all the sand blowing around, it was almost like a stand storm.  But we got some beautiful pictures looking out across the Mediterranean toward Spain, past the ferry terminal where we would be departing shortly.  It was very interesting to see a number of women covered from head to toe in the religious dress they wear, sitting out on the beach with all that on – quite a contrast to beaches in Spain, where it’s not unusual to see topless women sunbathing.

From the beach it didn’t take long to drive back to the ferry terminal so we could catch our 6:00 ferry.  Now was the time to pay our guide, and we were kind of wondering what he was going to ask for.  According to Rick’s book, walking tours are $15 per person, and we were planning on a $5 tip, plus whatever the cab was.  Our guide wanted $30 to give to Aziz (the one Rick recommended that was busy and sent this guy instead), plus $15 for the cab (even though we’d seen the meter at about 22 dinara, which is only 2-3 euros), plus a tip for him.  When we handed him 50 euros, he then went through the breakdown again, explaining that it only left 5 for him, but he tried to tell us that he didn’t want to poison his heart by being greedy for money – as long as we enjoyed the tour then he was happy.  We ended up giving him another 10 euros, figuring that it really didn’t make much difference to us and we really did have a good day with him.  We would have been lost on our own!  He walked us right to the ferry terminal entrance, giving us specific instructions on where to go and urging us to go quickly because there were a bunch of other travelers with luggage, etc. heading that direction.  We waited only a short time to have our passports stamped again and send our bags through the x-ray machine, so we had plenty of time to wait on the other side and stop in at the washroom.  The women’s washroom had no toilet paper and no paper towels, just an attendant standing there who asked for a tip – Jenn didn’t have any coins and wasn’t exactly sure why the attendant deserved a tip, so she was able to leave without losing any more money.  While we waited in line to board the ferry, we met a lady from Chicago named Susan.  Having heard so many stories and warnings about pickpocketing, etc., Jenn was a bit suspicious of her at first, especially when she pointed out some kittens climbing on the rocks behind us, but the longer we chatted the more evident it became that she was just a lone traveler, interested in chatting with some fellow travelers who spoke English.  We found seats together on the ferry (she told us about some great seats right at the front of the ferry so we had a fantastic view on the way back) and we enjoyed visiting all the way back.  After hearing about her experience, we were exceedingly glad we’d hired a guide, even if we did over pay him.  She arrived later than she planned, having missed the earlier ferry, thinking she would look for a guide when she got off (she also had Rick’s Spain book   But on the ferry she met a couple from Casablanca, who offered to drop her off at the top of the hill in Tangier so she could just walk down and see things on the way, so that’s what she did.  But she didn’t know what anything was or where to go, and she was afraid to eat anything since she didn’t know what would be safe so she just bought some pre-packaged potato chips.  She ended up buying a bracelet because someone put it on her and she couldn’t get it off, and the only reason she was on our ferry is because she missed the earlier one again since she didn’t know exactly where to go (no guide to tell her!) and she was stressed out about her friend who was expecting her back in Tarifa long ago.  The fact that our ferry left 40 minutes late didn’t help her anxiety.  But we still enjoyed talking during the ride and in the end she gave us her address and phone number in Chicago, telling us to give her a call if we’re ever going through there.

Once the ferry finally made it back to Tarifa we once again followed the people down to the car deck and squeezed our way through the vehicles, which were so close together at times that we had to turn sideways to barely fit through and which were parked so haphazardly that we hoped they were at least boarding them evenly to minimize the chance of tipping!  We walked off in front of the cars again once the door finally opened and completed our trip in reverse – shuttle to Algeciras, bus to Malaga.  We enjoyed chatting with another single traveler for part of the way, she was originally from Poland but has been living in Sweden for several years.  She’d just been visiting some friends in Morocco and spoke good English.  Once again our bus said ‘directo’, but it made at least 4 stops on the way.  At one stop, a few people got off and then talked to the driver from the doorway.  Of course, we didn’t know what they were saying but they kept repeating ‘Malaga’ over and over.  In the end we left the people there and carried on, arriving in Malaga 30 minutes late.  Pam and Dan were waiting for us, and fortunately they understand about Moroccan and Spanish time!   We got home and went straight to bed after our 19 hour day!

Now that all sounds simple, but information doesn’t seem readily available (most is found through word of mouth), and the intermittent internet meant that the planning took the morning and part of the afternoon.  Jenn got some organizing done, though, and it was nice to not be racing off somewhere.

Once the planning was in place, we headed down to the bakery to grab some fresh bread and fruit, and then we grabbed the van and headed to Mijas.   Spain was actually much better to drive in then I thought – everything was pretty organized (at least by their standards) and the rural roads are well maintained.

Mijas is a cute little Spanish town with some tourist shops and very traditional Spanish architecture.   There were tons of tiny little hilly streets.  Although people did drive on them, they were all pretty much one ways, and sometimes we had to cling to the wall as they passed.   We then interviewed Pam about her experiences in Spain, and then headed for lunch.

We had a very traditional Spanish lunch, which was rice, chicken and sea food (prawns, shrimp, and clams – the prawns come just as they are, with the eyeballs, legs, tail, and exoskeleton.  You are supposed to cut off the legs and tail, then peel the hard shell and legs off.  It tasted good, but was a lot of work and a little disconcerting to prepare…).  We also had a traditional Spanish pizza (local ham, and no tomato sauce).   We ate in a cute little street side cafe styled restaurant.  We did a little bit of shopping, but mostly we took a lot of pictures.

After that we headed back to Malaga where we went back downtown to try and see the fort again.  There are two parts to it, and the upper part was closed, but the lower part is the main section and it was open (even though the brochure said it was suppose to be closed).   It was interesting to see how different the fort was to the ones we had seen in England and Germany.  Although a lot of the same types of technology was there, the way it was implemented was entirely different.  There was tons of little passageways and staircases some leading to dead ends, others linked together.   There were some display explaining things, but they were in Spanish so we didn’t get much out them.   What we did gather was that it was that it was built by the Moors, and that was one of the last Muslim strongholds in Spain.

After that we headed to bed so that we could get an early start in the AM.

Anyway, at 2:00 we walked the short distance across the center to have lunch at the house of a couple who are in their second year of missions work there.  We had a delicious meal of pork chops, noodles, bread, and corn, with fig cake for dessert.  We had never had figs before, but the cake was delicious   The center has a fig tree in the middle of it, which is where the figs came from.  They are a sweet, tasty fruit, and we also learned that the leaves can make your skin itch (fortunately not from first hand experience   BTW, what kind of leaves were first sewn together for Adam and Eve?

After lunch we got going on today’s plan, a tour of downtown, visit to the fort and then a bullfight and tapas in the evening.  It was a lot of fun to have some time to tour around without a real schedule.   Unfortunately when we got to the fort it was closed, but it was neat to tour around the little streets and look at the shops (well, the ones that were open, anyway

At 6 we headed over to the bullring, where there were going to be free bull fights (free because the Matadors are students).  It was nothing like what Jenn expected.  It was only recently that she realized there is a fair bit of controversy over bullfights because they kill the bull – she envisioned it more like steer wrestling.  So when she found out the kill the bull, she thought it was by somehow wrestling them to break their neck.  Then someone mentioned blood, and she wasn’t sure where the blood would come in… she somewhat hesitantly attended the fight, figuring she could just not watch if it was bad.

The bull ring was a round, open air building with stadium seating looking down on a round ring in the middle. Everyone quickly chose seats on the shady side and when you looked around the ring, it looked like hundreds of huge butterflies fluttering around with all the women fanning themselves with their colorful fans.  Before the fight, someone came out with a super long hose to spray the dirt/sand covering the floor of the arena.  It didn’t seem like it would actually do much good, especially on the sunny half, but it didn’t actually dry that quickly and did help keep the dust down.  To begin the fight, 2 men on horses rode out to ask the mayor, who attends the fights and sits in his own box, for permission to hold the fight.  After that, the 6 matadors came out with their helpers (I forget what they’re called).  All were dressed in very bright, tight costumes with detailed designs on them.  Their ‘flags’ (the pieces of fabric they hold out for the bull to run at) were actually fluorescent pink, which clashed quite strongly with one of the bright red costumes.  One matador and his helpers remained in the ring with the helpers standing behind barriers placed strategically around the ring, close enough to the outside boards that the bull wouldn’t be able to fit behind it.  Then they let the bull in through another gate in the ring.  We noticed that when the bull moved, it’s back didn’t rise and fall as it ran, rather it stayed fairly flat.  We expected the bulls to be angry, running around, pawing the dirt and charging, but they mostly either stood still and looked around, or kind of trotted from place to place.  They mostly moved in response to the matador and his helpers, when they waved their cloths to get the bull to charge at it.  Even when the bull charged the cloth, he didn’t seem really angry, he just kind of ran under it and then stopped and looked around again.  One bull did get a bit angry at one point, charging after the helpers as they hid behind one of the barriers.  When he couldn’t get to them, he pawed the dirt in front and butted the barrier with his horns a couple times before wandering away again.

The first thing the matador and his helpers do is get the bull to charge the cloths for a bit to get him a little tired out and probably also to get him in the pattern of charging when they wanted him to.  After doing that for a few minutes, a couple of the helpers would get out these long, colorful sticks that they would stick into the bulls back as it charged past them (rather dangerous and gutsy!)  These sticks had some sort of anesthetic to numb the bull’s back.  Why?  Well, we’re coming to that…

The goal of the fight is to kill the bull as quickly and painlessly as possible.  A really good matador can kill the bull instantly.  The spectators (as well as the matador and helpers) get upset if the matador doesn’t manage it right away, or if the helpers don’t get all the sticks in to numb the bull (although we assume the bull really only needs a couple, but they try for 6 in case some don’t stick).  Then the helpers go back behind the barriers and the matador exchanges his pink flag for a red one, continuing to entice the bull to charge it.  That’s when Pam told Jenn to look away because they were getting the sword out – Jenn’s eyes got REALLY big and she said “SWORD?!?”  That’s when she discovered what was exactly involved with the bull.  Once the bull is numbed, the matador aims to drive a sword down kind of between the shoulder blades, hoping I think to hit the brain stem.  When done correctly, the bull should instantly drop to the ground, dead.  Because these matadors were students, they didn’t manage it the first time in the fights we saw.  The first one actually had some trouble and the crowd was really upset.  After he finally killed the bull, he had to come back out to ask for forgiveness from the mayor.  When a matador does well, as the second one we saw did (he managed it on the second try), the crowd waves these little white cloths with a knot in the middle.  That’s the signal that they think the matador deserves a trophy from the bull – usually either an ear or a tail.  The mayor has the final word – if he waves his white cloth, then the matador gets his prize.  Otherwise he doesn’t.  Once the bull has been killed, 3 horses  that are attached side by side are ridden in, the bull is attached behind them and dragged out.  The bull is then butchered and sold as meat.

In the end the fight wasn’t quite what we had expected, and wasn’t nearly as bad and Jenn thought it might be.  If we (or at least Jenn), had to kill our own food, we’d be vegetarians.  But we have no problem with someone else killing the food for us.  We assume that it’s done as quickly and painlessly as possible, but we never see it.  The bullfighting tradition is basically just killing and butchering a bull for meat, but they make it a spectator sport.  For the Spanish it’s all about pride and about the luring of the bull.  Also with flamingco dancing, it’s all about pride and luring.  Many Spanish people are very passionate about the tradition of bull fighting.  There were families there with small children, perhaps 5 years old.  Beside Pam were two ladies who have attended every single bull fight for the pat 30-40 years.  They have seen grandfathers, fathers, and now sons be matadors.  They follow their careers and backgrounds in the paper, and you can also trace the lines of the bulls they are fighting.  They were very upset with the first matador and said that was basically the end of his career.  It was really interesting to hear their perspective (through Pam, who struck up a conversation with them and translated for us).  The debate about bull fighting will continue, but we were just glad to have experienced an integral part of Spanish culture.

After the fight we went with Pam and Becky (another missionary from the center) to a restaurant Pam like there for Tapas.  Tapas are basically appetizers.  Because it gets so hot mid-day, Spaniards take their siesta from 2-4 and eat their main meal of the day, then work again until 7 or so.  They have dinner around maybe 9 or 10, and they just have a light dinner generally comprised of small appetizer type dishes called Tapas, so that’s what we had.  Some of the typical dishes are seafood (hard ‘crackers’ with salmon, anchovies or bass on them – uncooked), crackers that you put meat (a kind of ham) and cheese on top of, and a type of potato pancake (thick potato in the shape of a thick, round cake).  We tried some traditional Spanish wine with it.  Everything was delicious

By the time we finished dinner and caught the bus back to the center it was after 11 and we headed off to bed!

We only spent a relatively short time on the beach because we also wanted to visit Parc Guell (don’t ask us how to pronounce it, we just pointed to the map!)  There wasn’t a metro station very close by, but we knew the general direction we needed to go, so we started off that way and figured that we’d see it or find some streets on our map soon.  After a while it seemed like we should be close, but we weren’t quite sure which way to go, so we attempted to ask a local with our very rudimentary Spanish.  He seemed to understand and we followed the direction he pointed, but after a short while it became clear that it was not right and we contemplated taking a cab instead since our time was getting short.  We passed a cab on the street and tried to ask how much it would cost to get there.  Either he couldn’t tell us or we didn’t understand, but we did understand him telling us in English that ‘it’s not free’.  We were confused since we didn’t expect the ride to be free, but after a few more attempts at communication it became clear that what he meant was that he was not available – he was waiting for someone who had already hired him.  After walking a bit further, we found a couple of ladies with strollers to try asking again and discovered that the first guy had not sent us in the right direction.  As we learned from Pam later (too late!), Spanish people feel that it’s rude to say they don’t know if you ask them how to get somewhere, so they will tell you something even if they don’t really know.  Apparently the thing to do is find 2 people together, then ask one if the other could tell you how to get somewhere, because apparently it’s ok to say the other person doesn’t know!  Anyway, we finally found a metro station (about 3 stations away from the one we were aiming for) and found our way back to the Placa de Catalunya (where our hotel was).  From there, Rick Steves’ mentions a bus you can take that drops you off at the side entrance the park.  Just as we reached the Placa we saw the bus, signaling to turn onto our street, so we ran over to the bus stop thinking we were just in time to climb on.  I don’t know why the bus was signaling or if we just imagined it, but it actually went straight down another street.  Another bus 24 arrived at our stop a few minutes later, and when we pointed to the park on the map the driver indicated that we needed to catch the 24 on the other street where we’d originally seen it.  After another 30 minute bus ride, we finally arrived at Parc Guell.

The park was designed by Gaudi in the later 1800s and was intended to be a high class housing complex (supposed to be English or modeled after the English or something, hence the name Parc), but it didn’t turn out as he planned.  The part that was completed, though, was really neat.  There are 2 fascinating houses, one on each side of the main entrance to the park.  We didn’t tour the inside of them, but took lots of pictures of the outside.  Between the houses is a black iron gate, which Gaudi included because of his father, who worked with iron I think and it always interested Gaudi.  Past the gate is a staircase with a fountain in the middle.  I think they call it a dragon, but it looks like a lizard to us.  It, like many parts of the part, is a mosaic of multi-colored pieces of tile.  Continuing up the stairs you come to an area with columns (I forget the name – I think there’s 60 or 100 columns?) and each column is sculpted uniquely.  There’s also a ‘hallway’ with columns on one side and a curved wall on the other, so it resembles the perfect surfer’s pipe.  At the top of the stairs is a balcony/overhang that looks out over the front gate area.  This balcony is lined with ergonomically designed benches that are also decorated in the same mosaic style.  They are quite comfortable   At regular intervals along the benches are holes/drains so that when it rains, the water can run down those and power the fountains in the park.  Throughout the park there are lots of trees with neat looking knobbly and twisty trunks, as well as palm trees with bird’s nests in them.  It was a very neat and interesting park, but we stayed only a short time there as well.  We did take some time to purchase a couple pastries for ‘breakfast’ and an interesting beverage.  The drink was orange, darker than orange juice, and had a thick look to it.  From the label, we gather that it was some sort of vitamin drink, perhaps like and orange version of V8 or something.  It was tasty

From the park we did catch a cab back to our hotel so we could pick up our bags and get to the train station on time.  It was easy to find one as there is a whole line of them outside the main entrance to the park – you just go to the one at the front of the line (or que, if it was London) and get it.  The taxi ride was an experience and a reminder of why we didn’t want to drive in Spain!  He wove around other cars and used his horn regularly – we have video   But he did deliver us safely to our hotel and it wasn’t expensive – at least we knew he was trying to get us there ASAP!

Once we picked up our bags, we thought we knew which metro to take to the train station and where the entrance was, so we headed out and found the station easily.  We located the line we wanted and got on, only to realize when we reached the first stop that we had somehow gotten on the wrong one!  So back we went.  Fortunately we just needed to switch to a different line and we didn’t waste our ticket.  When we got off the metro, we just had to follow the tunnels (with the very large number of staircases!) to the Sants train station, which is where the AVE trains arrive/depart (fabulous bullet trains   There was some security, more than when we took the slow trains from Nice to Barcelona, but less than the airport.  We just had to put our suitcases through the x-ray machine, but we didn’t have to walk through a metal detector or even put the backpack and camera bag through the x-ray.  The train was fabulous!  A huge improvement over yesterday’s trains   This one was new and sleek, with big comfy seats and free headphones   (We seem to have started a collection…this pair brought us up to about 6 pairs….)  They were showing Hell Boy on the t.v.s, but it was in Spanish with Spanish subtitles (go figure, you’d think they’d at least pick a subtitle in another language, but we decided it must be for deaf people).  We used the time to relax and do some more blogging.

In Madrid we had about an hour before our second train, so we wandered around the station to find something to eat.  The first thing we found was a little pond area with a whole bunch of turtles in it (maybe 40-50 turtles, from tiny to medium size).  They were very cute =)  The water was covered in lily pads with rocks pocking through in numerous places, so we could watch some turtles sunning themselves on the rocks with their heads and front legs sticking straight out in front of them, and other turtles swimming, bumping into each other and poking their little heads up between the lily pads.  The only eating options were either Italian or Burger King (which was 10 Euros for a meal!), so we opted for the Italian place and shared a 4 cheese pizza on a ‘patio’ area near the turtle pond.  As soon as we finished eating it was time to catch our next train.  There was slightly more security since they did want all our bags to be x-rayed and they checked our tickets and passports more than once on the way to the train.  We were still quite thirsty since we’d been avoiding tap water in Barcelona, so Colin used the extra 15 minutes before our departure to buy some drinks – turned out to be lemon-flavored water, a stronger lemonade type drink, and an orange/citrus one.  All were very good and disappeared quickly   This train, also and AVE train, was also very nice and provided us with headphone pairs 7 and 8.  They were playing a movie called Twilight and there was actually a channel where you could listen to it in English.  While we were watching the movie in English, an attendant came by with free magazines, which Colin automatically accepted before realizing that, although we were listening to English at the moment, the magazine would be of no use to us =)

We arrived in Malaga on schedule at about 9:30, where Pam and Dan, the director of the missions center where Pam is working now, had driven to meet us.  It was so nice to have a ride to our accommodation instead of having to take another train or bus.  It was just a short drive to the center, where Dan showed us to our apartment above the video studio.  There was a kitchen, dining area, desk area and living room, then the bathroom in between a room with a double bed and another room with 3 single beds.  A couple of the missionaries there are part of what they call the hospitality team, and they had stocked the kitchen with some fruit, orange juice, milk, break, jam, cereal, and water.  We had some time to relax and check email before heading to bed.

Despite arriving about 15 min. late with only an hour between our trains, we still had time for Colin to grab some McDonalds to eat on the next train while we were waiting to find out our next platform, since we’d only had a couple bananas and pastries so far.  Train #2 was a bit cooler.  We had lots of time to start catching up on blogging between the first 4 hour train and the second 5 hour ride (we were limited by the battery of the computer, though).

We arrived in Barcelona about 8pm and decided to look into getting our tickets to Madrid & Malaga right away since we’d heard lines can be long.  The information people didn’t really speak much English, but we managed to communicate enough with the ticket agent to get our tickets for tomorrow.  Then came the challenge of finding the metro and purchasing the correct tickets to use for the next 24 hours, but we managed alright with the help of a friendly local.  We were rather nervous with all our bags, having heard many warnings about pick-pockets and possible muggings in Barcelona, but we kept close together and a close eye on our things, especially when the local offered to help (she noticed us studying the rather large city map).  But both her hands stayed on the map, no one came up behind us and she directed us right to the metro nearby.  The automated ticket machine had an option for English, so Colin was able to select the pack of 10 tickets we wanted.  We were surprised, though, when only one ticket came out.  Apparently we just needed that one ticket and you’re supposed to pass it back through the turnstile for the second person to use.  It worked fine and we got out at the right stop, but still had to ask twice more to get all the way to our hotel.  This hotel was just as promised/expected, right on the corner of Placa de Catalunya.  The people at the front desk didn’t speak as much English as we expected (considering that they emailed in English, their English was actually worse than Jenn’s German).  But they had our room ready and he also helped pull a suitcase down the hall for us.  It had taken us a bit longer than expected to reach our hotel, so we just dropped off our things and headed out to find Las Ramblas.

Las Ramblas was not exactly what we were expecting.  We thought it would be a vehicle free pedestrian street, but it wasn’t.  It was more touristy than the main streets in Nice and Munich and we were very wary of being pickpocketed with all the people around.  There were some really neat street preformers including a “statue” guy on a bike (picture at some point).   It was neat to see all the people around, and the purse people (as well as a bunch of others selling all kinds of stuff).  We ate at an Italian restaurant along Las Ramblas.  According to Rick, Barcelonians eat their main meal about 2pm, then have ‘tapas’, or appetizer type portions late in the evening for supper.  We were in need of more of a meal and not really in the mood to figure out the Tapas system, so we shared a ‘jam’ pizza and meatballs at the Italian place.  We asked for tap water, but were told that the water was bad and we shouldn’t drink it.

After dinner we wandered a bit further down the Ramblas and found another place to buy some gelato to enjoy on our way back to the hotel.  The Placa and Ramblas seem to be full, busy and noisy no matter what the hour, so we closed our window at 1am so we could sleep, and it was still busy and noisy when we opened it again at 7:30 in the morning.

The beach was beautiful!  Warm and sunny, lots of sand, meditteranean sea stretching out as far as the eye could see.  It was relaxing to wander along the beach a bit (though hot on the feet in the sand!) and we chose a beach-side cafe where we ordered some Italian pizza and ate it on the patio beside the beach.  The pizza actually looked North American, but was cold – an interesting combination!  At least it was in a case so we could point to it, since we have no survival phrases for Italian!  All we knew were the basic hello (ciao), good bye (also ciao), thank you (grazia), and thank you very much (preggo), that Jenn learned from the front desk at the Bogart.  Altogether we only spent about an hour on the beach so that we could complete the 2 hour drive to Nice with enough time to see a few sights before bed.

The drive was fine until we got closer to Nice and started to get into some traffic.  We were supposed to be at our B&B between 5:30 and 6:30 (the owners don’t live there, they just go over when someone is arriving, etc. – we sent them an email from Bogart in the morning to change our previously arranged arrival time of 4:00), our rental car was due back by 6:30 (the office closed at 7), and we had to fill it up before returning it or pay their fees for refueling.  So when we arrived in Nice at 6:35, we decided we’d better just fill up the car and return it, then drag our luggage to the B&B and hope someone was still there to let us in.  Though we arrived at Hertz before 7, they didn’t have time to check it over before closing so we followed their directions up to the 6th floor of the parkade and found a parking spot without any last minute incidents, and then took multiple pictures of the car from every angle in case they try to say we damaged it in some way.  Then we began the task of wheeling our luggage several blocks to the B&B.  Colin took both the large, heavy suitcases and carried one carry-on plus his camera bag over his shoulder, so Jenn found the walk not too bad with just one, light little suitcase and backpack   However, when we arrived at the B&B and carried our suitcases up the flight of stairs, the manager informed us that there was a problem with our room – they didn’t have one!  How ironic, we had read a trip advisor entry by someone from Calgary who booked a room there a couple years ago and said they didn’t actually have one for him when he arrived.  He said they did not contact him to let him know they wouldn’t have a room, they were unapologetic and unhelpful.  He found his own room somewhere else for cheaper.  We figured that was two years ago, the other reviews were fine, and we had our confirmation, so we chanced it.  At least for us the manager was apologetic.  He presented 2 hotel options for us to choose from, then helped carry our bags back down the stairs and walked us over to the IBIS hotel we chose, dragging one of our suitcases along for us.  When we got there (also ironically exactly where we had left our rental car), he spoke to the front desk in french for us to arrange a room (although they did also speak some English).  The hotel did cost more than the B&B, so it still cost us an extra 10 or 20 euros, even with the 10 euros he gave us since it was his fault (although, he really owed us a room!).

Regardless, we had a nice, quiet, clean, air-conditioned room at the IBIS, right beside the train station we would need the next morning, so we freshened up and began the 20 min. walk down their main shopping street to the waterfront.  There was a beautiful fountain shooting water almost as high as the pink 5 or 6 story buildings beside it.  The pedestrian walkway and beach were beautiful, though we expected the beach to be sandy and it was actually a rock beach. The water was so clear, a lighter kind of blue than in Hawaii that just melted into the sky on the horizon.  For dinner we found a fantastic restaurant literally on the beach.  It was about 9:00 and it wasn’t crowded at all.  We enjoyed the view of the ocean and promenade as the sky darkened and the lights came on.  Jenn ordered some pasta with clams (she found them similar in texture to the escargot, but slightly different flavor, Colin thought they were not like the snails).  Colin ordered a different panna pasta dish that was also delicious, and we enjoyed a 19euro half bottle of the recommended rose? wine (seemed to be inbetween red and white).  After dinner we wandered along the beach a bit more, which was actually busier than before supper when it was light.  We ‘met’ a group of 3 friends who approached us and asked, in French, if we spoke French.  When we indicated we did not, they attempted to use the English they knew to tell us that is was the 18th birthday of one of the girls.  They seemed to be stopping random people around them to tell them this, wanting people to wish her a happy birthday.  We complied, wishing her a happy birthday in English since the words ‘bon fete’ popped into my head a little too late (it’s amazing the french that has come back to us, though it still doesn’t amount to much!).  We explored a different section of the promenade on the way back to our hotel, stopping occasionally to watch the rollerbladers doing tricks (fancy foot maneouvers around pylons, racing down the promenade in an effort to clear a pole, etc.), there was a large guy in the back of his cow-painted van with the sliding door open and a drum set in the back which he was playing along to music playing on some speakers – he had a Honda generator purring outside the van   We also saw some guys doing break dancing – there was a little kid, maybe 4 or 5, attempting their dance moves on the side, very cute =)  We each chose 2 flavors of gelato to munch on the final stretch to our hotel for a good night’s sleep.

Finally out on the open road, we were fine until the GPS told us to turn off the autobahn.  Not knowing where else to go, we followed, only to find ourselves on a slow, 2-lane road under construction and filled with trucks and tractors.  Since the GPS seems to pick the most direct route without accounting for road types or speed, we decided we should turn around and continue on the autobahn we’d been on, however, it still cost us about 20 minutes for the entire detour.  Unfortunately, shortly after we returned to the autobahn, it ground to a halt and crawled along for quite some time, pushing our arrival time another 20 minutes or so behind schedule.  It was a rather stressful drive from there, trying to consult maps with too little detail, fight the GPS to stay off tiny country roads, and figure out exactly where to go once we got there since we had been warned the lines can be up to 2 hours long, and English tours can sell out by later afternoon.  We discovered too late that you can reserve tickets and skip the line – we tried it anyway just in case, but figured we would still have to stand in line.  In the end, we arrived about noon, found the line to stand in, and only waited 30-45 minutes to get our tickets and managing to get English tours.  There are actually 2 castles there to visit – Hohenschwangau (which means high place of the swans and was the first castle there), and Neuschwanstein (built by King Ludwig III? who took over the throne at 18 years of age after his father died).  You can only visit the castles by taking a guided tour, the guided tours are only 30 minutes long and you’re given a specific time and tour number when you need to be at each castle, but they like to schedule about 2 hours in-between tour times, apparently because the royal family owns many of the businesses, etc in the little town of Hohenschwangau and they want to give people as much time as possible to spend money there.  But you also need time to get from on castle to the other, since the first is officially a 20 min. walk from the ticket office, and the second is a 30-40 min. walk in the opposite direction.  Or you can ride the horse-drawn carriage or bus  to the second one

Since we had some time to kill before our first tour, we wandered around the very cute and very traditional/stereotypical German/Bavarian mountain town – buildings with peaked roofs, painted shutters, flower boxes, etc.  We had schnitzel at one of the cafes (we discovered it is a kind of meat – Jenn had it with a bun and Colin’s came with ‘pommes frites’, also known as fries).  Then we climbed the hills/stairs to Hohenschwangau in about 7 min, less than 1/.2 the time they said it would take.

Both castles were fantastic to visit and well worth the stressful driving and then hiking to get there!  Hohenschwangau is where King Ludwig grew up, and it the most castle-like castle you can imagine.  It had the required painting and decorations on the walls, but all the wall-paintings depicted scenes from famous legends, so that by looking around a room you could follow the main 3-5 events of the legend shown on each wall of the room.  The paintings somehow had a typical fairy-tale book look to them, and there was often some writing in traditional fairy-tale type font above one or more of the pictures.  One of the murals actually inspired Richard Wagner to compose one of his famous symphonies.  Apparently King Ludwig the II or III was good friends with Wagner, and Wagner visited the castle on several occasions, staying in a special room in the castle instead of a separate guest section and being allowed to play the piano in Ludwig’s music room.  In the castle were also the mandatory spiral staircases and secret passageways   In the King’s and Queen’s rooms, you could see mostly hidden doors in the walls the connected the two rooms.  Our entertaining guide informed us that King Ludwig would never have used this passageway, since it would only have been his mother in the other room, but his father used it at least twice (since he had 2 sons) =)  Though still very large, the rooms were actually relatively small, which is because this was only a summer residence and hunting ground for the royal family.  From the castle entrance and windows, we could get our first good look at the breathtaking landscape surrounding the castles and town.  There were cultivated fields, bright green fields, large shimmering bodies of wate -, some filled with sailboats, forest areas and mountains.  The pictures are worth thousands of words =)

By keeping up a swift, if somewhat crazy, pace up the steep path to Neuschwanstein, passing the horse-drawn carriages on the way, we also reached that castle in less than the time they said it would take.  We still didn’t have quite enough time, though, to continue hiking up to the Mariansbrucke (Marion’s Bridge) that overlooks the castle before our tour, so we purchased our castle souvenirs in the meantime and explored the courtyard area of the castle.  Neuschwanstein is the castle we were most excited to see, though Hohenschwangau was very neat and we enjoyed it much more than we were expecting.  But Neuschwanstein is the Disneyland castle, and nothing can compare with that   It was fabulous to see the peaks and turrets up close with our own eyes!  The castle was never actually finished inside, and King Ludwig only lived there for 179? days before he was declared mentally insane and evicted from the castle.  Our tour guide in Hohenschwangau said he doesn’t like how King Ludwig had become known a ‘mad’ king Ludwig, he said the king was only eccentric and in fact, he had a brother who truly was mentally ill with schizophrenia.  But the King did choose to hide out at the summer home of Hohenschwangau full time, keeping his eye on the building of Neuschwanstein, instead of dealing with politics and the issues of the people in his Kingdom.  Our tour of this castle was led by an employee who spoke English with an extremely strong German/bavarian accent – it was quite fun   And Jenn was thrilled to hear authentic, German use of ‘Gesundheit’ by the guide when someone sneezed on the first tour =)

But getting back to the inside of Neuschwanstein, it also had fairy-tale like paintings on the walls depicting more legends, as well as lots of swans as part of the decor, just a Hohenschwangau had.  The King’s bedroom had copious amounts of carved wood decorations, including I forget how many replicas of famous cathedrals over his bed canopy.  It took something like 7 carpenters 4 years to finish this room!  He even had running water   (this was the late 1800s).  We thought it would be a great idea if they finished the castle, turning those floors into hotel rooms.  Surely there would be people who would pay $1000 euros a night to stay there!

After our tour we did make it to the Mariansbrucke, then continued up the path marked ‘take at own risk – danger of death’ to another fantastic view of the castle   But don’t worry, the path was similar to many trails in Kananaskis, it just wasn’t the wide, paved, hand-railed path for tourists that they had everywhere else, so they had to cover the legalities   We did have some fun shortcutting between the switchbacking trails…pics to come.  On the way back down, we opted to take a route recommended by Rick that follows the waterfall down the gorge – a very beautiful way to descend, and very safe with stairs, railings, etc!  We got ‘lost’ briefly near the bottom, as the ‘tourist’ we were kind of following didn’t take the traditional trail, but our non-bavarian German allowed us to communicate with a local well enough for us to join up with the main trail easily.

It was a beautiful day, the town was so quaint, and we could have spent much longer there, especially if we had spent time at one of the lakes as many other visitors were doing, but by 7:30 we needed to get going on the 5 hour drive to Milan.  We didn’t really plan on having much time in Milan, it was just a good place to stop for the night so we could have a shorter drive to Nice the next day, and it added another country to our list   Our GPS cooperated this time and we arrived at our hotel without any issues.  Hotel Bogart (chosen for the relation in the name to Harry Potter ) was the hotel that told us their front desk was open ’24/24, so we check in at every hour’.  There were indeed 2 employees at the desk, even at 1am, and they were friendly and helpful, though we had to produce the email on our laptop to show we had in fact reserved at that hotel, because they said there are 2 Bogart hotels and he didn’t seem to have our reservation.  It was the correct Bogart, though, and they had an empty room, so all was good.  He even helped carry our bags up the flight of stairs.  The hotel was sufficient and it was only 50euros including breakfast, so we couldn’t really complain much about the smell in the bathroom, the odd accordian hose that came down the bathroom wall and drained into the shower (we didn’t ask what it was for!), or the 2 prostitutes hanging out in front of the hotel. Colin’s trick of using a wet towel for a blanket helped keep us cool enough to sleep and the bed was clean, so we slept reasonably well.

It was slightly stressful driving to Dachau since we were now a bit behind schedule.  According to Rick, they have a film you can watch and the last English one is at 3:30, then the museum part closes at 5 and the ground at 6.  The autobahn allowed us to arrive by about 3:20, and admission is free so we were just able to walk in and find the theater area in time for the film to start.  The lights dimmed as we crossed the back of the theatre to our seats.  The film included footage we’ve seen before, but had more impact watching it from the place where these things happened.  There was footage of the piles and layers of bodies, with hands and feet sticking out, all literally skin and bones and many naked.  To get into the camp, everyone enters through the same black iron gates, on which is written ‘Arbeit Mach Frei’ (work makes you free), which of course was not true at all.  As soon as you go through the gates you enter the main courtyard where all the prisoners would have to stand at attention every morning and every night while they accounted for everyone, about 1 hour completely motionless.  If anyone was missing, everyone had to stay there until the person was found, usually because they had died.  It wasn’t uncommon for them to have to stand there all night.  If anyone moved, they could be punished by being whipped or suspended with their hands behind their back in the main courtyard.  Some prisoners were also put in a standing cell – literally just enough room to stand in, impossible to even crouch much less lie down.  They could be left in there for up to 6 days.  These punishments were also given for things like disorderly bunks or kitchen area, even an overlooked coffee stain.  The camp was built for 6000 prisoners, but they crammed in about 30 000, so there were masses of people in rooms filled with triple bunks, barley big enough for one person.  They had rebuilt only 2 of the original bunkers, but had gravel pads where the others had been.  Military order was taken to an extreme here, with perfection being demanded of the prisoners.  Any stray stain, unkept bed, or a bunk that was not made to the specific height requirement was cause for severe punishment.  There was not enough food – it was decided on a daily basis which prisoners would be allowed to eat and which wouldn’t.  Even those who were allowed to eat didn’t get much.

From Dachau it was a couple hour drive to Munich, where we stayed at Litty’s hotel.  It was relatively easy to find with the GPS, and we found a spot on the street to squeeze into while we checked in and asked about parking.  They had said there were some spots behind the hotel and so we requested one when we booked our room, but apparently they don’t actually reserve the parking spot and she said the lot was full.  We could pay to park on the street, but we would have had to get up at 6am to put more money in and we were hoping to keep the car off the street since we hadn’t purchased the Umweltzonepackett (clean air zone sticker).  All of the relatives we talked to thought that we wouldn’t need one and they wouldn’t bother getting one, so we didn’t.  As we discussed what to do, she offered to show us the parking area to see if there was a spot we thought we could fit into.  There wasn’t really, but as we were looking another hotel-dweller passed by and she asked him if we could park behind his car and he said yes.  We were thrilled, until we had to drive in!  The ‘driveway’ is so skinny that we actually folded in both mirrors to pass through it.  But we managed, found our room, found the bathroom and shower….we knew when we booked that this was one place that didn’t have private bathrooms in each room, but we did have a sink at least, the toilet was directly across the hall and the shower was just down the hall.  We never had to wait to use either of them.  It was 68 euros including parking and breakfast.

By then it was about 8:00 so we headed out to discover the main pedestrian street, which wasn’t far away.  It’s a pretty neat street, very wide and lined with shops and restaurants/cafes, etc.  It’s quite a mixture of old and new buildings.  One especially interesting building was the old city hall, which has a kind of cuckoo clock with life-sized statues that perform at I think 12:00 every day, so we didn’t actually get to see it move, but we heard a number of church bells chiming about 9:00.  At first we thought they should synchronize their clocks better since a couple went off after 9:00, but then we realized the confusing cacaphony that would be heard if they all chimed at once

At this point in the pedestrian street there was another pedestrian street going off to the side, which we took to lead us toward a beautiful English park nearby.  There were paved pathways alongside the swift moving river, and huge open green spaces bordered by large leafy trees and filled with hundreds of visitors biking, skateboarding, rollerblading, playing volleyball, soccer, walking, jogging, picnicking and sunbathing…including some male sunbathers who apparently didn’t want any tan lines….well, at least we also got to see a black lab puppy who was trying to play tug-of-war with the blanket it’s owner was trying to shake out and lay straight again on the grass

For supper we found a beer hall recommended by Rick.  It was quite a fun experience, especially drinking the litre of beer you get – I think that’s their only size, and it’s not uncommon for people to have more than 1 round!  It’s called a beer hall because it is literally a hall, kind of like a community hall but with more decor, and then there are rows of picnic type tables that people just kind of join.  They also had a courtyard area outside, which is where we found a table to join.  The meals we managed to order were also very tasty – Colin got a chunk of meat on 2 bones with something that we thought was peeled, baked potato, but when you tapped it, it kind of bounced…not really the way a potato reacts.  Anyway, it tasted decent   Jenn had a kind of noodle dish with almost a spaghetti like meat sauce with less tomato sauce, also very delicious.  And of course we had to order an apfel strudel for dessert   I say we managed to order because it seemed that, although everyone was speaking German, it didn’t sound quite the same, something Susanne had warned us about.  She said when she went to Bavaria once, she could not understand someone who was speaking to her in German.  Fortunately smiling and pointing is still universal =)

Feeling very happy after our litre of beer, we wandered back down the main pedestrian drag to our hotel, stopping to share some delicious gelato along the way.  Our room was cool and quiet, allowing us to enjoy a good night’s sleep