Final Days

We said good bye to our friends Matt and Matt and are now in our final day in Europe. 

Beach. BoogieBoarding.

We've made it to San Sebastián. We rented boogie boards and hit the Bay of Biscay! We rode some 10-12' waves! Wahoo! 

Valencia & Pamplona 🇪🇸

We are travling down the coast of Spain along the Mediterrian, and it's amazing! We took a roughly 3 hour drive from Barça to Valencia, and being very new to the country took us about 4.5 hours.. Still a very beautfiul drive.

When we arrived in Valencia it was hot,

Humid and we were tired! We settled down and took our little siesta. The next day we went to the beach, and the water was beautiful!! We swam, played a little fútbol (soccer) and just relaxed. 

Sadly Valencia would be as Deep South as we would go, and our new journey would be north to Pamplona! The city we are currently in. This city is infamous for it's running of the bulls. Although the festival wasn't going on while we have been here. Pamplona has been very nice, and we did a hike today, and explored the ruins of a middle century hilltop stronghold. It gave us a view of the surrounding valley and cities.

 Tomorrow we leave for San Sebesation!!!!

Cinco Hermanos

We are now a group of 5. We've met up with both the Matt's and are traveling the north of Spain.

España

Viva España! (Live Spain!)

This week we have been enjoying Spanish culture in Barcelona, where they speak Catalunya, a mix of Portuguese and French. 

The Catalunyans are proud of their distinct culture and will soon vote whether to become an independent country this year, something they have been considering for hundreds of years.

Yesterday, we did a walking tour of the old roman city, which is called the Gothic district.

The city has a number of amazing buildings designed by Antonione Gaudí, whose name insipired the English word gaudy. 

Today, we walked a lot, visiting the Segrada Familiá, a Gaudi designed Cathedral that has been under construction for over a hundred years. 

Spain is also famous for their ham. We tasted some incredible Iberian ham at a large open air market called La Boqeria.

We also met up with our friend Matt! It's hard fitting four heads in a selfie.

Tomorrow we rent a car and drive for Valencia!

Berlin Walking

Here we are in Berlin walking everyday until or legs and feet can't take it any more! Berlin Germany is such a beautiful town full of so much history, as well as controversy. These last couple days we've been diving into the Nazi and WWII history surrounding the city of Berlin.
We started off our first day with a walking tour of the many Nazi Third Reich sites found in Berlin. We fortunately found a tour in English and were led around Berlin by a British tour guide. He took us to all sorts of different Nazi buildings and provided historical background on them. During a short break we stopped and grabbed some milkshakes for ourselves as little treat with the insanely hot weather. Josh and Jason picked there's away and I took my time but as I got about 3/4's the way through a few bees started buzzing around trying to get in my drink so I quickly slurped it down and went for a toss in the trash(I missed the first shot) after, i thought I was clear but the bees just kept harassing me. While the tour continued i spent the next five minutes hurrying around frantically trying to escape the bees while my brothers just laughed at me while i was ducking and dodging the bees while they tried to land on me until finally the have up and went after sine other poor chap. We even were able to visit the underground bunker where Hitler  committed suicide... although it was just an apartment building parking lot. He even explained to us that Hitler was originally buried right near the green trash dumpster on the lot. Our guide, kev, told us about how Germany didn't want to memorialize Hitler's death place despite the interest from tourist since they didn't want to turn it in into a location of interest and fame because of the horrors Hitler was responsible for.
The next day we decided we were going to make a self led tour of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. We made our way out through a link of a train and bus that had us at the front gate of the camp in about an hours time. We bought audio tours and entered the camp. It was massive! It was amazing to think that only about seventy years ago there were thousands of prisoners held there in such unimaginable misery. We were able to visit a few small barracks where we were able to experience the insanely tight and horrible living conditions the prisoners lived in. Sachsenhausen is truly a place that can suck all hope from life. We explored the entirety of the camp and had quite the adventure finding our way back was a little tough. We made our way there on a bus but there wasn't one to take us back so instead we had to follow a few Large tour groups on a thirty movie walk back to the station. We had a little bit if confusion on our train back and ended up across town from where we wanted to be. Two or three trains later we finally were back at our hostel. Berlin and Germany have been a blast so far and I'm going to miss it as we make our way to Spain tonight. Now we've just have to walk even more to the station...

Germany -- Road Tripin the North

We are now in our 3rd city in Germany. The Germans just won the World Cup a few days before we arrived and spirits are high around the country.

Cologne, or Köln, has a amazingly large gothic cathedral called Köln Dom. We entered and immediately climmed a spire that was over 1000 meters tall via a seemingly never-ending spiral stair case! I actually got dizzy walking up the stairs. As we got near the top I could feel groves in the old stone stairs where monks has trumped up and down hundreds of years ago. We were lucky enough to be in the bell tour when an hourly bell went off.

Later that evening we headed to a nearby court to kick the ball around. Despite being very overgrown and clearly abandoned, we took the cut in the fence and an invitation to play.

Our last stop in Köln was the chocolate musuem. Mmmm.

We got wheels! We'd been craving a car and finally got a rental in Köln where we began our road trip through the north of Germany.

Next was Breman, a large medieval city, where we spent just one night. We luckly attended the city festival that was an awesome mix of a fair, music shows, circus, and delicious food. We made friends with three Brits at our hostel who joined us. The next day we pressed on, though more time in Breman would have been nice.

We are currently in Lübeck, which is situated on the Baltic Sea in the far north of Germany. It's also a mideval city, which is covered in old red brick. The city center, which is 2 sq km, is an island-- partially made by a natural curve in the river and partially by a man made canal. 

Upon arrival we didn't have accomadations for the first night so we splurged on a nearby hotel with a spa. The spa had 4 different kinds of saunas, each with their own distinct combination of heat and humidity. However, we were most entertained by a wooden bucket that hung from the celing with a metal pull chain hanging from it which allowed the user to dump a bucket of cold water on their head.

Now we're a local hostel which has a great foosball (soccer) pitch nearby. Yesterday we explored the city's old treasures and arctiecture with a self-guided tour (run by Josh), then got some afternoon exercise at the park.

Last night we ate dinner at a nearby cafe and enjoyed a live German folk trio, though one member was Canadian and another was American...

Today we're headed to a nearby seaport city called Trävemunde where the annual sailing festival is taking place.

Rotterdam-- the city of boats

Tomorrow we depart Rotterdam, Netherlands for Amsterdam. Rotterdam has been great. It is the largest port city in Europe. It's a mid-sized city with a very multicultural feel. 

Last night, our Hostel served a pasta dinner for just €3.5-- it was delicious. 

Tonight we made our own past dinner!

Today we took a ferry across the city to a fairly secluded beach that seemed like a miniature Frenchman's bar. It was great. We observed some of the half naked locals and cooled down in the murky water. It was 90 degrees here today.

Yesterday, we went to an awesome maritime museum. The best exhibition documented the lives of people who loved in houseboats in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. The houseboat population is nearly 10,000 here! We also got to tour some amazing old barges that had been converted to yachts. 

Now, we are off to amsterdam!