Espana Again

though we had a great time in lagos, we cheered today when we heard spanish on our arrival to sevilla (on a bus). it´s great to understand 5% of a language rather than zero.

though sevilla is where we should see a bullfight, i think we´re going to be girlie girls and skip that touristy event.

Still Traumatized

we are slowly getting over it, but we have avoided train rides like the plague since the belly funk incident. i think we have had this following conversation about ten times.

us, in broken portugese: "where is the long distance bus station to [ ]?"
random informative portugese person: "take the train. it's faster."
us: "um. okay. so, where is the BUS station?"

we are currently in lagos, portugal. it's awesome here, sorta like mexico meets san sebastian. the water is super clear, the views are awesome, and the party scene is raging. as our little tribute to college frat party days, we went on a booze cruise today. naked 2o year old aussies jumping off the side of the boat...i think nora really likes lagos.

Maternal Instinct

in the middle of our daytrip to sintra from lisboa today, i was struck with a thought: "is bob the fish still alive?"

well, i just exchanged emails with mama yi, and she reports he is alive and well despite the low water levels in the bowl. phew.

i can't believe it took me 20 days to check on my fish.

Ola You Totos

after a night in salamanca, another crazy spanish party town, we made it to our first stop in portugal. well, barely. we found out at salamanca, the only train to portugal leaves at 4:50 am. in our delirous state, we board the train, only to find out that it is one of those old ghetto trains that have 8-person cabins. we open our compartment - lucky number 7 - and are greeted by the nastiest funk ever (way way worse than the guinness farts), one no-shirted-belly-hanging-out man, and five miserable-looking people. we both cry, "f no" and decide to ride out the 3.5 hour train ride parked on the floor at the end of the train, hanging our heads out out of the window like refugees. then about 1.5 hours into this ridiculous situation, we remember that portugal is one hour behind spain and that this is a 4.5 hour ride. nice. but we toughed it out, and somehow, we still made the bus transfer to porto, and that is where we are now.

as you can guess, porto is the home of port wine, and we spent most of today doing port tasting at the different "wineries." sometime during the day, we also visited the post office. as the lady was finding some stamps for us, we spotted one of those yellow "for dummies" books in portugese. it said, "internet for totos"...and i just started to crack up.

portugese is a very hard language. to me, it looks like spanish, but sounds like french. i already gave up trying to learn it and am sticking to sign language. but i do know two words now - ola and toto.

Chuck and Coke

we´re at an internet cafe in bilbao trying to change our plans around. the london events in the last few weeks have weirded us out so much that we´re thinking of not going there at all. we´ll see.

so, even after four continuous nights of tapas /pintxos, we´re still not sick of it quite yet. every tapas bar seems to have its own unique style, and it gives us a good way to practice our spanish with the bartenders. today, on the recommendation of one of them, i ventured away from the vinos, sidres, and txacolis we´ve been downing to try this drink called calimocho, which is just red wine and coke. it´s actually pretty good (you can´t taste the alcohol...oh so deadly).

so, i think i found my cheap / i´m a student and unemployed again drink. trader joe´s two buck chucks and coke. genius.

No Comprendo

it´s siesta time in good ol´spain. we´re in san sebastian today, and after a day in the sun, i think i look pretty filipino. we left barcelona yesterday morning, and even between tapas, paellas, and sangrias, we managed to fit in visits to the touristy attractions, including gaudi and miro museums. i´m no art buff, and since i´m far from eloquent, i have a hard time describing the artwork of these famous men. i guess, gaudi architecture makes you feel like you´re stuck with alice in her wonderland. and miro...well, abstract art. i really have a hard time with art that consists of a squiggly line across a huge canvas. i stood in front of the piece trying to understand its title called ¨solitary,¨ but really, i couldn´t help to think that maybe miro was trying to play some practical joke. i know, i´m also far from classy.

well, tomorrow, we´re off to bilbao to see the guggenheim and then portugal. it´s been funny trying to recall our high school spanish. i haven´t used the oh-s0-useful phrase we learned in spanish 1, ¨que barbaridad!¨yet, but i´ll try to work it in during some conversation mas tarde. i promise.

My Travel Partner

we arrived in barcelona last night and we proceeded to get a pitcher of sangria in our bellies pronto. and this morning, we hit up the picasso museum like good little tourists that we pretend to be. while in the museum (it is a pretty badass place actually), i was trying to take in the intricacies of picasso´s style development. key word = trying. i really know nothing about art history.

and then, nora, my travel partner for this 40-day excursion, comes up behind me and says, "dude! did you see that random dirty artwork that he did? hehehe." yup, that´s s-nora for you. after we left the museum, we went to get another pitcher of sangria and now, we´re just siesta-ing before we hit up the town for the night. i really can´t believe we´re still alive.

No More Micra

so we're sitting at the shannon airport waiting for our flight to depart. contrary to expectations (or not), shannon is a small craphole outside of limerick. it only has an airport and some ghetto mall. sorry, shannon, i was hoping to get you some good "shannon" trinkets, but you may be out of luck. but i guess we should have all figured shannon sucks. :)

we have also returned our fugly purple micra. but within the five days, we've really developed a fond love for this little vehicle. it's really held up well, despite all the beatings it has taken. i shed a tear when we had to say goodbye.

i may have to get a micra in the states. i think it actually may fit in the trunk on my durango.

Stanky

after another rockstar night in galway, i'm trying to revive what's left of my liver and brain with loads of caffeine. tonight will be our last night in ireland, and among the many things i've learned about the irish culture, i think the most significant one is this phenomenon we've named the "guinness farts." every pub we've been to, we have been honored with this potent and deadly whiff. the thing is, it's the same smell all over ireland -- whether in dublin, killarney, or galway. i first thought that we were getting stalked by the same smelly dude, but no, we've concluded that these wonderful odors can only be caused by the ridiculous amount guinness that all irish drink religiously. ireland is great but i'm pretty glad to leave this stank behind.

Old Men Plan Backfires

it's been a few days since we stopped to check our emails, mainly because we left dublin for the westsiiide of ireland. first of all, i'd like to report that we are all still alive, even with driving on the wrong side of the road. we have a little nissan micra, which looks like a retarded version of herbie. we even made it through scenic drives like the ring of kerry and the dingle peninsula, where the little micra is even too big to fit on one side of the road. but the views were awesome. i don't think the pictures do justice for what we saw, but we'll have a bunch to share later.

so we've done a lot of touristy stuff, but were also able to fit in rowing a boat and golfing. i concluded that our days include about two functional hours because we spend the morning nursing our hangovers and afternoons in a food coma from the fried food and nights drunk. ireland has been good to us so far.

so the old men plan. the plan was working wonderfully until few nights ago in killarney. we did a little pub crawl through the town (little = katie had eight guinnesses), and all i can remember from that night was that i talked to some old men, and i had to proclaim "big strong boyfriend" twice and literally grab some random young dude to rescue me from the others. after being summoned to a hotel about five times by the drunken sketchy old men, i decided against the plan. so i told nora that she can stop calling me "anna nicole yi" now.

We're Okay

for all of you who were worried about the crazy terriorists blowing up london and us...thanks. we're in dublin so we're okay. however, we're totally weirded out because we were supposed to be traveling from london to dublin yesterday morning when all the bombings went down. thanks goodness we had changed our plans.

anyhoo, thanks for all the emails and don't worry too much, we're going to try to stay away from the big cities and stay safe.

in addition, to ensure our safety in every arena, we're sticking to old men at the bar scenes. last night was with couple of grandpa brits. they're much easier to understand than the grandpa aussies from the night before.

Dublin

we've made it to ireland. our hotel is in front of the guiness distillery. the best view ever.

internet cafes are really popular at 11 am. there are at least 20 people in here. i'm assuming they're all big geeks like nora and me, who were told by the parental units to "email every two days to tell us you're safe or else." i can't imagine what the "or else" would be, but i know not to mess with mama and papa yi, even at age 26.

off to check out cathedrals. well, off to get rid of this annoying sober action. and i'm assuming that won't be at cathedrals, but hey, i don't know about the irish.

Travel Checklist

i'm off to europe later today. my quick checklist...

- laundry: check
- packing: will be a check
- bills: check
- bob the fish: alive!

Roadtrip Thought

i took a solo roadtrip up to norcal this weekend for a wedding for two college buddies, vicki and klint. very cute wedding but a ridiculous college reunion where i spent most of my time congratulating people on their new baby, engagement, marriage, advanced degrees, etc.

anyhoo, while driving back and entertaining myself with all the random colors of dead bug guts on my windshield (i.e. bug cemetary), i had one random question. so, these "slow truck" signs. are they warning you that there are slow trucks ahead or are they commands to the trucks as in, "slow, you trucks!" these signs aren't as clear as other road signs like, "pedestrians crossing," "yield," or "stop"...you know which ones are warnings or commands.

not that the answer would make a big difference in my life, but i was just wondering. english is a hard language, man.