So, I'm terrible at updating blogs. I apologize. Maybe one of these days I'll fill you in on the last month and a half completely, but a ton has happened.
I left off having fallen off my bike and made a trip through the disastrous Madrid medical system. 3 days after that I dissapeared off to Paris, where I met Heather and we began a great 10 day trip, taking us from Paris to Vienna, to Innsbruck, and Milan, before returning to Madrid. We had a great time. Paris was an awesome time and even though we only spent 3 days there we had a great time and saw a ton of sights and experienced the Parisian cafe culture, gorged ourselves on gaufres and crepes, you know, all of the important things.
Vienna was great, we got to see the Spanish Riding School, if you have a chance, check it out on Youtube or just google it. Its really amazing to see these horses and learn about them. It was such an amazing thing. We wandered out to the Schloss Schonbrun, the palace of Maria Theresa, which is comparable in many ways to Versailles, its a beautiful Baroque palace, that was the seat of the Austrian empire all the way through the early 20th century. The history was amazing, but what was more amazing was the Spatzel in the Easter Market outside. Unfortunately this resulted in me eating a whole forkful of what I thought was cheese, but turned out to be horseradish. However when you get to wash it down with delicious spatzel, everything is ok.
Innsbruck was amazing. A little town of about 150,000 nestled in the Austrian alps in a valley. We went hiking, to Alpenzoo, where we saw bears, wolves, no lions and tigers, but who really cares about those. This town has played host to 2 rounds of the winter olympics and its really really cool. You can take a bus 5 minutes out of the city and walk off into the woods in the base of the mountains and take a hike in the alps. It was a really great place, and hopefully I'll get some pictures up for all to enjoy in the not tooooo distant future. I promise I will try!
Milan was interesting. We stayed in this hostel that was not TOO far away from the center of the city, but it was far enough away that there weren't restaurants all over the place. We showed up late on Easter sunday, and the only place open was a combination chinese food/pizzeria. Milan was essentially as I termed it a "pizza and Gelato stop" and Heather was excited about that. However, we learned that you should steer clear of the chinese pizza joints. Heather ordered what was essentially a pizza Margherita, with oregano, and something that began with an a. We assumed the logical progression would be garlic, and as the Spanish word for garlic is "ajo" we assumed that this "a" word was probably garlic. However, it turned out to be anchovies, whose flavor had permeated the whole pizza, which in addition was laden with tomato sauce, which appeared as if someone had squeezed tomatoes over a strainer so that only the tomato water had fallen on the pizza. So thus our night in Milan will forever be known as the night of the Chinese fish pizza. Our attempt to watch it down at the adjoining "Gelateria IceLand" was not so successful as one would expect from a place called Gelateria Ice Land. I think I've tasted better from the Good Humor man.
We redeemed ourselves the next day with REAL pizza and Gelato, so the overnight stop in Milan was not a complete loss.
The following week my Parents visited, and along with Heather and I, they toured Madrid and visited Segovia and Toledo. It was a great time. Since then I've gotten into my school, train, eat, sleep rythmn, and time has just really kind of flown by!
This past weekend I journeyed to Leysin, Switzerland, near Geneva and Lausanne to visit my old track coach Mike Brinkmeyer. We ate lots of cheese, chocolate, and went to see two stages of the Tour of Romandie. It was amazing to get to see a protour race, and see all of the guys (Voigt, McEwen, Kloden, Cavendish) that you only get to see on t.v. It was a blast to see it. We saw the race in Sion which is home to two beautiful castles on hills above the city. You climb on cobbled streets that turn to a dirt path leading up to these castles. It was a beautiful city. We visited Lausanne and Geneva as well which were great. Extremely beautiful cities, that both convinced me of a need to move to Switzerland. That can be a new blog in the future... Anyways we took a great ride in the alps, 3 cols, 11,500 feet of climbing. Tough, but beautiful. It was a great great trip, pictures coming soon!
Off to England on Wednesday and home to the states on the following Wednesday.
Sorry for the infrequency of posts, I´ll try to give a recap soon and share some funny stories.
Toodles,
Owen
