On our flight to Barcelona from Cannes the weather was really bad. It felt like we were riding a roller coaster. We got to the hotel so early we had to walk around for a few hours till check in, only it started to rain and we sat in the lobby, before going back to the lobby we walked to the port, the Christopher Colon statue and some fake ikea store. I guess the guys at the front desk didn´t like that so they let us have our room early. We slept for a little bit then woke up and went for a walk around La Rambla. That night we ate at a place called Remesco´s which Jessica thought was very delicious. I thought it was good but plain. We tried going into the bar at the Kabul hostel but were stopped because we weren´t staying there.
We also live on a hooker and junky ridden street, so thats nice. Nothing better than walking buy 50 hookers and 50 heroin addicts everyday. We did find an Irish bar were the beers are two for one from 7 to 8 pm. We also found a heavy metal bar that is two for one also, only theres is from 6 to 10 pm.
Something pretty weird about Barcelona is that it doesn´t get dark until 10. Walking around at 9 pm in Barcelona is like walking around at 5 pm in Los Angeles.
-M
so we left cannes after two weeks and are in barcelona now. our flight was on monday night at 11. wow! getting to barcelona was brutal. first off the last bus to the nice airport left at 7 so we were at the airport at 7:30. we couldnt check in for our flight until 9 so we waited. then when we checked in our bags were over weight so we had to pay 40 euros. then we get up to our gate only to find the flight was delayed by two hours. the airline gave us drink vouchers for the airport snack shop. i drank a lot of wine and fell asleep on a bench. manuel woke me up at 2:30 to board. so we were at that airport for seven hours. all the shops were closed, ours was the last flight of the night so there were only about 150 of us in the whole place. i did get kind of excited because natalie portmen and devandra banheart were in the airport at the same time as us. i thought i would make friends withthem on the flight and they would be my new best friends but they went off to brussels. thats ok because she had made a big mistake in cannes. she was on the jury that awarded benicio the best actor award.
i have to go someone is waiting for the computer but ill be back.
jessie
i dont even know where to begin. umm. tonight we got dressed up and went to the red carpet screening of the good the bad and the weird. it was a chinese spaghetti western. very funny, a little long. manuel and i have gotten into 4 red carpet screenings so far. first night was blindness, then 3 monkeys (which i slept all through), che, and then tonights. the weather has been good and bad, but the rain is so light that it doesnt matter much.
i sold my film to a television station. it is a new station that plays shorts 24/7. it airs in america, germany, and france (i think).
manuel and some of the guys on the trip signed up for a filmmaking competition. they had 24 hours to make a dark comedy called big hair. the screening and award cermony was at a very beautiful villa. the guys ended up winning the audience choice award.
This will be replaced soon by a post about the road trip we took in 2007.
This will be replaced by a new post soon regarding our trip to Cannes in 2008
pictures seem to be in demand. we would put more of them up, but it can be a bit difficult because we can’t always hook our camera’s up to the computers we are using.
today is out last day in prague. we leave for berlin in about 3 hours.
we arrived in prague at 7 in the morning. we found a hostel to stay in but couldn’t check in till 3 pm so we had to walk around till then. our hostel is really nice, it’s modern. i really like the showers, except that the water turns off after 20 seconds, so you have to push the button over and over again till your done with your shower. the first day we walked around and saw charles bridge and the main downtown part. after we could check in we went and took a nap for a little bit and then went out. we asked the person at the front were to go and she circled a bunch of bars that weren’t very far from us. we didn’t end up finding them, but we found a few others.
the second day we went and walked around the old town and went up to the castle, we went into the church and then walked around the city some more. jessica finally bought a jacked at h & m. that night we drank in the bar at the hostel with a bunch of others that are staying here, we only went out that night to get some food.
yesterday we went and arranged our train ticket to berlin and also went and saw the tv tower that has babies crawling up the side. not real babies, but brass ones. it was pretty interesting. we also saw a lot of bob marley stencils. kinda odd i thought. after that we went back to our room and had some drinks with an english guy, john, who we have been hanging out with. we showered up went down stairs and had some drinks and then went on a pub crawl with people from the hostel.
manuel
Day 1
It’s cold here. Real cold. Jessica didn’t bring very warm clothes. I did. The first day we got in at 5 in the morning and it was raining, not hard though. We ended up meeting a lawyer, his name is Gabe, in Budapest and he happened to be on the train with us to Krakow. We all stayed at the same hostel. The Gardenhouse. It’s pretty nice, and is in a really really good location. It is about 30 feet from the main square in Krakow. Krakow is also pretty cheap, unlike Budapest which was super expensive. When we got to our hostel we took a nap and then went and walked around town. We drank some warm beer that had cinnamon and some red juice in it. It was surprisingly good. We got drunk and then went to bed.
Day 2
so we were supposed to get an early start so that we could see Auschwitz and the salt mines in the same day but gabe was the only who got up. instead of doing a pre-paid tour to Auschwitz we decide to be cheap and take the public bus there. it took us an hour and 45 min to get there and then once there we waited an hour and a half for the next english guided tour. manuel and i both felt nothing while there. others around us cried and we just felt absolutely nothing. we waited an hour for our bus to come and bring us back to Krakow, and that ride was 2 and a half hours long. this one trip took us about 10 hours when all was said and done.
once back we ate kebabs. there are kebab stand all over. only the kebabs here are basically a gyro, not meat on a stick. we had some gross Czech beer and headed to bed.
Day 3
gabe departed to prague this morning, so we got up pretty early. we then went out and got our tickets for the salt mine tour, this seemed like a better option than trying to be cheap and sitting on a bus for 5 hours. we went to the meeting spot for the tour and sat on the bus for 15 minutes and it was really hot. we got to the salt mines and took an english speaking tour that lasted about 2 hours or so. we went down about 135 meters underground. it was pretty impressive. everything, basically, is made of rock salt. the floors, the walls and the ceilings. there were statues that the miners carved out, one was of Pope John Paul II, life size. That wasn’t done by a miner though, as the mine stopped being active 11 years ago. Most of the statues were made by miners though. They had a really big chapel that was carved out of the salt, it was pretty cool. The tour guide said it took 25 years to carve the chapel. I think I took about 97 pictures in total. Jessica thinks I took too many pictures, oh well. I also bought a calling card and called home. The card lasted about 3 minutes, sorry Morris.
Now I think we are going to take a nap and then head out.
jessica here and i wanna tell about the food we ate today. for lunch we had mexican. the food was descent. it was just what i was craving. oh my bloody mary was made with tequila and not vodka. gross. i understand they used a mexican liquor but this is poland and i was expecting vodka. for dinner we ate a traditional polish meal. manuel had pirogies and i had lamb. to drink? beer.
we did a walking tour of the city today. learned a lot of hungarian history. this country has basically always been occupied it wasnt til the 1990s when they started to govern themselves.
rubicow! rubick was hungarian. we passed through an art park that had all these decorated plastic cows. there were these weird art school kids doing some sort of performance in the fountain. we didnt get it.
underneath the buda castle are labrynths that have been used for numerous things through out the years. while making our way thriough we found a fountain that shot out wine. the hole where it came out was a pigs mouth. it looked like bood spewing out.
today we got into budapest from venice. the train was late probably because we stopped like every hour to have our passports checked. at one stop they stamped them twice. there were some croatian hipster by us on the train. one had a hot snakes shirt on. anyway, our hostel is nice. it only has about 12 beds, so its small. but it has clean big showers. yay! our shower in rome was so small that when manuel turn he bumped the knob to scolding hot water.
when spent the day walking up and down the street our hostel is on. its very busy but only had a few bars. it was during this walk that we realized budapest is not inexpensive like we had planned on. its actually kind of expensive. we stopped in a bar to have our first shot of absinthe. the bar waitress did they whole presentation with the sugar and fire and warned us of its effects. we felt nothing. so we had some schnapps and beer and still nothing. we were disappointed. we headed back to the hostel. we met our two female roommates who are from belgium and very interested in talking to us. they told us that they hate americans except for manuel and me. oh and also they like chuck norison, walker, texas ranger.
we went to a very cool bar that a hostel staff member recommended. it was huge. it was in the courtyard of a building but it also occupied the first two floors of the building. it wasnt clubby at all. their were lots of locals just chatting with friends over beer. we did the same. but we learned that drinking hard alcohol will be better because its so cold outside.
we arrived in venice last night around 10. unfortunately it took about 40 minutes for our bus to pick us up and then when we did get to our hotel it was really far out of the city so we couldn’t really go anywhere. when we got to our hotel to check in there were two people in front of us. when the guy in front of us had his turn suddenly walked in like 20 people, he was a brazilian tour guide, and the people were waiting for there rooms. which turned out to be like 12 rooms. so instead of letting us go and waiting 5 minutes, the italian clerk made us wait an hour till he was done. thanks marian. we woke up today and went to venice. we are staying about 5 miles from venice,that’s including the water crossing. we have been walking around the city looking at shops and waiting to go to a square in a little bit.
Manuel
while we were waiting at the bus stop we met some aussies who told us about their travels so far. they have basically been everywhere we are still going. they said we cant miss aushwitz (?) and some salt mines near by. also at the stop waiting with us was a brazilian guy who told us about a good hostel to stay at while in krakow. now i am twice as excited for krakow.
i really like venice so far. it seems like it was made just to entertain, like disneyland, but that obviously isnt true. its so pretty. the winding streets are like a maze. its probably my favorite so far.
jessica