It occurs to me that I’d like to bookend this travel blog with something other than my semi-rant regarding the Tube Strike.

While there are a whole raft of things that I’d been meaning to blog about that never made it here, I don’t have some long epilogue with which to close out the live of this journal. I do, however, want to get out some last thoughts as well as recap the last destination of the trip.

I’d been to Washington DC twice before – once in 8th grade, and a second time three years ago for my cousin’s wedding. With this third visit now on the list I can definitely say that they’ve all been a unique experience, great in their own way, with the latter coming out on top of the fun heap.

After I arrived on Thursday from London I proceeded to have one of the strangest nights in recent memory, simply because of how different it was from the previous month (epic rainstorms, Friends reruns, waking up at 1am fully jet-lagged but rested?). The weekend that followed was one of lots of sun, smiling, laughing, jumping, secret tours, big monuments, broken escalators, night walks, fireflies, plantains, and everything else that’s good. It was the kind of adventure that makes you forget about jetlag, and somehow the fact that you’d just been touring Europe for a month.

Last night after Greg and Ross picked me up from the airport, we celebrated with Belgian chocolate and a homecoming trip to Pagliacci. I’m spending this morning with my french press and the mini hard drive that’s been holding all of my photos, trying to get them onto my laptop so I can begin the curating process. Expect a deluge of Flickr updates, the likes of which have rarely been seen before!

So that’s it, the trip that I’d been planning for so long is now over. Without a doubt, it was exactly what I needed, in every way possible. I’m excited for everything that comes next, although I really have no earthly idea what that will be. That’s the exciting part.

Let’s see each other soon.

I’m not sure if it’s made it into the news back home, but it’s definitely one of the biggest stories in London right now (along with the elections). But as of last night at 7pm the entire Tube sytem in London is going on strike for 48 hours. That’s right, no underground service until I’m outta here! I’ll be honest, I was slightly frustrated when I first heard this was going to happen, mainly because when you’re trying to squeeze in as many of the big sights as possible over your last 2 days, the tube is the best way to do it. But just like the French train strike that happened when I was trying to get to Bordeaux, or when my credit card got cancelled in Barcelona… I quickly realized that there is absolutely no point in getting angry at something you have no control over. To do so would be ridiculous. This is just a way to see London in a different way - the bus! And walking. So much walking. Although that part isn’t so different than before. Last night as I was leaving Trafalgar square to head up to Oxford street, around 5:30pm, they announced in the station that the next train would be the last one before the strike, even though it wasn’t supposed to happen until 7! In any case, more and more people began pouring into the station and queing at the platform. It quickly became obvious that this was going to be a tight squeeze, even if the train was empty. When the train pulled up, it was pretty well packed out already. Everyone sucked it up and piled into any open space that was visible, mostly commuters on their way home from work. I was able to slide in on the very outside of a car thinking, “This is great, I’m right by a door, I can jump out easily.” But if you’ve been to London, you know that the side of the train you exit on changes quite frequently. As we were all laughing inside about how crowded it was, I realized that my stop would be exiting on the other side of the train. All in all, I was very impressed with how good of an attitude everyone seemed to have about it all. Probably because they realized for the next two days that can show up late and leave early from work. No matter, I feel like we all bonded. At least I think that’s what that feeling was. It was either bonding or someone’s elbow in my hip.

It’s defintely an excersize in self-assuranc when you spend all night at a potluck with people who only speak French, other than the guy you came with, and end up playing some sort of card-based role playing game. Oui!

In Sicily when you order a bottle of beer at a bar, you get a little plastic cup along with it. A bit wasteful, but whatever.

It’s bad luck to ‘clink’ the plastic cups together when you start drinking, so you turn your hands inward and touch the back of your hands together instead. This was told to me by three sepearate residents of Palerme (Palermonians?)!

It’s real sunny in Marseille. Off to Aix en Provence for my first official couchsurfing experience. Of course it’s with another web nerd.

Some random thoughts on Barcelona while it’s still fresh, and before I leave Spain!

Barcelona is an incredible city, I must say. It always feels alive, and has great energy without the pretension. I lucked out with my main days there falling on a weekend, that place just does not go to sleep. Case and point, when I woke up at 6:30am on Sunday to catch the train to San Sebastian, every person I saw on the metro was still out from the night before… I was probably the only one who had gone to sleep, although some were dozing in their seats.

El Raval is a great neighborhood, and it’s one of the reasons I know I’ll be back. Everyone had told me, ‘Avoid Raval’, but honestly it’s where all of the fun was happening. Bars, restaurants, nice shops, locals. Ramblas is definitely fun to experience, but it’s mostly tourists. I so very badly want to learn Spanish (or Catalunyan, but let’s be realistic here) so that I can enjoy it even more. Preferably with another person!

La Boqueria was a favorite spot. I made a habit of stopping there before heading out sight-seeing for the day. I would walk up to the stand with the widest variety of nuts, hand over 1 Euro and let them fill me up. So many almonds and pistachios for 1 Euro! And Nespiritos, which were everywhere in Sicily as well… Still not sure what they are, but oh my they are delicious. Pick up 4 for 1 Euro, and pretty soon you’ll be full of goodness with your hands covered in juice.

I enjoyed the Gaudi sights even more than I expected to. Sagrada Familia is insane. I couldn’t stop looking at it, no matter where I was (it’s real tall). It almost doesn’t seem real, if that makes sense. It’s like something out of a fantasy novel - totally brutal and epic. The Casa Batllo was fantiastic as well, and I got the chance to actually tour the inside of that one. Again, it seemed surreal and I feel very lucky to have experienced it.

The Graffiti was an interesting thing. It was everywhere, and it was quite good. But it doesn’t dominate the city, as it tends to in many other places. Here’s the reason why! When all of the shops and restaurants close up for the night, they all have these roll-down metal doors. And that’s where a lot of the graffiti and murals are. So when day comes and the doors are rolled up… poof! It’s also why walking around at night is so great and different.

I’m in San Sebastian right now, heading for Bordeaux tomorrow to meet up with Erin. I’ll have another post coming about this place, suffice it to say that it’s incredibly beautiful, and along with Barcelona it’s being added to the ‘return to’ list. Traveling is pretty neat.

While I was trying to kill time before my bus back to the airport in Palermo, I had wandered into the post office at the train station in search of stamps. Getting inside was a little bit tricky, consisting of a two different doors, the second of which wouldn’t open until you had passed through the first and had closed behind you. This was the most high tech thing I had seen in Palermo.

I quickly realized that this was not the most efficient place to buy stamps, so I decided to head back out on the street. Before I did, an old man stopped me, grabbed my arm and in Italian seemed to be asking me how to leave the building. He was confused by these HAL9000-esque doors, and I don’t blame him.

I got the first to open by waving a hand at the motion sensor, then followed him into the airlock chamber so that he saw how the second would open as well. We got outside and he was greatful, shook my hand and began walking away. But even before I started walking again, he had walked straight into a big window that he clearly thought was not a big window. This man’s glasses were not functioning.

He slammed into the pane face first, quite hard, and fell backwards towards the ground. Without too much effort I stepped forward and caught him before he could make it to the concrete, wrapping my arm around his ribcage and pulling him upright. He was a small man, don’t be impressed… I fixed his glasses, and he wouldn’t stop thanking me. Gave me a kiss on the cheek and seemed to be nearly on the verge of tears as he gathered himself and scuffled away. I found some stamps at the Tabbachi shop next to the ticket counter.

So far Sicily has been faaaaaantastic, if at a little dip in the fun right about now. Palermo was more than I could ask for. The people, the weather, the food.

Yesterday I took the train down to Trapani, which is on the northwest coast of the island, and where I am right now. It’s very pretty here, but it’s quite boring. Or at least it’s not the kind of destination for someone traveling alone. Something I’m quickly learning: how much I enjoy a city is very dependant on the people I meet. It might seem obvious, but the buzz of being in a place like Trapani quickly wears off when you’ve got nobody to talk to, no matter how trivial. The place is literally dead after dark, hardly anybody is walking around! I did find what is apparently the best pizza in the city though, and it was delicious.

I’m using this time to instead be more productive, figuring out my plans for the rest of the trip. I’ve booked a couple more hostels, and contacted a couple people about couchsurfing, which is what I’ll try and do in Paris, and possibly Marseille. As the summer gets closer, less and less beds are available.

Today I think I’ll take a bus out to Segesta for the Greek ruins, and I might actually make my way back to Palermo for the night. My flight to Barcelona is at 3pm tomorrow, so it might just make more sense to be in Palermo when I wake up. Plus, so far Palermo is the best part of Sicily.

Ciao.

The internet is working here in the hostel, and I wanted to just make a quick post.

A quick post to say that so far Palermo is incredible. The people are incredible, the weather is fantastic, and so is the food.

I’ve been speding the last couple days with great new friends from everywhere in the world, including Sicily. Today we were in Cèfalu, thanks to Guido who drove us there from Palermo, and layed on the beach. I think I’ll stay here an extra day, then make my way through Trapani and Masala.

Gelato is even better than my tastebuds remembered, which I didn’t think was possible.

Ok, so I guess this means no more preparation posts. Because, hey, guess what? I made it to Palermo.

This has to have been one of the longest days of all time. I’m still super disoriented with what day it is. Things that absolutely happened yesterday seemed like they never did, and I’m not sure what’s going on I’m so tired. The flight from Seattle to New York was just dandy, if a little bumpy. The fun started when they had schedule maintenance on our plan to Rome for the time it was supposed to leave… Yeah, I’m not sure either. Anyways, it ended up only being an extra 3 hours at JFK. I wasn’t in a rush, and I mainly felt bad for the people working the ticket counter having to answer all of the angries. I did have to reschedule my connecting flight from Rome to Palermo, but that wasn’t too big of a deal.

So now it’s about 6:30pm, and I haven’t really slept since 4:30am. Yesterday. Cannot wait to eat some gelato, then sleep for 12 hours. Palermo is a crazy city. Just from walking around the last couple hours, you can sense that. Scooters everywhere, cars on the sidewalk, almost getting hit every 2 seconds when you cross the street. I’ve also already run into one of my favorite Italian stereotypes; young kids playing soccer in a rubble-strewn street.

I haven’t been able to check into the hostel yet, but I left my bag, and it’s an incredible building. I can’t wait to sleep there. Still trying to figure out what exactly I’m going to the next few days, but I’m excited for whatever it ends up being.

I hope you’re all well.