San Sebastian to Miranda de Ebro (Haro) to Zaragoza to Barcelona

After San Sebastian, it was a great several days of road tripping (featuring some cringeworthy singalongs and reading David Foster Wallace essays to each other), plenty more pintxos, delicious wine in the heart of la Rioja while playing cards (with our sneaky waiter standing behind me and signing my cards to Leif) in a lazy plaza, enjoying the peculiar Roman-themed street market festival of Zaragoza while taking in some absurdly impressive architecture, getting thoroughly and unquestionably lost with imprecise directions applied to haphazardly marked roads (ending up in some maze-like industrial complex at 1:30 am coming back from Haro in  La Rioja was certainly interesting).  Then an early morning haul to the (and I'm comfortable saying this) stupidest airport in the world (Barcelona) to trade one travelling companion for two. Off to Valencia tomorrow for some supposedly outstanding oranges and whatever else one does in Valencia (Cindhu planned this portion for us).

The cathedral tower in the lovely, windy-street  full town of Haro, chock full of bodegas and cafes with pintxo lined counters and dirt cheap young Rioja wine

Young Rioja wine - cheap, fruity, delicious.

Hard to beat a good flan

We all had a collective "Holy insert-non-pg-expletive-here" moment when we first came within sight of the Our Lady of the Pillar Basilica in Zaragoza

Roman market stalls + more beautiful Jesus-related structures

Inside the Basilica

We were sad to send Leif off after just a few days, but it's such a treat to have Cindhu's dad and sister join us for most of our last two weeks (insane to think we're almost back state-side). Since the Barcelona airport almost-fiasco, we've had an unquestionably lovely few days in and around the city. Day one and two were full of long wandering walks to admire the much present genius of Gaudi's architecture, a visit to the Picasso museum (while a lot of his most famous works are elsewhere, but it is wonderfully curated and incredibly illuminating for someone who knows nothing more than the pure basics of his work), a lazy afternoon sipping local wine by the city beach, and one fantastically rich late Father's Day dinner. Today sent us outside of Barcelona to a stunning mountain settlement called Montserrat. After the recent string of cities since London, it was nice to get out into some sort of wilderness to celebrate the near constant sun and general fantastic weather of northern Spain (especially after the dreary eternal miserableness that is London's local climate). A long steep windy mountain drive, a stuffy, crammed ride up the most impressive of the now three funicular railways we've been on in Europe, and a few hours hiking and exploring the old hermitage of Montserrat. Then back down to Barcelona for a quick exploration of their famous market and a relaxing early dinner (very early by local standards) of some mostly delicious tapas and, of course, more wine.

Gaudi

Wonderful tiny tapas bar, not sure if we were lured in by the  smell of the lilies or the enticing hand written menus scattered around the wall

La Sagrada Familia-- Absolutely nothing like it

We keep running into unexpected architecture and public sculpture around Spain

Foie gras cannelloni 

Mackeral/Octopus tartare, ginger/citrus emulsion

Duck with more foie gras, currants and puff pastry

Suckling pig with incredibly crispy skin, apple sauce, new/purple potatoes and  kumquats. Not pictured are the 12hr braised lamb with sweatbreads and the scallops with pork "double chin"

Montserrat. Totally stunning.

Happy funicular passangers, despite a stuffy car and pushy fellow passengers

The world's largest stalk of asparagus, apparently. Our doctor companions wouldn't let me try it to confirm.

Mercat de Sant Josep - mostly overpriced, but interesting nonetheless

Impressive array of mollusks

Octopus, done right.

More plaza lounging to come, I'm sure

London to Bilbao to San Sebastian

SPAIN.  About four years ago when we started planning this trip I remember distinctly that Spain was at the top of my long list of countries we wanted to visit, and this past few days here has definitely lived up to the expectations.  With only a few weeks left, I'm so glad it's going to be spent here (with the exception of one night in Lisbon, Portugal) before we head home.  We've also been lucky enough to coordinate our first 5 days here with our friend Leif, and the final 10 days with my dad and sister, Monica.  We arrived from a short flight from London, tired and a bit sick, to the beautiful town of Bilbao.  Known for its art scene and food (of course); it did not disappoint.  We wandered around the town, and after meeting up with Leif, figured out our plan for the next couple days.  We've rented a car, so we'll basically be road tripping around Spain for the last leg of our trip.  We've spent the last days in Bilbao and San Sebastian, sampling the local pintxos and soaking in a bit of the sun.  Wandering around these towns has been incredible and we can't wait to see more-- some pictures..

First meal of pintxos in Bilbao

Plenty of delicious chorizo and jamon found here

A great pintxos bar we visited-- you basically pick and choose from a variety of amazing flavorful bites.  The highlight was a bacalao, potato and cheese mousse

Bilbao

The Guggenheim

Friends

Some of the many art installations around the Guggenheim

San Sebastian

On our way

More on Spain to come...

Isle of Man to London (Norwich)

So after a crazy 18 or so hour day of travel from our campsite at 5am on the Isle of Man to our hostel in London we caught up on sleep on a very lazy first day in London.  It was pouring rain most of the day, so we did some planning and laundry-- the usual things on our days off.  The next day we had a three hour bus ride to Norwich, where we were meeting a girl named Danny we had met in Bulgaria a couple months ago.  She invited us to a music festival for the weekend, so we packed up and headed out.

It was equally rainy and windy in Norwich, so we decided to skip camping and spend the night at Danny's apartment in Norwich.  We had a great time just catching up and seeing her town.  The following morning we got our gear together and headed to the festival.  It's called "Lockstock" and was essentially in front of a pub in the middle of open fields, cows and all.  We had a great day listening to the local folk bands, meeting new people, and camping out.  The next day we headed back to her place and after a quick nap and shower, got a bus back to London.

Lockstock

A gift from Danny's friend, Abbie

Ahhhh!

Danny and Elliot

Our next couple days in London were great, although still really rainy and cold (it definitely doesn't feel like June there).  We were sad we missed Stephanie as she headed back to the states already, (but glad we got to see her in Lyon!) so we stayed with a couple of her old flatmates who were incredibly kind and welcoming.  We had a great two nights in London and spent our one full day at the Natural History Museum (so awesome), seeing all the other big "sights" in London, and cooking some Thai food.

Rainy London

Natural History Museum

Dinosaurs instead of gargoyles.  Love it.

Today I learned Big Ben refers to the bell, not the clock tower itself

Another tourist in front of Westminster Abbey

St James' Park

Made for the Queen's Jubilee, which we had just missed by a couple days.  Fancy.

Queen's house

The Mall leading to Buckingham Palace

 All in all a great day, sad to leave but we're ready for our next flight.  Unfortunately I think the moving around and bad weather kind of got to us, we're both fighting off colds, but nothing a little time in the sun can't fix--- SPAIN next!!

Derry to the Isle of Man

Oh man. So we're currently on a bus en route to London from Liverpool (after waking up at 5 to pack up our tent, catch a taxi to a ferry, to a bus, to two trains, to our current bus (then the London metro to get to our hostel), and after three days camping on the Isle of Man, I'm still feeling a bit giddy about the experience. For those of you who aren't familiar, since 1907, arguably the most extreme motorcycle races (time trials, technically) have taken place on a twisty, often absurdly narrow, and just all around baffling mountain course (about 36 miles/lap). The island's lack of prevalent speed limits fostered a healthy racing culture that easily turned the yearly TT (tourist trophy - anyone can enter, if they qualify) into a Mecca for the most serious adrenaline junkies, motorsport enthusiasts, and, I suppose, curious world travelers. This was sort of an odd-ball goal for our trip - not too easy to get to, and as we learned recently, a trip that most people make bookings for a year ahead of time. Last minute ferry bookings only really allowed us to stay three days, which, with the races scheduled every other day, only gave us one full day to watch the madness.

We arrived late evening on "Mad Sunday" - the day where the mountain course is opened up for any of the ~40,000 visitors who have come for the races, many of whom on their own overpowered sports bikes; a day we've also learned many locals pray for rain on (the number of visitors who have died by testing themselves on the course during these weeks is actually pretty horrifying). The entire island was rumbling with enthusiastic revving of just about any combination of two (sometimes three) wheels and an engine that one could imagine. We grabbed a bus to our campsite (which had some of the last spots available in an overflow field behind the local pub), which happened to be on the exact opposite end of the island from the ferry port (thus the cab this morning), but was nice enough. While the general reputation of biker communities may lead you to guess otherwise, we we're very quick to learn how incredibly convivial and welcoming the people who flock to the event generally were. We met a large number of locals and other veterans of the scene who were overwhelmingly welcoming, and above all, excited that were about to experience it for the first time.

Wednesday turned out to be a glorious day for the races. Cool temperatures, light wind, clear blue skies. On a tip from some guys who had been coming to the same area to watch the races for years, we walked about a kilometer down the road through the tiny town of Kirk Michael, and ended up finding a great spot that gave us a long view up and down through the shop-lined, narrow town road: complete with a cozy stone flower bed that made a great bench for us and an extremely friendly northern English couple. It also turned out to be a stationing point for a group of race marshalls - veteran race enthusiasts who had volunteered to make sure that portion of the track was well tended to (free of stray soccer balls, dangerously wandering spectators, and the like). Everyone around us seemed to be excitedly anticipating our reaction as much as they were the first bikes to drop around the corner up the road from us. We quickly found out why. As astonishing as so many of the videos out there are (they still amaze me), there is no way to describe how ridiculously exhilarating it is when these guys explode around the corner and are roaring by you in an instant at 170+ miles an hour down this quaint, bouncy little town road.

Sorry for the poor quality - hopefully it'll give you a bit of an idea.

This was a good opportunity for testing out the "Super Slow Motion" mode on our tiny camera - again, not the best quality but I like it anyway

Our first races were on, relatively speaking, the smaller bikes of the main races, and as mind blowing as they were, the intensity was instantly superseded in the afternoon when the first of the big bikes (1000cc to the 600cc in the morning) rocketed past us, hitting about 180 in the straightaway in front of us as they propel into a top-gear wheelie down the long hill. I'm really not sure I've ever witnessed anything even close to this - as far as how close to the edge people will push the limits of danger and control. You'd see guys fishtail out of the corner, still accelerating to speeds I've never come close to outside of a small airplane, swerving so they'd miss a protruding curve by, I swear, no more than a few inches. I'll tone down the effusiveness at this point, but seriously, after two rainy, slow days, I'm still grinning. 

While we missed out on the biggest of the races (the 6 lap Superbike and Senior races), we had a wonderfully full day, which also included trails for sidecars and electric bikes - which were both incredible in their own unique ways. There are plenty of much higher quality pictures and videos out there if you're curious, but here are the rest of our best.

Campsite

Our favorite marshall - started marshalling in '96, been watching the races since '64.

You have no idea how many tries it took me to actually catch one in frame.

Popping around the corner

Unfortunately didn't catch any of the ones where the guy on the side has his feet flying behind him

Lucky catch

Happy campers

We spent Monday evening drinking with a couple of goofy English guys, ending with an offer to hit them up next time we come to races to borrow a motorcycle (very tempting). Yesterday was pretty rainy and miserable, and we were happy to take it easy, particularly with today's 17 hours of travelling with a 5am start. It'll be nice to get back to an indoor bed for the next two nights, then it's back to the tent for a few nights at a nearby music festival where we'll meet up with a few friendly British girls we met in Bulgaria. Hard to believe we have only about three weeks left, but still so much to do.

Donegal to Derry

We've had a lovely, generally relaxing few days in Derry. It's a fairly quiet city, full of loads of history and a few good pubs. We spent most of our time wandering around the town center, a bit of non-traditional music in a local pub, and loading up on some groceries for our days camping on the Isle of Man. Not a whole lot else to report than that about the town. It's been a wonderful time moving around Ireland the past two weeks. Dublin was a bit surreal to return to, but the west coast has been just as charming and magical as I recall it (if not more so, I don't recall any chance encounters with friendly dolphins last time). It's hard to believe we'll be heading to the Isle of Man tomorrow - I've been mildly obsessed with their annual races for a while, and it's been one of the destinations on our trip that I was determined to stick to, all the while not being sure it would work out. The atmosphere is supposed to be pretty carnival like, and although due to the schedule, we may only catch one day of races, I'm sure it will be spectacular. Here's a little light viewing to give you an idea.  And a few pictures in Derry...