european wanderings

ahora estamos en madrid. well now we are in madrid. the city is pretty big but easy to walk. we have been doing a lot of walking. We went to an art museum and saw Picaso y Dalì. We went to El Prado yesterday and saw some spanish painters (Goya, Diego Velazquez, El Greco). We also took a day trip to Toledo and saw the cathedral and fortress there. Toldedo was really confusing cause all the streets were narrow and winding and it was almost imposible to find your way around. We are staying in madrid with a guy from Peru. He is a doctor, a psychiatrist, here in madrid and yesterday he had to work 24 hours straight. He was really nice though and let us stay at his house that night as well even though he was a the hospital. tonight we are staying with a friend of his, also a doctor and also peruvian. its nice to be able to understand the spainish and not have to deal with the ridiculous spanish accent these spaniards have. It is hot here- 32 C whatever that means in Farenheit, hot. looked it up 32 C = 90F. and apparently they take siesta seriously here. almost nothing is open from 1-5 and no one is on the street (probably because it is so hot). Unfortunately we dont really have a house to siesta in so we usually end up outside in the heat. I am having a great time speaking spanish though!
hasta luego

Hola! Now we are in Spain! We spend two nights in Bilbao a northern city that was really cute and had a river and mountains and hills all around adn it was pretty. We went to the beach and saw lots of surfers and paragliders. The house we stayed at was kind of crazy, there were ten people in the one three room apartment and they were from all over the world. Four from spain, two girls from portugal, a german boy, an english girl, and us. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Also in Bilbao is the Guggenheim museum which is really cool looking. Now we are in a national park Picos de Europa. We went hiking this morning and tomorrow we are canoeing down the river and then catching a bus to Madrid. Gotta go, at an internet cafe, communcation is expensive!
adios

So I have decided to create a european wandering blog.

We have seen quite a bit of London but the city is really quite huge. Right now we are staying in a nice house in South Kensington with Becky's great aunt. We are a five minute walk from Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. We wandered through the park yesterday and saw Kensington Palace and the statue of Peter Pan in the gardens as well as the palace sunken gardens. Last night we had a nice dinner with Becky's great aunt and her daughter and her english husband which was fun. Tonight we are going to see the musical "The Sound of Music" which I am quite excited about becuase I love it. London has all kinds of musicals and plays and I wish I had the money to see them all! Les Mis, Wicked, Grease, The Lion King, Billy Elliot, Chicago and many more. And it was really cool to see Shakespeare in the native setting and with the english accents.
Tomorrow we are headed to spain and hopefully I will be able to update this here blog thing.
cheers