Spain is hot

Hello everyone! Sorry we haven´t updated in so long! Italy was EXPENSIVE for internet, so we were only on once and spent our 30 minutes booking a hostel for barcelona. I´m never going to take free internet for granted again! Sorry to people that worried about us (especially mom :) we´re safe, don´t worry, be happy!

Recap: we got on our ferry in Patra and spent the night on the ferry to Bari. Arrived in Bari and took a train and a bus to get to Naples. We met two guys from Florida, and one of them is really into all of the same music Katie is into, so they spent the whole ride listening to each other´s ipods and telling each other all of the bands they need to look up...it was like she had found her music soul mate :) We got into Naples and Katie and I walked to the pizzeria Da Michele, which is the one that the woman describes in the book Eat, Pray, Love! Luckily it was a close walk from the train station and it was totally worth it...perfect traditional italian pizza...so so good. We spent that night in the city of Pompei at a campground, basically right across the street from the ruins. We toured the ruins the next morning, which was really neat, but more expensive than we had thought it would be, and we needed more time, because we had to leave to catch our train to Rome. We got into Rome later than expected and hurried around frantically after getting out of the train station trying to find the bus we were supposed to take to get to Camping Fabulous (Carolyn you should have told us where the busstop was, we were freaking out!), we found one of the buses, but it said it stopped at 8:30pm, and it was already 8:45! We finally found the other one, and got into the campground, put up our tent (once again really expensive for just a patch of rough ground that´s not even level), ate some pizza and watched the rest of the Italy game (which they lost, sadly, but it was fun to watch a bunch of crazy Italians yelling at the tv :), and went to bed.

We saw Rome in a day :) It was hot, I was sick of riding the bus back and forth and it was such a big city, that all I wanted to do was get to Tuscany. So we saw all we could: Vatican city (very neat, but it´s hard to take in so much amazing art at once, and there were so many people in the Sistene Chapel that it took away from the experience being there), the Colluseum, walked a whole lot. We were pretty tired by the time we got back (and mad that the pool was already closed, not so fabulous, Camping Fabulous), so we went to bed. The next morning we packed up and were on our way to Florance. We stayed in a campground in the hillsides that was a half hour bus ride out of the city, and so beautiful. The Tuscan countryside has been my favorite part of the trip so far...I want to come back and live there when I´m old :) Let me know if you want to join me :) Anywho, the campground was really nice, we were in the hostel part of it so we had beds this time. They had a pool, but we had to wear these ugly swim caps that they make you buy, so we shared one. We´re in the pool, and we recognize these two girls from our hostel in Perissa, Santorini, that are from MN and we talked to them like, a half hour before bed. Small world! We show up at almost the same time at a campground in Florance! And we met a couple of other girls that day too, so we had some fun for two nights with a lot of people to hang out with. The next day I went for a walk while Katie and everyone else tanned by the pool :) We went to a wine store and tasted some wine, and had fun talking with everyone.

The next day we saw Florance, which was very pretty. The duomo, the large cathedral, is so pretty and perfect from the outside that it doesn´t even look real. It´s all pink and tan and green marble with statues all over the place. Then we were on a train to Cinque Terre! The campground we stayed at there was only 20 minutes by train out of the first city. The first day there we went to the different beaches, Katie braved cliff jumping with a couple guys we met from California, it was pretty high, good for her, I was nervous and stayed in the water :). We had some more good pizza and gelato (we didn´t go a day in Italy without eating pizza and gelato, it was amazing :), and played some cards with some girls back at the campground. We did the whole 12km hike through the 12 towns the next day. Very hot, but VERY pretty. It takes you right along the side of the cliffs between the towns and you get the prettiest scenery in all of Italy. We were tired after that though :)

From Cinque Terre we headed to Marsailles as a stopover town to get into Spain. That day we were either on a train or in a train station from 8am to 9pm...not so fun. We caught the last 20 minutes of the Eurocup final when we finally got to our hostel, which Spain won, so we were mad we weren´t already in Barcelona because we heard it was mayhem with all of the celebrating! We saw Marsailles the next morning before heading to Barcelona, and it was a very cute city, we took a bus to the Notre Dame cathedral on the top of the hill which overlooked everything, katie had a guy come talk to her in French and give her his number, we had a good laugh over that. We got into Barcelona late that night, so we pretty much ate, and went to bed. The next day we moved to a cheaper hostel that is run by an older spanish couple and it was the homiest place we´ve been...it felt like being at grandma´s house :) We walked around the next day, read, and that night we went and saw a flamenco performance! It was only half an hour long, but only 4 euro, and that´s all we could afford! But it was very cool. The next day we walked around some more, read, went to the beach, and then went up to the castle in town where they show a nightly movie, and it was an Iranian movie with Spanish subtitles...so we were trying real hard to understand what was going on. But there was a live band beforehand playing jazz and swing (Jordan, you would have loved it!), and the atmosphere was pretty fun. We were pooped by the time we got back though.

We left Barcelona this morning, waited in the train station until 3:30 to get on our train to madrid. They don´t have any regional cheap trains between major cities in Spain like they do everywhere else, and the reservations are really expensive. We were hoping to get to the south of Spain, but now I´m almost glad we didn´t have time for it because it would have cleared us out for money just to take the train down there! We have free internet at the hostel here, so that´s why you´re all getting a book right now :)

We´re going to tour around the city tomorrow morning, and then jump on a bus to Pamplona to a campground outside of town where we´ll be until the night of the 6th. Then we´re going to go see Running of the Bulls on the morning of the 7th, then make our way up to Nantes, France, to see the Tour de France the next three days! So it will be quite a busy next week. Then we need to be in Zeebrugge, Belgium on the 11th to take a ferry to Scotland to meet up with Mom and Auntie Susie! (I thought we were done with ferries, and was glad, but this is way cheaper than having to fly there, so I guess I´ll have to deal with it one last time... :)

That was the past 10 days in a nutshell :) I loved Italy, and all of the good food we ate. And it honestly was so pretty to take the train through. Katie still loved being in Greece, but I would have traded that for more time in Italy, hands down. Our clothes finally got washed tonight too, so that´s one of the highlights of the day :) I won´t take clean clothes for granted anymore either :) Well, we have to go figure out our bus time for tomorrow...hope everyone is having a GREAT summer so far! Live it up! Time has flown by here, I´m sure it´s the same for everyone back home too. Send some good vibes to our brother Jake, who will be taking his dirvers permit test soon...last one to have to teach how to drive Mom and Dad :) Katie and I will help with the teaching when we get home :)

Big hug from Spain! We miss you!
Love Sarah and Katie