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just arrived home and realizing even more differences between being in one's homeland and not. this trip was a life-changing experience in the best possible way, but it feels damn good to be back.

some stats.
total number of flights: 10
total flying time: 53 hours, 45 minutes
total layover time: 16 hours, 10 minutes

Good food and the Royal Palace

Today was our last full day of the trip, spent in Madrid. It started with a morning trip to the churros con chocolate place near our hotel that opened in 1894.  After we finished our churros there was still melted chocolate left which we dumped into our coffee.  Our Mom went off to shop while me and Jacob went back to the room for a bit.  We later went off to the royal palace to see how the other half lives.  One room, which had a quartet of Antonio Stradivari instruments, has an estimated worth of 100 million dollars.  After checking out the armor and weaponry in the armory we left the premises to find a place to eat dinner.  We decided to have an Italian dinner which turned out fantastic.  After we ate, me and Jacob went on a walk around the area before returning to the room.  G'night folks.

-Harrison

Fairy Tale Village

This post is probably going to be long. Just finished our second day in Torla, a fairy tale village in the middle of the Pyrenees mountain range of Spain. The drive up here gave us so much to look forward to.. watching the mountains get closer and closer and eventually being submerged within them, seeing bodies of deep blue water, and passing through commercial villages that I excitingly told my parents weren’t as good as the place we were staying. After finally making it up to Torla around 2pm, the views were so breathtaking  that we couldn’t believe where we were. It’s so hard to describe it, and the pictures really couldn’t capture what we were seeing, but the feeling of being there was so tranquil. Even the village with its cobblestone pathways and family owned stores was awesome. We walked around the village and got lunch and eventually dinner, found a nice river, and did a little bit more walking around the area. No spot had a bad view. We went to bed early as we planned to wake up early the next morning to take a bus to a cool hiking area nearby. When we woke up the next morning, there was a rain scare that made us think twice about going hiking in the mountains that day. Eventually the storm passed and we knew that we had to go hiking on our only full day here, so my dad, my brother, and I took the chance and rode the bus up to Ordesa. The path we chose was easy (at least compared to the other hikes) because there was a chance of another storm later, but the hike was nothing less than surreal. It was freaking cool! I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Anyway, after getting a good 5 km away from our base spot, we decided to turn around due to time. Literally a minute after that it started to rain, and we knew we were in for something. It took about 3 minutes before huge amounts of hail were coming down, the paths were completely covered in water, and there was extremely loud thunder. We eventually found a cave with a bunch of hikers inside, so we took refuge in there until the storm ended. Every part of us not covered by ponchos was drenched by the time it ended, but luckily everything but our shoes had dried off by the time we got back. After returning, the family went to dinner and walked around the village some more. This place is a dream, I don’t want to leave tomorrow..

(been trying to post this since last night, actually in Madrid now)

- Jacob

Pictures of Torla:

Hiking Pictures:

Gaudi´s Architecture and Tapas

Yesterday was awesome for the eyes and the taste buds. We woke up early to get crescent rolls stuffed with nutella at a cafe... god was that good. We then visited La Sagrada Familia, which was so cool. The mass size and intricate design were overwhelmingly beautiful, definitely the coolest church I had ever been inside. The Picasso museum was next, which had a huge number of his works which really impressed us all. After that we got lunch at a tapas place in a small alleyway that was pretty good. After that we took a break at our parent´s hotel where we napped, swam in the pool, hung around, and of course blogged about the day before.We then went to a house made by Gaudi called Casa Batlla, which was equally as cool as La Sagrada Familia but in such different ways. I would never have thought before about how he took into consideration the shapes and designs of the house to perfect the air ventilation, space maximization, etc. To end our day we went to a salivating tapas restaurant called Paco Meralgo. The food was so good, and we ended up splitting about 6 tapas between the 4 of us because the food was simply too good not to try. It was possibly the first michelin star restaurant I´ve ever been to. When we crashed around 12:30 our taste buds were more than satisfied.

- Jacob

Relaxed Day

Yesterday was a good way to start the portion of the trip with our parents. We woke up late, met them at their hotel and went for a swim in the rooftop pool of their hotel. We walked the streets, got awesome pastries, and saw a large art class with tons of people outdoors painting the Arc de Triomf. After that we went to La Rambla, a busy street in Barcelona with tons of shopping, sights, and performances. We went back to their hotel for a bit and eventually went for a late dinner at a nice restaurant close by. Ended the day early so we could get up earlier the today. There's a lot of cool street art in this city, and the city is really large and diverse!

- Jacob

Reunited in Barcelona

Yesterday Harrison and I visited the Gallerie dell'Accademia, where we saw many really great pieces of art. There were so many things to see but our clear favorite was the real Statue of David.. it's an amazing sculpture and the way they presented it (at the end of a hallway, perfectly lighted under a large dome window) made it even cooler. After the art gallery we realized that we had hours left in Florence and had barely gotten any pastries in Italy (and way too much gelato) so we had our final meal at a pastry shop where we split a bunch of desserts. After that we went back to our hostel to check out, made it to the airport, and after a delayed flight eventually made it to Barcelona around 11! Our parents met us there and got us back. Now in Spain and spending the last week of our trip with the rents.

- Jacob

first three pictures are in Florence, last two in Barcelona.

Florence Roaming

By yesterday Harrison and I were starting to get tired of sight seeing, long lines, etc. so we basically wandered through the streets of Florence. Alike Rome, the food in Florence is consistently delicious.. you can really walk into any passing restaurant and be insured a good meal. But I think Florence is personally a much more visually appealing place than Rome, as the rustic style is so consistent throughout the city that it really has a distinct charm. We visited many of the piazzas, saw the Duomo and walked through Ponte Vecchio, and hung out with the folks from our hostel when the weather turned ugly. Starting to realize how impossible it is to have a boring day when you're in Italy.

- Jacob