the rain in spain falls mainly in...prague

Prague, Czech Republic

I did it. I am now in the north where the weather is in the low 30s C, and where the euro is not used. It was a crazy journey, involving one night in a bed and three on various forms of transportation. And now it's raining. I hadn't seen rain for 6 or 7 weeks until last night.

I took the night bus from Madrid to Barcelona, put my stuff in the left luggage at the bus/train station and went off to explore. I remember being in Barcelona in 2000, but not many details besides Gaudi buildings. This time I walked up and down the main pedestrian street many times. I also got lost in one neighborhood, looking for the center for contemporary culture of barcelona. They had this really amazing exhibit called borders or frontiers. It was about borders - the EU and non-EU, miami and havana, cashmere, USA and mexico, illegal immigration, refugees, former yugoslavia. There were descriptions, maps, photos, and videos in an attempt to explore borders.

That night, took the boat from Barcelona to Genoa. The trip was about 20 hours. On board I met a spanish guy named Ruben. He as wearing nike sort of shoes and had a bag with english on it, so I asked him if he was from the US. I guess my americandar has been kind of off lately. I slept on the floor that night, and the next morning saw a dolphin swim by the boat. I might have seen a sea turtle too, but it could have also been trash. The dolphin I'm sure about, because I watched it jump.

I spent the night in the only youth hostel in Genoa, after the boat arrived about 5 in the evening. Genoa is one of those very vertical cities. The hostel was basically straight up from the port, but had an amazing view. I was in Genoa with my family in 1998, and I remember it was hot, and we found nothing redeeming, so we drove up into the mountains. On a second visit, old town Genoa is a nice place. There are lots of windy streets, although everyone was on holiday, so the town was a bit dead. The gelato stand per capita also seemed a bit on the low side. Had some very excellent pasta with pesto for dinner, and sat with two austrailians and an italian.

The next morning I took a train to milan, and another to Venice. In Venice I had a couple of hours, so I got some tiramisu gelato (!!!!) and then wandered. I rediscovered that I really love venice, even though it's way more crowded in August than it had been in March. Also, the price of everything seems to double or triple in the summer. I ended up walking all the way to san marco, asked some french couple (I'm really bad at finding the english speakers) if I could look at their map, and realized I had walked all the way accross the city. Hurried back, and got on my last train, Venice to Prague.

I was sharing my sleeping cabin! with two canadians, Becky and Kim. They were both very nice. We ended up all sitting on the middle bunks, spanning the aisle. Next door was a cabin full of germans playing very loud music. I love sleeping cars on trains. They even gave us breakfast in the morning. I also love the youth discounts on transportation in europe. For the first time since I entered spain, I had to show my passport - to exit austria and enter the czech republic.

Wandered around Prague for a few hours before being met by a very bearded Jan, who took me to the car where Maria and Lenka were waiting. Somehow we fit me and my stuff into their already very crowded car, and went to Lenka's appartment. It's really exciting that I'm not going to be going anywhere for a few nights.

Since then I've been hanging out in Prague. Met some of Jan's friends, his step dad, got some dumplings, and found a great book store. Time to go walk in the rain.