The Longest Journey

It has been a while since we have posted, mostly due the the fact that for the last week or so we have crossed a couple of continents. On March 25 we began our 2 day journey from Japan back to Europe. We flew Air India to Mumbai, which turned out to be great. The plane was practically empty so we were able to each have several seats to ourselves to spread out and sleep. We then had about 14 hours in Mumbai where we had a night of luxury at the Renaissance Mumbai Hotel, courtesy of Donna and her Marriott points. It was definitely the most comfortable bed we´ve slept in in ages. Thanks Mom! The next afternoon we headed back to the airport for another 12 hour journey to London. In all we spent about 24 hours on planes in two days -- not what we would call fun.

London

We arrived in London a bit jet lagged but in good spirits, and were greeted at the airport by Benny´s cousin Arnon and his adorable 7 year old daughter, Yael. They live in a beautiful house outside of London, and we spent our first night in London with them.

The next morning we headed into the city where we stayed at the easyHotel.com Hotel (brought to you by the folks at easyJet.com budget airline). It is truly the smallest hotel room we have ever seen -- there wasn´t room for both of us to stand in the room with our backpacks on -- but it was clean, comfortable, and affordable (which in London is hard to come by). The bathroom even had a sign on it that said a tiny loo.

Our first day in the city was quite warm, around 60 degrees, and sunny, so we spent the day walking along the river. We stopped at a fish and chips stand and got what must have been about 2 pounds worth of french fries -- and that was the small size. We barely made a dent, but it was delicious!

On our second day in London we visited the Tate Modern, which if you haven´t been before is definitely worth a visit. They have fantastic exhibitions and the space is a converted power station which is enormous and the perfect setting for the displays of modern and contemporary art. They had a special exhibition of long winding slides that you could ride down. They had one slide starting from the 3rd floor, one from the 4th, and one from the 5th. We managed to get tickets to the 4th floor slide and it was, we have to admit, pretty scary, but also quite fun.

La Coruna

On March 29th we flew from London to La Coruna. We won´t bore you with the details of our horrible flying experience, but let us at least warn you never to use Orbitz! Orbitz ended up booking us on flight that wasn´t possible for us to fly on, which meant our tickets were automatically canceled, and we were never told. We had a nightmarish time trying to get on planes, had to fly standby, and also experienced some extremely bad customer service from Iberia. But hey, at least writing about our experience on the blog gives us some little sense of justice!

We finally arrived in La Coruna around 8pm, and were happy to see that it was still light out! It stays light out here until around 9pm. La Coruna is in the very northwestern tip of Spain and it is a beautiful city. We walked around a bit our first night there and saw a beautiful piazza and many lovely buildings. Our second day we walked all around the city, along the water, and visited the Torre de Hercules, one of the oldest functioning lighthouses in world.

Santiago de Compostela

On the 30th we headed to Santiago de Compostela, which is described in our guidebook as "the most beautiful city in Spain." While we haven´t seen enough to say whether we agree, it certainly is a gorgeous city. Its medieval center is really lovely, and it holds an amazing (albeit in parts gaudy) Romanesque cathedral. We stayed in the excellent Meiga Backpackers Hostel where we met some really nice people and enjoyed cooking a couple meals in the hostel´s well equipped kitchen.

In Santiago we met a couple of interesting travelers. The evening we arrived we met a young man in our hostel who was committed to walking from Spain, through Europe, Turkey, Iran, and India, all the way to China. However, within a day of meeting him, he decided that walking that distance was too much, and he decided to hitchhike (smart decision). We also met a couple that with an equally ambitious -- although admittedly more fun (in our opinion) goal of trying 1000 wines during their travels. So far, they have tried 650 wines, and are documenting it on their great website -- www.1000wines.org.

Leon

We took a 6 hour train ride to Leon on the 1st. The ride took us through stunning countryside, passing green hills, beautiful forests and rivers, and tall cliffs. Leon also has a very pretty old town, though not quite as spectacular as Santiago. We arrived on Palm Sunday and it turned out that there was a big festival in town to mark the beginning of Holy Easter Week (thanks Wikipedia!) There are a number of processions through the old quarter where locals wear cloaks and hats that really look disturbingly like KKK hats, except that they are purple. We saw one procession which included a marching band a a float depicting Jesus carrying the cross (you can read lots more about it here).

Bilbao

After 2 nights in Leon we took a 4 hour bus to Bilbao. We are staying in a college dorm/hotel. The rooms come with small kitchens in them, so on our first night here we decided to make a meal to celebrate Passover. We managed to make some haroseth and a chicken stew in a teeny kitchen that only had room for two burners and a small sink. We couldn´t find matzah so we substituted some melba toast. Considering our limited supplies and small working space it turned out to be a delicious meal, and it is a welcome change to have a little apartment like space to call home for a few days.

This morning we went to the Bilbao Guggenheim, and we were not disappointed. The building, designed by Frank Gehry is fantastic, and we really enjoyed the art inside. We especially loved the exhibit of Richard Serra´s sculptures, which are part of the permanent collection. They were huge steel walls curved into various shapes (spirals, etc.) that you could walk through. We also enjoyed the special exhibition of Pablo Palazuelo´s work.

So far we are really enjoying Spain. The people have been very friendly, the cities we´ve visited really pretty, and the food has been simple yet delicious. Perhaps the most difficult thing to get used to in Spain is the timing of day to day life. Days here seem to start late for people. It is very quiet around town before 10:00. People slowly start their days, stores and cafes begin to open around 10, and then siesta begins shortly thereafter at 2:00 when everything shuts down again. Lunch is eaten around 2 or 3, and dinner not until around 11pm or later. One evening we went to a restaurant at 9:30 and were the only ones there. When we were finishing up and heading out around 10:30 some elderly people were starting to arrive. Apparently we are eating on early-bird special schedule a la Morty and Helen Seinfeld. People also stay up very late -- we have been in bed every night long before the locals.

Tomorrow we have another full day in Bilbao and then we take a short flight to Barcelona in the evening. Unfortunately the weather in Spain is not good right now -- the whole country is rainy and cold. Alison had high hopes of sunny spring weather, but so far it has been disappointing to say the least. The other day we saw the forecast on CNN and the weatherman actually described the weather in Barcelona as "bad, bad, bad." Hopefully by the time we arrive tomorrow night things will be clearing up a bit.