Good ending to a horrible week

That's me on the court

Here's Jason

Jason and I have had such a horrible week. He's been waiting for ever for these books to get here for school, we're having trouble for the stupid financial aid for his last semester (which was solved), his truck breaks down, school is trying to make him pay for his own ticket to Chicago, I had a painful dental appointment and some other minor things. I was so happy to come home to my wonderful husband on Friday and know we were just going to relax.
On Saturday morning, we woke up early and headed out to the racquetball court (our standard Saturday morning activity). It was so nice to get some steam off on the court. I somehow always end up hurting myself. I'm still not good, but it's just fun to run around wild. We're big kids at heart.
Tomorrow we have a co-ed bridal shower, for our friends Christina and Matt. They're getting married in Hawaii in August. Hopefully next weekend we'll be able to go hiking to find what is left of a waterfall. I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Xtina's Bachlorette Party

We're about ready to do a group shot

Christina and I on the river

Here comes the Whiskey

Michelle, Jayme, me and Gabe


Last weekend, one of my friends (since high school), Christina, had a bachlorette party. It was at her house in Mather. What a cut house! We had so much fun. I can't believe we are all growing up and getting married. The games were fun, the food was good and the drinks were flowing. The next day (Sunday) we all went rafting on the American River. It was so nice casually floating down the river. There were a couple of times we got slightly wet. What a great weekend, spending time with the girls, and Gabe.

Racquetball!!

Yesterday was such a nice day. Jason and I had an early court time at the gym. Ever since he bought me all the gear to play racquetball, we've been playing ever since. It's so much fun! I have my own way of playing. We call it "crazy ball". It doesn't matter how many times it bounces, all long as you're able to hit the ball before it hit the front wall. Jason has recently looked up the actual rules to racquetball, and it's kind of boring. We've made a compromise...the first half hour, we play by the rules, and the last half hour we play "crazy ball"! As you can tell, I prefer the last half hour. I love running around all crazy and being a big kid!

What a Great Fourth!!

Enjoying the show

Ear protection is a must have

Afterwards

Great show

Ryan, Jason and Cameron

the guys and the stand

Jesse's sparkler

The guys


Our Fourth of July started by getting up early to hit the racquetball courts. I always love playing. I know I'm not good, and we have our own rules, but it's such a great workout and so much fun! Afterwards, we did some other errands, and came back to the house to relax before the exciting festivities began.

Every year, we head over to our friend, Patrick's house. Everyone gets together and brings

food, drinks and of course fireworks! The guys even built a stand to make the proper show for everyone. What a show they put on. It is just so nice to be able to all together at least once a year and just have fun. We sure do have great friends!

Barcelona Overview

Guy in the pink body suit

Average cafe

Street performers


Sangrada de la Familia

"farmer market"

Sunset

Jason watching the sunset

Me freezing

Columbus

Las Ramblas

Our room

Our final stop in Europe was Barcelona. When we got off the bus, we pulled out our handy map. This place is so confusing! Most of streets weren't even on the map (yes, its a new map). So, we got lost and couldn't find our hotel. It was a very hot day, with a lot of sun. I was getting cranky, hungry, thirsty and tired. If you know me, you don't want to be around me when this happens. We finally checked into our hotel, showered and immediately left to check out the sites. We were right off the main strip, Las Ramblas. This is where all the street performers are.

Since we were starving, we headed on a missions to find the prefect tapas. Since that was easy, we also ordered my first ever sangria (which was yummy!). Afterwards, we just walked around and found a cute tapa bar, which also had one of the best gelato we've ever had. AS we sat in the outside cafe, we people watched (one of our favorite things to do). There were some odd people walking by. This one guy had his body covered with a pink suit, from head to toe. He was also wearing a pair of underwear. So odd!

The next day, we went to go see Gaudi's church (Sagrada de la familia). They have been doing construction on it forever. They are expected to finish construction in 2012 (Gaudi is dead). The church was huge and so beautiful. There are different sorties being told all throughout the church. It is a must see. We headed back to our hotel to get our swimsuits on and headed to the beach. The Port of Barcelona wasn't too far from our hotel. That place has so many sail boats! About one block from the beach, there is a mini mart, and you can buy single beers for $1.50. We bought a few and found our spot on the beach. There are so many people trying to sell fake tattoos (which doesn't make sense to sell someone that has a real tattoo). They were also trying to sell messages, drinks and pot. We did see an under covered cop arrest someone on our way to the beach, so I was surprised. That was the first topless beach I'd ever been to. Not too many girls were topless. I was a little surprised to see that I was the tannest girl there.

At the beach, it got so cold, I had to put clothes back on. I was so disappointed. We headed back to our hotel and changed. This entire time, we'd been noticing how much the smell of urine was a round us. In a few places, I couldn't take it, and had to walk away. It was the worst. I don't think I've ever smelled so much urine in one spot. We found our way to the Gothic quarter to see Gaudi's other church. It wasn't as extravagant as the other, but it was pretty.

We couldn't decided what we wanted to eat. Since we hadn't ate lunch, we were hungry for dinner around 7pm (which is really early there). Every place was selling snack type items and we just wanted real food. Every time we turned around, someone was trying to sell us some pot. It was getting obnoxious. (Seriously, every ten feet.) Finally, we came across a Hard Rock Cafe. We had been craving American food so much, we gave it and ate there (they were the only ones serving dinner food). US has the best food in the world. I never thought I would crave American food so much. That hamburger tasted so good!

The next day, we took a $45 taxi ride to the airport (so expensive!). All I have to stay is that we hate the traveling part of our trip (air). Stupid people all around us. Never land in Philadelphia, you will be delayed every time!!! Jason ended up getting sick a few days after we got home (no, it wasn't swine flu). We've been back for three weeks now, and it seems like we've been back forever. I miss the lifestyle there, and desperately want to go back ASAP. Anyone want to pay for our next trip???

Andorra Overview

Our room

Us on top of the city (a small hill)

The church hiding



Jason with the mountains, river and our hotel in the back

The bus we took from Toulouse to Andorra

The storm continued our entire bus ride to Andorra. There was heavy winds, heavy rain, hail, thunder and lightning. We were so glad we didn't drive. The roads were so small and had tight curves. The Pyrenees mountains appeared out of nowhere. They are so crackly. We need to come back when it isn't raining so we can go hiking (that's why we came here). When we got off the bus, we needed to find taxi. We thought our bus driver was telling us to use the pay phone, but later we found out he was pointing to the taxi stand. The only way we found out was when we stopped at McDonald's (the only place open that late and it was still pouring) and sat near the window on the 2nd story, I saw taxis were just sitting in one spot.

We finally checked in to our hotel about 11:30pm that night (such a long day). We couldn't really see anything around us. This was our biggest hotel, but it was a smokers room (they didn't have non-smokers). About 1am, it smelled like someone was blowing smoke directly into our room.

The next morning, it was still raining, but we wanted to walk around anyways. We looked out our windows and saw a huge part of the Pyrenees mountains. It was amazing!! So beautiful. We even had a huge river flowing right behind our hotel. The river combined with the mountains makes a perfect setting. We were in love!

After breakfast, we hit the streets. (One thing you need to know, locals speak Catalonia here, NOT Spanish.) Our small bus rides always seemed like they were at the end of the drivers' route, and we always had to wait ten minutes for him to take a smoke break. They were all really nice, though. The actual Andorra was filled with so many shops, it was unbelievable. Entire stores selling only cigarettes. There is so much shopping here because there is no sales tax and the import tax is such much cheaper than France or Spain.

In Andorra there is this really old church made out of bricks. It kind of hides in the mountains. We can't decided when we want to come back. When it's ski season (that's what Andorra is known for), or when it's not raining and we can go hiking. Either way, we will back here.

Toulouse Overview

Us in the park

View of the park

The monastery

The red city

Toulouse was an unexpected delay. We thought we were able to hop on the next bus directly to Andorra, which we did. We were unaware that the next bus was 6 house later. We just missed the first bus by two hours. So, we made a pit stop. Toulouse's city center is known as the red city because everything is made with red brick. They have the largest monastery in France. We ran into a beautiful Japanese garden. We were so tired from traveling and the night before that we wanted to hang out a the benches and take a nap. It was so quite and calm there. Little birds were chirping, and no people talking, or babies crying. We started falling asleep and it started to rain. We were already under a tree, so we sat up and were going to wait the rain out to get shelter. The rain had its own idea: rain as hard as it could. We ran to shelter and waited until it relaxed for a while to walk back to the bus station. We managed to get back without getting drenched. We were so glad we left when we did. By the time we got our bags out of the lockers and got settled to wait for the bus, it started hailing. the wind even started ganging on everyone trying to get where they were going. It was an interesting day!

Nimes Overview

The small temple

Inside the small temple

View from the city from the tower

The tower from the outside

The water canal

inside the Arena

The larger temple

I'm inside our hotel

Our room

Nimes was such a beautiful little town. The only thing is that you can see the entire place in one day, and not spend the night. We visited the arena where there use to to fights and executions. Now, they use it for bull fighting. We also saw the temple that was dedicated the Cesar Augustus. They are currently cleaning it, so it doesn't look old or anything. There are a lot of Romanesque and Gothic churches there. We ran into this cute little park that had a canal running through it. It was very pretty. At the top of the hill, there is a tower that was part of the original walls for the city. Went were able to go to the top and view the city.

Once we walked down the hill, there was a small temple that was also part of the original walls. It was a little odd that we saw children playing around it and riding their bikes through it, like it was nothing special. I guess it's because we don't have any history like that here, so we don't take advantage of it.

The locals were very melancholy people. They didn't really care about anything, they just wanted the day to be over so next day could start. They weren't lively people. We meet a few locals while we ate dinner that night. They asked us if we were there for the big bull fight festival that hey have there. We told them no, that it was just an overnighter. And, they asked why we would ever stop in Nimes if we weren't staying for the fight. That Nimes was so boring, no one needed to stay. I guess that's how we feel about Sacramento.