Barcelona, Spain, Part 1: June 26-27, 2010

Barcelona!  To get to our next city, we took a bus from Marseille to Barcelona.  It was a fairly long bus ride, about 8-9 hours.  But it was nice to see roadways and go though the country side...a slightly different experience then another train.  It was a really hot day, but what made this bus ride extra hot...a broken engine ventilation system that instead of blowing hot air outside the bus, was blowing in through a large vent at crotch height (important, cause it made peeing a burning experience!) above the toilet in the bathroom!  It naturally made the entire bus heat up, because it was blowing so hard we could feel the hot breeze from our seats.  What made it worse was that it came with the lovely light aroma of bus bathroom!  We were very happy to arrive in Barcelona!  But not just for that reason, all along the trip to this point we had met many people that had been there and gushed about how amazing and awesome Barcelona was!  So we were excited to experience it and see if it lived up to all the talk!

We enjoyed Barcelona quite a bit, the 900 photos that we took in the seven days we were there are proof of that!  Because of so many things to post, we are going to break Barcelona up into a few different posts instead of one giant one.  Our first day, by fluke, happened to be Barcelona's annual, but only 2nd, gay pride!

We stayed in a hostel, sadly we could not find a couchsurfing host here.  There was a grocery store across the street from the hostel, and well, one of the first things we did was buy food and some booze!  Spanish is awesome, and Stefan thought "Coronita" was pretty cute!

The hostel we stayed in was quite great.  It was 4 floors in a small mid rise apartment building.  So everyone was staying in an apartment that had anywhere from 3-4 bedrooms.  So it was like having roommates but with your own private room!  There were two bathrooms, a small kitchen, FREE ENSUITE LAUNDRY (which was pretty exciting on a backpack trip!), a full living room with tv, and balcony!  We met some really nice people that we shared the apartment with, mostly Canadians and Australians.  Here Cliff is washing up after dinner!

Gay time!  So this looks like a decent crowd hey?  Well, when we got there, there were way less people, and what you see is almost all that was there!  We were surprised how small gay pride was in Barcelona, and that it was only their 2nd one ever!  Thankfully as it got closer to the parade time, more people showed up.  Unlike Toronto, you don't have to show up hours before!  One thing that was good and bad at the same time, was there were no barriers on the side of the street!  So people would push the crowd closer and closer to the parade, which was fun cause you felt more connected to what was going on, but it also meant much more a chance of ending up under the wheel of a giant float or bus!

It's Spain, lots of gay guys, almost wearing nothing...need we say more?! :P Hahaha

A cool sculpture in a square very close to where the pride parade started.  In case you can't figure out what it is, it's two staircases on top of each other!

So, during the parade, we say this in a store window...at first, we laughed...thinking it was a joke, maybe cause of the event...but no, apparently there is a market for these HUGE granny (but granddad) briefs!  Really, you these would come up so high you could use these as underwear and a scarf at the same time!

At the start area of the parade, a marching band was warming up...there were great to watch, but the one in Avignon would have kicked their asses!  What is awesome...how hot it is in Spain!  So the parade starts at 6 in the evening, cause it's too damn hot in midday!  Jealous!? *snicker* ;)

Gay bus!

Gay people!  Hahaha, not all of them :P  Just the crowd and a cool building!

The next bunch don't need any explanation...just a bunch of floats!

Pick one! (but not the red shorts one....he is taken!) Hahahaha

The crowd leaving after the parade was done.  It basically followed it through the city, with the mass of people just walking and drinking in the streets...we followed for a bit, but then got hungry and went to eat!

On our way, aimlessly looking for a place to eat, we walked down this really cool street/alleyway kinda place.  Would be great to live in one of those apartments!

Further down the same alleyway, with a random but cool palm tree in the middle!

How can you go to Spain and not have any paella?! So this was our first meal out (we had cooked in the hostel the first night) in Barcelona and in Spain. It's not easy to find a paella that doesn't contain any red meat or pork, so when we saw this paella on the menu we wondered what was in it. Our waiter was a crankyhead and didn't really care about our question...Stefan was avid about knowing if there was red meat or not in it.  All he kept saying was "meat and seafood". When we asked what kind of meat, he said "I don't know, just meat." Some lady at the table next to ours said it's not red meat, just chicken. So we ordered it. And BOY was she wrong!! Damn her!! There was seafood, as you can see. Prawns and mussels, yum! But the meat... oh gosh the "meat"!!! Stefan couldn't touch any of it, so Cliff ate it all, but to this day he still has no idea what exactly he put in his mouth! He's pretty sure they were random parts of cow organs. Having said that, the paella was actually quite tasty! Stefan enjoyed the rice parts very much!

Stay tuned for more awesome Barcelona!

Aix-en-Provence & Marseille, France: June 24, 2010

While we were staying in Marseille we took a day trip to Aix-en-Provence. We had actually wanted to stay there overnight but couldn't find any CouchSurfing hosts so we were relegated to a day trip. Which was unfortunate, because the town is beautiful and you could easily spend a few days there. In a way it was a very typical French town, with lots of beautiful architecture and great cafes and restaurants, but when you're in France a beautiful town like this may be cliche but is so essential to the French experience...

Big water fountain in a roundabout close to where we got off the bus.

Around the fountain were a few massive sculptures (probably brass), all of the human body. We assume you can figure out what these are!

...The back of a head!

Man with missing arms. And lower legs. He has his penis though! So he is good for something :P

A very cool fountain that has a bit of greenery or moss growing on the top of it.

A cool building that we suspect is a church, but we're not really sure.

Nothing special...except we are in FRANCE!  Just a photo that gives a nice feeling of what the place is like!

A cool street in the town...we like the street but really like how this photo turned out!

In one of the big squares, where there was plenty of outside seating for restaurants and cafes, there was a large building with a cool clock tower on one side...and here you see the picture of it!

A sprawling bit of cobblestone road. As you can see there are lots of restaurants here with outside seating. What a beautiful place to eat! (which we did...but you will see later!)

Another cool street with nice buildings.  Again, we like how this photo turned out...if you make it large enough, and put your face up to your computer screen, it will seem like you were there! Oh, and turn a heat lamp on, cause it was hot that day! 

Another square...as many as we came across on this trip, they are always awesome places to sit, eat, and people-watch!

Okay, so on this trip we stuck to an eating regiment...only eat the traditional food of the country we are in.  This is the second time we broke our little rule (the first time being burgers in Nice).  Well, it wasn't so much a rule, cause we naturally wanted to eat the traditional food.  When we walked up a nice pedestrian street in Aix-en-Provence, we saw a large line up outside this tiny Vietnamese place.  It was take-out only, and we figured if people are lined up outside, it's gotta be good!  We got in line, and the guy in front of us started chatting us up, and pointed to the beef noodle dish at the front of this picture, and said, "that is the best thing you will ever eat in your whole life!" Well, we didn't believe him...no, we can't say he ended up being right, 'cause we never got the beef dish!  We were in line for a super long time (maybe 30-40 minutes), mainly because the asian man (who reminded Stefan of Mr. Miyagi from "The Karate Kid") who was serving was moving in super slow motion! It was painful!

Remember the square we said we ate at but you would see later...well, here we are about to chow down into our yummy meal in that square!  On the far left, we have a spicy tofu and onion dish, on the top was a chicken with noodles, bok choy and other veggies, and on the bottom was a shrimp, mango and basil salad.  Ok, so it the whole meal sounds like a pretty normal one...but it was holy shit balls amazing!  It was freaking tasty!  We then understood why there was a line!

A view of the square we ate that meal in....we sat just past where the bike is in the photo

Stefan relaxing in the sun after that delicious meal!

A cool cobble stone alleyway.

Another cool square with fantastic buildings around! If you had to eat at one restaurant per square on this trip, you would be one fat pig by the end!  Sounds ok to us!

We really like this building, imagine living in something like this! Yes please!

This was a nice, three sides of a square building with a quad in the middle. It seemed like something that should be in a prominent place and out in the open, but it was tucked away in an area with really narrow streets and wasn't populated by tourists at all.

Same church as in the beginning of this post...we came back around and took more photos and really liked how this one turned out.  Crazy blue sky, and it's totally natural!

How many narrow streets in Europe look cool!?  Too many, but we are gonna keep posting pictures of them anyway!

Ah, nice buildings and a roundabout...but see that sweet red Ferrari!?  We rented it for the day, Stefan is driving, Cliff stood outside for a minute to take a picture!  It cost a lot, but was worth it!   Hahaha, you can't seriously believe we did that!?  Okay, so we did get a picture of it, but the rest is bull! :P

The main street (the Cours Mirabeau) that leads into the old part of town was really cool.  It had a huge stone walking part, and a narrow stone driving part.  As you can see, it had lots of tress along it, and of course wonderful buildings and places to eat along side.  What was really great about it was how the cars and pedestrians mixed.  It never really felt like a street for vehicles, but somehow the cars being there didn't seem out of place.  It was also filled with lots of people just relaxing and enjoying the day!

Here is the Deux Garçons, a famous brasserie on the Cours Mirabeau. Built in 1792, it was frequented by great artists such as Paul Cézanne, Émile Zola and Ernest Hemingway!

Back in Marseille, at the top of the massive staircase outside the train and bus station.

Stefan and his massive Hoe!  He never had a Hoe so big!  Hoegaarden that is :P  His favourite beer ever!  Found this litre of beer in Marseille, for only about €2.50...which is about 3.30 Canadian...yeah, super cheap for a premium beer!  It was soooo tasty!

We both really liked Aix-en-Provence, and would have loved to stayed there longer.  Another great place we recommend to make a stop at if you are ever over that way!

Marseille, France: June 22-25, 2010

We made a point of visiting Marseille on our trip because we thought it would be really nice, but it turned out to be less impressive than we had expected. It fit in with Milan as a big city without a distinguishable character. Don't get us wrong--even though we weren't exactly blown away by the city we still had an enjoyable four days. If we weren't staying with our CouchSurfing host Sebastien, who was a great host and with whom we got along really well, Marseille would have been a skippable city.

A building we passed on the way from the train station to the port. Very cool!

A shot of some sailboats on the harbour.

Around the harbour were a few of these sculptures. Sort of like the moose sculptures in Canada! As you can see here each globe had something different on it.

Cliff during the morning when we were waiting to meet up with our CouchSurfing host. While we were both sitting there we had the pleasure of the company of an older street gentleman with a lot of character (i.e. beer in hand, not enough shower time, etc.) chitchatted us up about Canada, and went on a bit of a rant when we told him we liked Marseille...apparently he had some negative feelings for the city!

Above and below are three shots of Marseille's port.

Dinner time! It took us quite a long time to find a restaurant to eat at, but finally we found a decent-looking place with a menu that had something for the both of us. Cliff's meal: a salad with tomatoes and eggplant, topped with ham and fried cheese. Not bad!

Stefan's dinner...at first, it looked no better than penne pasta we make at home, and it tasted like that as well.  Good, but you know how you always expect (or hope!) that food at a restaurant will be better than you can make?!  Well, as I got further into it, it was one of those meals that gets better and better! By the end, it was pretty darn tasty!  It was pretty simple, penne pasta, chicken, tomato, pesto, and some other yummy things!

Our host Sebastien took us to a market the next day to buy some groceries, and on our way there we walked through some very cool alleyways! The graffiti, which wasn't particularly interesting on its own, gave these otherwise grungy alleyways an artsy, comforting feel.

At the market we shopped for ingredients for ratatouille!

Musical accompaniment to your grocery shopping!

Cool cathedral close to the centre of town. It looks like it's at the end of a main road but the road actually forks around it.

A fountain with no water and a mermaid!  She's gonna dry up!

Joining Padova and Nice, Marseille's tram transport, as you can see, is fairly new. We found this city's trams extra cool because they were so futuristic! It looks like something out of Wall-e or 2001: A Space Odyssey!

A not-very-pretty shopping street... :P This photo should give you an idea of what the downtown core looks like.

Some government building... If we had kept up on the blog better we'd probably be able to tell you what building this was! 

This is a really nice looking building, although you can't see much of it!  The fountain to the right, you can see just below and behind the tree was really cool...but you'll have to go to Marseille to get a better look at it! :P

We went to visit this church on a hilltop which gave you a very good panoramic view of Marseille. The church sis directly behind us in this photo.

Voilà!

Interesting architecture...kinda has a slight look of a castle!  The black painted stones used in the tower give it a unique, almost pirate look to it.

Views from the top!

Inside the church. The red-and-white striping is pretty unusual and reminded us of the churches back in Monterosso!

A square with lots of outdoor seating for its restaurants.

Another photo of the harbour.

A nice big roundabout down by the waterfront.

Here you can see the church we visited earlier.

The first building we encountered when entering the old town.

Cool street shots in old town Marseille!

The Hospice de la Charité, which was an orphanage.

Inside the gates of the hospice, surround the building in the first photo, are these arcades.

Not the nicest looking alleyway but there is something about its character that we like a lot.

A very nice residential area at the top of the old town that seemed a bit out of place, given how the rest of the old town looked!

When in France, buy a baguette!

Our host Sebastien asked us what we wanted to make for dinner, and if there was something French we hadn't tried. We decided that ratatouille was the winner! 

Ratatouille, with two slices of the baguette Cliff was holding! We totally forgot the onions! But it was still awesome! Amazing how simple a dish ratatouille is, but it's so tasty! Sebastien is a great cook! Of course, cooking this French dish in France with a Frenchman probably didn't hurt either! :)

The Marseille train station. Magnificent staircase!

An obelisk in some square in Marseille.  We came across this round about on our way to the coast outside of the city.  We never got to the cliff on the coast due to some transit confusion...

...but we did end up getting to this beach. But because we hadn't planned on going to the beach, we didn't have any swimwear with us. So we were relegated to people-watching. To the left outside this photo there was a topless woman playing catch with a friend...bouncy bouncy bouncy. Maybe not the most appetizing sight to two gays trying to eat lunch on a beach! It wasn't a nude beach but of course in France it's not uncommon to find nudity on any beach.

Just behind the beach there was a big park, with this random building in the middle of it! No idea what it was, but here is a photo of it :P It was a nice day in the city but for whatever reason over by the beach and this park it was soooooo hot! 

Here's Sebastien preparing our second meal together...

Tomatoes stuffed with veggies and finely chopped chicken breast, and scallop potatoes (or gratin dauphinoise in French)! Bon appetit! Another amazingly tasty homemade meal courtesy of Sebastien! :)

Us and Sebastien! We even match! :P

Like we said, we didn't find Marseille particularly interesting, but we are so thankful we had the pleasure of meeting Sebastien through CouchSurfing. He made Marseille fun and really because we enjoyed hanging out with him.  The city itself was okay, nothing to go back to or make a detour for, but our host made it worthwhile!