I returned to Budapest last night from a two-week trip that included stops from Barcelona, Spain to Venice, Italy and Zagreb, Croatia, and promptly dropped my bags and couched it for about 12 hours before I was able to function.
As you can see in the photos I took (see links below), I did my share of visiting the sites in the three cities. Yes, I became what I used to make fun of when I was back home, that guy with the cameras and maps (though, minus the 'I Love (insert city here)' T-shirt). I got to visit three of the most historic cathedrals in the world, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia in Barcelona, St. Mark's Basilica in Venice and the Zagreb Cathedral. All three have amazing stories, which I'd touch on, but instead will leave you to your Google prowess to search for your history lesson.
I was able to taste some of the cuisine from each of the three countries; check out the nightlife; meet folks from all over the world while staying in hostels; finish another book (George Steinbrenner's autobiography, a must-read for all you Yankee fans) while on various plane, bus and train rides; advanced 12 levels in Angry Birds on my iTouch once I finished the book and no longer had anything to do during down time; got a few history lessons from locals I met; and spent what probably would amount to at least an hour trying to figure out how much the conversion rates were in U.S. dollars when spending euros in Spain and Italy, kunas in Croatia, and then converting currency back to forints when I returned to Hungary (ask my high school girlfriend, Jackie, who woke me from dozing off almost daily in Algebra II class, she'll tell you how much of a mathematician I'm not).
Oh, and a 30+ year-old change purse that my mother gave me from when she and my father lived in Germany (where I was born, on a U.S. Army base) in the late 70s and early 80s, has proven invaluable over here. They love their coins!
The nightlife in Barcelona, especially down on the beach, was awesome. There were more Latin dance clubs than you can ever imagine, though if you ever venture over there, make sure you pre-drink before going out, it's expensive. I wanted to buy the first round when we went out, and after being handed seven beers, was then handed a bill for 63 euros (about 95 bucks). I asked if Daniel Snyder owned the place, but I don't think the bartender understood my joke. I also checked out the stadium where FC Barcelona plays its games and saw perhaps the biggest team store in the world, but balked at paying 20 euros to simply walk through the stadium; the Olympic stadium, which was next to where we played our baseball tournament, as well as the Olympic museum; and really enjoyed some of the street performers on Catalyan Street, a big tourist site just above their main harbor.
Venice was awesome, but wouldn't recommend going by yourself. It's definitely a couples and family destination. As I emailed to my brother, at one point I got tired of walking around and looking at 1,500 year-old churches and hot European women with their husbands or boyfriends, so decided to retire to a pub and have a drinking competition with myself.
Zagreb, I have to tell you, is a hidden gem that many people don't know about. While many of the locals had gone to the sea, where Croatia boasts some of the most gorgeous beaches in the world, the city itself was fantastic. The people were very welcoming, much more so than I felt the Italians were while I was in Venice or during my brief stop in Trieste. The central square and "upper town" were definitely worth checking out, and I met some nice girls one night when I went out who boasted proudly that the necktie and the pen were first made in Croatia.
Over the course of my trip, I met: a taxi driver in Spain whose passion and knowledge of American 80's music was borderline creepy; two Dutch girls that I taught a few American drinking games to in my last night at a hostel in Barcelona; a Filipino group from New York City, one of which was a cook traveling Europe looking to learn the cuisine and take back ideas to his restaurant in Manhattan; a French couple that I shared a hostel with my last night in Venice; some crazy Finnish guys I had some beers with on our patio in Zagreb; an Irish guy who must have downed two bottles of wine during our four-hour bus ride from Trieste to Zagreb and bent my ear the whole time about American politics, his love of American football, the IRA, some good Irish jokes, questions about baseball, stories of him time spending a summer in the states (you get the point, drunk Irish guy, likes to talk, you're stuck sitting next to him, wishing you had a white flag to waive); a cute Austrian girl I met on the train from Zagreb back to Budapest who spoke five languages and laughed off my marriage proposal after telling me she grew up playing baseball; and a couple more Dutch girls, also on the train to Budapest, who were coming into town for the Sziget Festival, a Woodstock-like concert that starts here on Tuesday, with Prince as the headline act.
Whew. You're burned out from reading. I'm burned out from traveling. Now I have another week-long camp next week with kids ages 7-14, which I'll definitely be needing that white flag for at some point.
Oh, NFL kicks off its preseason next weekend. A shoutout to my step father, Jim, for fixing my Slingbox back home. Now I'll be able to watch AND listen to my 'Skins go 5-11 again this fall!
Barcelona Photos
Venice Photos
Zagreb Photos