Home sweet home

Just a quick note to say that we made it back!

Day 12 - Last day in the Canaries

For our last day in the canaries, we took it easy. We did some souvenir shopping, found some really cool handicraft shops (and some really stupid touristy shops), and found that the Tea store was finally open. Once you hit September, the beach dies down and the stores open up (European August holiday over). We spent the afternoon at the beach, reading and knitting.

Tomorrow we begin the journey home!

Day 11 - Mall Monday

On Monday we thought we would check out what a mall is like here so we hailed a taxi. Of course we stopped at Mac Dee's for a couple of big mac's and seriously salty, crispy fries. The mall was a lot like a normal mall except the giant grocery store/walmart place along one side.

The rest of Monday was spent looking for trinkets and another yummy dinner of soup, focaccia, and pasta at Roma. The pasta had shrimps, smoked salmon, caviar, and langoustine. One still had his head.

Day 10 - Slow Sunday

Yesterday, we ate lunch at Roma, our new favorite place here. Like most restaurants along the waterfront, it is Italian, not sure why. Anyway, they have good pizza, pasta, and soup (which we had Monday night).

More oddities about this area. First off, I keep forgetting to mention that they play instrumental versions of Disney music in the breakfast room at this hotel. Very strange. Also, there is an ice skating rink right by the ocean near the hotel.

We tried to go to a fancy tea shop that we happened across, but every time we walk by, it is closed. Quite a few places here are closed until October, not sure why.

In the afternoon, we hit the beach for some reading (and knitting). We just missed the deck chairs that they set out, so we were just on the sand with our towels. We inflated the crocodile floatie that I'd bought and I proceeded to go make a fool of myself out in the water, but it was quite fun.

Day 9 - Sleepy Saturday

Today will probably be a beach day... Thought you all would like to finally see the photos though. Pictures page is here.

Enjoy the day!

Day 8 - The Big Talk

Today was the reason we're here, sort of. My talk for the conference was schedule for 9:30am (good to get it over with first thing). Still worried that I'd be plagued by the technical difficulties I had trying to give the talk on Monday, I wanted to arrive as early as possible to play around with the projector. Alas, I cannot change the shuttle service schedule, but not only did we arrive with plenty of extra time, but I didn't encounter the same problem. The talk went ok (Misty thinks I did better than I thought, no surprise there).

Rather than stay for the rest of the paper sessions that day, we took the bus back to Las Palmas (the conference is at the University campus in Tafira). We took a late lunch at one of the first places we ate where we knew we could get reliably decent pizza and mozzarella sticks. Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent resting and catching up on blogging and news (Palin?!).

Day 7 - Around the island in a day

Thursday was our last day with the car. We figured we better see the rest of the island while we had the car. We headed south along the coast, past Maspalomas to Arguineguín. the guide book mentioned a market on Tuesday and Thursday. Oh well, foiled again. The water front is really cute though. They have very tiny beaches.

Driving on, we encountered Puerto Rico. The Lonely Planet guide book for the Canary Islands describes the town as a 'good example of appalling town planning... the original fishing village has all but disappeared under a sea of concrete, with the apartment blocks stacked up like stadium seats against the mountains.' Um. Yep. Totally agree. It is atrocious.

We then headed to Puerto de Mogán. It is said to be the Venice of the Canaries. Well, if they count the canal and bridges sure... nothing else is remotely similar. And the canal... one side of it is a major road. We did see a submarine though, a yellow one. One in the water and one that hasn't seen the water in a very long time.

After the port, we headed north to Mogán in search of lunch at one of the best restaurants on the island. The guide book failed to mention that the restaurant may be closed the entire month of August for vacation. Thwarted but still determined, we drove on.

Before we found food, we found a cactus museum. Cactualdea has a supposed 1,500 species of cactus. We bought corn to feed the animals in the park (ducks, birds of some sort, a peacock, and a donkey).

Still hungry, we drove on. We gave up at 4 and went to a supermarket in San Nicolás de Tolentino, which the book describes as 'the sort of place you only hang around in because the ass has fallen out of your car.' The snacks we had and the seat in front of the church was nice. No complaints here.

Our car's ass in hand, we continued on to our beach destination of Sardina, only stopping at a viewpoint to see the cliff side and ocean. When we pulled up, there was a truck selling snacks and hot drinks but he drove off shortly after. As he drove off, I just kept thinking it would be a nightmare to drive a bus or truck on these roads. And wow, it was windy.

Sardina is at the NW corner of the island. The beach was smallish, sand a bit gray, and the water a bit chilly. You can see through the water though. Not as warm as the water in Maspalomas but very clear! After frolicking in the waves, we drove back to the hotel to crash. Friday... Alan's talk.

Day 6 - Camello? In Maspalomas? I don't know...

We found our camel, Richa, today, down at the southern tip of the island at the Dunas de Maspalomas. We headed straight for Maspalomas in the morning after breakfast to pack in as much as possible. It took a little while to locate the camels, and we ended up at a different outfit that we had first intended. In any case, the camels were hilarious. While waiting in line, we saw a previous group (a tour group) mount and head out. One lady's hair scent was determined to be extremely disagreeable to the camel behind her after she mounted. He yelled and yelled for a at least a few minutes, while she panicked, biting her nails. We saw a few other panicked folks as well, and were also amused when the camel wranglers had to tie on large weight bags to balance out the loads when one person was much more heavy than the other(s).

After the camel ride, we went in search of the elusive Palmitos Park. There are a few signs around town, but the intuitive following of these signs tends to leave one at a dead end more often than not. We stopped for directions at the police station and after a few more wrong loops, we finally found the canyon leading up to Aqualand, a huge waterpark, and Palmitos Park, our target destination.

Palmitos Park is a plant and animal zoo, which last year suffered severe damage from a fire, but is well reconstructed. We saw a huge variety of parrots, including a really fun parrot show. Who would have thought that you can teach a parrot to pedal a mini bicycle (with training wheels of course). You can see it here.

After watching the parrot show, we toured the rest of the park. We saw lots more birds, reptiles, cacti, orchids, butterflies, gibbons, and very briefly, and orangutang.

Then we headed down the canyon to Maspalomas and went to the Playa de Ingles to check out the beach. The water here today was quite warm and we played in it for a while, going out and floating back in on the big waves, getting completely drenched when they rolled over just before hitting us. We went to a nearby Mckee Dee's to get reliably good french fries, difficult to come by otherwise. Then we drove back to Las Palmas in the evening.

Day 5 - Driving the mountain loop

Tuesday we got a rental car. Yes, we decided to tool around the island, driving off the coast of Africa with our limited Spanish. It took a while on Monday to get a reservation with a company that had an automatic (I haven't driven a manual in a decade and Alan never has) and we figured it would be challenging enough driving hills with signs we didn't understand without having to worry about a clutch.

The car was delivered right to our hotel so all we had to do was get out of town and head south. The city is a bit scary but we did manage to find the freeway. I might point out that when I started the day I was thinking of recent drives to Portland (about two hours). Well, the island is only 602 square miles total. The first stop on our drive, Telde, was about 13.5 km away. So close! There was not a whole lot in Telde so we continued on our journey.

Ingenio, about 12 km south of Telde, is a very small town. It is known for its ceramics but we didn't find any. Next stop, Agüimes, 3 km south of Ingenio. Agüimesa is a neat network of small alleys, a church, and a park in front of the church. There were bronze statues of a camel, dancers, a mule, and a cellist. We walked around enjoying the cool breeze and then stopped to have a glass of fresh squeezed OJ at the local bar.

We decided to have lunch in a cave restaurant in Barranco de Guayadeque. Another short ride (6 km) and we have breezed through the canyon with a brief glimpse at the Interpretive Center. Here they have examples of the cave systems and methods of grinding grains. The surroundings are dry with a lot of cactus. The palm trees look a bit droopy too. The restaurant had a resident cat who begs for food from the visitors outside. They have grapes growing around the entrance. The view is of the caves in the mountains. It was quite amazing.

From there, we head 17 km to Santa Lucia. We stop at the Museo del Castillo de Fortaleza, a small castle built about 50 years ago to house an interesting collection of items. The 'museum' does not store the items in the best of conditions. The outside gardens were the only part I would recommend seeing. They have an almond tree, a fruit which looks like pomegranate, an olive tree, a lime tree, and an avocado tree. It was impressive to see these things just there on a tree.

We continued our drive and about 40 km later we reached the Cruz de Tejeda. It is a cross, carved from stone, that marks the center of the island. While not the highest point, it is up at 5184 feet. We could feel our ears pop on the drive down from the pass. We checked out a couple of the stalls and the goodies that they have for sale before we continue on. It is only 25 km to the next town, Teror. We drove through, admired the views, and then got back on the road to Las Palmas. We didn't do bad for our first time driving in Spain. The roads are in pretty good shape. Wednesday, we plan on finding the camels in the southern part of the island...

Day 4 - Bloody Monday

Today we did some non-vacationy things. I took the shuttle to the conference and gave a talk at the PROPER2008 workshop, while Misty worked on her pattern and sat on the beach a little. The University campus is... interesting, it's not so well defined as a campus. It's nice, with palm trees and good bus service, and residential areas all around. We had to walk quite a while for the lunch at the cafeteria.

Day 3 - Sunday, quiet Sunday

The goal of Sunday was to check out the local market. The Globetrotter Travel Guide to the Canary Islands boasts an open-air market on Sunday with over 250 stalls. We walked for hours and found nothing. We went to every area with the word Catalina in it and found no market. Thanks Globetrotter.

While walking, we passed a workout area on the boardwalk. It was pretty cool and people were using it. The equipment was colorful and had a spectacular view of the ocean. As you can see, Alan couldn't pass up the opportunity to work on his calves.

Walking further and we find the music hall (Auditorio Alfredo Kraus). It is a very elegant building right on the rocky coast. The decorations all over the building were ocean themed. Medusa has octopus legs instead of snakes...

After a lot more walking and staring at the blue, blue ocean, we ended the day at La Olivia. Dinner was a bowl of papas arrugadas, a salad with cheese made on the island, and a plate of little fried sardines. I ate all but 4 of the little fishies, which were very tasty.

Day 2 - First try at some beach relaxation

We began the day with the breakfast buffet and then a walk North from the hotel. Since our hotel is situated at the North end of the beach, the walk is along the elevated rocky edge of the water, more reminiscent of the Oregon coast. Along this route we found fishers fishing and others just lounging, one guy even doing a crossword out on the rocks.

We returned for lunch, and walked South along the beach in the afternoon, then later in the afternoon, we applied good quantities of sunblock and hit the beach ourselves. The sand is warm, but the water wasn't as warm as we expected. You can still get in and stay in, in fact, looking around, you'd think it was very warm. It was nice to lay out on our towels and dry off. The weather here is usually overcast, so there's not an abundance of sun to toast you right away.

After showering and taking a perhaps ill-advised nap (not quite adjusting), we went out for dinner. We didn't listen to our subconsciouses, which told us to avoid places where we never saw anyone else eating. The place we sat at failed to impress in more ways that one. First, Misty asked for a Ginger Ale, or 7-up, or Sprite. The waitress came back and said they were out of those, and then took our food order. She then came back a short while later and told us that although they were out of 7-up, we would have to order something from the bar in order to eat there (can't go with no drink), so we ended up (not) splitting a coke. The food itself left a lot to be desired. We tried a little fish variety plate, which was turned out to be different that expected, with some not-so-great sauces. The cured ham and melon was half good, that is, the melon was fantastic, but the meat tasted funny (that place in Venice had the cured ham and melon down). The spaghetti bolognaise was ok, but just not that appealing, especially to me on my stomach.

We grabbed some ice cream at a nearby spot and then headed back. On the way, we saw this hilarious sign for a Mexican restaurant that we will have to try.

Day 1 - Adjusting to beach life

Wow. Flying is rough. We spent 28 1/2 hours in airports and planes. That doesn't include driving to the airport in Eugene and the time driving from the airport in Las Palmas to the hotel.

Needless to say, we are just trying to adjust and rest.

We had a light breakfast of frosted flakes and oj in the hotel. The fresh kiwi and melon is very tasty here. The view from the breakfast table is fantastic. Our room has the same view (pic on right here), only higher up.

We have decided to take it easy today. After breakfast, we walked the walkway along the beach. The plants here are amazing. Aloe, palm, cactus, and bright colored flowers. There are little striped huts that hold all the blue beach chairs along the way. There are also multiple life guards sitting around watching the water. It is very quiet here, calm. No sand or water yet, maybe tomorrow.

We are resting (and obviously blogging) right now. We will find a quiet dinner later. Maybe at 'The Laughing Pig.'

We have arrived

Just a quick note, we've arrived at the Canary Islands!

Tomorrow!

We fly tomorrow! Through Portland, Amsterdam, and Madrid. Wish us luck on our journey. We should be arriving around 3pm Pacific Time, on Thursday.

Not in a coal mine

Soon, oh so very soon... Canary Islands.

Time to take off: 15 days

Home Sweet Home

So, we are on our way home now. I'm typing this over the Atlantic at approximately 38,000 feet. We are sad to go, but look forward to the things about home that we miss. At the top of the list is precious, precious water. Germany, Italy, and France are not third world nations, but "a tap with clean water" is a tall (sometimes too tall) order there. We look forward to eating out in Eugene and getting ice water automatically, for FREE (not 4.40 euro, with carbonation, per 0.75 liters).

We also miss breakfast, real breakfast. I'm told that the 'continent' in 'continental breakfast' comes from Europe being referred to as 'the continent'. Still, I've seen more substantial continental breakfast at the Motel 6. We never did quite come across regular style bacon. The eggs were always a gamble, and we were usually just left to some rather bland cereals (corn flakes), and nearly always warm milk and yogurt.

Air... clean air. Again, I'm told that these are not third world nations, but clean air is certainly a luxury across Europe. Even during our picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower, someone did their best to create a disgusting atmosphere by lighting up just a few feet away. I can't count how many times we would find a bench or place to sit somewhere in Venice with some food and then someone next to us would light up and we would either have to move, or be sick.

Supermarkets. I miss the supermarkets of the US. Any market in Europe is tiny and has no selection. They have one, maybe two brands of anything, and you have to go to the pharmacy to get advil or tums (which they don't have).

Air conditioning. Maybe it's the fact that electricity is 50 cents per killowatt hour, but Europeans don't like to buy or run their air conditioning. It's not that their just used to it, we saw many of them sweating bullets and being otherwise uncomfortable. What I never understood was that in the boats in Venice and most of the train and subway cars, you can't open the windows, or not more than a crack. If they'd just make them openable, things would have been much more comfortable.

Lines... I noticed this in past trips, Europeans (I think British excluded) have no respect for lines. They prefer to push and shove their grandmothers to get to the head of the queue.

Ok, enough complaining. We just wanted to make it clear that there are things we miss about the USA, besides our homes, friends, family, etc. We should also mention that there are many things that we prefer about Europe compared to the US. First, public transport is far beyond anything I've seen in the US. The Metro makes Paris extremely accessible (why do people bother with cars at all there?), and Dresden has a great set of tramlines (kind of like light rail). Of course, gas is $7-9 a gallon there.

Trains... European trains rock, they seriously rock. Smooth, quiet, fast, clean, and no stupid security lines or other crap you have to deal with at the airport. You just walk on, and walk off (oh no, but their so insecure! I feel so much safer on a plane after everyone has put their 3oz bottles in a ziplock!)

It's not hard to find good bread, cheese, pizza, chocolate, and crepes in Europe. They put more effort into making food right, rather than making it cheaply/efficiently. The bread has no preservatives and is rock hard in less than a day, but when you get it fresh, it's simply amazing.

More great things about European cities: Fantastic architecture, even just regular buildings. You look at just about any street in Paris and compare it to most streets in the US and you could just cry. It's like the ones in the US were built to be demolished in 20 years. Buildings in the US are just a tad too 'functional.'

Anyway, enough ranting. We had a fantastic trip, and it will be great to be back!

Thanks for reading the blog, Here is the pictures page, for those who missed it. More posts will come later upon further travels.

"There is never any ending to Paris..." A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Tschüs, arrivederci, and au revoir!

Paris - Day 4

Oh, our last day in Paris. We fly tomorrow back the states. We decided to get up early and catch a quick breakfast at Mc Dees before heading out. I was seriously looking forward to a sausage biscuit and those hockey pucks they call hash browns. We get there super early so as not to miss it (like we did the day before) and when I try to order the sausage biscuit, she tells me 'sorry, only breakfast items.' I am a bit confused so I try to order the hash browns and she says the same thing. The only thing they have on their breakfast menu is a bacon, cheese, egg biscuit and pancakes. Two small pancakes... Grrr. What is it with the tiny breakfast here? How can you possibly start a day with only a croissant and coffee?

After Mc Cheese we head to the Louvre to finish what we started on Friday. We have the first floor and second floor remaining. The paintings are housed on these levels, we primarily saw sculptures and other non-painting items before. The main attraction of course is the Mona Lisa. The photo taking rules changed since Alan was last at the Louvre two years ago. You can now take photos in the galleries housing the paintings, but no flash (right...). In the room with the Mona Lisa the regular crowd surrounds it. Everyone is taking photos, even people who only have cell phones. Alan went for the challenge shot of taking a photo of someone taking a cell phone photo of the Mona Lisa, so that you can see both the image on their phone and the real thing at the same time. Who takes a cell phone photo of the Mona Lisa... really?

We see more lovely Egyptian items, more sculptures, Napoleon the III's apartment, and then we reach a point when 'art goes stupid.' I do not claim to know art or even a tiny bit about art but I do know that a soiled mattress, shiny bug bodies, and part of a spine does not art make. Real nice Louvre. Love how you put it in with the Dutch paintings and not in with the French.

The Louvre completed, we headed to a different part of town for a bit of shopping. We headed to brand name lane and find giddy girls, high heals, and even higher price tags. We stopped in at Chanel and after a tiny purchase, we run like mad back to normal land. We found refuge in the hotel and rested a bit after the morning jaunt around the Louvre.

A trip to Paris cannot be complete without a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower. We headed out late in the afternoon with fresh cherries, a chunk of Camembert, a fresh baguette, a bottle of champagne, and a strawberry tart for dessert. We find space in the shade and spend the rest of the afternoon shooing pigeons and doing yoga in front of the Eiffel Tower. The park is amazing. There are tons of flowers, trees, and of course a view of a brilliant architectural feat.

The final item on our to do list was to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower. We decided to take the elevator having climbed so many stairs in so many places in so many cities. The wait in line was short and soon we zoomed up in the first elevator, which is at a slant. You have to change elevators at the second level so as we were in line to go to the top we got a chance to see the views. Even from the second level you can see so much. We get in a huge elevator and are again whisked up, this time to the tip top. We stepped out of the elevator and ran up a short flight of stairs to the open air viewing and saw a breathtaking view of Paris as the sun was about to set. Paris is truly beautiful and the amazing shade of pink cannot be explained, it must be seen. There were a lot of people but we wormed our way to the front to watch the sun set.

It turns out that there is a champagne bar on top of the tower. It also turns out that we happened upon a high school tour group at the top. It didn't take them long to figure out that they were of drinking age and soon some of them were paying quite a premium for a tiny amount. We had a good laugh as we watched them. It wasn't so funny later when we had to follow some of them down the stairs and listen to them try to claim they weren't a bit tipsy.

As we descended, we were lucky enough to be a part of the first round of sparkle lights. Every hour on the hour for about 10 minutes, hundreds of bright lights twinkle randomly up and down the tower while large blue-purple lights shine constantly on the tower making it glow. We could see this from our hotel room at night but it was even cooler to be on the tower, to see the lights up close, and hear the crowds cheer from below. To come from a town where our biggest tourist attraction is a large pit of acid water left over from strip mining, it is definitely humbling to experience something so beautiful.

We ended our final day in Paris at a tiny crepe stand in front of the tower. There was a merry-go-round filled with mostly adults and a couple of guys sketching portraits. I could not decide what crepe to get so I splurged and had two.

Paris - Day 3

First stop today was the catacombs... very interesting from an historical standpoint and also very sad/morbid. There are bones from millions (!) of Parisians down there, transferred from cemeteries all over.

Next, we headed to Rue Mouffetard, supposedly the oldest street in Paris. There, we found a lively street market. We picked up baguettes from the famous Les Panetons bakery, some cheese from a Fromagerie, and a smoothie from a smoothie stand and headed to the nearby park for a picnic.

From there, we headed to the Musee de Rodin, which is apparently the residence where Rodin lived later in life. It was a state owned apartment that he was able to live in rent free because he agreed to leave his art to the state. It houses many of his most famous pieces such as The Thinker, The Gates of Hell, and The Kiss.

Nearby is the Dome Church, and our Paris Museum Pass gets us in for free so we dropped in to check it out. The Dome Church houses Napoleon's remains. Yes, that's a huge coffin, but the little guy is encased in six coffins, though we're not sure why (maybe to make him look big?).

We headed to the Arc de Triomphe next, which is a very impressive monument at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. From the top, we survey Paris, from the Eiffel Tower, to the Louvre, to the skyscrapers in La Defense. There was some kind of ceremony going on with the Tomb of the Unknown soldier there, and the police folks didn't like us trying to move around the arc to take pictures of the massive statues.

We took a nighttime climb up the towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame. We saw the sparkly lights from the Eiffel tower (hourly) from afar. After climbing down the steps, we found some quick dinner and near the end of our meal the Euro2008 final game finished with Spain beating Germany 1-0. Even though we were in France, there were tons of fans celebrating immediately. The same honking, yelling, and other behavior that has followed us from Dresden, to Venice, to Juelich/Cologne, has followed us here to Paris.

We took a stroll through the Latin Quarter, got some crepes, and wandered about. There's quite a bit going on there on a Sunday night. Still, the fans of Spain were all over, and when we returned to the Metro stop, we saw that the fans were all over in the fountain of Saint Michel (Fontaine Saint-Michel). Three police officers were right behind us as we watched, but they didn't seem to care.