Castillo Adventures

Ah Paree! Paris is a very charming city and our hotel was in the Latin Quarter.

We had an array of cafes, bistros, and international restaurants within walking distance, but with all the choices we had of where to eat. Raymond and I kept going back to a small Mexican bistro called Mexi &Co. Yes, that's right. I said Mexican. Really, we were craving Mexican food so badly that we swear we could smell Chorizo breakfast tacos. Mmmmmm, breakfast tacos.

So, while we were looking for our hotel when we first arrive in Paris, my eyeballs zoned in on the big red sign. Really, how can you miss it!

But even in France, I get picked on for not speaking Spanish well. Who knew that I would be expected to speak Spanish in Paris!

As some of you may know, my work as a professor centers around culture and identity, and what happens to individuals when they don't live up to cultural norms. What I call intragroup marginalization in my research. I experience this in the U.S. But when the waitress at Mexi & Co asked me in Spanish, why I didn't speak Spanish, my jaw dropped. This is basically how the conversation went.

Waitress (in Spanish): Are you Latino?
Me: Si
Waitress (in Spanish): Do you speak Spanish?
Me (in Spanish): a little bit.
Waitress: Why? (looking at me like something is wrong with me)
Me (in Spanish): I am from the U.S. I understand Spanish better than I speak it . . . .(and some other nonsense)

So, it looks like I am going to have to take my research internationally. anyhoo, enough of this academic stuff and onto fun pics in Paris.

Since I was an undergrad at Southwest Texas State University (now known as Texas State), I have always wanted to see the Palace of Versailles. I remember the first time I saw photos of the palace in an art class and thought, "Wow!" At that time, I never thought I would ever see it in person. I am so happy that I had the opportunity to do so.

The outside is beautiful but the photo I saw as an undergrad was the hall of mirrors. What can I say. In person, it is even better!

The gardens were also spectacular! Over 800 acres of it! well, you know me, I am too lazy to walk that far so I only walked around a little but still got some great photos.

And finally the art work that King Louis had was awesome. The French really do know how to live!

The highlight of my time in Rome was going to Vatican City to see the Sistine Chapel. I love Renaissance artists like Michelangelo and Raphael or as my hubby puts it, two of the ninja turtles (Blasphemy!). The Vatican Museum is amazing! There is so much beautiful artwork. No photos were allowed in the Sistine Chapel, so I will post some of my favorites from other sections of the museum.

We also went to see St. Peter's Basilica. Again, it is amazing!

Learned something new while in Rome. First, it is possible to squish thousands of people into one coach on the metro. Two, my legs will continue to function after walking 9 flights of stairs through Dante's Inferno . . .I mean the Rome Metro. Third, there are such things as hotel rooms the size of my closet. Finally, June 2 is Republic Day in Italy and a huge parade blocks all roads leading to the Colosseum for two hours.

Really, when the comments on trip advisor said the rooms in the hotel I stayed at were small, they weren't kidding! Sitting on the middle of the bed, I can almost touch each wall with my fingers!!

I was really excited about being in Rome, but I think that crowds of people and the lack of cleanliness around the city let me down a bit. After all the other big cities in Europe we visited, Rome was a disappointment. With all the wonderful history, I would think there would be some pride in the city. But no, you couldn't tell by the way it looked. Oh well.

The main reason we wanted to go to Rome was to see the Colosseum. I also wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. So off we went on June 2nd to see the Colosseum. As we waited among hoards of people on the subway platform, we saw a train full of people pull up. I don't know how we did it but we managed to squeeze onto the train.

When we arrived at the stop, we were wondering why all the streets were blocked. Well we found out it was Republic Day for Italy and Rome always has a huge parade. So we decide to see if we could find a way around the parade to get to the Colosseum. The good thing about going the indirect way to the Colosseum was the wonderful sites.

But, we couldn't find a way around so we decided to sit and wait for the parade to be over. From where we were sitting, we did get to see a great air show!

Finally, we were able to get to the Colosseum. I was shocked to see the Italian flag on the Colosseum itself. But hey it is Republic Day. They did take it down later though.

I was in awe of the Colosseum. It is a beautiful sight! However, as we walked towards the exit, I noticed some carvings etched into the Colosseum walls. It is sad to see people being so disrespectful. But the one that made me really sad was this one.

Note: Didn't see a longhorn.

Milan has a beautiful railway station and interesting characters that work and live (yes, live) there. The guy in the green shirt holding the plastic bag one of many other guys in the station who sell the creepy moving toys.

Here are some pics inside the station itself. Love the architecture!

Milan is an interesting place. Interestingly, it reminds me of Mexico. Instead of children trying to sell you chicle, there are men outside the train station eagerly trying to sell you cheaply made sunglasses and moving toys that look like they came from that 80's horror movie Puppet Master.

It was beautiful weather in Milan and so we took one of those hop-on, hop-off tours. Mostly we hop on and stay on because were are too lazy to do anything else. But we did hop-off once to see the Duomo. Well, mostly because I saw a McD's and I was really hungry and it just happened to be across the street from the Duomo.

This pic was out of the McD's window. We had a good view.

After lunch, we did go see the inside of the Duomo. It is gorgeous! But since no photos are allowed I didn't take any. However, lots of pics from the outside and I had another one of my Griswold moments.

So, I was standing in front of the Duomo so that Raymond can take my picture. See I look happy.

Then this Italian guy comes up to me, sticks corn in my hands and talks to me in Italian.

I kinda, sorta understand what he is saying because some Italian words sound like Spanish. Anyway I thought he just wanted me to throw the corn at the pigeons. But no he wanted me to hold my hand out and have the pigeons eat out of my hands! Well, when the pigeons landed on my hand two things went through my head. First, like ouch, pigeon claws hurt and second, like ewww, germs! This can't be sanitary so I immediately through the corn on the ground.

This guy would not give up. He kept trying to stick corn in my hands. So I started walking away with Raymond quickly following behind me. The guy then stuck out his hand at me, showing me some Euros. He then said, "Money." I was about to grab some of his Euros (you know how much I like free things) when it hit me that he wanted ME to pay HIM for giving me germs! So I gave him a dirty look and walked to the entrance of the Duomo. Of course he didn't follow since there were Italian police at the entrance. However, I did hear some colorful Italian words.

Ok, enough of that. Here are some more pics.

Wow! What can I say about Venice. Really, I had no idea how beautiful it was going to be. I have seen the photos and watched travel documentaries but I was not prepared for what it would be like seeing it in person. I would say the entire time I spent in Venice was an OMG moment. This is a place where I definitely want to come back and soak in some more!

When we arrived in Venice, the first thing we did was look for a ticket for the vaporetto because the Gondola is way too expensive and as I mentioned before I am cheap . . .I mean frugal. So as Raymond and I were standing in the Venice train station, I said out loud, "We need to but tickets for the boat." Suddenly, this woman approaches us and asks in a thick accent, "you want tickets? I have tickets for you." She then proceeds to stick two tickets with receipts in my hand. I must have looked at her skeptically because she told me that she and her husband are leaving and the tickets were still good until late that evening. I thanked her and asked where she was from. She said Switzerland and I told her were from the States. I shook her hand, thanked her again, and she left. The first thing I said to Raymond was, "Let's go to the ticket booth to see if these are real." and guess what? They were! Thank you Switzerland!!

So the day is off to a good start since we saved ourselves $30 Euro. We really enjoyed the sites as we cruised through the canal.

But I was really in awe when we arrived at Piazzo San Marco and I got a look at Doge's Palace. I mean like wow! There are just no words.

Switzerland is beautiful. Hands down! In my next entry I will post some pics on our train travel through Eastern Swiss Alps.

Zurich is really expensive! Lucky Raymond, I am not too fond of shopping unless there is a really, really, really good bargain like say under $10 for a nice blouse (see how cheap, I mean frugal, I am?). So the prices for food are really high and forget about going to the rest room at the train station (what's up with charging 2 CHF for women and only 1 CHF for men? Really!!)

So whenever I get free stuff, that always makes me happy . . .except for the free wake up call I got every morning in my hotel at Zurich.

The hotel I stayed at was really nice. Big room, washer and dryer on the floor below are room, free internet, and the all important free breakfast.

Behind our hotel is the University of Zurich.

When we first arrived, we opened the windows since there was no air conditioner and the room was a little stuffy. There were some birds on the ledge of our windows that were happily twittering away. It was very pleasant and I enjoyed it. However, at 5:30 am, I woke up to one bird's annoying twitter. He (yep, I am sure it was a he) just kept yapping. tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet. Ugh! Shut up already!

The following morning again. 5:30am. Tweet, tweet, tweet. It was really starting to annoy me!

Now there were other birds tweeting but this one particular bird was doing an annoying tweet as if to try to get our attention. So, I looked out the window and found the bird.

Don't let that cute face fool you. He has a very annoying tweet that goes on, and on, and on.

I give you Exhibit A of the annoying tweet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ilr0rR7us4

I rest my case.

Raymond and I really wanted to see the Swiss Alps but the Berina Express and other "specialty" tour trains are really expensive. Fortunately, on trip advisor, an individual wrote that the only thing special about the Berina Express Train is that the coaches have special windows. Also, the other regular trains go through the same route. Since we had our Eurail passes, we decided to hop on a train and take the same path (no extra charge!). So off we went and it was well worth it!

This was our train.

We only went up to St. Moritz and I have one question for anyone who has an answer, please let me know. What is this?

Here are a few pics of the Swiss Alps. You can see more in my photo album.

BTW for my Texas friends, it was in the 50s. NICE!

As much as I am enjoying my "grand tour" of Europe, there are a few things that I miss. What is up with charging for ketchup? We're lucky if we get 1 free with our french fries. Really, ketchup can't be that expensive. So, Raymond and I are not the type of people who like to try new types of food especially when trying to keep costs low when traveling. If we buy something, we want to make sure we are going to eat it all. So we tend to stick to food we know what it will taste like.

Sad to say that we have been hitting the Burger King and McDonald's frequently. It is really sad when we look in the bag and see only one ketchup packet and two ice cubes in our drinks, really, really sad. To keep costs low, we were fortunate to book hotels that gave free breakfasts. Well, its more like I searched for hotels that included a free breakfast. The breakfasts are great but no pancakes! Because there aren't any pancakes, I am really starting to crave them right now. Oh well. But one thing is for sure, I am addicted to Nutella and croissants!

When we can't find a near-by McD's or BK, we go a local grocery store. Now this is an adventure! We can't really read the labels on some of the luncheon meats (I think I am going to have to take some German classes) so we guess at what the food is. This is really entertaining! Its pretty easy to guess ham but the others tend to be more difficult. I bought a sandwich that I though was chicken but when I bit into it, it didn't taste like chicken. It was really good though so I ate it. I could look it up . . . on second thought, I don't want to know.