In an effort to be more “concise” with my blogging, I’m going to try writing shorter articles and be more brief when I talk about what we’ve been doing.  In the past, I’ve summarized several days into one blog, but this is a little different.  Right now we’re starting to research and plan our next leg – Southeast Asia – and I realize how useful people’s blogs can be when looking up information.  As a result, I’m making sure that I put any relevant and useful information into my blog entries while trying to be more concise.  Here goes attempt # 1….

Yesterday, we checked into Nena Hotel, which we found through TripAdvisor.  Compared to all the hotels we’ve stayed at so far, it’s not bad, but it’s not great.  They let us check in early, but they gave us a room with two separate beds even though we asked for one big bed.  This morning they pushed the two beds together and swapped the two blankets for one big blanket, but I have a feeling the beds will not stay together as we toss and turn and then one of us will fall through the middle!  On the plus side, there is a full buffet breakfast included. 

We went to the famous Grand Bazaar last night, but didn’t stay long.  Unless you’re serious about buying stuff, you can’t stop to look at anything because the shop keepers won’t leave you alone once you show some interest!  Even just walking straight people will come up to you and be like “want a nice carpet?” or “something to drink?”  The Grand Bazaar is a really cool market place, but stiff competition and lots of identical product makes it a really hard place to shop, unless you love to negotiate prices. 

And it’s not just the vendors at the Grand Bazaar that are aggressive – if you look like a tourist you will get harassed to “come try” every restaurant you pass.  From what we’ve seen, a lot of menus look the same so competition is again really stiff.  So far we’ve tried two restaurants that Ilyas recommended – Sultanahmet Köftecisi near our hotel and Konak Kebap on Istiklal street, Istanbul’s main shopping drag.  Sultanahmet Köftecisi specializes in Turkish meatballs and a Köftecisi sandwich with a yogurt drink is a good deal at 5 lira (they’re more like a short minced meat kebabs than meatballs).  There’s actually two restaurants named Sultanahmet Köftecisi on the main street by our hotel and we tried both (one last night and one tonight).  The one next to a restaurant called Pudding Shop was, in our opinion, better.  Konak Kebap was pretty good too, but service sucked. We’ve been getting charged a 10% service fee everywhere, which Ilyas tells me (via Facebook) shouldn’t be the case, but we’re not the type to argue, so I guess we’ll keep paying it and not leave a tip instead.

This morning we tried to go to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (also called the Blue Mosque) but it was prayer time when we showed up so we couldn’t go in.  If you hear singing coming from speakers placed all around the area, it’s the Islamic call to prayer and the Mosque is closed to visitors during that time.  Instead, we went and took the public ferry to Harem, which is on the Asia side of Istanbul. Most people take the Bosphorous Cruise for 20 lira to see the castle ruins at Anadolu Kavağı, but this puts you there for at least 2 hours, and Paul wasn’t up for that.  Going to Harem is kind of pointless, but it only cost 1.50 lira on our Akbil and at least we can say we made it to the Asia side of Istanbul.  After this, we made the mistake of walking across the Galata Bridge on the lower pedestrian only level, which is full of restaurants trying to solicit your business.  Unless you’re looking for somewhere to eat, there’s no reason to walk across the bridge on the lower level.

So far, Istanbul kind of reminds me of Hong Kong – vibrant, crowded, hot even though it’s November, and questionable in terms of hygiene and cleanliness but food tastes good so who cares!  I could do without all the pushy sales pitches, but the people here are so nice you can’t help but smile as you say “no thanks!”

I am excited to report that tonight we officially attended our first real opera and, lucky for us, The Marriage of Figaro was playing so we sort of knew what was going on!  The Don Giovanni marionette show brought out more of an appreciation of opera for me, but tonight took it to a whole new level and I can’t wait till I get a chance to go again.  Paul isn’t quite as enthralled, but he played the part of the good husband and stood through 3/4 of the performance with me, so I can’t complain…

Our day began at the Wiener Prater, a large public park in Vienna’s 2nd district, made up of widespread meadows, an amusement park known as Wurstelprater, and various restaurants & cafes.  The entire park is free to go in, but you pay per ride at the amusement park (ranging from €2-4 each ride).  I had read that you can get great views of Vienna while riding the “Giant Ferris Wheel,” but we decided against it when we got there and saw how run down it looked (the whole place is a bit run down actually).  I love roller coasters and amusement park rides in general, but Paul has recently started to get motion sick so now he refuses to go on them.  Since it’s no fun to do rides alone, we skipped all the rides and walked around eating mini-doughnuts instead

When we got to a stable of mini horses for kids to ride, we noticed an adorable Newfie dog running around off-leash.  Several other people noticed him too and we amusingly watched as one girl and her boyfriend started playing with the dog, who had fixated on a Sid the sloth doll (from the Ice Age movie) she was holding in her hand which I think they had just won at one of those carnie games in the park.   After 10 minutes or so, the girl and her boyfriend started to leave but the dog kept following them wanting the doll!  Eventually they gave in and let the dog have Sid, and he happily trotted over to the horse’s stables to chew on his new toy.  That’s what you get for teasing a dog with a toy!

As we finished at Prater, an email came through on Paul’s Blackberry advising us that the standby tickets we wanted for the Opera weren’t allocated.  When I had looked up the schedule on our second day in Vienna, I was excited to see Le Nozze Di Figaro was playing tonight, but the only tickets left were 200 euro each, which was a lot more than we were prepared to spend on our first opera, so I put our name in for standby tickets in the 10-40 euro price range. Two days ago I would have been disappointed by this email, but yesterday I learned in Rick Steves’ book that 567 dirt cheap (€3-4) standing room tickets are released for sale 80 minutes before show time, so we had a backup plan to get in! 

Since we had 2 hours to kill before we could buy tickets, we headed back to city center to try a restaurant called Reinthalers Beisl that was recommended in Rick Steves’ book.  Everything was quite good, but our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and we ordered 3 dishes to share (the schnitzel, brats with sauerkraut, and goulash), which was a ridiculous amount of food.   But the brats, which were our third choice, turned out to be the best dish so I’m glad we got them!

According to Rick Steves, there’s no rush to line up for standing room tickets unless someone special like Plácido Domingo is in town, so we took our time getting to the Opera, arriving 90 minutes before show time.  We were surprised to see a fairly large lineup forming and quickly got in line since Rick’s book also said to try to get tickets in the “parterre” section for a front and center view, directly below the Emperor’s box, if you’re among the first 160 people (see picture above).

We struck up conversation with two guys behind us who were music students from the UK and Germany studying in Vienna, and they helpfully explained how standing room works.  There are three standing room sections (parterre, balcony, and gallery) and each section is made up of steps (sort of like at the movies) with rails in front of you for you to lean on.  On the rail there is a small screen which, during the performance, provides a translation of the opera in either English or German.  After you buy your ticket you go inside, pick a spot at a rail, and secure that spot by tying a scarf to the rail.

Following their good advice, as soon as we got our tickets we rushed to the parterre section to get a spot before checking our coats.  We managed to get one of the last remaining rail spots near the back (still a great view) and secured our place by tying our hats to the  rail since neither of us knew to bring a scarf and you’re not allowed to use your jacket.  Normally you would stand 4 people per rail on each side (right and left), but on a busy night like tonight people were squeezing in wherever they could fit, including in the middle area between the left and right side where there was no rail to lean on.  If you manage to be among the first into the parterre section (you’ll have to line up way earlier), the front row gives you an awesome completely unobstructed view and you lean on wall which separates the parterre standing section from the expensive €200 per ticket seats in front.

After our last experience of standing through Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare’s Globe, I had to promise Paul I wouldn’t insist on staying through the entire performance in order for him to agree to come with me.  We initially planned to stay for just one act, but having the rail helped and Paul agreed to try to stay for the entire opera.  After act II, though, his feet were tired and he was ready to go.  With some begging and pleading I managed to get him to go back inside for act III after the intermission, but we skipped act IV and left after that. 

While my knowledge of opera isn’t good enough to hear the difference between the professionals singing tonight and the aspiring students we heard back at UBC, I felt like seeing tonight’s opera was a much grander experience because of the setting.  The Vienna State Opera House is beautiful and historic, the orchestra and acoustics sounded wonderful, and the costumes and sets were amazing.  I wish we could have saw the entire performance, but I was very happy that I got to see act III because it has my favorite songs in the opera.  If you’re going to Vienna, definitely go get some standing room tickets to an opera!  Or, as Rick Steves suggested, wait outside and bum tickets off people leaving during the intermission since many don’t stay for the entire performance!

We started our second day in London by taking the Tube to Tower Hill station, where we met up with Calvin to go see the Tower of London and the nearby Tower Bridge.  We decided to eat before going sightseeing, and ended up at a place called The Minories for our first pub meal.  The prices were astonishingly cheap – they had a huge selection of entrees that were two for ₤7.45 – and we shared five entrees (Chile Con Carne, Fish & Chips, Pie of the Day, Bangers and Mash, and Cajun Chicken Salad) and two desserts for less than ₤30!  The food wasn’t anything phenomenal, but it was decent for the price, especially compared to what we’ve been paying for so far!

Since all three of us didn’t feel like spending ₤17.50 each to go into the Tower of London (I know it’s a World Heritage Sight and houses the Crown Jewels, but we can’t go into everything or our spending will be completely out of control and the Tower just didn’t interest us that much), we made our way across Tower Bridge and walked along the River Thames, on the opposite side of where we were yesterday.  On this side we saw the London Bridge, the Clink Prison, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and the Tate Modern, where we stopped walking and went inside for a look around – it’s free so why not!  On the lower floor we saw a huge area that looked like a playground, with kids climbing everywhere and people playing on balancing contraptions, and we started to wonder where we really were – a modern art museum or a jungle gym?  To clarify, we asked the girl at the information counter, and she laughed and told us it is a modern art museum, but sometimes it feels like a playground, and there’s a special exhibit on the lower floor for “interactive” art.  Interesting…

Because Calvin really wanted to see the Florence Nightingale Museum, we continued walking along the Thames, passing by the Dali Universe and the London Eye, where we stopped briefly to watch some street performers.  I had initially wanted to go on the London Eye, but the huge line-up and ₤17.50 ticket cost made me change my mind – maybe another day!  After a lot more walking, we finally found the Florence Nightingale Museum at about 5 o’clock, only to learn that it closes at 4:30 on Saturdays and last admission is one hour before closing so we wouldn’t have made it in anyways! 

Tired from all the walking, we decided to hop on the next bus that came, even though we had no idea where it was headed.  We got off at Oxford Circus, a major shopping area in London, and hopped on the Tube to get to St Paul’s Cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and one of London’s most visited sights.  Unfortunately none of us had looked up our sightseeing before heading out today, so we didn’t know that St Paul’s closes at 4 p.m. and we got there at 6:30!  Paul and I weren’t too disappointed because we have seen and will see more than our fair share of churches this trip, but it would have been nice to see St Paul’s because our friends from England told us it was really really nice.  Again, maybe another day!  We really need to plan our days out more…

Tonight we are on our first ferry ride of this trip, taking the Stena Line from Hoek van Holland to Harwich, England.  Stena operates two ferries from Hoek van Holland to Harwich each day, one during the day and one overnight.  We were originally going to take the daytime one, but when we realized our mistake about miscounting the number of days we had been in Schengen Agreement countries (as mentioned before, Canadian citizens are allowed in for 90 days out of every 180 without a visa), we changed our reservation to the overnight ferry.  Once we got onboard and saw that the ferry is more like a mini cruise ship and we have a decent room equipped with bunk beds and a washroom and shower, I was glad we took the overnight ferry instead.  At about the same price as plane tickets to London (€ 45 each including the train ticket from Harwich to London), I think the ferry is a much more relaxing way to travel and you save on one night of accommodations by taking the overnight ferry!

Our ferry didn’t leave until 10 this evening, but we got there at 8 in order to give ourselves plenty of time to pick up the tickets we reserved online.  The ticket pick-up was quick and easy as everything was ready in an envelope for the lady at the ticket counter to hand us, and we got onboard after getting stamped out of the EU by a couple of customs agents who were checking passports as you got to the boarding area – they do check the stamps in your passport to determine number of days you have been there! 

Since we were so early, I thought we would be among the first people on board, but there was already a large crowd of people drinking at the bar!  In addition to having cabins for you to sleep in (and there are several different classes of cabin you can pay for like on a cruise), there was also a lounge/bar area, a huge cafeteria-style dining area, a small casino, a small theatre, and a large outdoor deck area.  You can also get wi-fi internet access for a small cost, so Paul really does have everything he needs!  Personally, I’d take this ferry over flying any day…

This morning we headed to Rotterdam, the second largest municipality in the Netherlands and home of the largest port in Europe.  We had originally planned to overnight here and catch a ferry from the nearby town, Hoek van Holland, to England tomorrow morning, but last week we realized we miscounted the number of days we’ve been in the EU so we had to cancel our reservation and take the overnight ferry tonight or risk getting caught for overstaying our welcome and be banned from Schengen Agreement countries!

Our morning was off to another frazzling start today when we weren’t able to use our credit card on the automated ticket machines to buy our train tickets to Rotterdam (I’ve been holding off on pulling more Euros from a bank machine since we’ll soon be switching to the Pound).  We went to line up at the ticket office, which was really busy near the front because most people don’t realize there are more ticket agents if you walk in further and everyone starts queuing at the first two agents.   We went and lined up at the fourth wicket, where there was only one person in front of us so we got our tickets quickly, but going inside to buy from an agent was pointless because they don’t take credit card payments either!  Thankfully we had just enough cash on us.

When we got to Rotterdam, we tossed our bags in a storage locker at the train station and went out to see a bit of the city before heading to Hoek van Holland.  We walked over to city center, where we ended up doing some browsing at a big electronics store Paul dragged me into.  I was mildly bored until we reached the second floor, where they had a huge selection of household items, like vacuum cleaners and Nespresso coffee machines, at really great prices.  We went around looking at things we will eventually need again when we go home for good, and some stuff, like Miele vacuums, were priced so good we thought about buying everything here and shipping it home, but the power voltages are different so they won’t work back in Canada!  Visualizing a future home was kind of fun, but it made me kind of homesick – a part of me wishes we had a house to furnish and decorate!

After a bit more shopping in the city center (the whole city center is basically shopping), we walked along the Nieuwe Maas river, towards the Erasmusbrug, Rotterdam’s most well-know bridge.  We admired the impressive looking cable stayed bridge and the modern architecture along the river banks, and then walked toward the Euromast, a 185m tall tower that is one of Rotterdam’s main tourist attractions.  Since we’ve got the 553.33m tall CN Tower in Toronto, which we visit fairly frequently because Paul has family in Toronto, we didn’t bother going up the Euromast and went instead to a large nearby park to walk around.

When we stopped to check out a family of ducks at a pond, they swam towards us thinking we had bread to throw to them, making me feel bad that I didn’t have anything to give them!  After a bit of pouting , Paul agreed to go find a grocery store to buy a picnic lunch for us to eat in the park and a loaf of bread to feed the ducks.   We spent the rest of our afternoon walking around feeding different groups of ducks, which was quite relaxing and fun.  When Paul started getting tired, he tried to convince me to throw the entire remaining half-loaf of bread at one “lottery duck” so we could go, but I wanted all the ducks to get a little bit so we kept going around the park until my entire loaf was finally gone, two hours later.  For me it was really relaxing to feed the ducks and I think I’ll go feed ducks in parks whenever I’m stressed out now

Before heading to Hoek van Holland to catch our ferry, we stopped at McDonald’s to try a McKroket, which is basically a croquet in a McDonald’s hamburger bun!  It was pretty good (a bit salty) but sadly we won’t be able to get them at any other McDonald’s.  Croquets are probably the thing we’ll miss most about the Netherlands, but overall our time here has been quite enjoyable.  All good things must come to an end though, and tonight we set sail to England – London here we come!

After a very long travel day (our train was at 9 this morning and we didn’t arrive until close to 4 this afternoon) we’re now in Germany!  Our first stop is Munich, in the Bavaria region of southern Germany.  The city is noted for having the greatest beer culture in the world (the famous Oktoberfest beer festival takes place here) and it’s motto is “München mag Dich” (“Munich Loves You” in English).  From what we’ve seen so far, we think they have a funny way of showing it!The first thing we noticed about German people, from the train ride here to checking in at the hotel, is that they don’t seem to smile!  Everyone walks around with frowns or serious looks on their faces, as if they were taught it’s impolite to smile at strangers or something.  I’ve read that people from Munich are generally very conservative, but can’t you be conservative with a smile?  Even when we checked into the hotel (another Ibis, this time at a pricier €59 per night), it seemed like the staff were less friendly than at the other Ibis’ we’ve been to. 

Because we got in so late, we didn’t have much time before Paul started working.  We took a quick walk around the block the hotel is on, and decided to get lunch/dinner at a Persian restaurant we found down the street.  We’ve had a lot of Turkish food so far this trip, and some of it has been similar to Persian food, but it’s never as good (I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but it’s true!).  This place, called Restaurant Persepolis, had some of the best koobideh (ground beef kebab) we’ve ever had, but their rice was too fluffy for basmati rice.  Using Paul’s blackberry, we sent a picture of our food to a Persian friend back home who first introduced us to Persian food when we moved to Vancouver, and he said it looked better than the Persian restaurants in Vancouver!  He also told us there are a lot of Persian people living in Germany, which was a surprise to us – this is the first part of Europe where we’ve seen a Persian restaurant!

Before going back, we went to grab drinks at a grocery store behind the hotel.  It was an interesting place, with four different stores in one building.  I couldn’t figure out if each store sold something different or if they all sold the same thing and competed with each other, but we headed into the store that had pop in their window display and found what we were looking for.  We decided to get 2 cans of coke and two large bottles of water, and when we went to check out we found out they have bottle deposit here – 25 euro cent per can or bottle!  So the 45 cent coke ended up being 70 cents each!  I’m all for recycling, but compared to our 5 cent deposit back home, this seems kind of ridiculous.  The cool thing here is you get your deposit back by sticking each bottle/can into an automated recycling machine which scans the item and at the end gives you a printout which you take to the cashier to claim.  I’m going to take my bottles back just so I can try out the machine

As most people know, the first Sunday of every month there is free admission to most museums in Paris.  If you look this up this online, people will tell you to avoid the Louvre (the world’s most visited museum) like the plague on this Sunday because it”s usually the busiest day of the month, but for whatever reason we lucked out and there was no line-up at all when we went at 2 in the afternoon today!

Since we were expecting the line-ups to be crazy, when we got off the metro we spent 20 minutes looking for a less-busy side entrance which we had read about on the internet.  It’s supposed to be between the Pont du Carrousel and Pont Royal in the southwing of the museum, but we couldn’t find it and decided to try the main pyramid entrance which most people use.  To our amazement there was only about 30 people in line and we were inside in 15 minutes!

Most people say there are only three things worth seeing at the Louvre – the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus de Milo.  After our visit today, we have to agree! The rest of the museum is filled with paintings from the 14th-19th century, antiques and art from many different parts of the world, and sculptures.  As I mentioned before, we’re not really “art people” and the importance/significance of these pieces was lost on us – we just don’t know how to appreciate the older stuff!  At least we’re not the only people who feel that way…

Seeing the Mona Lisa in person was quite an interesting experience – it was much smaller than I expected (only 30 inches x 21 inches), and the never-ending hoards of people crowding around to get a glimpse of it was unbelievable! You can’t get close to the painting at all – there were five security officers making sure people stayed behind the bars around it and it’s behind a protective glass case – so on a busy day it’s virtually impossible to get a clear picture of Leonardo daVinci’s most famous work, but people keep trying!  After being jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with the crowd for a while, we gave up trying to get to the front and moved to the right to exit

Although we had read that you should plan your tour of the Louvre before going, we got lazy and didn’t study the museum map online before getting there.  As a result, we got totally lost while looking for the Venus de Milo, which is on the ground floor, below the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory of Samothrace (which are located pretty close together and are quite easy to find).  The museum staff weren’t too helpful and we ended up walking around in several circles, having a hard time even finding the stairs!  If you’re going to the Louvre, be forewarned – it’s as poorly labeled as Versailles!  The only good thing about getting lost was when we eventually found the Venus de Milo we came from behind it, which meant we avoided the crowd coming from the front of it and managed to get some really good clear pictures of it.  I don’t really get what all the fuss is about, but it’s a nice sculpture (without arms!?!).

Because yesterday’s lack of planning and late start led to a very rushed visit to the Sagrada Familia before closing, we decided we would go out together again today, but with much more of a plan, especially since it was Jill and Micah’s last full day here before departing to London.

Over some takeout pizza and wine last night, we made a plan to start today by using up the combo-ticket we had purchased at the Sagrada-Familia and going to see the Gaudí House-Museum in the morning, which we found out on Google is located in Parc Güell - a garden complex designed by Gaudi and originally intended to be an elite housing site.  However, only two houses were ever completed, neither designed by Gaudi.  One of the two completed houses was purchased by Gaudi in 1906, after unsuccessfully being put up for sale as a showhome in 1904.  Gaudi and his family lived there from 1906-1926.  In 1963, the “Association of Gaudi’s Friends” purchased it and converted it into a museum.

Following the advice of the guy who worked at the hostel, we took the metro to get to Parc Güell and found our way to the park quite easily, though finding the museum took a crazy amount of effort!  The park is huge and Paul had this mistaken impression that Gaudi’s house is white and at the top of the hill so we climbed to the top via a long set of stairs, but found no museum and no white house.  Then we tried to find a way down on the left side, but were turned around by some kind of security guard who seemed to be telling us that this path was closed so we had to walk back down the stairs.  We finally ran into some other Americans on our way down who told us the museum is to the left when we got to the bottom of the stairs.  Turns out it’s a pink house and is actually named “Torre Rosa” 

After a brief tour (the house is quite small and just exhibits some interesting furniture Gaudi designed) we headed off to grab some lunch then head to the beach.  We decided that, unlike yesterday, we would just pick a place to eat quickly while on our way to the metro station and went into the first restaurant we saw that had a decent “Menu del Dia.”  This worked out much better than yesterday’s lunch and we all found the food to taste much better today, although the entree sizes were a bit small.  Paul got some roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and I got some mixed seafood in a tasty broth.  There were only two types of dessert on the menu so we decided to try one of each and ended up getting a banana bread pudding and an interesting minty lime drink.  Ultimately, I ate both desserts because Paul’s not a big fan of bread pudding and he thought the drink tasted kinda funky but I found it refreshing

We headed to the beach with the intention of catching a cable car up to Montjuic (a hill southeast of the city center that has a number of sights and attractions, most notably the Olympic Ring from when they hosted the Olympics in 1992), but when we found our way to the to the cable cars, we found out that the main cable car station was closed and we would have to catch the cable car from the second station.  Since none of us knew where that was and we were tired from walking around the park, we decided to head to the beach and lie around for the rest of the afternoon.

Although we’re all tired from two days of a lot of walking and sightseeing, these last two days have been the most enjoyable of the trip so far!  We will probably meet up with Jill and Micah again tomorrow before they head off to London and check out some of the city center.  In my opinion, Barcelona is definately better than Madrid!

We wandered into a Starbucks where Paul thought he had a Wi-Fi signal, and I started my morning with the worst cup of coffee I have ever had!  Seriously, do they not know how to brew coffee at Starbuck’s here?  As it turned out, the Wi-Fi Paul thought he had found didn’t work so I bought that stupid coffee for nothing and we had to go to McDonald’s afterwards

By the time we made it to the Palace, we figured we wouldn’t have enough time to go inside and do the tour before Paul had to officially start work, so we wandered around the gardens, took some pictures, and then started to head back to the hostel.  As we walked along a crowded street, Paul noticed a young, dark haired girl behind me pulling down the zipper of my daypack really quickly.   Once he turned around and saw her, she turned and disappeared right away.  I looked inside my bag and it didn’t seem like anything was missing (the most important thing in my bag was the batteries for the laptops and those were still right there) so we figured that Paul had managed to scare her off before she got anything (editor’s note: Making Kung-Fu noises and Kung-Fu poses will ward off other suspicious fodder).

When we got back to the hostel and I got on my laptop to update this blog, I realized that my notebook was gone!  I’m pretty choked because I had used this notebook to keep track of EVERYTHING we’ve done and all the money we’ve spent and it will be impossible to backtrack and remember everything!  I had also tucked into my notebook some ticket stubs and receipts I was saving as memoirs, as well as the only pen I brought to record all of this stuff.  Of all the useless things to steal – this makes me so angry!!!!!!!

And then, while packing our bags to get ready to leave, I realized that there was 50 euros stashed inside of a zippered inner pocket of my daypack that’s also gone!  I don’t even know how the thief managed to get at this so quickly as Paul caught her unzipping the outer zipper, but my 50 euros is definitely gone!

To top it all off, in our dorm room we met a new Japanese guy who had just checked in and he told us he almost got robbed at the Metro station when he arrived!  Some dude punched him in the stomach and then went for his pockets, but he managed to kick the guy off and run away.  Apparently it was right in the crowded area of the metro and no one bothered to help him at all!

Thankfully we depart for Barcelona tomorrow, but now I’m completely paranoid and whenever I see anyone slightly suspicious looking I walk a little quicker.  The thought of my missing notebook makes my stomach twist in knots of anger and I just can’t believe how quick and crafty the pickpocket was!  If this is how the rest of the trip will be, I’m not sure I can keep travelling until Dec!  This is just no way to live

Today we went back to get more drinks and discovered you can buy a 5 litre jug of water for 0.39 Euro! Yesterday I was picking up smaller bottles of water for 0.30 Euro and thought that was a good deal, but for 9 cents more you can get 5 litres instead of 500 ml??? And it’s better for the environment since it doesn’t appear recycling is practiced here.

So far we’ve bought cans of pop for 0.49 Euro each, a pack of Salami for 1.99 Euros, and 3 bananas for 0.71 Euro.  We will continue to eat out as neither of us really enjoys cooking, but considering the value at the market, it’s no wonder so many people cook here at the hostel!  In Portugal you can really get by with about 20 Euro per person per day and eat OK!