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4/8/06 updated:

Hello!!! Where are we now, do you ask? We're actually back in Seattle. We arrived on April 1st (april fools day), and surprised my parents, our friends, our neighbors and Ben's family. It was great to see their expressions when we showed up on peoples' door steps and rang the door and surprise! We're home! It looked like they had seen a ghost! Well why are we home much earlier than we said we were going to be, after changing our schedule just a few weeks ago (from August to being May/June)? Many reasons, stacked upon many other reasons. It all started out when we were in paradise, or in the real world called Taormina, Sicily, Italy. We had planned to stay there for 2 nights and then go down to Catania to see our friends we had met in Torino for 2 nights then go to Naples, and then over to Bari, then catch a ferry over to Greece to meet up with some friends of my parents and mine. But all went wrong....

After we arrived at Taormina, we fell in love with it. It sits on top of this hill that over looks the sea and you can see Mount Etna (active volcano). It is beautiful. We could see the water and the mountain with only about 15 degree turn of the head. Amazing. The room was great too. We had a bathroom that the bathtub/shower had windows that also looked at the beautiful view. Private small balcony. It was great. The city was friendly as well, good shops to window shop and lots of places open all the time (or at least times we went to the shopping area). We had lots of fun there. We had booked the room via the hotel's website, and got a great deal, 272 euros a night, for breakfast each morning, 1 lunch or dinner for both of us, and one 50 minute massage for each of us.

We were living the high life. We did the massage in the morning of our first day after having breakfast in bed. I went first, then when it was Ben's turn, I found the Steam room or what they called the Turkish Bath. Then we did Lunch at 1 PM. They told us all the food was included, "ALL the food". So we ordered many things, cheese platters, salads, main dishes, desserts and more. It took about 2 or 3 hours for our peaceful lunch on the dining patio that, did I mention, had a wonderful view too! We then scheduled a Turkish bath for later that night for both of us. We then went to the town area, and came back with 15 mins to enjoy the bath (steam room). Ahh, what a great day, I came back to our room and then proceeded to have a bubble bath with our view and use the scented sea salts provided by the hotel to relax a bit more. Amazing!

Next day wasn't as relaxing but still fun, and great. We met our neighbors next door to our room because of the dogs. Arlene and her son Zach, are from Boston, MA, or more specifically Cambridge, MA. Zach is going to school in Berlin. We told them we knew some people from Cambridge and in passing Ben mentioned Luke's name. Alrene said, "Luke who, I might know him". Knowing this was such a small chance she would know him we said "Luke Burns". She said, "I know him, I work with him." We then proceeded to make sure it was the same Luke Burns! It was! Small world huh? So we wrote to Luke to let him know of the coincidence, he wrote back and thought it was crazy what a small world it is. We then proceeded to have breakfast with them the next day and saw them a few times before finally leaving the hotel.

We loved the place so much we decided to stay a 3rd night. We also had talked to our friends in Catania who were setting up our hotel there. Well this is where all things started to go wrong. We had taken a taxi up to the hotel and knew it was a steep cliff, but there was a pathway shown on the map down. So thinking that it was a good pathway, we thought we would save the taxi money and go down it. Well silly us. It started out as a nice path, with steps, brick and a railing. Well by the time we got down further, and me tripping and scraping my leg and a huge bruise on my left arm, the path narrowed itself down to a dirt path, with a steep cliff and no railing, and ticks jumping onto the dogs. Yucky huh. Well it only gets worse from there!

So we're on the train to Catania now, just a 40 min ride away. We had left an email with our friends telling them when we will be arriving earlier that day. Well we arrive, no friends to pick us up. Well we wait, and wait, while we wait we call them a few times just making sure they know we're there. After 4 hours of waiting, we get a little worried. So we decided to go get a cell phone number in Italy (since at this time we would be in Italy a few more weeks), we would need to get a new pre-paid card for it and a new Italy #. Not hard to do, just need to find a place who sells them. Ben asks the info desk, gets a map its only 7 blocks away. Great! He leaves, I have the dogs and the luggage. Which I didn't mention not only did the path suck, but it ruined the bottom of our luggage now. The handle had a bit of a crack on it, but by this time it was obviously not in good shape (still functional).

I wait about 45 mins before I get a bit worried. Knowing he has left that long before and I freaked out then, so not a big deal. At this time a whole bunch of high school kids and their parents flood the station waiting for a train. I wait for about 1:15 mins now, starting to get a bit more worried, but still no biggie. At about 1:45 mins I start to freak out, looked at the clock every 5 mins till about 2 hours since he had left me.

The people around me see my fustration and concern. Not knowing any Italian, and them not knowing any English, I have a flood of people now crowding around me trying to help me and trying to figure out what is wrong. After looking for one of our translater books for 10 mins and finally finding it, I told them where Ben was going (they said it only takes 10 mins by foot to get there), and I proceeded to ask if this was a safe city or if they had the mafia (we had heard they were on the island, but they laughed at me). Then they proceeded to escort me to the security office/police area and the lady officer was sitting there with her translater book and I with mine trying to explain that my husband had been gone for 2 hours. I didn't know where he was now, he was going to go get a new cell phone #, and we were supposed to be picked up by our friends now 6 hours ago (had our plans been properly/timely communicated). I was balling by this time. When all of a sudden, Ben comes into the office with a mass of people escorting him in asking him "why would you leave your wife alone for that long, don't know know she was worried about you???" in English and Italian. Everyone who was in the station was so wonderful about getting us back together. Thank you Catania people for helping!

Ben was stuck at the phone store, being told that they would get what he needed in 5 mins, 10 mins, 5 mins and longer. He just needed to wait. Finally after so long they actually got what he needed, and drove him back via their scooter to the station, since he knew I would be worried. We never got to meet up with our friends. We did not know the hotel name of where we were supposed to stay or we would have taken a cab to it. We did however think about spending the night in that city. We used the info desk people's help again to find a hotel with internet and dogs. It was about a 20 mins walk away. We got about 10 mins into the walk and decided not to go any futher. The city's walk ways were so not pedistrain friendly it was sad. So we went back to the station, used the info desk again for a city that was off or near the edge of the island so we could just go to Naples.

We got on a train and headed to San Giovanni, which is just across from Sicily. We checked in, Ben used 10 mins of internet to find a place for us to stay in Naples and check one our friends to see what happened. They did not get the message till that afternoon, he checked his email before we sent our email telling him what time we'd be in. We got to our room and it was nice, great bathroom. Hydroshower massage, too bad the room was not as great. It was on the truck route. It was as loud as just having the window door open, it helped none. I don't think ear plugs would have helped this room. So we got down the next morning and check the trains, there was one leaving in 10 mins and we could get breakfast backed up and go with us. While I was doing that Ben got our luggage out the door since we were just across the parking lot from it. We get there, and the train left 4 mins before we got there. Ahh.

2 more hour wait, we eat our breakfast and we head to Naples. Not without incident though. We had bought tickets for this the day before for that train. So no biggie (if we didn't catch the earlier train, we knew we had this one). So we get on, sit down in our seats in first class, and as we sit down a man and his wife sit down and have issue with our dogs. She is allergic. So we kindly ask other people if we can move a few seats down and sit there. No luck. So we move to the other end of the train (mine you we have lots of luggage and no one else seems to have luggage), we sit down there. A woman a few seats behind seems to have an issue but we pay her no attention since we are not close enough for it to be an issue and she did not say she has allergies.

So we sit, the conductor goes by and no deal. About 2 hours into the trip when they check our tickets again, the lady raises an issue of it. We ask why... The conductor says why aren't you in our own seats, we explain we moved because of the allergic lady. So this lady who is not allergic and has no luggage who could have moved to our orginal seats where we were, refused to move.... So the conductor makes us move for a 3rd time to another car, luckily for us no one on that train car had an issue. It made us mad for the whole trip. When we did move the last time we dropped a few expletives to express our displeasure.

Once we got to Naples, we got into the station and noticed something didn't feel right when we arrived. It did not have that vibe we had noticed in other cities. One of welcoming travellers. This place once you stepped outside the doors we saw traffic congestion, one of confusion, and construction, and it made me glad we had only planned for 1 night there, and we were going to look for another place to go outside of Naples to explore Pompeii and the surrounding areas. Well we had to wade past the street venders (which was no easy task)... to get to our hotel.

We checked in, and asked since it was not obvious "do you have an elevator?" No was the response. Ahh Ok, just a bit more work. Well lucky for us we asked another important question, "do you have internet up for free or for pay for the hour type?" We don't have internet right now they told us, we only have internet down here at this desk. We are under construction and you can not get it.... This was a bad bad thing. Ben was 2 days without internet by now with the last few days. So this was a necessity. So we asked where is a place we can get internet to check if there is a hotel nearby with internet and takes dogs.

Well we found the internet access point, Ben went in and I was left outside with our luggage and dogs. While we were out there, I began to notice this city was not just off by a vibe but nasty in general. There were flies everywhere I looked. Up down, side to side, they were all over. Well Ben came back, and found one, it would be a 10 min walk. We went on a trek to find it, and while doing so I noticed this city was even nastier yet! There was garbage everywhere, piled up by garbage cans, in the middle of the streets, and so nasty it was in the grout in the streets (grouted over and in it was glass, cigarette butts, bottle caps, you name it was in there for a long time). So after not finding the hotel we decided we had 3 options, 1 go to another city, Rome, Bari, or Venice (since we would be there in 2 weeks anyway, just move up our dates), 2) find a place there, or 3) GO HOME TO SEATTLE!!! On our walk back to the train station, my luggage handle busted apart, and scared the shit out of me, while we were on a busy road, no one stops for you, garbage everywhere and people looking to steal your goods at every turn, I was not comfortable in this town.

We decided Ben would call his work, and let them know he would not be able to work for a few days. We decided to try to call the hotel for Venice but we ran out of minutes before being able to change... We then asked where can we go from here? ROME! Has a major airport if we decide to go home. So we went there.

We got in late, and then hopped aboard a train to the airport. We got to the terminal and found out no international airlines are open at that time, you will need to come back in the morning at 7am to book a flight... So with that on our mind, we saw signs for a hotel. Hilton in fact near by. We then proceed to go there to check out rates and internet. They said at first the price of the room is 369 euros per night, we scoff. Anything better? Well 339 per night no breakfast. Ben asks do you have internet? 27 euros for 24 hrs. SO he goes to sign up that while we think about what to do. He goes onto Hilton.com website to get the room rate down to 272 euros goes up to the desk, asks if he can honor that price and it said it included breakfast... So since it was through hilton, they honored it. We then spend the next 2 hours (its very late mind you), searching for prices on tickets to get out of rome to any place in the USA, and had to take dogs on the flight.

We checked prices from Rome to LAX, to Boston, to Vancouver, to Chicago, to Altanta, anything to avoid New York city (for those of you who do not know I have a fear or NYC, I feel that I will die next time I go there via plane, I've had that feeling since childhood, and back 3 years ago it almost came true, 1 cancelled flight, 1 emergency landing, 1 plane change because the emergency door had problems (of course it was the one over my head that was the source of the problems) and more. 22 hour flight that was supposed to take 5 hrs)).

Anyhow, we purchased tickets that would be a round trip from Rome, to Amsterdam (13 hour layover at night), and then a flight to Seattle direct. KLM, and NWA. We also were very serious about going to LAX if we could get out sooner, or not have a long layover. Well short story, we got news the next morning that Ben's grandma passed away and would be having her funeral in LA on Monday. We wished we could have changed it. We wished that we could have gotten a berievement fair as well, but we didn't know until after we booked it.

So we get to the airport that day, we had to check that the dogs were OK to fly with them and all. Ben started this all out at 8am. We still did not get confirmation till about 5pm. Which we later learned it was not confirmation for the dogs to fly in cabin but it was for them to fly befow in the luggage. We then spend the next 3 hours seeing how we could get the approval for that. They said we would have had to buy huge, I mean husky dog sized dog crates at 150 euros per dog, 1 in each crate (even though Ben and I could have had lunch in the thing).

While all this was going on, I went to find another airline to get us home, all of them were closed by 5pm. So no luck there. Then I found out I had an infection and went on a search to find the first aid since the pharmacies there are just herbalists... It was a crazy maddening trip. Then after much discussion with the airline, and them being on the phone with someone back in Minnesota, and they knew of the bags we had "Sherpa" which is approved by almost all airlines as carriers and fit under the seats which is what we had been saying all along. The dogs were almost 9 kilos and KLM's max is 4.5 Kilos. Which we don't understand the weight restriction since our laptop bag weighed more then the dogs, but that was OK? What is with that huh? So after a huge struggle, we got to take the dogs on board, but we were at the back of the plane last row. The last row does not recline, luckily for us we were only going on a 2 hour flight... We arrived well. The people on the plane were funny people. There was a group of 20 or 30 something men that either had too much to drink or were too excited to be in Amsterdam, they cheered when we landed... It was crazy but fun.

We then get our bags and go to check out a hotel. This place was so nice that they had sleeping chairs in the hotel that looked so nice I wanted to stay there! Ben said no, our last night in Europe for now, better spend in a hotel room for a good memory. So we go into the Sheraton, and ask if they take dogs, they said yes, so ask we go to book the room, he says you have dogs, we don't accept dogs. We say OK, and left (even though that was our first question and he said yes!). Luckily there was a Hilton nearby, yes another stay in a Hilton. This one had much better room rates and guaranteed that if you find a better price for that room anywhere else they would match it and beat it! Yay for us. It was good rate! We got a good night rest, woke up early, got breakfast and checked out.

We decided to go check in, and realized to our dismay that the doggie passport that we had taken with us on our flight from Rome to Amsterdam was now not with us. We had left it on the airplane the night before. We then went on a wild goose chase trying to find it. After about an hour, I went to the gate to check in there to make sure the crew was OK with the dogs. Boy were they! They were briefed earlier in the day about us taking them on board, and once one of the attendents came to the gate she was so excited she called the other attendents to come sooner to see them.

One of them had a Westie! They said if there is anything you need just let us know! Ben, after a long search, was unable to locate it. We boarded the flight, and found out the seats we had reserved previously were now not the ones we were seated in. We wanted the ones at the front of the section and just in front the wing. Better for dog crate room and I can see out the window. Our seats were now not only in the middle of the wing but in the middle section where you can't see anything. The dog bags almost didn't fit because of this location and it was an airbus plane which I was sure it was supposed to be a Boeing 777. Ahh. At least we're on board!

We saw a few movies, it was nice, it was a DVR set up, we each got our own TV screen, so that was cool. Ben and I had to time our start and stop together to watch the same movie. It was fun. We played a few games against each other on them too. Well after 10 hours we arrived about 50 mins early! Yeah. We left at 12:55pm and arrived in seattle about 12:30pm. We gained time! Too bad daylight savings time hit us the week before and then win hit us again once we arrive back in Seattle! We landed safely and well.

So we got off the plane and they said we need to take your dogs from you when you get your luggage. Then you will get them back after customs. We didn't understand why or care. Odd you go get your luggage from one carousel and then you have to take it to another man where he asks you some questions then he puts it onto another luggage belt, and you have to now go to another luggage carousel to pick up your luggage again... I don't understand why. Then after we get our luggage for the second time, we go to the customs desk. Knowing we have our paperwork, we were hoping the dogs paperwork was not an issue, since we took them out of the country and now back home it shouldn't be an issue. Since it is harder to get them out of the country than back in....

They made an issue out of it, we then had to go to a certain type of custom guy to explain what happened to the dog paperwork, and gave him 2 options call the vet who should be open a few mins longer, or just let us go... after he brought another guy over they let us go. I could tell exactly when they got the rabies shots and the Kansas State Univ. certified test results, and more... I remembered all that. We were more than current on the flee and tick treatments too since we did it before we left, then again on March 7th, and then again the night we left Taormina (since we saw the ticks on them we didn't want to be too safe). So we were good. This was all on April fools day, remember.

So we get out, call my friend Jason who we told we were coming home, to see if he could pick us up. He was busy... So we called Ben's brother Eric, Heidi and our new niece Ali to see if they could pick us up and surprise them, But they were at Red Robin. So we took a cab home. The dogs were so amazed that they were home, they started running everywhere like they needed to make sure it was real since they hadn't seen it in so long...

We took our bags in, I went to our nieghbor Molly's house to surprise her and to let her know we were home. She was so amazed we got back so soon. But happy for us as well. We then asked Eric and Heidi to take us up to Chris and Chaz's (Ben's sister's place) to surprise Chaz and pick up our cars. Chris and Ben's mom had flown down to LA for the funeral by then.

We got our car, and headed to my parents. We pulled up and called from outside, to see if they were home. They were. We snuck up the back steps and then as Ben was still on the phone we rang the door bell. My mom and dad got to the door about the same time while dad was still on the home, looked out and did a double take. He said it looked like shebly, but that can't be her, and that looks like ben but that can't be! And the mom opened the door and said "Happy April Fools Day". That was the best joke for april fools days I've ever played on them!!! We then played catch up for a while and then by 6pm we both crashed at their house. I took 2 muscle relaxers since the stress of it was too much for me to sleep otherwise. Ben and my dad had to basically care me to the car once Ben decided it was time to go home at 9pm.

To make things that much more interesting. We got home, the next day we discovered a leak in our pipes later in the day after my parents were nice enough to bring cooper back home. I was amazed they didn't kitten nap him to like they did Daisy June (who still remains at their house enjoying every day relaxing in the green room or on her own pillow on my parents dresser), Needless to say we were getting excited about no more big expensences or maybe thinking about converting our carport into a garage and maybe work on our kitchen. ALl that changed when the leak happend. It was below our upstairs bathtub. Seems simple. Well it was not. Not only did all the pipes to the tub need to be replaced, but the water lines that go to the kitchen sink needed to be removed and replaced due to the fact they were in the way of the fix of the bathtub. We had wanted to do that before we left but we decided not to due to costs. Well needless to say they are done now.... Did I mention that I have a bladder infection and they needed to have the water off for 3 day. Not a good thing.

Well after I went to the doctor for my infection, I now have a sinus infection too as well as the bladder. They put me on Avelox to combat both infections. Well bad news, after 3 days of the pill, I had aniflactic shock and my thoat swelled up and is still swollen. I'm now on another medication now. Cross your fingers! We also got some more bad news from a friend of ours. Last year at this time, my friend Jack Lone, Officer for the Seattle Police Dept, on harbor patlor died on duty. Well if that was not enough for that family, his sister is getting a divorce from her long time husband who was also an officer for Seattle PD. Now if that was not enough their Mother just this week lost her almost husband/ high school sweetheart to cancer (which she was also diagosed for cancer earlier this year but had treatment and is now cancer free). They are such a great family, and which that they did not have to endure all this pain. I know I'm not normally a prayerful person, but please pray fro them and for others you know for a good life full of not much pain or suffering.

We are now glad to be home now, we will be going back to Europe again in August. Our tickets are for Aug. 1 to Amsterdam and return on Aug 15th from Shannon Ireland. But just found out that my 10 year reunion is aug 10-12th. So we might need to change our tickets so we can get back for that.

If anyone knows of a good publisher for maybe making our doggie pics into a book or a calander, let us know. Ben and I just got new phone service (Sprint/Nextell) and a computer card so we will try to spend the next few months doing weekend trips or maybe week trips around the USA so we can get more pics of the dogs. We know you all love them, and we love taking them. Just hope we can make it happen.

PS for those curious about my status on pregancy, Not yet. Sorry to say. We will let you when that status changes! Stay turned for all the rest of our plans. Come by and visit us or write an email. Our phone # are still the same, phone # and the cell #'s. Take care, can't wait to hear from you soon!

3/21/06 updated:

At the request of my dad, I'm updating more regularly now than my last ones! Well a lot has happened since the last update and it's only been about 4 days. We are now in ROME, Italy. We arrived yesterday about 2 PM. I have to do this post backwards so you can understand it all.

Ok, so on 3/17 at night we packed our bags early so we could get up early and take a taxi cab to the Barcelona Sants train station. I mean really early! We wake up on 3/18 and called downstairs, and said "we need a taxi in about 15 mins, is this OK" They said good... So in 10 mins we get a phone call saying the taxi is here. We get downstairs, and the taxi guy is there in the lobby waiting for us. So, he sees the dogs and says they have to go in bags in Spanish, we say "OK". He then says something we don't know in Spanish, the lobby guy says it is 10 Euros for the dogs to go with you. We're like, "ahhh what!" That is expensive since it is just up the street, literally. Ok, so we get all our bags in and look at the meter, which I thought normally started when you got in and went... not this one. It was up to 8 Euros already. So we get in and see on the door of the taxi, that dogs are only a 1 Euro charge. We ask him, "why 10 Euros instead of what is posted is 1 euro!" He stops the cab right there, flings Ben's door open, pops the trunk, and yells something in Spanish (at this time we have 10 mins to get to the station to catch our train...) we say, "its fine its fine, just get us there, we'll pay!"

So we get a block away from it, and look over at another taxi, their fare rate is at 3.50 euros and our is at 11 euros. Nice huh? Not. So we get there, Ben pays the stupid guy with exact change on his seat, and the driver looks pissed. We go into the station, running downstairs, hop aboard our train, with about 3 minutes to spare with around 10 other people that got on with us! Yeah. Wait, we see a sign that says "salida immineti". That means its leaving, but we aren't moving. Odd! Ben then told me that as we were boarding, another man was yelling something as he ran towards the front of the train. After about 5 minutes, everyone is wondering why haven't we left when it said we were leaving! Humm. One of the people that hopped on the train when we did got off and asked someone.

Well come to find out there was another train, which you could not see, in front of the one we got on. There was no one directing people to get on the right train. Stupid Barcelona Sants train station and people! Well our only option was to wait 1 hour and 15 minutes for another train or take the tram to another Barcelona train station to take a train there out of the country to Montpillier, France. We took the second option. We hid the dogs this time, so we would not get charged, and by having such a bad morning already this just added to it.

We got on board the correct train this time, yay us. We actually arrive where we need to be! No problems with the dogs, or passport checking or anything. Yeah, life back on track to get to Nice! Or is it? We get in line for tickets to go from Montpillier, France to Nice, France. While waiting in line, I overheard another couple that is at the teller line asking about tickets. They were told there are "NO TRAINS TODAY OR TOMORROW OUT OF THIS STATION". Huh, odd. I didn't think a thing of it until a bit later when I wondered with our luck today, could that be our train to NICE, France which would not be so NICE!

I politely asked them, where are you going? They of course said the worst possible thing, "NICE". I said you have got to be kidding me, NO! Well, upon further questioning of the clerk when it was my turn to ask for tickets, I asked what are our options and why is there NO trains to it, when the sign over there says clearly, "DEPARTS AT 15:15pm to Nice, France while she's telling us no trains go there". She said I don't know, they are taking a break today!

So, I calmly called Ben over to explore our options. The couple who was in the same predicament as us said jokingly "we could all share a cab ride". I wasn't about to do that again with the dogs! But that triggered an idea! Rent a car! They told us they have reservations in Nice that can not be cancelled, and worth a price quote! Ben had made our reservations that morning before we left, and we could not cancel ours either. One way or another we were all getting to NICE, weither it be "nice" or bad! We checked prices and whether they had big cars that would fit all our luggage, 4 people, 2 dogs and stuff. We found Europcar had one for 125 euros for one day, and taxes and other deposits. We said yes! We loaded it up, just barely fitting everything in it. Ben could not see out the back window at all. Luckily he had been driving in Europe already so he was experienced with this type of driving so far, so he was elected to drive. He said as long as it wasn't more then 1000 km he was good. Thank goodness this was only a 325 km drive!

So we're all in and moving, we went around in circles a few times around the city trying to get out onto the freeway to take us to Nice! After we get on the freeway all got to introduce ourselves to each other! Their names were Eric & Lissette (sp) Bell, they were on their honeymoon, and that day was their one week anniversary. They are 27 years old, have a doggie named Sophia Loren, which I think is 2 or 3 years old (being boarded while they are gone, they've never been away from her this long, so it is hard for them to travel with our missing her!). They are from Pheonix, Arizona, she is going to school for a certain business degree while working full time. Eric works as a commercial real estate agent. We learned alot about them. Great people, can't say Nice, since Nice is not easy to get to! Ben's Joke of the trip "I don't like Nice weather!" Not funny, but we let him live anyway.

Ok, moving on. Well we come to find out, Eric & Lissette were on the train we probably got off this morning at the Barcelona Sants station, they left about 45 mins after we did, earlier than we saw on the schedule! Anyhow, they too had been to southern Spain about the same time we were there earlier in the week... We were both in Barcelona, both going to Nice, and even odder, we had both planned on going to Rome within a day of each other! What are the chances?

Well one more freaky thing, that we both have in common, if you know us, we had our wedding about 4 years ago now. The weekend before our wedding there was great weather, 80 degrees in May! The weekend after ours, 80 degrees in MAY! Our wedding activities were all outdoor, crochet, horse shoes, volleyball, bocci ball and more. Was it sunny the day of our wedding? NO. Was it good the day before or after, absolutely! It's supposed to be good luck when it rains on your wedding day, I beg to differ!

Well Eric and Lissette were in the exact same boat, or wedding should I say! It was about 45 days of NO rain in Pheonix, and being March it is very dry. The day before their wedding it had a 10% chance of rain, so they didn't worry about it. The day of the wedding, RAIN. Worse yet, it was an outdoor wedding, and she had to walk down the isle with an umbrella. They had to get tents for the guests that day for the wedding since there was no warning. We thought it must more then fate this time to meet someone with the same experience on their wedding, with the same problems travelling, and same itinerary we had, that we would have met. I'm not big into signs, but wow, this trip has been full of them, and this confirmed them for me.

Well we got to our hotel that Ben had booked and checked in, after dropping our new friends off at theirs (they were staying at a 5 star resort for 3 nights, we were staying at a 3 star for 2 nights.) We were not impressed with our place like they were with theirs to say the least, but hey it is cheap enough and when Ben booked it, its selling feature was "soundproof rooms", a must. Well not surprisingly with our luck, that was not the case. Our triple bedroom suite with internet and sound proof walls, was a 3 bed twin room, with no internet (pay for 9 euros for 2 hrs), and we could hear the loud teenagers above us, below us, and between our rooms all night long as if they were in our room with us.

The next day (3/19), we decided to go out and look for another hotel for us to sleep at, get internet for Ben to work (since the problems we have had the days before, he was not able to get as much work done as he had needed). Luckily for us we found an cafe that had free internet, with the purchase of a drink. Ben got a milkshake for 6 euros (he really wanted one and thought it would be a nice tall thick one, it was just flavored milk again, worse yet, he went down the street by the McD's, they had a thick one for 95 cents! Rip off), I got a hot chocolate. Well we got our internet. We looked for our lodging for Rome and checked on the status of our house rental. Still not listed on anything and we're getting the run around from our PM as to why it isn't listed after so long.... Back to the point, the internet expires in an hour, and then you need to refresh. You need to get a new drink or food. We order a pizza, for 9 euros (ouch, that was horrible), and I asked for tap water she said nope can't get that... I'll get you a liter of water, and she comes back with 1/4 of a liter of water, and was charged 3.50 for it! Whats up with that...

We looked into more hotels and go to our new friends place and inquire about theirs. We looked at each other when they told us the price, laugh inside and say we'll think about it. We then go to the message desk to leave a note for Eric and Lissette about where we're staying and to give us a call if they want to hang out, even though they are on their honeymoon. We get a phone call from them a few hours later asking to dinner with them! Excited, we say yes, we want to talk in English with people who are like-minded of course. We ate, got a tour of the lobby of their hotel, which is like a museum as Lissette commented (it really is!). We then packed up that night to get ready for another long day of travel ahead of us again. This time we'd need to get up even earlier then we did in Barcelona, 4:15 AM!

So we get up on 3/20 for our adventure. We get all the luggage together, go downstairs and check out (well the way the teller guy is working we think its off to start of another bad day he took so long. Spoiler: I have good news, it was a good day!). Well we got to the train station early. We walked this time, we had asked the day before at the station about taxi prices, it was 20 euros from about 10 blocks away and more in the wee-hours of the morning. So to save money we walked... Good thing too, the dogs got all of their business taken care of before we boarded the train.

So we were the first to arrive on the train, first pick of the seats! We then only had one train connection, it too was one that we got first pick of the seats, we chose a car near the bathroom and exit, closed the blinds, the glass door and it was ours the entire ride to Rome! Yay. Once we arrived in Rome, we found our way to the Metro (we hate that these places when we have our bags, they do not always have escalators, but at least the dogs now know how to ride them with out pulling them on or off!). We got off at the exit we wanted. The only iffy thing was, where was our hotel. Back at the Roma Termini station, we got a map and asked where ours was. They had never heard of it, they said there was a Hotel Barberini which was a 4 star and circled that on the map so we headed for that.

We were disappointed it was not a 4 star as advertised we were thinking as we were on our metro ride. We got off the metro and headed to what we thought was our hotel. While walking towards what we assumed was our destination, we saw a sign and a door that looked more like a residental apartment lobby that had the name of the original place we thought we were staying, Residence Barberini! Lucky for us, it is a 5 star hotel! We were buzzed right in, they took our bags and we're staying on the 5th floor with a private balacony. It has its own bedroom with satilite TV, egyptian sheets, feather pillow (2 per person) and a feather duvet (all just like home). It has a seperate living room, hall, kitchen and bathroom. It is nice. Only thing it needs for sure is a towel warmer (we have grown to like those, lucky for us we put in a circut for one when I did the remodel, thinking ahead), and it needs a water pitcher so i can put tap water in the fridge so its cold.

It is quiet during the night, only problem is the remodeling going on next door in the morning. We asked about it yesterday when we checked in and I noticed construction, they said theirs starts at 9 AM. The noise this morning started at 7:30 AM. We asked about it again and they said it might be next doors construction (which is a floor lower then ours) and if it continued to let them know and the owner of our hotel would contact the owner of their building to keep the noise down! I hope this is true! Good 5 star service is that is something they can do!

You're now asking yourself, what did Ben, Shelby & the kids do today! Good question! It rained this morning, and Ben's work server was still down for a few more hours, so we went for a walk to the Colloseum. Ben found a good cheap place for breakfast things and orange juice that is red (must be blood oranges huh?). We took lots of pics of the dogs at the Colloseum, and other people just loved it. They took so many pics as well, and some pics of themselves with them. We met 2 people that had Scotties and another lady who grooms dogs in the UK who said their haircut was good even though I did it in the hotel room last week! We met a family from Arizona who has a Westie, and their daughters name was Kenzie, but McKenzie was her full name, not Kenzington like our girl.

They took a pic, I think if you go to www.dobbend.com/images/people5.jpg to see them. You can see people1.jpg all the way to people8.jpg by changing the number, those are pics we took of people either taking photos of them or with them! Funny.

Ben is hungry, so we are going out to eat now. I'll update the doggie journal soon along with the others photos. We have a lot to share, I just need more time! Take care, and feel free to write to us! PS We will probably be coming home in late May now, we miss our house, since it is not rented out yet, and just miss ya all. If you know of anyone that is trust worthy and might want to house sit for a while, let us know!

Take care, Shelby :)

3/17/06 updated:

Well finally i get to update my journal again. Its been a while again, and lots more to share with all of you, of course.

Back in Barcellona, again for 2 nights. We leave tomorrow morning if all goes well at about 6:30am to head to paris we think. We had it orignally though we might go to the French Rivera again, or to a place called Le Cap D' Agde, but now are changing our minds once again. It would have been fun, it is suppose to have great beaches. But since we have found the weather here to be not so warm quite yet we think it best to go some place we want to visit first (paris, amsterdamn, rome, athens, etc). So I'll need to update our itinerary again so you know where we've been and where we think we will be going. So check back soon on that page too.

So, what's new. We are still eating at McDonnalds. Why, as a Phil & Rebecca, since there is so much cultural food to taste and try. I'll sum it up for you this way, I tried a local dishes twice now, once was pasta that looked like "Gnashona", I don't remember the name nor do i care too only to avoid it. It is a pasta made from potatoes, like a Cheeto in shape but way to soft of a texture when you eat it that it gushes around in your mouth. It was so bad I wanted to throw it up, texture mostly... Then in Sevilla I tried fetticcine with a cream sauce (nata) that had Rouquefort cheese. Well I remember my mom liked that salad dressing, and being more open to flavors I decided to get it. Well bad news, that combinations of cheese and cream, not a good one. I was sooo hungry I ate it all, while silently puking. I was able to steal a few bits of Ben's Pizza to make it torrible in the end bite. Worse yet, I burped the whole night that awful flavor till the next morning. Local food is not for me. I did try something I liked after that experience that was sorta local. It was at a shop called El Cortes Ingles, it is the Macy's of Spain/Portugal (well one is in Lisbon). Anyhow it was a steak sandwich, with grilled onions, and they put Brie cheese on it. I saw another meal they had cream cheese on it. So being American I thought of the Philly cheese steak sandwich. So in short I turned a local dish into an American one, and it was good. I love cream cheese. Yummy!

Back to other stuff. Where have we been! We'll after we left Madrid, by car as listed below we went to Lisbon, then to Sevilla, now back to Barcelona. With many road trips.

Mini-city walk: 3/18/06: Friday

Finally, up-to-date. That is if I can go get this posted on to the web! We only have one internet connection in the room. We are at the Apsis Hotel, Millenni. We returned our car rental this morning. We were not sure when we checked in last night if we had parked on the street if it was a real parking stop or not. Well I mean it looked like it had a handicap sign painted on it, but I saw another car parked in it 30 secs before we parked in it. We were not going to be in it too long, only till 8:30am in the morning (when we arrived at 10:30pm at night) not too long. Well when we parked, there was a motor bike parked on the curb. We had been pulling out our luggage, and cleaning out the car, when Ben said "that guy is eyeing our bags". We thought nothing of it, when the guy who owned the bike came over and said "mucho dinero," and something else in spanish. We said "no oblo espanol", he pointed at the car, and said he was going to get his friend. It looked like he wanted our CAR parking space. When his bike was comfortably on the curb, and our luggage was no where near it to even hit it if he was worried about us scratching it. Anyhow as the guy is speaking in spanish again, I see out of the corner of my eye, a guy on his cell phone with his hand on our luggage, like he is leaning on it. I say "Hey, get away from that" very loud and rude. He then still on his phone, non-shalantly walks into traffic and away. I yell Ben, I think he was trying to seel our luggage, check him for anything. Ben then goes running towards the guy, and the guy with the bike and the guy with the cell phone are talking to Ben. The guy with the phone says the other friend is crazy, and does not know anything about the bike. Anyhow I'm with the luggage, guarding it. Luckly everything was pilied together well, he could not have gotten away with anything except the dog bag. The laptops were on the extended handle of the clothes bag (very tough to get off even when your trying), the other camera bag was on my back, other then that just junk bag that had our maps on it while i was cleaning out the car. We were lucky! We didn't take the scheme to get our stuff stolen. We had already put our wallet belts on thank goodness. Just have to keep a watchful eye out.
Well for today we got the car this morning, No ticket thank goodness, so those people must have been out to con us. There were police across the street this morning too, if we would have parked in the wrong spot we should have gotten a ticket at least. We drove it to the train station (the same location we picked on up a few weeks ago to get to Valencia and Madrid). We walked down the main road, and took many photos in front of a Musuem that is just breath taking. Nation Museum of Catalunya. A group of Italian students got a kick out of the dogs and the photos. We had them on the ledge at the top, and there is not much of a drop off in back of it, but futher away there is an impressive drop. Everytime the dogs moved, you could hear the kids go "ahh, ohhh, uhhh, ohh no". We knew they were Ok if they did jump back but it was neat to hear their concern if something did happen! There was another asian fellow that took about 4 shots we did of the dogs in front of the museum, he was definetly enamoured with them as well. We then walked around a little bit, saw a horse ring, where a horse was getting worked out up to a full gallop. We then worked down to the steps of the museum again, and then back to the hotel. We found a PIZZA HUT of all places! Yeah more American food. This one serves pizza, pastas, salads, dessert, and more. Good menu selection. In Europe they have lunch specials too, where you can order 2 ind. pizzas, 2 drinks, 1 appitizer, 2 desserts, all for 18 euro. Pretty good since we ended up with 1 dessert and a 1 med. pizza and no drink or appetizer for about the same price. My bad I didn't even see the special. We also went to the train station to figure out what we are doing tomorrow, and see where we are going. Rome, Paris, or Amsterdamn? Don't know.
One odd thing in Barcelona, if any of you remember my parrot PJ, the grey headed quaker, they are wild birds here! I've got the window to our hotel room open and here the noises PJ use to make to. Ahh brings back so many good memories! Plus its fun to see them flying between trees. They make alot bigger nests the PJ use to make. The size of 25" TV size, pretty big concidering they are small birds! Long live the good memories of PJ, hip hip horay!

TRAVEL DAY/DAY TRIP: 3/17/06: Thursday
We woke up already packed, checked out, and headed to Granada/Barcelona. This time we knew which freeway to take! The cities here have a different concept of freeways, and how to get to them. They have 1 freeway that goes in a circle all the way around the city, all the freeways that lead to the city dump you out onto this one circular freeway. The signs are not clear which direction you should be going, (clockwise or counter-clockwise/inside or outside circle). We'll lets just say the day before, we were suppose to be heading towards Algeciras, and we ended up heading towards Cordoba. It wasn't until 20 mins. later we realized this mistake and had to once again get on the circular freeway, to get going the right direction again. Our fault was one we learned earlier, if you don't see a sign for something, keep going straigh till it tells you differently. Odd thing to remember when you are so use to seeing signed everywhere even if it tells you to go straight. Here it will tell you to take a right, and then it won't tell you anything untill like 20 mins later, when at 5 mins you wondering "did i miss something, am i suppose to turn somewhere?".
` Well anyhow we saw the Alhambra from the outside, near Granada. It is a huge Islamic city town/castle/fortress thing. We did not go in, this time it was 10 euros per person and NO DOGS. We decided to go on the outside of the walls, which it did not have the mosaic tiles or the stallagtite ceiling i remember from architecture classes, it was still worth the walk. It had beautiful walkway and waterfalls, and a nice trees lined the path. It was a downhill walk, and we decided to turn around (uphill walk now), got back to the road, and decided to flow it on the other side of the walls. We ran into a senior group from Canada. Most from Ottawa and a few from Vancouver area. They were impressed at the dogs behavior and asked lots of questions while we all walked the outside walls. We followed them into an area inside the walls. We ran into a car that was just leaving the walls when the stopped and rolled down the window and said "We have Scotties! We'd love to see yours, we miss ours back home!" They were from Arizona and were staying at a hotel at the top of the hill that was next to the Alhambra. They knew about wheaton colored scotties but had never seen one in person. We made their day! We then proceeded into this touristy area, which we didn't know if we were allowed in since we had no tickets and had the dogs, but it was cool. We took some photos, Boone got to meet some more local cats again.
At all the big sites we see, there are always school children, and in this it is Kenzie's dream to have US have a baby so she can play with (ever since she was a puppy she has run up to stroller and mom/dad's carring children, she had wanted to sniff them say hi and want them to play. She may get her wish this year if all go well). Anyhow, she loves these groups of kids, since she can just socialize. She loves them, the attention and playtime. Well after we got back to the car, and saw as much as we could see for free, we headed up the east coast of spain. It took many hours, and lots of gas, and those damn toll roads. I hate and dispise toll roads, especially since they never remove them after the roads are payed for. One road last night we paied 5 euros for 2 mins of driving on it. What's up with that... 16 euros for like 2 hours of driving on it. Not fairly regulated for the price per pavement.

DAY TRIP, Sevilla: 3/16/06: Wednesday
We headed down to see the Straight of Gibralter, and Algeciras (which is the southern most tip of mainland Spain). The area of Gibralter, was not what I expected. It was just a huge rock like the ones you see in Cannon Beach, with a city like thing at the base of it, and trying to get on to that island rock was a long long line of cars. We think it might be considered another country from some things we've read. It might be so, since there was a fence infront of most of it and had what looked like police directing the cars in, kinds reminded me of a ferry line terminal looking area. We didn't have the patience to stop and wait to see what was on that rock. We took a few photos from the walkway on the water looking back towards it. Boone and Kenzie learned how to drink water from a water fountain here! Yeah them! Comes in handy now. Don't need a water bowl! Well we had fun at the beach in Algeciras. Despite the NO DOGS allowed sign, we decided since there was no one else on the beach we would let the kids roam free. We let them loose to run on the sand and the rocks. We wish we could share with you the video footage we shot of it. It was cute. Kenzie did a face plant right into the water running from one rock to the other... She is fine! Boone also got cozy with some local wild cats (5 of them) on the isamis that goes out to the civil guard area (actually the island that is closest to africa, but it is all fenced off and you can't go onto it. It looks like it has alot of historical remains and places of interst, I so wanted to go onto it! Oh well). We then drove to Malaga. We don't know why we wanted to go there, so we really just drove past it, since Ben had to work during the night. It looked like a newer town, wished we knew what was there to see. Oh well next time.

Mini city walk, Sevilla: 3/15/06: Tuesday
I learned how to add color to our website I believe this day. I updated the dogs website and added 2 other pages that you should check out. The Difference in Europe page is things we wished people had told us about, things that are different, or things that we just find odd (like square toilets and seats when our butts are round, or some without seats and toilet paper! I still don't understand that one). www.dobbsend.com/differences-in-europe.html and the doggie bloopers (this one will not be fully published till later on our trip, due to saving some images that are funny for later! Keep you coming back for more). We also went to more site with the dogs, and took a few night shots with the main cathedral there. It too says it is the 2nd largest cathedral in Europe as well. So now is Dumno in Milan bigger, or this one? I could not tell, but it was different and neat. We did not go in, it was 7.5 euros each, and no dogs. They DID let us take a photos from inside the courtyard though! Yeah. Well other fun notes to the evening. We met a nice older couple from near Salt Lake, they had just come to Sevilla on Monday, and before they left their puppy of 13 yrs had passed away in his arms. They were worried before thier trip what to do with him before they left. It was a blessing. Their puppy, a mini-schnauzer had raised their kids (now college bound) and had a wonderful fruitful life. She will be missed. They stopped to talk to us becasue they were reminded of their puppy when we took some photos. We wish them all the best. He works on unmaned airplanes and programming them, and she was a elementray school teacher. Nice peole. That is the second couple we've met from Utah so far!
Kenzie also found some kids playing soccer by the Catherdral & fountain, we let her off leash to play with them. These kids I don't think have ever had so much fun playing soccer before, or as hard to keep it away from her (Kenzies favorite game, keep-away). She spent at least 20 mins playing with them. We got most of it on tape too. Sorry can't share that yet, if you know of any HD programs that are cheap that we can take it from the HD tape and put them out to our computer/hard drive let us know! We'd love to share that with you!

Mini city walk, Sevilla: 3/14/06: Monday
I love that Ben's job is normally in the evening hours so we can wonder the city streets during the day. We saw alot this day, and took some photos of the dogs. Then when it came to Ben's work time, we found out our internet connection did not have the port access he needed to work. I still don't understand it but never the less he needed to go to the internet cafe down the street. Luckly they were near, cheap and had what he needed to work. It was a slow connection but at least it had a connection!

TRAVEL DAY, Lisbon to Isla Cristina to Sevilla: 3/13/06: Sunday
Off to Sevilla, Spain with a road trip to a playa (beach in english) called Isla Cristina. It was unevenful, we did however find out that the beach does not have garbage cans during the off season though. Many people, no garbage, odd thing to keep a beach clean without them. Then kids (kenzie & boone) had a blast playing in the water, and in the sand. They both decided to make sand angles. We have a blooper of that (you'll have to wait till later in the vacation to see that though!). We got into to Sevilla this time when it was light out, amazing the first time we've check into a place when it was light out. We've been arriving late often. We proceeded to check in and get settled into our wonderful HIGH TECH HOTEL www.hthoteles.com, where it was so worth more then the 105 euros a night. It was great. Close to everything, quite, NO ants (well a few had climbed in our bag of dog food from the last place in Lisbon, and proceeded to check out our room as well. Yes I know very disgusting, I was tapping my feet around killing them all, and Boone being a good dog decided to help me track all of them down that thought we brought them with us for free. They were wrong!). Anyhow the place was great. Smelled good. It had a Starbucks of all things around the corner, and McD's about 5 blocks away, we were set! We went for a road trip that night to a town outside the city (when it was dark), wrong time to go site seeing, we got lost and couldn't see what we wanted so we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

DAY TRIP, Lisbon to Sintra: 3/12/06: Saturday
We decided to do the unbelievable, we had walked about 4 miles on foot the day before, and today we decided to climb a mountain! Yes I said climb a Mountain! We took a day trip to Sintra, which is suppose to have an amazing castle that is just imaginable. Well we drove there, go to the town, saw lots of things we thought would be the castle, there were that many things to look at in the town. We finally see something in the distance like it really might be the castle this time, we say that look far but lets walk. OK, we walk to it, we see that it says Private Residence. Hmmm, this road said it was up it, as we follow about 5 other couples. Finally after about 30 mins, we see a couple walking down, and ask did they make it to the top, is it up there? They said they had only gone about 500m more meters and turned back, at least from there you can see the castle and a fort, it looked too far away so they decided to turn back and drive the rest of the way up. Well being super smart, we decided to keep going, we meet another couple on the way up, the young lady was from the town, she confirmed how far it was up, they were going up for a day hike and to show her boyfriend the castle for the first time. After we got to the top, thinking we were actually at the castle, we were confronted with a large walled wall, and had to buy tickets, of course the dogs were not allowed in, after we climbed the mountain. Too bad you could not see the castle from the gate, and it was still up another hill that had buses going up it. We agreed that we would just buy some postcards, and try to photoshop the dogs in since we had gone all that way and were not able to any photos of them with anything worth seeing. Well we got smart, and said lets take the local bus (which did pass us a few time as we were going up the hill), we would take it down . Well not being friendly Spain, NO DOGS ON THE BUS. Ahhh. We'll Ben got smart, he took the train down, he'd take the car up, and pick us up. That was a quick ride up let me tell you, he was at the top of the hill by the time I reached the lower parking lot. After much thought Ben said, since we're here and we did hike up the hill, let just put the dogs in the car (with water & windows down!) and go in. 12 euros later we got through the gates, yeah. But wait, that bus i saw going up the hill, it cost another 4 euros to use their private buses to go up. Since we were exhausted we paid it, and were at the top. It looked alot bigger on the postcard, but it was still impressive in size. It was once a convent i think it said. The rooms the nuns had lived in were turned into the queen's bedroom, queen's secrateries bedroom, one whole wing divoted to the queen. The kings wing was not as widely shown... Lame. It was worth seeing, but the price was rather expensive. Next time drive to the top. Don't park unless you see it is our new motto. Later that day, we were suppose to meet up with some new friends we had met the day before, but they had gone on a wine tasting tour up north and had run over 2 hours late. We did not get to meet up, maybe in Seattle. So we had dinner with our landlady Mary and her husband Rui. Lovely fun couple. Had so much in common, and had lots to talk about. We were invited back to their place and got to see her flat and the one below hers (they are in the process of a remodel of it). It will look lovely when its done. She called us recently and told us the tiles are going in her bathroom now, I'm excited for her! I'm missing my new bathroom, cry cry, I'll see it soon enough I hope!

City walk, Lisbon: 3/11/06: Friday
Memories of doing San Francisco downtown hills (up/down/up/down) in teva's rings a bell again! This time in Lisbon. This city looks so much like san fran. It has the bridge, it has the hills, it has the trollies, the trains, just not the giradelli chocolate factory to go to. It does how ever have lots of amazing buildings to look at, much older then san fran row houses, this place has the orignal townhomes from like the 1600's-2000's. Its amazing... Well we started the day out with the dogs and camera, thinking about just hoping on a tram to the down where we ate dinner two nights before and see the castle. Note the time was like 9am or so when we left... We then proceeded to walk towards the town to take some pics. Well as we walked we found more amazing places to see, or as Ben said to eat Ham Criossants as we go along. We stopped where the President was 2 days before to be sworn in as the NEW president, we went to a church that we found when we were lost the first day we got into Lisbon, and we proceeded to make it all the way to the castle. We were told that was really really really far to walk, especially since we did all the hills as well. We got to the castle about 5pm, and didn't leave it until about 8pm or so. We met 2 really great couples. If you saw Ben's post he talks about them already, don't want to repeat everything he says. I was just amazing at how small a world we live in. We had talked to Neil, Tania, & Kayden for a long time. They were really neat people. Kayden is 11 months old, and as I was sitting on the ground he just crawled into my lap many times. His mom Tania & Neil were shocked, he does not like strangers but he loves you! I just it is because he is at an age I just love to play with. Just old enough not to be to fraglie I'd break them, and just old enough to be able to play with and interact with. He played with our water bottles for hours. I just told Neil & Tania about how we've had such a small world around us, we had met people between train platforms in Torino on our way to Pinorollo that were from Shoreline and knew my cousin Kate & Liz. After we left the castle, we had just passed the restaraunt Ciro Ciro we had eaten at a few days earlier and as Kenzie was passing by, a Taxi cab pulled up to let people off. Well the man who jumped out said "How cute" in English. I proceeded being the social one I am, said "thank you" and got to talking, found out that they are not only from Seattle of all places, but he too works for MICROSOFT. His wife, was a vet from north of seattle, at a emergency vet hospital was amazed that we brought the dogs with knowing how much work we had to do before we left to allow this to happen. It was a great brief encounter with them. We got both couples business cards, we gave them our info and web site (Hi to you all, it was great to meet you, keep in touch!). We then proceeded to go home via tram this time instead of by foot.

City walk, Lisbon: 3/10/06Thursday
The highlight of our trip in Lisbon, would be one I know will not happen too much in our life time. We saw the new President of Portugual get inagurated on TV, and saw the placed he visited throughout the day, and finally when we saw he was at his palace area, we decided to just hop out our door to see him pull up to his new home, with a crowd of people (smaller then I thought would be there, but a good # anyway), and he had a horse parade of soliders (big fancy ones, my dad told me the name of that type of horse, sorry I forgot it already), and the band was on the horseback, and other soliders on the sidewalk too (no horse with them). It was the song and dance Ben had wanted to see back at the changing of the gaurd back in Monaco. So he was happy. Kenzie and Boone loved it too, since Kenzie loves horse on TV, and always wants to see them... We got some photos of the dogs with the parade. Ben and I later that day went down near the Columbus Statue to have dinner at a place that was surrounded by water (artifically, but still cool). The food there was good. Ben tried some crab dip, which we found out that if they put stuff on your table like bread, or finger food, it is NOT FREE! But we enjoyed the finger foods never the less... It was a learning experience.

City walk, Lisbon: 3/9/06 Wednesday
Ben had to work most of these days during the day, but I got to take him out on this night to a place recommended to us by another restaruant (one we visited 4 times while we were in Lisbon, Yes it was an Italian!). The restaraunt we went to was Ciro Ciro we think, it had jugglers! Food was ok, and cheap. It was near the castle of Lisbon, St. George Castle. It was neat to see at dusk and at night, it had a wonderful view over the city and the castle was neat too. We asked if they take dogs, and they said YES! We were rather excited about that and planned to come back despite the 3 Euros per person charge. It would be worth it to take the pics of them there!

Lisbon: 3/7/06 updated: BUT NOT POSTED then
We are now in Lisbon, Portugaul. We got here on Sunday afternoon, after a car ride from Madrid. We did make one pitstop to the Merida, Spain. Seemed to be a nice town. It had lots of fun characteristics to it. It was a bit funny to see Roman Ruins scattered everere in the city we saw. I mean its not close to the water (well ocean, it did have a river through it), and its not so close to Rome either. We tried to go in and see the woderful temple that had great marble columns still standing and what appeared on the map to also have a roman collosium. But due to us sleeping in the car for a hour and a lf (at least we think) the gate and ticket office to that part of the park was closed (remember this is on a sunday where everything seems closed). So we drove around it a few times to look at it, then we found a couple of other ruins in the area via the car travels. We did get to take one picture of the dogs in front of another temple, it wasn't as cool, but it was still neat! This town seemed to have over the years just built on top of the ruins, year after year. And finally when people in the 1900's tore some newer buildings down, discovered that there was a roman city underneath, and started excavating. So you see lots of 1800's and 1900's buildings with a hole where a building use to be (since you can see the old outline of it on the sides of the existing buildings still), and there are mazes of old roman building and walls just barely below grade. Its amazing... I would definetly visit this city again and maybe even pay for a walking tour too. We also saw a part of a older roman aquaduct here too, not as cool or as complete as the Segovia one, but still worth a visit. I don't think there were even signes to that part either, we kinda got lost on purpose and found it. Neat place. Anyhow were now in Lisbon.

3/6/06, Lisbon:
We took it easy. We decided to go for a walk with the dogs in the morning, well actually we slept till 12pm Lisbon time, which is 1 hour earlier then Spain. Like daylight savings time sorta for us (so we slept till 1pm Spain time! WOW!). We got some pastieries near the water front. This place looks like San Fransisco really. It has the golden gate bridge thing going on, it has a bay or a big river, it has trollies and hills, its remarkable were in Portugal when it looks like Cali. We walked the boardwalk a bit, it had a ferry that when from one side of the bay to the other side (the green cliffy side), we went by the dry dock marina, and wet marina as well. We found the monument to the exploration of the west (that is the big statue you see when you see pics of lisbon). Its a modern big concrete statue with many of the explores carved/formed into them. Worth a look. Then we headed down to the ocean direction, where there was a lighthouse and what looked like a early 1400 century fort thing. We didn't get there because Ben had to go back to work. So as we headed back we got a better look of the cathederal building we saw the day before from afar, and a great garden area. We found more restaraunts to go to (if we dare to eat some local cuisen since were both chicken to trying new foods). We did find a pizza place chain around spain and portugal that we went into, Telepizza. We had placed our order and asked if they took Visa, or AmEx and they said nope, we take only the "Normal credit cards". We were like what, like Mastercard, we have one of those too. They said nope, and gave us no other names, how odd is that. Isn't visa suppose to be "everywhere you want to be" We wanted to be eating pizza! So at least we were told my Mary, our landlady where to find some good italian pasta and pizza not to far away from here, and we went there. Oh good food! Well worth the not gettin Telepizza. We will be going back to Mary's friends place i think tonight. Oddly enough we got a pizza flyer from that place this morning under our door with the menu and stuff on it. Oh did I say that alot of the people we've met here speak English! Yeah. Since we didn't buy a Portugees to English Dictinary. At least Ben can sometimes ask for something in Spanish and they sorta get the hint if they don't speak English.

TRAVEL DAY, Madrid to Lisbon, with Merida: 3/5/06
We picked up the car early, got packed, did the great city of Merid, and got in to Lisbon. Well that was easier said then done. We were given good instructions on where to go, but one had a description of a gas station called Galp, well when we went past it, it was a Total gas station and we went past it. (Did I ever mention, Europe streets are not like American Streets. In Europe they go in a circle around something in the town, they are not square blocks or the same size anywhere. So if you miss your street, it take a while to find a street that will work to get back too. Oh and they are not numbered like 1-100 streets, they are all listed by peoples names, and are not alphabetically placed. So if you get lost on which part of the map your on, your screwed!). So after stopping at a hotel (which are the best places to get free maps and to find out where you are), we found out where we needed to go. We got to where we though was the church we were going to meet at, Ben called from a payphone got an answering machine. We then found out we were in front of another church that looked similar, we went to the correct on this time, but could not find a functioning pay phone this time, so we drove to the other church from before, called from there, said we'd meet up at the correct chruch in 3 mins. after getting the land line phone number this time to call Mary our landlady. So we met up finally, found our place, got in, went to the bank machine here to get more $$$ to pay for our stay. (Did I mention that Europe had odd Banking system? Depending on which country your in, they tell you how much $$$ you can take out at a time. So in Portugaul you can only take out 200 euros per transaction. And our bank says we can only take out 400 euros total per day (on PST). So odd for us, you need to start about 3 days in advance to get the correct amount out if your going to pay cash for something like a vacation rental. We tried to get some money out on 3/5/06 for the pizza but found that the bank said you removed your total amount you can for the day (hence the 24 hrs PST).) SO anyhow Mary and her husband pointed out the sights near here. Were really close the Pres. of Portugaul. He does not have guards out on Sunday at all, which is weird, but we saw them today and yesterday. They carry swords, instead of guns with knives on them like Monaco's did. She pointed out a famous pastier shop, and the Coaches Museum (cars), and showed us our place.
Our place here seems a bit different then I would have expected. We are close to the water, which is good. We are close to the University, the Pres. and some other museums and other sites. We are not near the heart of the city though. We can take a tram there or a train, or a bus. The place is very well decorated, it is owned by a 82 year old man. It does have that older place smell to it. It has the shutters and windows that we have seen all over in Europe so far. The upstairs bedroom is kinda a odd place to be, it has cork all over the walls (reminded me of my old room at green lake). But it seemes like this place had an update back in the 1960's and nothing since then, which is cool and somewhat not cool as well. The bathroom has a tearable smell to it, even though it has smelly things in it. I guess year of showers does that to a room with wooden plankes in the ceiling (yet they are covered by years of paint. ). The patio we have is neat, a table and 4 chairs and some potted plant are in there. Only other draw back to this place, is the tram line and bus line are 7 ft from our bedroom window. So when the tram goes by it rattles and shakes the room, the walls are not as thick or as sound proof as them seem. Ear plugs are a must... Other than that, it is a lovely home. (ammendment: THE SMELL IN THE BATHROOM WAS THAT OF AN OUTHOUSE, HORRIBLE. ANTS DECIDED TO MAKE A HOME IN ALL OF OUR LUGGAGE AS WELL BOONE & KENZIES FOOD. Not a place I would recomment. But Mary is a great Property Manager, use her just don't book this place!)Ben does have internet access which is good, just can't get the Wifi working so I can work when he is. There is cable for the TV but Ben stole that so he could work the cable modem (stealer!), so maybe we can find an electronics store and get a power booster for the cable (with a spliter) or a hub for the internet connection. Hope so.
Well that is about it for now. I hope we can see the city in a few days. take care

3/4/06:updated: Madrid
Well after doing all the new updates to the webpage, I finally get to do mine. I learned how to make our page a bit prettier. What do you think? Like it?

So i guess my journal has come across that I'm not having a good time. Not true. I'm having a good time, it's just full alot of trying things so far. I don't deal well with changes or challenges. So I guess this is a self growing experience over here. At least that is what I've been told by many people so far. Hope their right!

What have we done lately? We were suppose to meet up with a few friends here, but things did not work out so far. Ben's friend from work, was not able to come due to her boyfriends work at the last min. It was their idea to visit a town called Segovia. Another friend of ours, we just were not able to connect up with due to his other travels to Africa. Lucky guy. Maybe soon we'll have more visitors on our travles.

We'll I'll go backwards this time on the daily log, sorry I didn't on the last update.

Today: 3/4/06 We were going to go to Toledo, Spain (not Ohio) by train. A 30 min train ride. Well we got up early, took a Metro train to the station, with about 10 mins left till the train left with the dogs. We tried to find the train at 10:20am, asked a few people, no luck. We get up to an area, they say you need tickets, Ben goes up, they said you have to go over there, and we go in the other area to get tickets. By this time the train left 10 mins ago (so 20 mins in the station now). We are then told the 12:20 train is full, you can leave at 1:50pm, and your europasses are not good for this train (a special train), and the dogs would have to be in thier bags. We said never mind, and walked towards some other Madrid sights. Oh, did I mention it is raining hard here now? They do not have a good system for drainage it seems. Big puddles everywhere. We didn't get too far today, since the rain curbed us home. We left seattle to leave the rain! Oh well... We took some photos of the dogs, while doing that other people took some photos. Another woman even asked if she could sit beside them, and had her husband take a photo with them! I have video and a photo of that too. It almost seems like they are famous over here! Next they will want a paw print signature! I'll let you know if that happens!

We need to pack up tonight, and get ready for our drive tomorrow. We will be renting a car, and driving to Lisbon, Portugal with a few road stops planned that our new landlady recommened we visit. I think those stops should be more of what I was thinking Europe would be more like. More roman ruin looking places. "Merida http://www.travelinginspain.com/Merida.htm and Evora http://www.manorhouses.com/unesco/whevora.html Take a look." is what she told us to see. Hopefully not rainy or cloudy tomorrow.

So on 3/3/06 we took it very easy. Ben worked, I did some laundry (well washed them, and everything in Europe is line dried, so you can only do about a load a day. Mixed colors was this day...) That was about it for the day. We ate at TGIFridays. Thank goodness for American fast food chains. We don't like Spainish food, and we can't eat Chicken for fear of the Bird Flu. So eating for us pickey folks has been challenging... PS There are Starbucks in this town! Yeah.... No chanticos though....

So on 3/2/06 We slept most of the day. Ben worked, and I updated the doggie jounal. I spend most of the day in bed. I have a sinus infection that I'm trying to get over. Too bad I didn't get a refill of my antibioctic to take with me. Its not that I didn't try. Insurance issues on all our medications and the doc. not calling me about other CTscan results. Ahhh, doctors... Oh well. I'm drinking lots of tea, avoiding sugars, and trying to just drink lots of water in general (which is not easy since they charge up the a** for water, sodas, and when you do order them, they are 1/3 the size of our normal amercian sizes...). Well anyhow I'm a bit better, but the pressure behind my eyes and sinuses are so painful. I might need someone to Fedex a perscription over here if I get desperete.

On 3/1/06 we went to Segovia, Spain. It has an aquaduct similar to the "Volkswagen Bug" commercial when it was reintroduced in the 1990's showed it as being as round as an arch by an aquaduct.So we took a train, which was free for us and the dogs (yeah), up through the mountains to get to this city. It was kind of an intersting train ride. Just outside of Madrid must be a wildlife park, a large one... We saw lots of green trees, land and deers near the train. It was amazing. Then it got to being little stops with more Apt. homes, the further you got outside of the big town, the more single family homes you saw. Still not many though, but saw some finally! Segovia was a snowey city, with distant moutains covered with snow on them all around. It was a pretty town. I would recommend it in the winter, accept bring your gloves and ear muffs, oh and longjohns too you will need them. This town seemed to have at least 2 churches per corner like starbucks back in seattle. Some big, some small, all great to look at. This town reminded us a bit of Genova city it was built on top of a hill (not as steep though), but had the small narrow roads just quaint for people walking... We had to race back to the trainstation to catch one back to Madrid, otherwise I think we would have had fun meandering though more of the city. Maybe in later years we'll come back.

On 2/28/06 I think this was the day I was playing around with the main page website, making it look neat. Think we also went on the Gran Via (main drag) to eat some more TGIFridays. We tried to find a Marti Gras party but to no luck. Oh well.... next year...

On 2/27/06 we got moved into another Apt. on the 5th floor of the same building we were in. One that had a more comfortable bed, and internet access. As said before the other apt. we had to work in the hall to get a signal to connect to the internet. The hall was a community hall, not a good place to work from, especially since Ben needs it to work to pay our bills. So we got up here, unpacked, walked down to the train station via a park near by (Retiro Park, Or Retire Park in english, its a big big park). We checked on prices on how to get to lisbon (train vs car rental). Well car rental won, considering all the places we want to stop and visit in Spain, we couldn't do it for cheap here like we did in Italy or France. This country is so not Doggie friendly. It sucks... I think we also returned our previous car rental on this day as well. Not much else more to tell you.

Thats about it. I'm thinking about making a journal page to tell you all about the things that are so much different here that makes you know your in a foreign country vs back home. Its amazing the differences and yet so similar... Well bye for now. take care, feel free to call, write or visit us.

2/26/06 updated:

We're in Madrid, Spain. What a week of chaoz we've had...

So on 2/18/06 we left our Milan Studio for Torino, well come to find out to me, we had to go to Pinorollo (SP) for curling and was close enough for bobsled. On the train ride to Torino to Pinorollo we picked up our tickets in the town, then took a bus across town to another train station, which we found out we could have just taken another train to get to where we were going faster, While getting on the train to Pinorollo, we run into a group of young adults from the USA, we later found out they are from Shoreline, WA, and I asked if they know my cousins Katie & Liz Montero, they said they do! What a small world huh? After getting to Pinorollo, we discovered we aren't even staying in the town of Pinorollo, we are staying in a small town outside of it called San Germano (SP). Which we have to take a bus too, which seems like an easy task since the sign said every 10 mins there is a bus. So after 45 mins of waiting for a bus that comes every 10 mins, we get on, ride about 10 mins to the town. We have no cell phone by the way, T-mobil does not work here or something... Anyhow, were now on the side of a very step mtn. town and no direction on where to go to stay. Ben being a great guy said I'll go run up the hill, try to find a pay phone (which does not take coins like back in the USA, they take cards that you have to buy inside a store). So he calls our new landlady Sara to ask if she can pick up up at the bottom of the hill. She picks us up, get unpacked. Nice place. Funny little old home, but great bathroom. Seemed like home, it had a new tub, toilet, sink, and best of all a towel warmer! Glad I put an extra electrical circut in for that before we covered the walls! Anyhow, we get the dogs in the bags, we walk down to where the bus is suppose to pick us up to go to the sporting events, remember every 10 mins is what it said..., we wait for over an hour or more. There are tons of buses, but not ones for spectators, just damn vounteer buses which are either empty or not full at all. Which they refuse to pick us up, even though the ratios of those buses to tourist/spectator ones are like 10/1... Bad planning for transportation. Well we get to the event, love it except it is freezing cold. We had to buy extra gloves, extra ear warmers, a blanket, those small sandbag looking handwarmers (activated by rubbing them), and wish they sold socks because we would have bought like 10 of them to keep warm! So we watch the runs, we slowly work our way up the hill as other people work they're way down. By the time we get to the top, the last 5 runs are going on, and we walk down and its all done. We get on the bus to go back to San Germano, and tell the bus driver to let us off when we get there. Well it sounded easy enough, he took a completely different road then the one we came up on.... So he left us off in some other litte town... after looking for a pay phone (by card) we found one, but ben left the card back at our apt/home so we could not call anyone to help us. After 30 mins of trying to call and look for signs of where we should be, we finally just give up and ask a man getting into his car, how far away is San Germano and if he could take us there. He said sure, he was on his way to a party, we were only like a 7 min drive away and got there fine! We offered to pay him for doing that for us, but he refused! Thank god for him being there and being a nice guy! So we went to bed. Did I mention that Europe had extra extra hard beds, no matter which star hotel you go too. They are almost as bad as sleeping on the floor...

On 2/19/06 we put the dogs away, got some food, and went to the bus stop towards the town this time (not towards the mtns). We honestly saw again 8 more vounter buses that refused to stop even though we went into the road to try to make them stop this time (since they were all empty this time for sure, and they were going to the curling center/train stop). Anyhow after an hour and a half in the cold, one stopped, only because 2 voulenters got off... were were able to get on. We got to the event, got some food (which they jack up the prices so much it sucks), and got comfy. Our seats were next to the Swiss cheering team, and the Japaness group up who is wearing these very creative hats. We are amoung a few USA'ers, but we start cheering and get louder and louder, even try to start the wave, and the camera man says yeah do that~ and I'll get you on camera. Soon about 10 mins later, after we try to do it on our small section, a wave start in the curling arena! Yeah, a WAVE in the CURLING RINK. Imagine that! So for cheers Ben screamed out "YOU CAN DO IT", and "MISS SWISS, SWISS MISS", and a few other things that people around were just laughing at since there were from films. We were probably the loudest fan there, and other fans grew off of our energy. We then had to wait only 20 mins for a bus then, with the fear of being on the wrong road again, we were happy to see our stop and got off. It had been snowing quite hard this day.

On 2/20/06 we decided to start our adventure week of Ben's vacation from work... We were going to head to the NW side of France, but Ben wanted warmer weather. So we hopped aboard a train to Genova again, so we could catch a train to Monaco. We got to the City/Country of Monaco and had to learn a new language, French... Luckly we found a group of fire fighters just outside the train station that knew some english to help us find a hotel for us to stay in. They were great people, really friendly and very willing to help us out. Thanks guys! We found the first hotel we saw, It was nice... On the water front basically, and on JFK road, which from our understanding is on the Gran Prix race way path. The room we renting cost 11,000 a week during the race days. I could not understand paying that much for a room! We'll needless to say we loved the room, it had a jaccuzzi bath tub, a full walk in shower, slippers and robes, a full breakfast included, internet in the room, 42" plasma screen TV, big room, and more. AMAZING is the words for it. Only downside, is there was a internet deal if you stayed 3 nights you paid for 2. We asked for 2 nights and found the deal, and they said nope, can't offer you that, sorry... we would have loved to stay a 3rd night for free! Oh well. It was still nice.

On 2/21/06 we decided to explore the city. We went to the changing of the guards at the princes palace. Ben wanted a song and dance, he got a song of bells at least, the dance was more of a march. We found out people in Europes personal space does not exist. I had a 70+ year old woman pushing me around with her body and backpack while we wait to watch the guards. We were there first, got out spots, and she and her friends came in and started slowly pushing us away from our spot. Ben told me to push back, not being so forward I just heald my ground, planted my feet, and didn't let her move me any more. We did get some good pics of the dogs, at the palace, on the pathways up and down from the palace (it is a ficken hill he had a home on, and other nice homes are up there too, the aquarium is up there too, which is odd, it is not on the water, instead it is like 400 feet above it on the cliff side of the water). It was a fun walk. We found a good place for Crepe's. We had Strawberrys and ben had an extra one with apricot jam. We ate at the same place twice for dinner. They had italian food, which was good since we had 2 weeks of it by then, and we craved it. We went for an evening stroll with out the dogs, we went quite far on the map, we might have even gone from one side of the country to the other since the country is so small. Fun, safe, and quite country/town, it had lots of charm, it was clean, and definetly a place you want to go to relax and enjoy life. Highly recommend this place, despite the room rate costs!

We also got some bad news this day. My grandma is back in the hospital again, with a Kidney infection (please pray for her). We also had our home back in Kent broken into, they kicked the door jamb in the kitchen open, lucky they only stole the silver 36" TV, they did not go into the storage and steal anything, but they did make a mess of the beds (I guess thinking we had something under the matresses). The police came, luckly our friend Jason was there to let us know something had happen over the weekend. So I think we have to replace the door now in that room, even thought that was a brand new door when we bought the place back in 2001. Amazing... My mom's kitty Shadow was playing with Cooper downstairs and hurt himself. I guess he injured his hip, he is not a young kitty anymore so I hope he is doing better. All this within 24 hrs. It made me want to come home. Too much stress, all in a tranquil place. I wish I could have enjoyed Monaco a bit more with out these things.

On 2/22/06 We left Monaco, with hopes of making it all the way to Seville or Malaga. We'll we didn't make it that far... We did however get 2 boxes of clothes sent back to the USA, we over packed and needed the room. We did take a very nice train from Monaco to Montpilier, France. We then took crappy trains with luggage and dogs to 2 pissy French towns, one of which we were stuck in because their were no more trains to Spain that night. So at 11pm we were stuck in a shitty town, where we had to find a place to stay (since we did not plan on being there), that took dogs. We walked 20 mins to find a place that did, it was a 2 star hotel. I beg to differ though, It was as sleezy as the ones you think about on TV, the ones where you can hear people having sex, singing, snoring, yelling, wall paper peeling, and more. At least the price was right, it had electricty, and took dogs. We left our clothes on, used our own blanket on the pillow cases, did not drink the water or shower or brush our teeth there, or take off our socks. It was that nasty. Lucky we were not staying long.

On 2/23/06 We saw there were 2 trains that left in the morning for Barcelonia, one at 5:56am and one at 8:56am. We said we'd like to be woken up at 5am so we could make the early one. We got to the train station, where they said the 5:56am one was NOT a departing train, it was just passing through, yet all the signs shows it as DEPARTING, not ARRIVING... It was delayed an hour, we tried to get on, they said NO... So we got tickets for the 9am one, got on, and not only do the people in Europe have personal space problem, they don't have a problem staying in your way. There was a guy standing in the train door blocking it, for at least 10 mins while we're trying to get on the train, with about 10 other people. He took his sweet ass time doing what ever he was doing, and did not let any of us on, or pass when it was obvious we wanted in... So we finally get to Barcelona, a few days later then planned. We looked at the schedule to go to Malaga, decided we would get on the evening train which is a sleeping car train and make it there the next morning about 10am. We got a cell phone and pre-paid sim card (I guess this is what they do, pre-pay is the way of life here. they even charge for local land lines by the min too). We called my cousin Raymond Jr. who is teaching English here to rich spainish children (private lessons). It was cool to hang out with him, and we had a great time. We went past some neat open markets, they have pet shops outdoors. They had pigeons, chickens, bunnies, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, parrots, and more in them. Boone did not like them, Kenzie loved them... We got back to the train station, ate Spainish McD's, checked out tickets, went to information to see if they were nice sleeping cars and check to see if the dogs needed a ticket. Since sometimes they do. They said Nope for the dogs, they are OK, we're in the best seats we can get for the train, and A'OK. Well 9:30 rolls around, we get to the train platform, look at our seats/bed they are NOT TOGETHER, they are seperate.... We ask if we can change them and be together they said NOPE, girls in one, boys in one. NO DOGS ALLOWED ON THEM AT ALL. So we're like, can we buy seats that are together, can we get a seat for the dogs, what are our options... Why were we not told about this sooner, since we did ask 4 people these questions earlier in the day? As we are doing this, the train is leaving.... So there goes our sleeping option we had for the night... They take us upstairs as I'm crying because we don't have a place to sleep and need to find one like the night before. We're there till about 11:30pm, they offer no place to sleep except their train station floor and a refund of the price of the ticket. They did not help us find a room, or other options. We finally get to leave the station, and go looking for a place to stay. After 30 mins, Ben went into a hotel that did help us out and help us find another hotel that does take dogs. Well sort of, they were snuck in, the guy said we needed to hide the dogs once we leave, or he would get in trouble. So we went up, showered, gave the dogs a bath as well and slept. The next morning we were awoke by the construction going on in the building next door at about 7am. The noise caused me to have a dream that included it as a part of my dream.

On 2/24/06 We got up and left for the train station to look at our options, 1) get on a train to Seville, or Malaga and pay for the dogs for the price of a full ticket for them (80 euros) and have to pay that again to get back to Madrid in a few days. 2) take a bus ride to those places which take 2X the time, and about 50 euros, 3) rent a car for 3 days, no extra charge for dogs, and go where we want for 140 euros. We chose the latter one. So yesterday we got the car about 12:30pm and left the parking garage. We got into Valencia by about 5:45pm. We tried finding the water, which we found out the hotels are not near the water at all, but in land by a lot.... Then our next challenge was finding a place to stay. We got a few maps of hotels and locations and phone numbers. Ben went into one hotel to use the internet to find one that took dogs. After about 8pm he found one, Ibis (accor) Hotel, it is the first 2 star rated hotel chain in Europe. Well we had gotten 2 seperate maps of where the hotel was suppose to be, we found out it was off the map on both of them. We drove around about an hour trying to find it, called the place 3 times asking for directions from where we were at, and still nothing. We then looked at the map again, we went from one side of it to the other with out noticing it, we saw one hotel listed on it (as a reference point, since all the streets are not easy to read and are not easy to find on it). We found the same hotel # listed on it twice, the reason we could not find the hotel was because it was not on that part of the map... So we checked in about 9pm, and slept till this morning. This is the new part of the city as they called it downstairs. This area is all new. New shops, new hotels, all new development.

On 2/25/06 My friend Tiffany's Birthday!!!! Happy Birthday! Ok so were in the hotel. Ibis. I hope later today we can go into the city and do a walking tour or something. We might be back here in a few weeks for a festival called Falla, which is a parade of wonderfully made and decorated floats that are judged and at the end the one that is the best gets put into a museum, the others all get burned to the ground in the streets. Odd but sounds cool. My cousin Raymond Jr. will be coming out for it and his friends, so we might join him for the party too. We'll see.

Later in the week Ben's Co-worker will be in for the week to hang out and do stuff with, and one other friend of ours will be in the city too (they are going to Africa in the early part of the week Ben said). Should be lots of fun next week. We have agreed upon one thing though: 1) when we rent a place it will be close to a train station, 2) It won't be in Spain again (since the price for the dogs to travel is so damn expensive, not like the other countries where it was free if they were in their bags, not here), 3) has to be in a warmer area for now 4) No hodunk pissy towns for us again to spend the night in.

Yeah, 2/26/06 We're in Madrid, after a 3 hour car drive through snow, sun, sleat, rain, and fog. It was an interesting drive from Velencia to Here. There were apt/condos for a long while with farms tucked in between them, then it went to being just red dirt and some farms, to being rolling green hills of farms that looked like a picture my parents had when I was young (yet snowing at some points) and some even had windmile farms too, to the big city again.

After calling our new landlord, we got into the place an hour and a half later then expected, in the freezing cold. (Did I mention it snowed on our drive here!). So we needed to pull out our ear covers and gloves while waiting. We get in, and check the internet connection which we were promised it would have. Well turns out, we both need to be in the hall way to even get a decent connection. Ahhh. We will see if the guy can fix that or not... Hope so, I'm working on a backup plan right now if this does not work out. Since Ben needs to work this week, or our vacation might turn into a required trip back home (ie, no job, hope not). We'll need to go eat now, and will try to update our photos later tonight. Take care.

Well that is it for now. Enjoy, and write us a line if you want to talk to us. We should have full internet tomorrow when we arrive. Give us a phone message at 206-855-5590, it's our Skype phone number (leave us a voice mail, we'd love to hear from you and tell us what you think). Take care, please pray from my grandma for me will you, and for good things to happen for us while were on vacation. Thank you, Love to you all. XOXOX

2/16/06 updated:

Sorry its been a long time since I wrote. Some might be the same as Ben's so sorry for the repeat of things if I say the same things.

Things that have happened since last blog. On the 13th, we finally got a Eurorail pass for Ben and I. It is good for 2 months of unlimited travel upon it. Sometimes we will need a little bit of money for reservations, but other wise for humans it is good. Pets, we'll get to that in a bit. So to use our first rail pass, we decided since it was nice to take the dogs and go to Genova, a wonderful bigger then I excepted city situated on virtually a cliff side many many many years ago on the sea (SW of Millan and Torino, but East of Monaco). It is a vertical city as it says in the city guide. We climbed up a set of narrow steps a long way up, and then went through so many little alleyways to get back down. These alleyways are the not just the ways to get up and down the city (I think there might be a road somewhere near them, I sure hope so), but these are the actual ways to go into the entrances to peoples homes. We saw movers moving desks and chairs on their backs up and down these stepped alleys. Odd huh. Glad we were there when it was sunny, hate to see what they would be like in rain.... We walked down to the waterfront, we tried to get the dogs into the aquarium but this was the only places that has said NO to pets even in their crates. However they offered doggie sitting services, but we're to cheap to use them so we said No aquarium for us if they don't take the dogs and left. Promptly after leaving, Boone decided to Poop right out infront of the place to express his opinion as well.

From there we decided to take a side trip to Torino to see what was up with the host of the Winter Olympics and get some maps and see what we will be in for on Saturday when we do arrive for Bobsled and Curling.... Note we had 2 backpacks full of stuff, and 2 doggie crates, besides 2 dogs to tote around, and we spend a large part of our afternoon in Genova. We walked everywhere so in each city... So silly me, thinking we were close to everything from the trainstation, I was wrong! Maybe it isn't as far as I think i was but with all that to carry around it seemed like it. We went to the Olympic superstore, which was not that super. I only bought one thing, and it was not for me, it was a pin for my Uncle Walt (who I am going to try to go to the pin trading booth for). Speaking of pin trading, when we were going to board our plane to Milan, the organizer and expert of that sort of thing was sitting next to us and talked with us and was a great guy. Neat huh, he's even been on TV explaining the stuff. OK back to Tornino, we saw a couple and a dad from Cananda and found out the dad was from vancouver, and the couple was from NJ, they gave us Canada hockey pins to put on our jackets. So we don't look like Americans anymore! Yeah. We also ran into a man on the street while we were running to catch a train back to Milan, who is from Oxford, who is a professor there, and wondered about our dogs and traveling. He has a dog, he works in London, and lives in Paris. The Eurostar from London to Paris does not take dogs. He said is going to try to start legislation to plead for them to allow dogs to travel that route. He said they are loosing business by not allowing it. We agreed and said "You go for it, we'd back ya!" Then we ran to catch our train. We got on, and slept till we got to Milan, which is funny. I woke up, and then Ben woke up, and checked where we were. We were in the Milan station for which must have been about 10 mins after it orginally stopped, if we would have stayed there about 5 more mins. we would have ended back up in Torino! Funny huh...

2/14/06 valentines day: we took it easy, went out for dinner, I had Penne with walnut cream sauce. I had that a few days ago at the same place. Oh it is good!

2/15/06: We decided to take the dogs out with us to the Duomo cathedral (ok outside it for pics), also to the Castle near it. While we were walking to the tram we found a neat pet store. The dogs needed new colars and this place has ultra cool ones, see pic of them if you can. They are Italian leather, and have gold scotties on them... Ahh worth the price. They had so much neat things in such a tiny store. 2 toy poddles, 1 shih tzu, 1 scottish fold kitty, who alone cost 850 euro. The owner said our Boone would cost about 800 euro in europe. He had never seen a wheaton colored scottie before and his family has been in the business of pet store stuff for like 6 generations. He showed us the pics of his father, grandfather, and his grandfather's grandfather. Wow not like the usa at all there! But I bet Kenzie's puppies would be worth a lot here! We have only seen westies while around the towns, or daschund looking dogs (with long hair, but are not daschunds). Something with a B..... cute things.

Anyway, we got the collars, we went to Duomo and got pics, then we went to Prada and Louis Vutton and got pics of the dogs showing off their new bling which could have come from there if they would have had collars. We then walked to the castle thing, took more photos. It was not a castle to me, just more a fortress. Unimpressive. I want to see real castles like the one in Germany which inspired Cinderalla's castle! Now that is a castle.

We then took the subway, first for Boone and Kenzie, to the train station. We were going to try to go to Lake Como, a neat place we hear, but we had to get tickets for the train, they did not tell us how to read the stupid ticket and so we missed the train. We decided to come home. I slept from like 5pm till 5am this morning.... Ok now to today 2/16/06, fun day.... We woke up early as you can tell from above, yet rested! Ben found out that his work had been delayed again for the 2 or third day in a row. So we said lets pack up and go on a train ride. We asked Ben's mom and dad where we should go. Pisa, Monaco/Monte Carlo, Rome, or Venice. We ended up going to Venice since the train was still there by the time we got off our tram at the train station, it did not need reservations, and so we got on at 7:10am... got there about 11:50am. The ride to most of the places via train before were pretty neat, since it was sunny. Today it was not sunny... Foggy is the case, reminded me of home. The train ride was very limited for sight but we did see many vineyards at least. When we got to Venice, wow take the train, it drops you off in the best place once you get off. WOW. It was not what I expected the city to be like but it was still cool. It was a maze of alleys and narrow walk ways that if you go down the wrong way, you end up in a dead end, unless you have a boat, then you can cross over to the other side. We did not do a gondola today, since this was a quick day trip and we have a whole week scheduled in April for the city. We found the open air market/fish market too, by following the signs. We thought for sure we would get lost trying to make our way back to the train station but amazingly we didn't. We got there just fine, despite how we got to the market in the first place was crazy. We decided then that we didn't want to go back to Milan yet, so we hopped aboard a train to Bologna to see if there were more wine vineyards there to see on the trip. There was, but fog only allowed us to see a bit of them. Where is the Tuscan sun, I want my money back! As we got close to Bologna the conductor said we needed passes for the dogs. First time in 5 trips on the train someone had said that, and proceeded to charge us 16 euros for them. We asked why he said that is the rule. After we got off, we asked at the desk what is the rule and they said it is complicated, and they could not show us the rule. But if a dog can fit on your lap it is free, if it is in a crate it is free, if it is large dog then you have to pay 50% of a ticket. They do not make europasses for dogs, they should! Then we needed to go get reservations for us for the train from Bologna to Milan, which only cost us 2 euros and included the dogs. humm is there something wrong with this, 16 vs 2 euros for the same distance on the map? I think so. I don't have a problem paying 2 euros for the dogs, but 16 euros I think not.....

Well we got back to Milan safe and sound, and without getting lost in Venice, Yeah. But wait! We take the tram back to our apt. here, I realize after we get off the stop, I lost my gloves, they must have been on the seat. Ben, being the wonderful man he is, says I'll get them for you!. He hands me Boone, and the backpack, and dashes off. "I'll see you back at the Apt". and off he goes. Well Boone, Kenzie and I walk back very slow, and haphazardly to the apt. After 5 mins goes by I wonder is Ben coming back? After 15 mins, "where is he? He should be back by now?" Ahhh, no cell phone, no passport just the ID (*I have the important info, he has the cash... and our ID's). Where is he, did he get hit by a car since they drive so bad here???. So after about 20 mins of waiting, I knock on Bennedetta's (landlady) door to say I think there is something wrong, can you help me find Ben... Wonderful woman she is she comes and helps me try to find Ben. We go 4 tram stops before we see Ben on a Tram (about 10-15 blocks from the stop I left my gloves going the opposite way) and see him get off a few blocks in front of us (not with in hearing distance). We finally make it back and I was so excited to see Ben. He had gotten the gloves from the tram, took him a wild adventure to get them back for me, and all I could think of was his safety and not the gloves. I would have wanted him to give up on them a long time ago. I wanted him safe and sound. He said if you would have just gone back to the apt and waited for me, you would not have had to worry. I said I did go back, but after so many minutes, your mind starts to wander and panic and love kicks in.... I was so glad to see him, and still am so thankful he came back safe and sound. Love ya Ben!!!! Way too much, more then any stinking gloves can tear us apart!

Now I'm updating the journal, waiting to ask Ben if he wants to get food.

I think tomorrow we'll be doing laundry. Which they do not have dryers, only washers. Odd huh, they stick thier laundry outside the window like they did in the 1940's to dry, even in the below freezing temperatures. Crazy, but they say they do get dry. I don't see how...

Saturday should be a pack up day, get to Torino, get our tickets at will-call, then head to Pinerolo (sp) to drop off the dogs and luggage and then take a bus/shuttle up to where the bobsledding is. Then I think there is lift up to the event, and a long walk to get there. Should be fun. Sunday is curling, and Monday I still have 1 ticket to bobsled if Ben lets me go, or we head of to the middle of france to end up on the west coast of france, and then meander down to madrid to meet up with Ben's co-worker. Fun fun. Talk to you more then! Bye :)

here are some family photos we wanted to share with you!

Ben, Boone & Kenzie in the Shopping area by Duomo, rich shops.

Family Photo in Vinnice.

2/10/2006: I think it is friday the 10th. It is about midnight here. We went to Duomo today, the big church, we paid 4 euros to climb to the top (which it was sunny but it was hazey so we didn't get to see the mtns.) We went inside the church and I lite a prayer candle for my friends, family and our trip. We took a long time to decide on where to eat lunch, but finally found a place. It is a fun exeperince trying to find places to eat, most people here do not speak english, we used the translator book Greg got us alot so far. The food is a bit different, but for the most part the same. Odd thing to us is there is a cover charge to eat at a restaunt, mostly because that is the manditory tip, and no more then that is expected. They range for 1 - 4 euros a person. We went into a few shops today where there were small dogs inside as employees. They are cute little things. They work just as hard as the people it seems.

We went into Parda today too, wow what a waste of money if you buy from there, just for the name. We also went into a department store, where just a sweater cost 151 euros and supposedly on sale for like -50% off. Still not a bargin in my world. I should have shopped ross before we left! Ok, I know I'm cheap. The shoes here look nice as most people say, but look so uncomftable that I don't think I will be getting a pair anytime soon.

We are loving the calling program called "skype". It allowes us to use our computer with a headset with microphone, to be able to call any phone number we want back home for like pennies! It is free if you have computer to computer calling. Ben's parents have that so it was great when we got in, we didn;t activate our american express cards yet, we called them up for free to have Sandi activate them for us. Thanks Sandi! My cousin in Spain also has it too, and so we will be calling him via it for free when we go there. This program also has Instant messanger service as well not just the phone thing. so it is very handy. We've called the bank, our house, our parents, companies back home, next on the list is the property manager. Fun fun.

Things people did not tell us about Italy that I wish they would have: 1) they take a break about 1:30pm and 2:45pm every day. 2) there is no such thing as breakfast just pasteries 3) lunch you have only between 12pm ad 2pm otherwise places close down (and I mean they shut the shops down with gates infront of them) 3) Dinner is at 7:30pm- 9:30pm unless you find a place with open doors to go into (same thing with the gates) 4) the toilets are square and hurt you're butt, try to find oval ones if you can. 5) they have never heard of a hot chocolate just coffee or cafe. I thought Starbucks Chantico was from Italy, boy were we wrong.... 6) Jetlag is real. No matter how much water you drink, how much you stay in the sunlight, or how long you stay up on your new time zone, there is a chance you will be dizzy when you leave your apt/hotel room. I couldn't leave the room with out getting dizzy for 2 days now. Crazy.

Well it is late here, and I think I'm going to hit the sack soon. Just wanted to say hi. Take care, Shelby :)

1/20/2006: Testing, testing, 1,2,3. My first blog, how exciting. Today we got 2 inspections on the home before we proceed onto the drywall/mud/tape phase of the remodel. Am I stressed about it, well yes and no. Am I stressed that we will be leaving so soon, yes and no. Am I worried about the house being rented out while were gone, yes and no. Am I worried about our cars, nope i think they found great homes with Chris (van) and possibly Greg for the car.

I'm not counting the days down till we leave. I'm counting down the days I have to finish the house, the cushions for the couch, the time to teach neighbor sara to sew, finish the kitchen makeover, move all our crap into the storage area, pack, finish up the paperwork for the puppies to get into europe, see all my friends and family before we leave, clean, finish pond pump and patio, watch all those TV shows we DVR, finish a knitting project from my grandma, and so much more. I hope when I'm over there I get to enjoy the trip instead of think of what else I should be doing instead of enjoying what I am doing!

I love you all, take care, and know you all mean so much to me.