swiss bank accounts

This is not about swiss cheese, but it does cover my journey from barcelona to geneva switzerland, with stops in Granada and Madrid and Toledo in between.

Barcelona:
The highlight of this portion was visiting the unfinished, but still spectacular sagrada familia there. A combination of gothic and modern design, it has plans so vast that they intend to build a spire taller than any other complete with a cross that you can walk inside. Not uncommon in this process is the fact that this is a modern day masterpiece, and it has taken over 100 years and it still isn't done. Antiquities are great, but this could be the greatest cathedral in the world if it is ever completed. As we walked inside of it and up the towers, you could see the workers constructing it bit by bit. Even modernized it takes a long time, and I hope to see it completed within my lifetime. If not, then it won't be a new thing for the history of the world. I think that finished it might be the greatest thing I have seen thus far except for the world trade center. We also visited the olympic stadium, the FC barcelona home, and the picasso museum. I think that the olympic stadium was sort of sad, because after the olympics, it basically doesn't have any use. FC barcelona sits supposedly 120,000 topping even UT knoxville and the bighouse. Whoa- I wasn't supposed to go inside without a tour, but I found an open door and took some photos. Picasso was dissapointing for me because it didn't really have any masterworks, and it wasn't that big, and I got there at the end of the day and was exhausted. The street life was amazing on Las ramblas, a pedestrian walkway. I saw magicians, statues that move, and a michael Jackson impersonator, which if you know me, is cool. I liked that plenty, but it couldn't top the Italian worldcup celebration, which was crazier than expected, and this wasn't even Italy!! At least the french lost. Its NOT our fault we can't speak french, and its not individual citizen responsibility for the war in Iraq. I wish those jerks would let it go that they don't rule the world anymore, but hey, I can't change a nation. I couldn't make it to visit my relatives due to time constraints, so I apologize for that. I saw other churches and stuff, but aside from a brief argument with my dad over whether or not it was okay to be loud in hostel communal rooms at night, it was pretty uneventful. Oh yes, the nudity. Much different and more expected than the events in munich, we went to the beach. We went to the beach when the retired age people went there, the younguns came later sadly... However, I discovered that of course, after about 3 minutes, its just not that big of a deal! I really am not sure why it is so at home, but thats just the way it is.

Thoughts and Observations
-My spanish ain't bad! I used it a ton to get around. The people in spain do not speak very much english. My dad doesn't speak spanish and my ability to get around was excellent.
-The trains are poor. Not on time, the station attendant is confusing, and I had a hard time with the whole thing.
-Barcelona wasn't as photogenic as other places
-The Italian celebration apparently wasn't limited to italy

Next, it was to granada. This is the former capital of spain, controlled by the moors until 1492, the year that everybody should know. Now its populated primarily by spanish and students studying in Granada from all over the world, but mostly the USA. We traveled via night train, which was an interesting trip. First, the cabins are pretty packed, so there isn't a lot of space. But, you save hotel fees for a night, plus you knock out travel time during a time which you probably wouldn't be seeing anything anyways, so its a good deal. You can save even more by staying in the regular seats, which I will get to later in the adventure section. Anyways, we met this weird and funny spanish guy that was trying to get me to get some american girls to come and hang out. He also went on and on in spanish about smoking and how he wanted to in the cabin, and it wouldn't work. I am pretty sure he stayed up all night, with an unlit cigarrette in his mouth, saying weird things. It was very funny, and I hope that you all get to meet these interesting people at some point. I used every opportunity to try and do a little more phrases in spanish, and this was no exception. But after getting off the train and arriving [fooling around in granada because the guide book posted the wrong phone number so I booked a different place than I thought] we headed off to do the usual: see the sights of course!

We went to the palace that held queen isabella and ferdinand, the couple who united spain and sent chris columbus to india, making spain the richest nation in the world, untill they refused to get modern and squandered it all. Cathedral as well, which as usual was ornate and cool. Can't count how many churches I have been to, but I try to point out the good ones. Nonetheless, it was interesting. But we came to granada to see the Alahambra, a different and more interesting place than anything else so far. It was an islamic moorish palace with a castle built off roman ruins when the moors controlled spain untill, once again 1492. It had no images of humans, especially not naked ones abundant throughout france and italy, but it was still fascinating. It was incredibly ornately decorated with MC escher-esque tiles and arabic sayings. Turns out while europe was fighting over this and that during the dark ages and nobody could read or do something intelligent, these folks were building these masterpieces. It is so popular to visit here [and a long trip from anywhere in the continent given spains lousy trains] that you need reservations to get there, which we took care of online a few days prior. It had a palace for the sultan, fountains, a beautiful garden, and an awesome castle that overlooks the city. For the non-story aspects of this trip, I do the best to describe this, but you have to see it to believe it, and its hard to relate without my personal context. Try to keep that in mind. There is so much to see and so little time, but not when traveling with my dad. You see it all. The next day [13 july as they say it here] we took it easy.

I went to see the university where my friend alex kerchner studied abroad, which wasn't that exciting except for the fact that I saw the first, yes first public drinking fountain thus far in almost a month in europe. Dad and myself also went to see superman returns [el regreso] en espanol, which I understood and he sort of did. I don't understand why they make a mexican and spanish version, but I could definately detect the spanish lisp in the dialouge. Seeing foreign movies from my perspective is more effective with subtitles than dubbing, but who am I to compain. I will say that they use pretty much the same 20-30 voices and for all such movies I have seen, and have a hard time conveying small, low softtalk in spanish, since they always speak quick and loud. They also shut down the country from 1-5 each day in the afternoon, and stay up untill 4am. Go figure- Now its off to Toledo and madrid.

Madrid: Great city, little time to see it, since I had decided at this point to meet up in switzerland and had to leave quick, as did dad to get to portugal. However, they have the prado museum, which with art history makes for a great little stop. Rafael, valasquez, bosch, tintoretto, caravaggio, titian, others. I loved it as usual, and as usual, seeing it is better than talking about it. Its like the lourve of the south. Picasso did an interpretation of "las meninas" considered to be a great painting. I also spent 4+ hours battling through lines at the inefficient trainstation getting tickets to geneva which I didn't get. More on that later. The next day, we stopped in toledo for the day. This was formerly a big spanish place where el greco, the famous greek rennesaaince painter lived and did his greatest works. Toledo has one of the greatest works I had seen thus far, the cathedral. It had a 300 pound plus gold holder for the communion offerments, el greco, caravaggio [my favorite if you couldn't tell] and more. The alter was out of this world, and you couldn't take photos inside, but I didn't know that and snapped a few. Also, it had a unique hole in the ceiling to light up the place. Frescos, baroque over the top sculptures, and more. Italy may be able to top this but its hard to say at this point. Also there, a grocery store full of only sweet bread as we discovered, a jewish synogogue, and a swingset where I reminiced about the old days back at ferill mcwhirter. Toledo was a good trip, and on the way there we had a nice conversation with a girl studying abroad from california. One thing I have missed so far is girls, so I looked forward to meeting some chicks as time went on. After all, the trip with dad was fantastic and we saw more than I might have otherwise, but you gotta dig the european chicks. We were so tired each night that I didn't want to go out at night, especially sans friends. Hostels, trains, and stations are great places to meet people.

Later, we headed off in the night [chaffage issues on both parties from so much walking] but we saw a spanish band play in the square of madrid. I spoke some spanish and hung out, wasted a little time and then packed for the next stage, to meet up with the frat dudes, who I was starting to miss, you know after so long.