I have great friends

Yesterday we left France and entered Italy. After driving all day, we
reached Cervinia at 11, where we met my friend Diana. After a few
drinks and chatting, we went to sleep, and this morning this is what I
see out of my window. Life is good!

Some trip statistics

Kilometers traveled - 3540
Countries visited - 3 (if you count Gibraltar)
Bottles of water used - unknown, 30+
Minor injuries - 2
Major injuries - 0
Illnesses - 0
Shoes forgotten (and retrieved) - 2
Beer consumed - ~40 Liters
Tempers lost - 3
Languages spoken - 3
Pages of research read - ~100
Pages of thesis written - 3

Feels like home

We're finally in the mountains, and found this nice unused road to
camp on. The stars were beautiful and the mosquitos and flies were
just as annoying as at home. :-)

To the piranese!

I think I spelled that wrong, but we are headed there for the night,
and then to Andorra. Love you all!

My old addiction

I want this in my mouth... But it's 110 euros, so I'll just think
about tasting it instead.

My new addiction

Gazpacho on a box. It's fantastic. I get it prettyich every time we
stop to shop on this trip.

Zaragoza apparently means Ceasar Augosto

And it has this big ol' palace-y thing right on the river bank. We
later descovered that is was a church to the Virgin de Pilar, but I
like the outside a lot more.

Zaragoza is a cute city, but it's way too hot here right now. About 32
(85) during the night, so I couldn't sleep so well.

Fresh Tomatoes and a Spider

I think the title pretty much says it all.

Barcelona -or- How I Met Jesus

We stayed the weekend "in" Barcelona at a place we found on couch
surfing. After meeting the guy in the city center, we drive up to his
home, about 30 min our of the city, and were greeted with this view.
His name is Jesus Pastor and he came from Argentina 2 years ago to
find his father in Barcelona. He found his father and found this house
through some friends of friends and os now fixing it up, working a lot
in the garden and generally making it a great place. This is the kind
of place I want to have some day, so here's hoping!

What's in the water?

We drove from our spot in the Sierra Nevadas to Malaga to stay with a
friend, but we took all the back roads and saw maybe 3 or 4 lakes that
were all this vibrant terquoise color. Not sure what makes them this
color, maybe the same thing that makes the rocks and dirt so red... In
any case, they were really lovely so we stopped and dipped our toes in
a couple of times.

Sierra Nevada

I remember when Chris and I drove to Granada there was a moment when
the Sierra Nevada mountains came into view. It was really impressive
and beautiful, so I'm quite glad I was able to explore them a bit on
this trip!

The road leads to a big awkwardly-artificial ski resort, but the views
made up for it. We hiked a little bit (not much since the girls don't
have good shoes... ) and then ended up setting up our tent at the
little parking lot you can see on the right of this picture. I
definitely missed being in the mountains!

Things that always impress me

Maybe not #1 on the list, but the Alhambra made an impression on me
when I was 15, and amazes me each time I see it or learn more about it.

I blog when I find Internet

So you might be getting a lot of pictures of food and cafes!

This is breakfast in Granada, where we'll spend the day. I'm hoping to
get to some of the caves / shrines in the hills near the Alhambra this
time, but we'll see what my travel buddies are interested in.

Tomorrow we are going to stay with a friend in Malaga and enjoy a
festival for the weekend. It should be a lot of fun, and showering and
washing clothes sounds pretty nice too.

Love you all!

Hola Tarifa

Pros:
In Spain
Next to the beach
Great company
Cute camp site
Finally good temperatures

Cons:
Expensive camp site (40 euros gets us a hostel, you greedy pricks)
Windy as balls, meaning the beach is unusable...