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I just started to understand some Spanish!

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

June 11, 2009

Just when I was starting to understand some Spanish we go to Portugal. We got on a bus that took us from Merida, Spain to Lisbon, Portugal. Not once crossing the border between the two countries did we have to show our passport because in the European Union you are free to move between countries unlike earlier where we would have had to go through a customs checkpoint. We then arrived in Lisbon and I once again was totally without any clue as to communicating. The one nice part was that more people in Portugal spoke English than in Spain. We came into the Santiago Calatrava designed Estacao de Oriente.

Estacao de Oriente

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Tags: bus, Lisbon, Merida, Santiago Calatrava
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The Travel Begins!

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

June 6, 2009

We had an extra day off and after the week in Madrid we spent it relaxing. At night we had a ride on the RENFE AVE train from Atocha Station. This was the first major high speed rail line built in Spain. In terms of using this over air travel I am totally for the train because the time is not much different and the amount of time you need to arrive before departure is minimal. It is possible to show up to the train 15 minutes before it leaves and make it on without having issues. Also, unlike airlines, the trains are very reliant with RENFE giving a guarantee that if a train is more than 20 minutes late you get a 100% refund (I would like to see an airline do that and stay in business).

The train ride was great and we just had a short walk to the hostel when we got to Cordoba. In Cordoba we stayed at the Hosteling International – Instalacion Juvenil which was a very nice hostel that was simple but provided free breakfast. After we got in the hostel we went out and took a walk to see what was around and found we were just 5 minutes from the meeting point on the Roman bridge.

Tags: Atocha Station, Cordoba, Hosteling International, Madrid, Photo Coming, RENFE, Roman
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Welcome to Spain

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

May 29, 2009

We arrived in Madrid late at night from our Ryanair flight. This was my first experience with a super-low cost carrier (they make Southwest look fancy). The plane itself was nice but was very bare bones with simple plastic backed seats that had no pockets to select you own seating. Unlike other airlines you received nothing without paying including any sort of snack.

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Tags: Las Musas, Madrid, Ryanair
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No Internet, No Posts

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

So the Hilton wanted to charge way too much for internet so instead I just did not use it and well I just realized now that I have internet how much I rely on it for random entertainment. Though I did not need any!

I will put up details about Dublin later.

Tags: Dublin, Hilton, internet
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