madrid

woke up in lisbon, packed the car and took off driving. the drive took about 6 hours, with a few stops, so 7 hours total. Highlight of the drive was the truck of goats that we passed, then pulled over to wait for, since laurie thought they were so cute. we did not pull over long enough and they were still behind us, so i slowed down to a crawl to let the truck catch up, cars were flying by, cursing us and a bus almost hit us. we pulled over again to let the truck catch up and this time we let it pass us. we then stepped on the accelorator to catch up and right as we caught up it turned off the fwy and we did not want to get lost so we did not follow.

we got lost driving in madrid, but i grabbed the map and got us going in the right direction. We were following yahoo directions in spanish and we did pretty well, but one wrong turn sent us toward plaza sol and the small streets. we arrived at the hotel not sure what we were getting ourselves into. we had got it on price line for 65 dollars and it had said 5 star hotel. it was a little off the beaten path, but had a subway station right nearby. we checked in and went to our room. our room was hot and the air was not working well. did i mention it was 105 degrees in madrid. Our bags took forever to come up and laurie just went down and grabbed her bag off the rack. I guess when a woman grabs a bag in the lobby and starts lugging it up , they get off their arses and do something. we were not very satisfied, but we were paying 65 dollars. I called down about the air, and they sent someone up. he worked on it, a little and told us to give it time. we went out exploring to buy some water and find some dinner.

when we returned the room was still cooking. we sat there in the room so tired, and exhausted and just upset. we called down, and they said that they would move us to a smoking room. We hate the smell of the smoking rooms, so we just asked the hotel if they could give us a fan and we would tough it out. The manager and very nice man, felt so bad, and could hear in our voices our exhaustion. He came to our room with a bottle of champagne and escorted us to their best room in the house. we thanked him. we looked at the room, which was beautiful. Went to the bedroom cracked the champagne and went to bed. we slept great, it was pitch black and cold in the room.

we awoke, packed our stuff up . the hotel asked us to do this, in case they could not fix the air and had to move us. we left the hotel around 10am. first stop breakfast at the open air market near plaza mayor. Laurie started her trend of gazpacho at every meal. I had coffee and a boccadillo con jamon. we walked in plaza mayor, and then over to the prado. we explored the prado museum for a few hours. we grabbed some lunch at a few different tapas bars. tapas are so expensive now. laurie had gazpacho again. started off walking to the modern art museum which we found was closed on tuesdays, so instead we walked around the big park in the middle of town. its the central park of madrid. Laurie was accosted by a guy with his shirt off, she just ran and caught up to me. she was walking along a creek and i opted for the dirt path. we got a good laugh out of it.

we then walked over to another big art museum near the prado. we must have looked funny moving through the museum so fast. we were art museum out after the prado and not sure why we went to this one. we then grabbed a few beers over looking gran via, and headed back to the hotel.

at night we found ourselves in the gay area of madrid, near cheuca. It was a blast. We found a great tapas bar. Laurie loved how the bar tender would just splash beer all over the place as he filled a glass and then threw it our way. Laurie had her third bowl of gazpacho. We walked over to another place and had paella. we grabbed a few more beers in a random plaza and then made our way home.

the air was working well and we slept well. The hotel had put a bottle of red wine and snacks in our room , for the inconvenience of having to pack our stuff up and not having air working. they were so nice, and the manager was so sweet to laurie when we called down to thank him.

the next day we took off to the modern art museum. Laurie had gazpacho for breakfast again. we had a bag of clothes we wanted to donate with us, and the museum wanted to charge us a dollar to store them while we walked around, so we just stuck them by a trash can outside. The museum was great. Still my favorite. We spent a few hours there and a lot of walking, since laurie made me take the stairs. Clothes were still outside the museum when we left. we walked over to la senorita, or nina, for tapas. I had some strange items, laurie had gazpacho and clams. I think i had stomach and snails. we left the clothes at a subway stop, we saw some homeless people nearby. we then walked over to the palace . We walked through the palace and the nuestro cathedral. Both were fabulous and had some great views. we then walked up to gran sol, and had a few afternoon beers, and did some shopping. we made our way back home, to shower and head out.

dinner was tapas crawl. we started near where we had lunch. as we exited the subway we spotted lauries sweatshirt and now buzzed from prefunking in the room, we got a good laugh at the site of the sweatshirt. we started off at a great little place, and we would have stayed longer except for the strange man grabbing mine and laurie's arm. how do we always find these people. we then found a few more tapas bars. Ended with beers in a random plaza and off to bed. we must have walked ten miles today. our feet hurt, but we got one more day.

The last day we shopped and just did some strolling, our plan was take it easy, get rid of all extra stuff and eat more tapas. we had dinner in plaza mayor and it was a stunning sunset. we found a street performer who made noises at people as they walked by. Laurie and i loved it, since he had a stuffed real sheep head on top of a wild colored coat. as people would walk by he would whistle and make the mouth of the sheep move. we must have watched for 30 minutes just laughing. The sheep spotted us just watching and waved us over. So i gave it a kiss and the crowd clapped.

Laurie and I walked around plaza sol and gran via and back to mayor where we had a last kiss and said our goodbyes to madrid. All the young couples were making out, so we did too. It felt very european.

we woke up at 4 am , and were in the cab at 5 am . surfboards put on board. we beat the crowd, and 18 hours later we arrived in lax. My surfboard is beat to heck. Probably 300 dollars in damage. Gigi picked us up and it felt good to be home. I have to say there was a moment in frankfurt as were connecting to our LA plane that we thought about just taking back off to the road.

I guess we now have to wait a few years and start part two of the blog. Honeymoonsurfwithlittleones.blogspot.com

lisbon

we arrive around 2 pm, after taking the roundabouts a few times to get our bearings. we find a quaint little place, and they can take our boards and show us where to park. we get lunch at a little cafe and i face my fears and eat bacuala (salted cod). Its good but heavy. i say face my fears because this fish got me sick in Porto.
we take off walking and our five hour journey takes us through downtown, to the water, then up a hill, to a some grand buildings and the famous church "Se" of Lisbon. we hike up to the castle getting lost on the way. how we got lost i am still trying to figure out. its at the top of the hill. we got so lost that we found a place to have a beer and think about what we did wrong. this bar has the most amazing views. once in the castle we walk around and see lots of stray cats . The views are amazing from the top of the hill. in the castle we get the most amazing views of Lisbon, well worth the hike up the hill. we take our time walking down through Alfama and back to our hotel. we have been offered pot and hash about a dozen times. I guess we look the type. Laurie just runs away when the men come toward her. our legs are exhausted and we got a lot of walking out of the way. we have a traditional Portuguese dinner.

next morning we wake up and stretch out our legs. with a little coffee and breakie, we head out. we first go to modern art museum, but they only have a small exhibit going and want 8 euros , forget it. so we walk around the area and decide to cab it to the tile museum. we loved the tile museum. laurie is now in love with tiles. she loves the blue and white ones the most. we then walked to lunch. i have pork ribs and laurie had a steak. we had a cute little lady helping us order, she spoke no english, and i would just nod my head and smile. she enjoyed our company. we adored her back. she told laurie to protect her purse on the metro. we walked over to the Fado museum. fado is the blues of lisbon. Its absolutely beautiful, usually just a singer and a guitar. it always sounds sad. we then walk around alfama some more and sneak in and out of stores. i find a great pastry shop and have an amazing walnut cake. i love my sweets. we head back and shower. drink a few beers in the room and blast vh1. we walk to dinner. I try a local specialty of sepia (big squid) with tinta (ink). its intense and the man who i ordered from feels bad for not warning me and gives me apple dessert. laurie has a nice steak and egg dish, her go to menu item. we then walk up the hill to barrio alto and have some beers. happy and tired we head back to our hotel.
day three i wake up more sore than the day before. laurie once she has had her caffeine fix is ready to hit the day running. she never takes escalators and runs up the stairs to keep up with me on the escalator. people just look at us. sometimes i take the stairs. when i know i will get to shower soon. we head out to east lisbon to the Oceanario . its their big aquarium. laurie falls in love with the sunfish and then stalks it for pictures the next 45 minutes. they have one huge tank and a bunch of small tanks with three floors of live seafood. seeing all fishes made me hungry so we quickly go through the water garden near by. laurie and i play on all the water wheels and pumps. we then get lunch at the mall. we find a surf shop and laurie finally gets her portugal surf shirt. she has surf shirts from all the countries she surfed in. we then bus it to the big bridge. Ponte De Abril . we find out you can not cross it, so we settle for a beer under it. we then head back to town. get offered pot twice. shower up and head out to dinner. find a seafood place, and we have garlic shrimp , amazing, clams, amazing, crab, good, and bbq tiger shrimp, very good. we get a few beers around and then decide to crash out. legs tired, stomach filled, lisbon has been great. great place, great people, great vibe.
in the morning we pack up , say our goodbyes, and head off to spain.

off to the castle and the beach

we drive south to a beach laurie saw on her surf map called playa grande. We find a cute little Residencia to stay in with an amazing view. the price is cheap and we are happy. we check out the surf, but it does not look so good, so we go into Sintra the town near by. Sintra is known for its castles and palaces , so we decide to hike around the hills. we head up the hill to a castle at the top. the views are amazing and the wind is hollowing. it was a real adventure. Laurie was scared since the wind was pushing her around on top of these perches at the castle. there are no guard rails so you grab on anything you can. we spent a few hours at the top before heading back down to the beach. we grab a great dinner, of bbq fish and bbq octopus. we walk around town and meet the local icecream maker. we talk to them for a while and head off to bed.
the next day the surf is huge and we do not dare go in, so we went back to Sintra to see what we missed. we see the national palace and then go to the Quinta da Regaleira . both are stunning , but the quinta is something else. the property has hidden tunnels all over and it took us three hours to walk everywhere. we had a blast, i hit my head about a dozen times in these little passages. i could only imagine what it would be like to be a kid and play hide and go seek here. we had walked about five hours so we decided to grab some lunch. i could not resist and had the pig ear salad. it was delicious. we then took a drive to the other coast , and saw the last of the surf spots. nothing looked too inviting so we just cruised the coast back to our hotel. we found a neat spot where wind surfers and kite surfers were catching huge waves. we took a look at the two local spots, still double overhead no mercy waves, so we just took a walk on the beach and brought out a smash ball kit we had bought back in spain. we played about an hour before my cheap racket broke and we called it a day. we got some beers, sat watching the ocean and waited to go out to dinner. on the way to dinner i ran into a local fisherman who had his picture up in the icecream parlor, i shook his hand and had a translator(local girl) let him know that i saw his picture and that i was impressed with these two huge fish he had. He was so delighted to be recognized by two americans . That night we saw him at the icecream parlor where his picture was up. I guess he felt the urge to visit, since he was now famous with the americans again.
we woke up gave hugs to the little ladies who ran the place we stayed in. They loved laurie, with hugs and kisses on both cheeks, and grabbed me and once again marveled at how big i was. they kept grabbing my arms and lauging and smiling.
we drove off toward lisbon.

find more surf in portugal

well we awoke to find a beautiful day, and Laurie got that "lets move on vibe, so we did". We checked out a few spots on our way down to Ericeira. Nothing look too good. we arrived in ericeira to find great waves, great weather and a great place to stay at. We got some lunch, and took off for surf. I was eating again, and now feeling better. Laurie paddled out at Ribeira d'Ilhas Beach. What a gem of a beach. There is a punch right point break, then an a frame break, and then another a frame mostly right break. all in the span of three football fields. Plus the beach is so beautiful , with the back drop being these cliffs that you look at out in the water. we both caught some amazing waves, and this is turning out to be my favorite spot , maybe in the world . The weather is perfect, the water is crisp and refreshing. We had a great session, out in the water i was talking to a guy who I felt i recognized. In the pizza bar there was another hawaiian looking guy that looked familiar too. I found out from a spanish guy i started talking to in the line up that i was talking to members of peal jam. They had played there last concert in lisbon and when they are here, they like to surf. Pretty neat. I own two of there albums, and now i can pick out one of the memeber since i have surfed with him.
we quickly made it back to our hotel to watch the world cup final. It was fun watching with a bunch of europeans, they are so into there futbol. we walked over to a nice little place and had seafood and rice for dinner. It was fabulous.
The next day we did the same routine, laurie surfed twice and I finished my book second book of the trip. I had really picked up my reading. My first book was heat, given to me by Dean , and my second book was a Hemmingway, "Ror whom the bells Tolls". Laurie has read a library so far, all surf biographies, if I get one more Layne Beechley thought or quote, i may throw the book over a cliff. so we surfed twice, and we had more pizza. this pizza place is a woodfire pizza at a bar, right at the beach. Two belgians run the pizza joint, and i have befriended them both. When they take breaks, they are out in the line up shredding it on their longboards. what a life. we headed back to our hotel that night and found a resturant that serves fresh, really fresh fish, bbq with olive oil and salt. Laurie wants fish every night now.
we awake again, and follow the same routine. this time out in the line up i meet joy a very nice local who tells about a few resturants that are reasonably priced and amazing. He is so nice that he drives us to both to show us where they are. we have a beer with him while eating clams in an olive oil, and lemon sauce. Laurie's other new favrorite food. it kills me to pay 10 dollars for the clams, since they will be free when we get to birch bay , washington. I try sea snails, which are meaty and delicious.
we then surf again, and head back home. We go light on dinner and just have something easy. In the morning we scour the rocks for since the tide is going far out. We love watching the men out in the tide flats with their sticks looking for crabs, octopus, almost anthing they can pry from a rock. We walk along the flats for an hour. lots of sea urchins and neat looking seaweed. we see a man pull an octopus from the rocks.
we decided to pack up our stuff and head to another beach. so once again on the road. I wanted to stay since i am now in love with ericeira.

off to portugal

We decided to drive to Porto. We drove around the city for what seemed like hours trying to find a hotel. our spanish was no help, and nothing was in english. the damn information sign led us in circles. we found a hotel finally and were happy to have our stuff somewhere. i thought about driving us out of town. we first walked to the main cathedral . we then found another church to check out. we then followed the walkways down to the river. We found a huge bridge that kids were jumping off of. it was intense. It must have been 50 feet and these fearless kids were jumping no problem. it was great when they would do the father son and holy spirit crossing and then kiss there hand , look up and then jump. laurie started stripping down to do it herself, which i talked her out of . We went in some of the most beautiful churches. church san fransico was stunning. it was worth paying for it. On top of one of the churches we saw a baby seagull. the mom seagull was trying to teach his baby how to fly. The seagull did not like us there so it flew up and then darted down towards our heads. we quickly ducked and screamed. it tried to attack us!!!! We looked at each other in amazement and then the bird came toward us again trying to get is again!!! we quickly got out of there. we hiked up a huge hill and then down to the center square. That night we watched the worldcup outside on the big screen. it was fun and huge crowd got into it. we then finished watching the game at a cute restaurant where the food was yummy. i was not feeling well since i ate some weird fish ball earlier in the day and he then drank about 7 beers and a pitcher of sangria.
the next day andrew awoke sick, we think food posioning. he was beat up so we drove out of town and to a cute surf town called peniche and stayed at a famous surf spot called Baleal. we have been here for a few days. i have been surfing and andrew has been recovering. i have not seen him this ill in a while. today while surfing these portuguese men accused me of surfing too close to some girl and then did the point at his eyes and then at me 5 times!!!. one guy then said"you don't even want to know what will happen to you if you hit that girl" then two other guys tried to vibe me. The wierd thing was i wasnt even close to hitting that girl with my board. i just surfed around them and stared them down. i was wishing andrew was out there. i know andrew would have just smiled at them, and they would have paddled away. well one more day here in peniche and then on to another surf beach in portugal.

spain again

we drove from hossegor all the way to mundaka. Mundaka was flat and a little bit of a scary city. so we decided to drive on. we found a cute little town and cute little hotel run by the cutest little lady. we stayed right on the beach in baiko. we went for a swim and drank some beers at the local little bars. I exchanged an American dollar for a euro ,with a local who was heading to costa rica and said it was the closest she will have been to the USA. we made it back to our hotel, for the most expensive and least satisfying meal of our entire trip. I miss france's food. everything i order and laurie ordered in france was amazing. Spain has been not so good and i am not sure why.

we woke up checked out the surf and then drove onward west. we stopped and surfed a great spot called lineres. i stayed with the car, and met the locals but laurie surfed her heart out. she caught some great lefts at a rivermouth. the Spaniards would cheer her on. I talked with the life guards and drank coffee with a referee for the world surf circuit.

we stayed at a local camping and hotel spot that caused us to have one of the most uncomfortable events of our trip. we wanted to put our boards in our room, but this old man said we needed to put them in this market room. no one spoke english and our spanish was failing. we kept asking him if people came in this room and he had put our boards about five feet up on this little shelf. i could not stomach getting another ding, since my board has been beaten so bad already. we ended up sneaking the boards out of the room and up to our hotel room.
we then were accosted by him when sitting down to dinner in the bar. he grabbed my arm , and in my face was yelling at me and i said no thank you, no thank you, until i gave him a manimal look and said" no mas" "no me gusta "and gave him a little shove. i had to show the machismo. we then walked in the rain away from the bar to another to find dinner. the food at both places was yucky. we miss france. laurie ordered a hamburger and got a ham burger, she is sick of ham so this did not work.

in the morning we woke up early and jetted, we did not want to run into this old man, who we found out was the crazy dad of the owner of the hotel.

we checked out the spot we surfed the day before but it did not look very good , so we drove onward. the weather had turned for the bad and we decided to just make it to a city and hunker down for the night. we stayed in gijon at a hotel above a sideria. we walked around town trying to find a laundry place, since i was now out of all clothes. i had been asking laurie to do laundry since france. it was now 5 days later. we found out that it was a holiday and nothing would be opened. so we decided to just walk around. we have now figured out that spain has weird eating hours. you can eat from 11 am till around 4 then everything clothes till 9 pm. this does not work so well for laurie and i. we are always hungry and order just horribly. we decide to get dinner at our hotel and watch the game later that night. we ordered nicely for once. we had paella and salads. the world cup spain game was a blast, we watched it with big crowds, and to make the night better spain won. everyone was out in the streets. gijon parties and we only saw the beginning of it. we went to bed at 1 am. we thought that we must have woke up again, cause it was so loud out. but i looked at my clock it was now 2 am. then at 4 AM, still loud, it did not get quiet till 8 am. i went for a walk at 9 30 am and saw a club letting out. people looked worked over.

we had breakfast and went off on our way. we found a cute little town called Tapia to have lunch and surf in. the waves were big and friendly,hah, you just had to get over the drop. we surfed for a good while. three men yelled cuidado when laurie went for her first wave. we then drove on.

we found a great hotel in Cediera where we stayed for two nights. the hotel reccomended a seafood bar for dinner. we drove ten minutes to the little place. we had clams, octapus, mussles, long clams, small cockels which laurie loved, and gooseneck barnacles the speicialty of the region. the food was amazing. so fresh so clean, it was the best meal we have had in spain. to top it off the bar gave us a free bottle of wine for it being our honeymoon. we went home happy, got a great night sleep in, and went surfing in the morning at a famous place called Pantin.
the surf was big ofcourse and had some nasty rips. i was happy to make it out. i was cocky and did not put on my wetsuit at first. i hit the water took about 5 steps and ran back up to the car and put on my suit. it was cold. we had a great session. we then got some lunch and headed to another spot.
at Dos Ninos beach , i walked out to find barreling nasty fast waves. laurie encouraged me on, but i know my limits. this was like zuma with a BAD ATTITUDE . i watched from the beach. no longboarders out in the water for a reason. i watched laurie just get thrown into the waves and thrashed a few times. she was getting worked and loving it. she looked like a pro out there. i think all this surfing and reading of surf biographies has changed her style. she is no more laid back , but a charging thrasher.
we got back showered and went to dinner. it was ok, we missed the bar already from the night before.
in the morning we said our goodbyes to the hotel owners and made our way to Santiago. we hiked around the city, taking in all the sites. its a very beautiful city and the church, is stunning. we went to a few museums but really just had fun walking around. we watched the world cup game in a bar and then took to the streets again. i found a restaurant that served tripe. Laurie had clams, her new favorite food. we went to bed happy and with a great view of the old city.

hossegor

we arrived in hossegor to get a surf session in . On the way out to the water we met a german named marc who told us about a cute little hotel. we surfed les bourdaines for about an hour. I caught no waves since the wave would jack up and give an el porto like throw. Laurie went zooming by on about ten waves, before i mustered up the guts to go for one. Water felt great and the weather was perfect. People in the water were nice to laurie, she gave the place two thumbs up.

we then went to the hotel, where we found a cute little room for 40 euros. we had a snack in the bar, and a few beers. we met up with are new friend marc and had dinner. Marc told us about his surf journeys and the difficulty of being a german surfer, since there is not much surf around. we walked around after dinner and made plans to surf in the morning.

we checked out a few spots in the morning but decided on surfing les bourdaines again. this time it was much better for me. we surfed for about three hours and laurie and i caught some great ones. we got a good laugh that marc on his stand up board managed to run into both of us. laurie at the first spot got a head on marc and i got a board on the back of the legs at the other spot. we kidded him about it. we told him that when he gets to la we will take him out surfing, but that he has to keep his distance while out in the water.
we walked around town, laurie loved every hossegor surf shirt she could get her hands on. we then went to the outlet, and met up with marc for dinner. we had diner at rock food a famous surf hangout in hossegor. we walked around, and made a plan to check out surf and outlets in the morning.
in the morning the surf was flat so we decided to go to the outlets and then head off to spain. we said our goodbyes to our new friend and off we went back to spain.