This entry is long overdue. Roughly a month ago, I took a little journey with a couple of good friends over to Europe to visit the sights and sounds of Spain and Portugal. From Los Angeles, we took a 5 hour flight over to Chicago, then from Chicago an 8 hour flight to Madrid. As excited as I was for this trip, I don’t think I could have prepared myself enough for the layover, this was my first, not only does it make the flight feel twice as long, theres also the added stress of re-checking in and going through security once more, all while crossing your fingers hoping that you’ll make the transition over successfully. Annoying for one person, indeed, we had six! Oh yeah we almost missed our layover from Chicago to Madrid, that wouldn’t have been good. Our trip was almost two weeks long, we arrived in Madrid and from there went on to visit the following places, respectively: Avila, Salamanca, Ciudad Rodrigo, Sierra da Estrela, Coimbra, Fatima, Obidos, Lisbon, Cascais, Sintra, Alentejo, Andalusia, Sierra de Aracena, and Seville. Of all the beautiful cities and spots visited, I would have to say that Lisbon was by far my favorite place of this trip. The city that is Lisbon is what I like to call ghetto beautiful, its not a rich city relative to all of Portugal and Spain, but from my limited stay, I would say it had more character and youthful energy than the rest. Also from a tourists perspective it had the added bonus of friendlier people who spoke a tad bit more english. Some of the coolest highlights from the trip; castles, largest cathedrals in the world, owners not having to leash their dogs, mopeds everywhere, rental bicycles, a LIVE flamenco performance, real sangria, tasting an ice cold native cerveza called Mau, real churros, and accidentally running across a ’special’ beach. And some of the worst things from the trip; FOOD (McDonalds saved us), eating cured meat almost every meal, strength of the Euro compared to the dollar, gypsies preying over us (sadly, our friend got his backpack stolen on our last leg of the trip), rude natives in Spain, super small elevators in every hotel, drinkable water that only comes in a bottle, and FLAT coke, europeans don’t like their sodas carbonated. All in all, loved the experience I gained through this trip, my first to Europe and definitely not my last…I’d love to visit again, sometime in the near future…maybe I’ll plan my next trip around the Tour. Hope this entry wasn’t too short. Anyways, posted a couple of photos I took from the trip above, you can see the rest here or if you want the full screen experience, click here.