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Week 28, Argentina: Beef, Tango, and Evita

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The experiences Getting to Argentina was an experience. I ended my European loop in Barcelona, hopped a giant cruise like boat to a port north of Rome, got a train in to Rome, and settled in for a final night in Rome...or so I thought. I woke up ready to go to the airport and hang out in the lounge but what I found out was that they'd changed my flight to the next day without telling me. What do you do when this happens? You call Delta where the person on the line refuses to help you until the RTW desk opens at 7am...but I'm losing valuable travel time now!!! I found another room for the night, picked up my laundry and hiked that way. When I got on the line with Delta again they had little to tell me except I was on the best possible flight. So I spent another hot sticky day in Rome, luckily I could piece together two summer like outfits yet. I would love so much to have a flight with full flat beds. The 60 degree angle just means you slide down the seat until your feet sto

Week 27, Spain: Something very different

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The experiences Being a bit grumpy was expected with a 3am arrival in Barcelona and having to check out at 10am…which I stretched to 11am with a very late shower. I finished up some downloading and fixing things with the new version of Windows on my tablet. What's great about getting in so late? Not too much but I did get a taxi instead of riding the metro with my many bags which is always a fun sweaty situation that makes me and the other passengers uncomfortable :). The hostel in Barcelona was very nice and I returned there before leaving Spain. My day in Barcelona I spent seeing the Sagrada Familia and walking around the city to see other buildings designed by Gaudi . Churches in general are pretty unimpressive to me at this point. But like in Mont St. Michel , this was a different experience entirely. While you tour the place, they are building it. That's cool but the design is just breathtaking in so many ways. All you can do is look up. There are two major facades, o

Week 26, Italy: ...on repeat...

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The experiences Back in Budapest I ate dinner with a Milanese man, Marco, who wasn't surprised I didn't like Milan. He said it depended where I stayed and who was with me, which is a pretty spot on way to look at travel. While I can't say I love Milan now, I do have a better appreciation for what it is. This time I stayed downtown in a hostel recommended by Canadian Courtney and I think they were more accommodating than any hotel I've stayed with, I never had to buy a meal if I didn't want. Everything deserves another chance and I had no choice since I really wanted to go to the EXPO. Milan's famous duomo What on earth is the Milan EXPO ? Well remember the world's fair? The reason we have cool things like the Eiffel tower, the invention of the Ferris wheel, etc? It still exists just with the EXPO branding. Every five years countries are invited to participate, building a structure and exhibit or contributing to a cluster group (new this year). People

Week 25, Italy: The heat...is killing us...Colosseum style

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The experiences So when you're rushing to get a train that will take 13 hours to reach its destination, and the workers hand you a flyer explaining they are on strike...you know things aren't going well for you. The flyer explained perfectly what we saw on board, old trains, subpar safety and since they'd started striking the night before, very little had been cleaned. We were fending for ourselves...on a pretty outdated train. I ventured to the bar car where we saw that they didn't know how to turn on the air, they had to mentally or sometimes write out the tabs because they didn't know how to work a register, and I waited in line for nearly an hour to get a beer to relax it all away.  Honestly this train was no different from one in India, less organized for sure and significantly less staff, but overall not too terrible a journey. Mom and I watched Finding Nemo on my tablet and crashed. Arriving in Venice I heard a kid (before I got off the train) say, "