Post-Haircut Blog aka Canary Islands Trip

Wow, Blogosphere, I feel like I haven't talked to you guys in forever. Last time we chatted I had just gotten a haircut, that was over 2 weeks ago! We've got lots of catching up to do. For starters, I went on spring break 2011, woot woot. Then my parents got here. Then I came here to Perugia and Assisi for this weekend. Also, in the process, my hairstyle changed again (now sporting a nice beard). Speaking about hair, that haircut blog from the other week got over 80 total views which is ridiculous. I'm all but left to believe it got so many views because it had TWO pictures of my face in it, right? Eh, probably not. But perhaps I should keep putting the word "haircut" in my blog titles to keep attracting views. Oh and while we're on the topic of stats, not that I care about them because, "Stats are for losers" - right Bill Belichick? Anyways, stat wise we hit a milestone recently this past week by going over 1,000 views since I began this little story in late January. Pretty neat, oh and in case anyone's wondering, view # 1,000 came from somewhere in the United States by someone using a Safari browser on a PC (hm, someone can't decide which team to be on). Congratulazione a te!

Back to the important stuff. So spring break in the Canary Islands. I'll do this outline format by day since neither I feel like writing every single detail, and you all don't feel like reading it all either. This is called a win-win. Meaning, we both win :) Then if I think of some incredibly blogworthy story along the way, I'll tack it in on the end. I did have a really fun story to tell but I'll tack it on to another blog later. Enough time spent on this one. Enjoy!

1. Sunday - March 20th

• Woke up at 3:30 am, 6 am flight to Baden-Baden (Ger), 2 hour layover then 4 hour flight to Las Palmas,  Gran Canaria (name of the main island (there's 7 total) and first place I stayed)
• Wandered a bit around the city and boardwalk
• Had a cheeseburger for dinner (forgot how much I love those things) Don't worry spaghetti, you're still my #1
• Wandered around the capital city some more and then got settled into the hotel, conveniently (thanks spell check) located one block from the ocean

For all those unfamiliar with Canary Islands (as was I). I stayed in the center two larger islands (Las Palmas & Puerto de la Cruz)

2. Monday - March 21st

• Went to the south side of the Gran Canaria island to Maspalamos
• Only a bit over an hour by bus, but the climate and weather was less windy and more sunny #winning
• Walked around the desert sand dunes right along the ocean
• Rode on a camel !
• Back in Las Palmas, went into the old downtown area at night
• Some churches there were older than some of the most famous ones in Rome, crazy right?
• Ate dinner at an awesome hip Retro/Vintage style Pizzeria that had classic movie and album posters everywhere on the wall while playing a Beyonce concert on a flat screen. Got a great burger and a Budweiser, #SoAmerica

3. Tuesday - March 22nd

1. Travel Day
2. Spent the early morning laying on the windy beach back on the north side of the island in Las Palmas (weather in the south part was way better)
3. Propeller plane from Gran Canaria island to Tenerife island
4. Arrive in new town of Puerto de la Cruz and walk around along beach and town

4. Wednesday - March 23rd

• Loro Parque!

• Among world's best animal parks
• Sea Lion Show (hilarious)
• Dolphin and Whale show (incredible)
• Parrot Show..
• Sharks, Penguins, Tigers, TERRAPINS, Leopards (aw, Belgie!)
• Really really cool place!

• Lago Martianez
• Resort style lake on the beach with 13 different pool
• Made substantial progress in reading Angels & Demons
• Also progress in my attempt to see how many different spots I could nap and relax in that country, I'll try and keep track throughout the blog post
• Overall, awesome day

Astronomy Observatory with Mount Teide in background

5. Thursday - March 24th

• Tour bus up Mount Teide
• 3rd largest volcano in the world
• Traveled through 5 different micro-climates on way up
• Rain forest, Tropical, Wood Forest, Desert, Lunar Landscape
• Area used to film many movies because of its diverse climates (Planet of the Apes, Clash of the Titans, Clint Eastwood movies)
• Would transition from one to another within minutes
• Home to the unique Canary pine tree which believe it not, is fire resistant! Whoa..
• Near the top is an astronomy observatory with the worlds largest telescope, pretty neat sight
• Snow everywhere on the way up because they had just gotten 1 Meter of snow the past Monday, which is crazy considering it was like 24 degrees Centigrade out.
• Stopped many different times which gave me ample time to take dozens of pictures of the same volcano and also climb and play on the rocks (got a little exhausting after a bit because of the altitude) - so I ended up napping on the top of one (another spot to my list)
• Lance Armstrong's (former) training facility was up there because of the good conditioning that resulted from the high altitude
• By the way, he officially retired (for the 2nd time) from bicycling this past week, thanks for the memories lance, not the doping
• That finished up around 5ish and then went to a beach near the hotel to relax until the sunset
• Volcanic beach so it had fine black sand that wasn't as messy and sticky as regular beach sand, perfect. The other beaches on the island that had normal sand had it imported from Africa
• Read more Dan Brown, napped in another spot and enjoyed the beautiful, calm sunset
• Hit up a club at night and blew the last of the money in my wallet (at this point, my bank hadn't allowed me as to withdraw at an ATM in the Canaries)

6. Friday - March 25th

Sunset from the cruise

• Another travel day
• Woke up and went back to that volcanic beach (only this time I laid on nearby rocks and not the sand) and relaxed there until midday
• Went and got lunch and enjoyed the last day in Tenerife because the next stop was the port to take a cruise boat back to Las Palmas (the first place I was)
• This cruise was incredible, for only 14 Euros, it had an upper deck complete with a bar, pool and lounging chairs. The weather was beautiful, warm, cool breeze. I spent the whole 3 hour+ journey up there reading, napping, staring out into the sea, drinking at the bar etc etc.. I could've stayed there forever.
• Checked back into the first hotel from earlier in the week, walked along the boardwalk and got all you can eat Chinese buffet (oh Chinese food, how I had missed you!)
• It was still incredibly windy in that city, just like earlier in the week. For anyone planning on traveling to the Canaries, I recommend you stay in the south of the island, just 25 km away (ha - how mad are you guys getting at me for continually using the metric system) where the weather was curiously much better every day

7. Saturday - March 26th

• Last day in paradise
• Had an all inclusive Catamaran excursion in Puerto Rico (other side of the island in the south, near Maspolamas from Monday) complete with cave exploring, snorkeling, dolphin watching, free food and drinks, banana boat etc etc ... but the bus took longer than expected and missed it, o well
• Plan B - walk around boardwalk and wait for salesman to swarm you trying to get you do to their excursion. The winner was a real cool Serbian guy who had a dolphin and whale watching Catamaran that was leaving within the hour. Sold.

• This part just got better and better as it went on. First, I realized that on this boat were 10 young attractive Hispanic girls who were celebrating a bachelorette party. Secondly, they had brought tons of food and beer. Third, the other people on the boat was a couple from Belgium who were, no lie, from the city in Belgium that I used to live in!
• Saw plenty of dolphins and whales swimming right alongside the boat, it was so cool. We watched and followed a set of 8 dolphins for about 20 minutes. They were such happy creatures, they would just jump around in the water and make their noises and were probably just enjoying the beautiful day.. Wish my life was that simple.
• After that, walked along the beach for a bit and came to an area of just rocks where a bunch of young kids were hanging out so went down and checked it out and camped out there for an hour or so napping (check) on the rocks.
• Hour long bus back up north to Las Palmas, which I napped (check) on and then went back to the hotel and showered and got ready to head to the airport. See, I had this incredible idea that it would be smarter to go to the airport Saturday night for the flight on Sunday since it started boarding at 5:15am. My thinking was, why bother pay for a hotel that night when I'll have to leave it around 3am anyways and then also have to pay for a cab to the airport. So, I thought it'd be more cost efficient to take the 8pm bus to the airport (latest one of the night) and wait there all night & morning. Note to self, never listen to yourself again.
• This was the longest layover of my life. Thankfully, daylight savings time for Europe was that night at 2am so it went by one hour quicker. First, I read The British Times (all 97 pages of it) and then I read the whole weekend edition of The USA Today. This killed a few hours. Then I finished Angels and Demons. Oh and by the way, during the stay in Tenerife, I took a break from A&D and read The Street Lawyer (John Grisham) since it was in the hotel's library. Yeah, lots of reading for me, it was good.
• After the reading was all over with, I wandered around the empty airport to a 24 hour bar (that was deserted). Bought some postcards and a rum and coke and got to work. Three or four strong drinks later, and a lot of postcards later, it was around 3am. I wrote over 20 postcards on this trip so many of you will be getting one soon. (If you are angry that you haven't gotten one yet then it's probably because you've never give me your postal address.)
• So, in need of a change of scenery, I trekked back over to the main area in search of a row of seats that didn't have armrests (so you could lay down across them). Finally, I found the only row that hadn't already been taken by sleeping travelers also camped out at the airport for the night. I positioned my bag as a pillow and set my alarm to wake me up in 75 minutes when I figured I should start getting ready to check in and go through security. Not after 5 minutes of laying there, a group of 4 American college kids walked in and sat down next to me, blabbering away about their past week. This was really cool for two reasons though. One, although I haven't mentioned it yet, the Canary Islands were full of old retired people, it's kind of like Florida to Europeans. It's where all the northern, elderly folks go during the winter months to live. There wasn't much sign of youth life anywhere. That also could have been because European colleges don't really have spring break like we do, not sure. Second reason it was cool was because honestly, they were like the first Americans I came across that whole week. For as great of a job we do invading other places as tourists, apparently the Canary Islands are immune. One of my waitresses was so shocked that we were Americans and said she hadn't ever met any there before.



Warning: Prohibited Use of Eye-Lasers

• Anyways, after I realized they were on the same flight as me, I sat and up said hi to them, which surprised them and led them to tell me that I had a very good English accent, apparently I'm doing a better job of not looking America. Anyways, after that 30 minute friendship was over, and after I had not gotten a second of sleep, I got up and started getting ready to check in etc.
• Nothing else significant the rest of the day. Napped (check) on the flight back to Germany. 4 hour layover there, bought more newspapers and magazines to read. I was the world best expert on anything news that week. Then slept again on the plane from there home to Rome. #RyanAir
• Got back into Rome around 6 pm (full 12 hours of traveling - 1 hr for time zone change) and then met up with my parents (who are visiting this week) in Trastevere for a nice meal at La Scaletta, great to see them!

I definitely recommend the Canary Islands to anyone who wants to travel to a tropical area and relax on the beach but also see some neat stuff inland. It was also pretty cheap, the hotels averaged to cost me about 20 Euro a night and were really nice. Food was pretty cheap too. Also, lots of cool history on those islands since they had a great location trading wise once the Americas were discovered. It felt like the trip lasted forever, I really started to miss Rome. I've only got a month and a half left in Rome and it's really sad to think about it. Yeah, I obviously miss Baltimore but a lot of the trip there I was thinking about all the things I missed from Rome. I'm going to make sure not to take anything for granted these last 5 weeks and live it up every day. Italian Culture Week is coming up next week so every museum, monument, historical site etc will be FREE so even if it means missing a few classes, I'm going to make sure to do EVERYTHING, yes everything. Roman friends, who's with me? I still haven't even been to the Sistine Chapel yet, crazy right? Anyways, reality is starting to set in, semesters coming to an end, lets make these last weeks count!

Another blog to follow about what I've been up to since I got back last Sunday. Right now, I'm writing this from the train ride home from Perugia back to Rome. Ci vediamo a presto!