Lost and Found

So on this trip we hit two continents, three different countries, and fourteen cities in total. We met some of the most amazing people from our Malaga crew, Anis and Yassine in Marrakesh, Jimmy and Kyle in Barcelona, Ilaria and Ester in Granada, to the way hostel wolf pack Andrew Bryan and Yasmine, and everyone in between. This trip was been the most amazing adventure of my life thus far. We did everything we wanted too, were spontaneous, hardly planned anything, and took risks.

It was wonderful. It was a long time to live out of a backpack and I'm pretty sure I forget what it feels like to actually be clean. Laundry took on a whole new meaning here picture Alicia and I mixing a bath tub full of laundry with the shower nozzle only to have to leave the next day before they were dry. Let's just say that's why we threw my first towel away

Some of the funniest moment in my life have happened here and Alicia and I have too many inside jokes for even us to remember. We did pretty well together. We only wanted to kill each other a few times and in 7 weeks that's awesome.

Overall on this trip all we lost or was stolen(In order of loosing).
My drivers license in Ibiza :)
Our converter in the Sahara
Alicias silver flip flops were stolen in Pamplona
One of the straps to my new Sam Edleman gladiators fell off Luckily there were two so they still work.. in Barca
My white gladiators were stolen in Cadiz
Two towels in Lisbon

Somehow Alicia managed to loose her brown and black flats as well.

We have decided people over here steal shoes and that is one thing you don't think to lock in your locker we usually kept them under our beds. So strange.

I know the lists looks long but really it was nothing of extreme value. I think we did really well. Considering how long we were here.

So we lost those items and gained an amazing experience. I think the trade off was well worth it. We are already planning our next, once we have the time and the funds that is.
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Stranded in Spain

So we were all packed and ready to go. Alicia had thrown out her contacts we both left our towels and threw all our almost empty toiletries away. We made the epic trek to the airport by metro only to get there and be told that all "united airlines employees flying standby" that was us, couldn't get flights out of any major city in Europe till the 15th. Aka. We were stranded.

This wasn't going to work since Alicia is going back to school on the 9th. Also at this wonderful moment my phone decided to stop working. We tried calling our mom and dad on a pay phone but it was too early their time. So we sat in the airport and waited. I asked around and found that to get us home the next days would be 3000 dollars a ticket. Then we started to freak out. We had no way of contacting anyone, after almost 2 month of traveling we definitely didn't have 3000 each, and all we could do was sit. I got a bit hysterical.

We finally got ahold of both mom and dad and started to figure stuff out then the pay phones stopped accepting our credit cards all together. We were screwed. And now Alicia was getting stressed about not having enough time to pack and move back to Pullman. Somehow I managed to fix the phone which was a huge blessing. Mom ended up finding tickets home for 1500 each for the next day but in all the time we wasted not being able to call they got booked.

Finally we got tickets for that price for thursday night. They are terrible tickets with a 10 hour layover in amsterdam but they will get us home.

Our car, computers, and some of our clothes are in Canada so I will be driving up to get them this weekend. I plan on stopping in Bellingham for a bit which is nice I miss everyone.

So we are in Madrid again. We have done everything here so yesterday we read and went to see a movie. Toy story 3 was hilarious and definitely helped a bit.

But then again today everything fell apart. Alicia cannot get money out of her account even though we just went online and there is plenty in her account. On top of that I can't put the hotel room on my credit card for some weird reason even though I paid my bill early and definitely have the credit available. Long story short we are screwed again. Hopefully we can put the hotel on moms card and live of what little cash we have. We just had lunch for 6 euro for both of us. We are being seriously frugal. We were going to go out tonight with a bang but I don't think we can afford it now that we can't get cash out haha oh how the mighty have fallen.

The end of our trip was not supposed to be this way. We are trying to make the best of it but its getting pretty rough. We feel like Dorothy in the wizard of oz. We just want to be home.
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Lisbon

So we found our hostel, figured out Alicias card, and took a nap. It definitely helped our morning. We made pasta for lunch and put some aside for pasta salad for the next day. After lunch we went to the Belem district and saw the monument for the discoveries of new land made by portugal. It was cool because we had seen the miniature version in the. Blind museum.

We also went to Saint Jeronimos Monastary and the National Museum of Archeology. This was really interesting because they had an Egyptian section and the mummys were awesome.

We got lost trying to get a bus to Sao Sebastian but finally made it. We walked around for a bit and then went to meet our friend Andrew who we met in Madrid. My phone never changed time zones so Andrew had to rush to meet us. We went for traditional Portuguese food for dinner. I really enjoyed my peri peri chicken.

Andrew had found out that the Two Oceans festival was starting that night and the opening band was a Portuguese pop rock group but the headliners were Estelle and Lauryn Hill. I flipped because I really enjoy them both.

We killed time before the concert back at Andrews hostel. It was called Home and we had fun making jokes about Andrew having us over to his home. We drank a bottle of wine he had and created our own drinking game off of a game we found called mikado. Basically you pull straw till the marbles fall. Like jenga and pick up sticks kinda. One marble one drink. Alicia wasn't very good.

We left for the concert a little after the opening band started and got pretty good spots. We had to work the whole time to keep them. The opening band was pretty good they are called SEDA I think but all their songs sounded the same and they were in Portuguese. Estelle was fantastic. She was very interactive, had us all dancing, and has a great voice.

Lauryn Hill blew my mind. Every song she performed had as much energy as a finale. Her voice is incredible and she actually sings about important topics. During her set there were two fights close to us which was a bit frightening but they were kicked out plus Lauryn told them to leave, yes we are now on a first name basis.

The entire show was about 6 hours and we were exhausted by the end of it. It was the perfect end to our trip. One huge party with amazing music. So great. We said goodbye to Andrew and took a cab back. Our hostel wasn't in the nicest area so it was best that way.

We woke up early this morning and packed our bags for the last time, so crazy. We got our bus tickets back to Madrid and stored our luggage. Now we are sitting in a park having our pasta salad and some bread with chorizo as a picnic (Bryan if you are reading this one I am sorry for spelling your name wrong previously and two yes we are in gypsy state)

We are staying by the bus station because our bus is a bit earlier now and we are too lazy for rushing around today. We fly out tomorrow. It doesn't seem real.

Bittersweet for sure. M
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