McLeodGunj and the Taj

We took a couple days off of work to be tourists for a little while.

First stop: Dharamshala/McLeodGunj! This is where the Dalai Lama fled when the Chinese invaded Tibet. Its a beautiful little mountain town and really popular among western tourists wanting to learn yoga and meditation and see the Dalai Lama (he comes a couple times a year).  The town just had such a great mix of people.... Tibetan monks and western hippie yoga fanatics mixed with indian locals....pretty cool vibe, but totally unlike the rest of India that we experienced!

some signs in mcleodgunj

candles inside the Tibetian Temple...i would have taken pics of the more colorful areas but they were prohibited for religious purposes!

and stopped by Agra to see the Taj...

the Taj!

the gang

And the Agra Fort, remains of the Mogul Dynasty

from the back of the fort we could look out and see the Taj in the distance.

little dear with crazy horns that was hangin out at the fort hoping we'd throw him some magic masala chips

the buildings were decorated with beautiful geometric patterns- some painted, some marble inlay

Chandigarh & New Delhi

talking with women from one of Arpana's Women's Empowerment groups

In the final stage of our research we spent 3 days in Chandigarh, which is a rather large city about three hours southeast of Gajnoi. Chandigarh is known for being the first planned city in India. The city is divided up into blocks, each of which is supposed to be able to independently support the needs of its residents (a little market and essential facilities in each block).  The layout of the city was actually designed by a French guy!

Each day we commuted to Baddi, an industrial area a little north of Chandigarh.  Here we interviewed human resource officers from several different companies to discuss employment practices.  We visited Colgate-Palmolive (maybe your toothpaste was made here!), Proctor & Gamble, TVS (they make motorcycles) and a couple other factories. Our objective was to learn more about the qualities they look for in employees and what their experiences had been like with employees from rural areas. 

The Arpana Medical Center in Madhuban

Then we spent a couple days at Arpana’s Headquarters in Madhuban!  We toured their hospital facilities, talked with some of the women in their women’s empowerment program, met some ladies who started a local dairy cooperative (and got to try some fresh paneer and a new cookie recipe they were trying out), and shared our project with more of the Arpana family.

driving through the rice paddies 

Now we’re back in Delhi. We’ve spent the last couple of days hoping between coffee shops, staring at computer screens, and writing up a report of all our data. Right now we’re pushing over 60 pages!  Crazy, but we have a lot of information. Tonight we’ll make some final revisions before everyone goes their separate ways on Friday. 

india guide #2

india guide #2

anddddd drumroll please, its time for installation numbero dos. 

and dont forget, WARNING: the following comments include numerous generalizations based on my extremely brief experiences, so take it with a grain of salt. J

 1. Thumbs Up. Thumbs Up is india's version of coke. and it basically tastes just like coke, but with just a twinge of masala (indian spices).  When you walk through town there are just tons of little stands selling drinks and snacks and things...most places will give you the option of plastic bottles which you can carry away, or glass bottles which you drink on the spot and then give back (empty) to the stand owner. So environmentally friendly!

2. Signage. India just has some really great signs. Some are punny. Some use funny "indian english" and some, like this one, are just....one of a kind. 

What is vegetarian mama food?  Good question. All I know is its probably deep-fried and delicious.

can you beat that? haha. BRO stands for "boarder road organization" or something to that effect. Photo credit goes to
julian :)

photo credit to julian, notice the mighty mustash as well. 

3. Do you need to go to the complaint room? Thats what I thought. 

4. Vehicle Decor. If I say "tractor trailer" you probably think of a big boring white truck. Well i guess we do have some colorful ones, but not like India. In india, trucks (or "Goods Carriers" as they are more commonly called) are basically hand painted works of art. Bright colors, hand painted words, flowers, and designs, tops overloaded with goods so that often there's a foot or so of brick or hay or something that extends over the sides of the vehicle, somehow stabilized by ropes...

5. Rickshaws. You can experience nearly every mode of transportation known to mankind on the of Delhi. Mercedes and "Good Carrier" share the streets with cows, bikers, and donkeys attached to wagons carrying oversized loads of hay, veggies, and bricks. Quite diverse. And this is not just on the small streets, this is on major roads, you'll just be driving kinda fast and then...oh whoops, guess we better swerve around that donkey... Its great. 

BUT in my opinion, the best way to travel is definitely by auto rickshaw.  These are little open-air, three-wheeled taxis that run on compressed natural gas. The drivers almost always try to charge you way more than they should, and don't like to use the meters, but its just so much fun. 

Ingrid and i had the pleasure of riding in a rickshaw with some nice retro pink upholstery. snazzy! 

 6. Nimbupani is this amazingly simple and delicious drink that you can get just about anywhere...its basically fresh lemonade but made with this indian fruit thats the color of a lime, but technically is a lemon, but tastes more like an orange...anyways they're really good. You can also get it made with sparkly water and you have to specify if you want them to add sugar or SALT. A lot of people really like it with salt! I think its a bit funky, so i just stick with plain sugar. 

7. Environmentalists? There is a lot of pollution in India, but there are tons of signs encouraging people to be kind to mother earth... "Green Chamba, Clean Chamba" signs make popular road decorations. But this one is my favorite:

meeting the big shot

Back to work. When we’re not interviewing villagers and visiting education centers, we’re sitting in the second-floor conference room (which we have renamed ‘Clemons’ after our (un)beloved UVA library) with eyes alternating between the gorgeous mountain landscape and our excel spreadsheets.  The process of analyzing data and drafting outlines and proposals takes just as long as collecting the data itself!

However, on Wednesday, we scheduled a sort of last-minute meeting with the Chamba District Coordinator.  That may or may not sound like an impressive title to you, but let me tell you—this guy is a big shot.  Politically, his responsibilities are somewhere in between a Mayor and a Governor.  Except he is appointed instead of elected. And he is greeted more like a king. 

We all dressed up for the occasion, haha, the first time in weeks.  We were supposed to meet him at 4pm sharp, but he had another meeting and we didn’t get to see him until about 5:45 when he left the meeting to come talk to us for exactly 10 minutes and then returned to the meeting.  We had to sit inside and await his arrival because apparently if we had been standing outside when he arrived we would have been expected to do this special little salute or something.

However, the ten minutes we had with him were incredibly thought provoking. This guy is really intelligent. As he listened intently to our factual project description, he casually reminded us of broad theories and humanitarian concepts pertaining to development and the core purpose of our work.  We’ve been so concerned with the practical, day-to-day, hard-evidence side of our work it was really refreshing and insightful to once again ponder the fundamental principles behind our work.

After the DC had to return to his meeting we had the chance to spend a good while talking with two really great guys below him (oh I cant remember their positions…one was the head police officer and the other worked with education and something else, I don’t remember) and able to really explain our motivations and aspirations for the project.  These guys were SO excited and supportive of the project, and shared so many of our ideals about education and development.  It was really amazing.  So now they have promised to help us with the curriculum planning, bringing broadband internet to the area, and getting government support for the project. These guys were really serious and really excited…good things are going to happen.  We only wished we had met with them sooner!

This was a really appropriate way to spend our last day in Gajnoi. Yes, that’s right, we had to say good-bye to our lovely little village home.  Over the next couple weeks, we will travel to Baddi to talk with some potential employers, to Madhuban to visit Arpana’s main headquarters, the Ashram, and be introduced to the aspects of their service program there, and then finally to Delhi to give the final presentation of our project.  Ah it was so sad to leave Gajnoi and the Arpana staff there, they have just been so wonderful.  We’ll definitely miss our favorite little un-mappable village, but can’t wait to see what adventures the rest of the project will hold!

Chell-ae!

trekking and bubbles

shivesh, julian and i

On my birthday, we got to take a day off from work and went trekking in the mountains! In India, people don’t really say “hiking,” its always “trekking.” We hiked for 3 or 4 hours along this gorgeous ridgeline a few kilometers above Gajnoi.  We were accompanied on our trek by numerous roaming cattle, sheep, and a really cute stray dog which we named Shelia. 

We finished our hike near Khajjair, a little Indian tourist destination near Dalhousie.  This is probably one of the most random places I have ever visited. Hahaa. So Khajjair is just this really really large, flat section of super green grass (remember the rest of this region is ridiculously steep pretty much everywhere) inhabited with herds of resting cattle, Indian tourists, little dudes trying to sell you chips and cokes, and a bunch of assorted inflatable carnival attractions.  Yep that’s right, like the moon bounce.  BUT the most random thing of all is the line of giant plastic bubbles. Yep, big plastic inflatable bubbles. You just pay about $6 and you and a friend can climb into the plastic bubble, Velcro-strap your body to the wall, and have someone roll you, in the bubble, across the field.

bubble time!!

So naturally Ingrid and I just had to try it. I’ll have to say its one of the most hilarious, ridiculous things I have ever done, hahahaa, so much fun! J

snake attack!!

Oh and also the next night, a snake somehow made its way into our house! We freaked out, and called Sonjay, our hero, who managed to wedge the thing out of the doorway with a wooden pole (you wouldn’t believe how strong a hold this thing had on the door hinges, crazy) and then tossed it out of the third story window.  Snakes are holy, one of the symbols of the god Shiva, so you can’t kill them.  Save the snakes!

Tisa Village

Looking out over Tisa

One of the most meaningful (and most fun!) aspects of the project thus far has been interviewing youth from local villages.  

Over the past several weeks we’ve been traveling to different villages and meting with local students and parents to chat about employment and educational challenges in the region.  Last week we visited to the villages of Guani and Kolka, and then on June 9^th, we ventured into one of the most rural (and most gorgeous) regions of Himachal Pradesh—Tisa Block.

Tisa is kinda like a county, but here they use the term “block”.  Just to give you the low down, India, like the US, is divided into states. These states are then divided into Districts, districts into blocks, and blocks into panchayats. Panchayats are groups of 15 or so little villages (village can be anywhere from 10 to 300 families).  Each panchayat has a group of governing elders (one from each village) that serve as a “town counsel” for the area.

Tisa is a region in the northern part of Chamba district, about a 3 hour drive from our base in Gajnoi. Oh and the landscape is absolutely gorgeous! The deep river valley is bordered by steep descending hillsides and layered ridgelines that just seem to go on for ever and ever, until at last the snowy mountain peaks fade into the cloudy sky...what a beautiful place!

The next morning, twenty-seven youth traveled from six surrounding villages to a local mason’s spare workroom and to meet and share their experiences with us.

At first, the kids were just a little bit shy, but they loosened up pretty quickly as we went around the room and shared our names. I think they really enjoyed listening to me introduce myself in Hindi! My “meranaam Maggie hai” produced a lot of giggles.  Then we started chatting about cricket and dancing and there were smiles all around.

Jump picture with the Tisa girls! Credits to Julian for the photography.

After a while, we split the kids into groups for some more personal interaction. So Ingrid and I went with the girls, and Harshil, Julian, and Shivesh with the boys! Oh the girls were soooo sweet! We asked them about what they’d been learning in school, how they liked their classes (everyone loved studying Hindi and English…but not math, haha), and what they wanted to be when they grew up. Out of my 8 girls, 3 wanted to be doctors, 4 police officers, and one a homemaker! Unlike some of the other groups of kids we’ve talked with, these girls were just so enthusiastic to talk about their education and dream about the future.

Then we decided to take a little dance break. 

The girls insisted on teaching us some Hindi dances J.  A couple of the girls started singing and clapping, and two of them pulled us in the middle of the circle and showed us how to dance! It was so funny! Then they wanted us to show them an American dance.  So Ingrid and I thought them how to do a little Can-Can (I don’t know why that was the first dance we thought of…) and the electric slide. 

The girls were just laughing so much, we were having a great time. There was one girl who just really loved to dance, and whenever people started slowing down, she would jump in and revive the energy! But when the boys returned from playing cricket, the girls started giggling and wouldn’t dance anymore.

Then we settled down for a bit, and had the chance to talk with the girls a little more about the challenges they face in education and employment.  They talked about money, the distance to school, the poor quality of schools, their family obligations…its so sad to see girls who want so much to be educated yet have so many obstacles in their way. Yet even though they recognized that it was going to be a hard path, they still seemed optimistic and ready for the challenge. I just hope and pray that we can help them get there!!

We hope to recruit a good portion of our first batch of students from the Tissa area. You may be wondering why we want to recruit youth from such a distant, isolate place.

First of all, the schools they do have access to are not of a very good quality. A campaign was started in India to assure that every child, even remote areas like Tissa, has access to basic government-funded education (1^st – 10^th grades).  The primary goal is access, then quality. Once the infrastructure has been established, then India can begin to improve the current quality of its government schools.  In some areas, government schools are a reliable source of education, but in many areas, like Tissa, need a whole lot of work.  For example, some of the boys we talked to had graduated from high school (passed 10^th grade) yet were unable to solve the problem 2x+5=9.

Also, after the 10^th grade it is really hard for these kids to continue their education.  Upper level schools are just too far away to walk, and most families don’t have enough money to drive them there or to pay for them to rent an apartment in town.

I was really inspired by these kids and their enthusiasm for life and their eagerness to better themselves.  Our future Arpana Education Center seems to be exactly what they need to help break this cycle of poverty! So lets make it happen!

zee india guide: edition 1

zee India Guide: Edition 1.

himalayan agriculture (see # 7) :)

After spending about three weeks in India, I’ve come across a few interesting little tidbits that you might find amusing…

But first, WARNING: the following comments include numerous generalizations based on my brief experiences, so take it for what you wish. J

1.      Holy cow. In India, cows are very special animals.  Perhaps the most special. Therefore they are allowed to roam freely wherever they choose…such as through the streets. Cars just swerve around them like its no big deal!

2.      Monkeys take the place of squirrels. Yep, you’ll just be driving down the road and oh…there’s a monkey, oh there’s another pack of monkeys…monkeys and cows, so great.

3.      Driving. Driving is CRAZY, especially in the Himalayas. The one lane roads weave tightly around the steep mountain peaks, providing an invigoratingly beautiful view of the long steep fall below. And there aren’t any guardrails. Haha, Mom, you wouldn’t like it. So when two cars meet on the road, one pulls to the side of the road to allow the other to pass by, sometimes only 6-12 inches from the edge of the road! But don’t worry—our driver is really amazing. He can back up and fit through some really crazy situations.

4.     Horn. In India beeping your car horn is used as more of a “hello I’m here” type greeting rather than “hey what are you doing you stupid idiot” like in the US and Europe.  Drivers beep when they’re approach a curve, when ya see a pedestrian along the road, when you see another car, whenever you feel like it…haha, so you just hear horns CONSTANTLY.  It was a little annoying at first, but now I kinda like it! It makes me smile. Its just one of the sounds of the city…



This nice little cow laid a HUGE cowpattie in the MIDDLE of the sidewalk, which i stepped in. Feel the love.

5.      Spicy food! French cuisine and Indian cuisine = polar opposites. In France, you ask for spicy and it’s incredibly mild. In India, even mild is spicy JI love it.

6.      SO MANY FLAVORS! Actually, I think I’ll just have to make an entire post dedicated to food. Soooo to be continued.

7.      Agriculture. The mountains are so steep here! So you can’t just plant crops along the slopes like on the gently rolling Virginia pastures, its just too steep. So they use a technique called Terrace farming. They cut into the hill at short, 3-6 ft. intervals, and create a series of little flat levels. Its just like road workers putting in a mountain road, just on a much smaller scale. AND when you have whole mountain sides covered in this type of agriculture, it looks really cool, ya can really see the topography of the land (yeah, I’m an envi-sci dork)

8.      Apricots. Its apricot season! There are at least 4 apricot trees where were living in Gajnoi, haha there is even one branch I can reach from my window…yum so good!

9.      Pot grows on the side of the road, like a weed. Literally, marijuana grows naturally in the Himalayas. Its just everywhere, lining the roads, in people’s yards…we haven’t smelled anyone smoking it, but its pretty hilarious to see it growing everywhere.

10.  Not right. In India, you drive on the left side of the road! India was occupied by the British up until the 1945, soooo I guess that’s how they got mixed up J

11.  Tailoring. Especially in the rural areas, women don’t buy much pre-made clothing. Instead, they have their Saris and Kermises made to order by the local tailor! SO I bought some really pretty fabric in Chamba town and had the local tailor make me a couple shirts! And it cost me a total of about $3. Pretty cool yo.

12.  Language. Practically each region of India speaks a different language. People in Himachal Pradesh, and most of northern India (where I am) speak Hindi and a little bit of English.

13.  Wanna speak a little Hindi? I thought ya did.

Mera naam Maggie hai. = My name is Maggie.

Namaste! = hello, goodbye, nice to see ya, peace, everything.

Tiik-kay = Okay!

Atchaa = Good

Chell-ae = Lets go!

hello india!

the Himalayas

As some of you may know, this summer I received a research grant from UVA to work with Arpana, a non-profit organization located in the Indian Himalayas.  So last week I left dear ole France and flew to Delhi, India. 

For the next 6 weeks, I – along with 3 other UVA students – will be interviewing students, teachers, and employers in the surrounding villages.  This is one of the poorest regions of India.  Most villagers make the equivalent of about $100-200 dollars a month (5,000 to 8,000 Indian rupees).  Many are farmers (corn, peas, rice, radishes) and have to hike down steep rocky trails along with their backs and donkeys laden with baskets of vegetables to send their produce off to market. Yes, many of these villages don’t even have a road .  You have to hike up the side of a mountain to get there.

In these remote areas, its hard for youth to get a good education past middle or high school because the schools are often too far away to walk (8 miles each morning? Yeah I think that’s a little much) and too expensive for their families to afford.

Computers are really starting to gain popularity in this region.  Sill only the most privileged families have computers in their homes, but many industries give preference to job applicants with computer skills. 

So where do we come in?  Arpana (the non-profit) wants to start up a new computer training center at their base in Gajnoi.  Our job is to interview local villagers, potential employers, and coordinators of existing computer centers in order to assess the discrepancies between the skills of the villagers and the needs of the employers. Then Arpana can create a program that will best serve the people.

After spending a couple days in Delhi and meeting up with other team members & lost luggage, we set off on a nice little 12 hour road tip to a little town called Gajnoi.  Its actually not as far from Delhi as it sounds, its just that there isn’t really a interstate/highway system in India.  We were going between 15-40 mph the whole way & dodging cows and on coming vehicles on the sometimes one-laned mountain roads.  Haha, it was really an adventure.

Chamba Town!

Don’t even bother trying to google map Gajnoi, it wont show up J It doesn’t even have a postal code, and when I asked if my mom could send me a birthday card, they said she could try, but it probably wouldn’t get here, the postman doesn’t come up this far, and we don’t really have an address. Hahaa, totally serious.

Gajnoi is a tiny tiny village in the most northern state of India – Himachal Pradesh. The closest google-able town is Chamba, and we’re about 8 miles southwest of there.

Yummm oh the food here is so spicy and wonderful! Well, it was for the first couple days—then I got pretty sick. Sooooo now I’m on a strict diet of rice and yogurt and honey. Yippee. 

Our internet here is kinda limited at this point (we were unable to buy internet cards for our laptops because we all use Macs and apparently the Apple craze hasn’t reached this hemisphere quite yet).  So I can’t upload as many pictures as usual because we’re using a friend’s computer and have a monthly megabyte limit. BUT I’ll try to put up as many as I can!

the grand finale

I’m writing this after having already started the next adventure, so I’ll try to keep it somewhat brief. J SO for my last week in Europe, dear papa flew over to Europe and we set off on an epic road trip.

Pops rented this little French convertible and we basically drove through the French and Italian countryside for 5 days.  We didn’t really plan anything out beforehand, no hotel reservations or ferryboat bookings, we just decided where we wanted to go, and went, and stayed or moved on if we felt like it.

Also, no GPS.  I navigated the entire thing from a paper map. How old-timey of me, huh?

Yes, we got lost several times…hahaaa….actually a lot, but we survived! and made it where we wanted to go, so it was all okay.

So after leaving Lyon, we headed for Mont Blanc! Mont Blanc is the range’s highest peak  and is claimed by France, Switzerland, and Italy. Coming from France, we stopped in Chamonix, a little cutesy, touristy ski town close to the peak, and took a lift up to one of the neighboring peaks to get an incredible view of Mont Blanc.

Next destination: Italy.

The easiest way to get from the French side to the Italian side is to go through Mount Blanc.  Relatively recently, the countries worked together to build this hugeeee tunnel through the mountain. Ya go in and you’re in France, you come out, and you’re in Italy! 

Once in Italia, we had planned to drive straight down to the coastline.  But then I saw this place called Lago Maggiore on the map (aka Lake Maggie), which my guidebook described as gorgeous (naturally), so of course we just had to go.

We took a little ferry out to one of the islands.  Actually, we ended up accidently going to several of the islands even though we only paid for one because we didn’t know when we were supposed to get off the boat.

I really didn’t mind that old boat ticket man yelling at me in Italian. I couldn’t really understand what he was trying to say (except the elevated tone of voice) so I just looked innocent and waited for him to finish, so we could get along with our merry little boat tour.

When we finally did get off on the island, it started pouring. And I mean POURING. So we stopped for ice cream. 

Did I mention how many older people there were at Lago Maggiore? Dad and I felt a little out of place for being under 70.

Leaving Lake Maggie, we drove south through Italy until we became really really hungry, and then we stopped in this little bitty town in the middle of nowhere, parked the car, and asked the first person we saw (an old man and his wife coming out of church) where we could find a good spot to eat. They pointed to a little (seemingly hole-in-the-wall) restaurant across the parking lot, and we went.

What a great decision. The owner didn’t speak any English, and about as much French as I speak Italian…which is like 5 words.  He was so happy to have us there (tons of locals, even a little gang of middle-schoolers, but we were definitely the only foreigners!) and it was really fun to communicate through broken French and lots of pointing and smiling. Hahaa.

And of course, the pizza was AMAZZING.  We ordered a gorgonzola and prochuittio pizza (basically blue-cheese and fancy Italian salami).  Ohhh it was so delicious. J

After dinner, we asked the dude if there were any good hotels nearby where we could stay. He found one of the regulars from the bar who knew a little more French, and he gave us directions to the only hotel in town.

When we arrived, the guy was so shocked to see us, haha, he spoke French pretty well though, and was just so incredibly sweet. 

In the morning, he served us the most decadent cappuccinos  (a norm in Italy) and these delicious little cream filled pastries…grazie!

Then, we went to Pisa! Everybody i talked to said not to go...just a tourist trap and not really anything else in the town but the tower, but I didn't listen. :)

Then we continued driving south until we reached the coast! Then we drove west on these fun little curvy windy roads until we reached Montremossa, the most eastern town of the Cinque Terre—a place I’ve been longing to visit for ages! The Cinque Terre is a group of five villages along the northern Italian coast that are not connected by roads…the only way to travel between them is by train or by hiking! So pops and I stayed in a hostel there for a night and hiked along the coastal cliffs and vineyards to a couple of the villages.

And the crystal blue water was just so clear and inviting (not to mention cold) I just had to jump in.

After leaving the Cinque Terre, we continued to drive along the coast, stopped at some other cool little towns, and then drove a little inland to Florence.

We ended up getting pretttty lost in Florence, haha but it was beautiful. So many ornate marble statues and buildings. We went to a fabulous Picasso/Dalhi/Mali exhibit, bought some leather shoes (outlet!), took about 100 pictures of the river, and ate double scoops of gelato for dinner.  J

Looking for a hotel was a bit challenging. I was trying to find the door of this bed  &breakfast that I found online 30minutes earlier (thanks to free wifi at the Picasso exhibit), and ended up knocking on the wrong door, being greeted by a sympathetic and cheery woman from Australia who invited us into her living room where we spent the next hour and a half talking with her, her husband (a kiwi) and their 2 kids about everything from ipod apps to gelato.  And they found us a hotel. And they might give my cousin a job offer. Yeah, that was a lucky knock, guess there are just good people everywhere!

After leaving Florence, pops and I drove back up along the Italian coastline, drove through Monaco, Cannes (during the big film festival, Festival de Cannes),  and Nice. We also drove along these 3 gorgeous highways built by Napoleon back in the day. These roads are called “les corniches” and there is a low, middle and high one, kinda like the Route 1 of the French Mediterranean.

Then from Nice we headed back up north towards Lyon and stopped at a vineyard to do some wine tasting along the way. Oh and then we ran into a biscuit tasting shop (in france biscuit = cookie). So for dinner, we went cookie tasting. Haha.

We might have gotten a bit lost at times….haha….but pops and I had a blast. Epic road trip, thanks papa J

barcelona & driving south

Ashleigh and I caught a ride with my host family, Sabine & Dominique, on their way to Barcelona for vacation.  The drive along the Mediterranean was absolutely gorgeous....like a dream.  I was just 

gaping out the car window the entire time. 

we spent the night halfway in a little town called 

the buildings were so colorful! i love it!

ash and i have SO many pictures of all the crazy color combos...

mediterranean coastline

the Moreaus have this little expandable camper room on the top of their car.  It opens up into a little canopy area with a bed, tres pratique!

we stayed in a little campground on the edge of the village,  this was the view of the coastline from the campground's beach

Ash & I! 

we stopped at a gas station along the way and Sabine & Dominique tried out the massage chairs

The next morning, we drove a tad inland, skirting the Pyrenees mountains, and then back down to the coastline to Barcelona!

driving down the road...you can see the Pyrenees Mountains in the distance!

Ashleigh and I only had about a day in Barcelona before we had to head back to Lyon, so we explored the city in power-tourist style.

under the boardwalk, down by the sea

Barcelona is know for its tile mosaics and Gaudi architecture.  This isn't a famous one, haha but its the only one i have a picture of :)

We hiked up to the Castle de Montjuic, which gave us a great view of the city and the coastline.

looking down on the city

looking out towards the sea, we could see the massive barcelonan shipping industry.  you know, its kinda beautiful in a odd, man-made industrial sort of way.

 Sooo we just happened to be there the night that Barcelona football (soccer) team beat Madrid. Actually, the game finished 1:1, but Barcelona was given the win because they beat Madrid 2:0 in their previous match. So, as you can imagine, the town went CRAZZZZY!  People were PACKED in the main plaza...you could barely move...spaniards were climbing up on light poles, trees, small buildings....everything to cheer and yell and wave the Barcelona flag! there were people setting off fireworks left and right. We knew when a firework was coming because the crowd would suddenly push back from a certain area, almost causing you to fall over (remember we're packed like sardines), in order to clear a five foot circle around where someone decided to let off a firework! It was so crazy! anddd a bit dangerous...haha Ash and I just kept thinking about how there is no way this would ever be allowed to happen in the States! but instead, the Barcelona police were just helping their brothas celebrate!

barca barca barrrrcelona!