Justin and Hazel Around the World

So even though we had just arrived in Madrid the day before we decided to take a little bus ride out of the city (about an hour) and head to Toledo.  We spent most of the morning running around to every bus station in Madrid, buying our onward tickets to Barcelona and then trying to find the right bus, but we eventually found it and had an uneventful ride out to Toledo.

And we were glad we went because the town was really beautiful!  We had a nice fixed menu lunch and walked around the town all afternoon.  We explored the Jesuit church and went up the bell tower to get some great views out over the town.  The town is made up of lots of narrow, winding streets with cool stone buildings lining them and was so scenic for a long walk.  The cathedral was pretty pricey to go into, so we ended up just walking around the outside, but we got some good pictures of the stonework.

Entrance to the town

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We had a fairly easy flight getting to Madrid from NYC and a very easy trip to our hostel on the (very clean, very spacious) metro.  The time difference and lack of sleep on the flight caught up to us though, so we took a nice nap for a couple of hours.

Since then we’ve managed to have some tapas (delicious!), wander around a bit, plan the next day or so (think we’ll head to Toledo and we’re going to see a flamenco show!), and see an incredibly awesome live jazz show just two blocks from where we’re staying!  We’ve also been pleased because even though the language here is a little different than in South America it seems like we can understand people pretty well and they can understand us.  So all in all, Spain has been good to us in the first 12 hours we’ve been here.

Awesome Jazz in Madrid!

Dr. DeWitt the veterinarian!

We had a very fun and joyful stop in Ithaca, NY to watch Justin’s sister Jessica graduate from veterinary school at Cornell University.  It’s good to have a doctor in the family!

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We made it to Niagara Falls, Canada and checked in to a cute little cabin.  It had two bedrooms, a living room, bathroom, and really nice lawn with picnic table out back.  We were worried about the weather since there were thunderstorms in the area, but in the end we were so lucky because it was sunny during the day and the big storms came at night.  Our hotel was close enough to the falls that we could walk down, and we had fun taking lots of photos on the way.  Click on any of these to see the photo gallery!

Canadian Phone Booth

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Was in New Jersey!  I got a nasty tick bite.  Those things are so gross.  Justin had to dig it out with a needle and tweezers.  And we thought we had escaped that kind of thing when we returned from South America unscathed!!!

Giant tick (from the horse, not the one from me!!!)

Because we were already heading to upstate New York for my sister’s graduation from Cornell Vet, Hazel and I thought it’d be fun to go up to see Niagara Falls.  Even Dad hadn’t ever been there!  So we packed up the car with the four of us (Mom, Dad, Hazel and me) and the dog Izsak.  Mom found a neat place called the Grand Canyon (of Pennsylvania) that is about halfway (4 hours drive) from Marlton to Niagara and we had a nice little stop there complete with hiking:

The Grand Canyon!

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While we were in the Philadelphia area we had to have a Philly Cheesesteak.  There are two famous spots to eat them, Pat’s and Geno’s, and they are right across the intersection from each other.  We chose Geno’s because the line was shorter, it looks fancier, he’s had some crazy political controversy, and we had never had either, so we had to start somewhere!

Lining up in the street!

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We’re having such a wonderful time here in New Jersey!  It’s pretty amazing to be living in a house for a little while again, speaking a language we know well, and getting to spend a lot of time with family.  We’ve even managed to have some adventures, a haircut, and a bit of new clothing!

A few days ago we went down to Cape May, a nice town in the far south of New Jersey.  It is one of the best birdwatching places in the US and since my dad was with us we got to see a lot of different birds – 80 species in the same day!  We had a guest photographer, my mom, since she is looking at cameras for when she meets up with us in Africa, so all of the photos in this post were taken by her.

Hundreds of birds at Cape May

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Party it up dude!

We had an easy bus trip back from Trindade to Rio and got to spend a couple of days in the city before heading on.  We stayed at a hostel in Le Blon, a nice neighborhood in the far south of the city.  The only problem with this was that it is a little far from the areas with stuff to do, so when we arrived at the bus station we immediately had to deal with a long trip through town and then out the other side.  We made it eventually with the help of a friendly local and got settled into an 8 person dorm.  Everyone at the hostel was really friendly, but it was a pretty noisy place, so not so much with the sleeping there.

Our first day in the city we walked up the incredible beaches and just took a good look around.  Rio is a beautiful city and the beaches were worth spending some time on.  We saw Le Blon beach, Ipanema beach, and Copacabana beach.  It was sunny in the morning, but then we had a pretty strong rain in the afternoon.  They said the weather was going to improve though, so we signed up for a city tour the next day so that we could see some of the big city landmarks.

We had an amazing sunny day and were picked up at the hostel in a big 16 person van.  Our first stop was the famous statue of Christ that looks down over Rio.  It is up on a mountain behind the city and was pretty crowded with tourists.  We had fun looking out at the views and taking a ton of pictures.

Christ the Redeemer

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