I have the travel guide - I need to renew my passport. I downloaded an Elglish/Spanish and an English/Portuguese dictionary to my Palm because I'm retarded. What's next?

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2001

Answers

What's next? My jealous rage.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2001

I still need to get my passport. Saturday!

We need to figure out where and when our schedules mesh.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2001

Did you get your passport? I'm getting mine this week. Saturday night we're all meeting (me, Courtney, Hadley, Dee, Courtney's friend) to start planning the itinerary. They're all about hostels - I'm NOT. I have two friends who just went and they only spent $500 in ten days and they stayed at hotels. They're like $18/night for nice ones. I'm not into staying with filthy hippies at hostels.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2001

Teri, not all hostels are full of filthy hippies. Some are acutally really clean and nice.

Sara is all about hostels too. I'd go for pensiones, but I think we should mix it up. Hostels some nights, hotels others. LIke in Madrid and Barcelona, I think we should stay in hotels since we'll be there for more than one night. And a couple nights we'll be spending on a train.

No, I haven't gotten it yet and I think Sara is about to kill me.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2001

I applied for my passport! Yeah! I feel so much better. It takes 25 business days, so I should get it around Feb. 19.

-- Anonymous, January 12, 2001

T - I watched a Wild On Spain on E! this weekend. They were mostly in Barcelona. It's so beautiful. The nightlife looks out of hand. They don't get really rolling until like 2 a.m. and they go until sunrise.

It pretty much looked like Bourbon Street, but with much, much hotter Spainish guys.

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2001

Gaah! I'm Wild on Spain! I'm renewing my passport tomorrow (it's closed today).

Question: are the forms that you need at the post office?

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2001

Yup. All I had to take was my original birth certificate, my driver's license and $$. It took about 5 minutes.

Check out madridman.com

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2001

I found a hostel online that's only $40 a night for a triple w/ a private bathroom. Right in Madrid's museum district.

If all hostels are like that, we'll be fine.

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2001

A Hertz intermediate standard with air (an AUDI) is $41 a day with unlimited mileage. Pretty snazzy, eh. What's weird, is an automatic compact is more expensive. By like $100 total. Strange.

Since you guys have 5 people you should get a Merecedes van or something.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

We're definitely going to try to get a van. Me, Courtney, and Dee can all drive standards, but I know COurtney well enough to say that there's no way she'll be willing ot drive in a foreign country, and what's more, I don't know if we want her to drive.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

How long do you think it'll take you to get from Lisbon to Seville? You guys arrive Sunday morning right? So you're spending just Sun. night in Lisbon? We'll be in Seville by Monday night. I'm looking forward to Barcelona the most.

I'm not real excited about driving in a foreign country, but I figure if I can drive in L.A. alone, I can handle Spain with someone else.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

I got my passport! Yippie.

I have to get a backpack and a money belt, and I think that's it.

Should we start a packing list?

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001

I got my backpack. I love it!

We need to nail down where in Seville we're meeting and what time.

Can you send me the iten. y'all planned out?

-- Anonymous, February 05, 2001

My passport came ysterday. Yay! I have some emails to forward you - I've been slack. Sorry.

-- Anonymous, February 06, 2001

Okay. So you guys are getting into Barcelona on Tuesday night? Are you planning to stay there until you leave for Madrid? What's your plan?

Probably the best place to meet us would be teh train station, but then if we're late or something, you'd be waiting there.

Where should we meet?

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

Hadley's more familiar with Barcelona than I am, so I'll ask her advice on a meeting place. I think that the plan is to stay there until we lwave for Madrid - we may take a side trip or two, like within an hour or so of Barcelona. Then we'll head to Madrid and spend a few days there before we fly back.

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

Baby, once you get to Barcelona it IS a few days until we leave. And it's about a 10 hour train ride from B to Madrid, so you figure you'll be spending one night on a train. (Sara and I were thinking Friday, but do we really want to spend a Fri. night on a train? But I'd rather spend 2 nights in Barcelona than Madrid.) So we were thinking Wed. and Thursday night in Barcelona, Friday night travelling to Madrid and Sat. night in Madrid. Our flight home is at 11 a.m. on Sunday. I have a feeling we'll be partying, go grab our bags adn hit the airport. I don't plan on sleeping Sat. night. That's what the looong flight is for.

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

Exactly. International flights are for sleeping. And for boozing. It's free, baby!

Are we on the same flight from Madrid to Newark? I know that we go from Newark back to Atlanta.

So then, we'll be in the same place from Barcelona on?

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

Do you know if Sprint PCS works overseas? As in, would we have any emergency access?

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

Yes, we're on the same flight from Madrid to Newark.

I'm not sure if Sprint works, but it would be perfect if it did. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

T - read your post in 3wa. You need to get a money belt. You wear it around your waist inside your pants. It's where you'll wanna keep your $$, passport and plane ticket home.

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

I'll do that, then.

What are you doing about money? I'm going to bring about $200 in traveler's checks, I think, and then I'll have my Visa debit card for my account here, and my Visa debit card for my New Orleans account in case the parents need to get emergency funds to me. According to everything I've read, you can use the Visa debit cards everywhere, and that you get a much better exchange rate with the ATM's than you would with the traveler's checks.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

Yeah, I'm just brining my ATM card, not travellers checks. I'll hve that and my real ATM. I'll have a little US cash on me, but not much.

Have you made a packing list, yet?

Should we just pick a hostal to stay in in Barecelona?

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

I think Hadley's working on the hostel/inexpensive hotel information. I'll let you know.

I may not bring any traveler's checks, then. I've also read that there aren't too many places to cash them.

I've sort of started a packing list. I hope the weather warms up over there - I'm thinking a couple of pairs of jeans, shirts that I can layer (tanks and long-sleeved ones), minimal makeup, I'll probably pull my hair back every day since it only looks decent down when I can blow-dry it, and I don't anyicipate that there will be too many opportunities for blow-drying my hair, a couple of cute skirts, my jean jacket, a pair of khakis (if I can find a decent pair - BR has one that I like, but they're out of the tan color and they only have blue), my hiking boots, my Tevas, and my Clark's.

I'll probably bring some of those Shout wipes things, some Mr. Clean bathroom wipes (those things kick ass), a little thing of Febreeze, and a little thing of Woolite. I'll throw in a sweater, and I'm bringing my North Face parka shell, as it's totally waterproof.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

That's a LOT of stuff. Y'all are taking backpacks, right? The guy at Galyan's put weights in my bag and it's heavy.

You'll probably wear the same thing (or a combo) everyday. So you only need one pair of jeans and one pair of twill, a going out outfit, two sweaters (like a cardigan, and a pullover), and then a few tees/tanks to layer.

Why do you need woolite?

This is our list:

underwear/socks pair of jeans pair of twill 1 going out outfit tees light sweater wrap cardigan pajamas parka cap gym shoes flip flops going out shoes lotion (body/face) soap shampoo/conditioner deodarant make up toothbrush/paste towel (and plastic bag) pillowcase day bag Spain book journal camera/film passport (copies) money belt sunglasses pack lock aspirin band aids pepto

Because I plan on buying Campers there and other clothes, stuff, that I'll then need to carry.

The general rule I've heard is Pack: then take stuff out. Then take more stuff out. THEN take more stuff out.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

What are Campers? Also, what kind of pack lock do you have? A padlock, of one of the all-over mesh ones?

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

I'm also planning on shippinf stuff that I buy home. IE, Chris' mom wants me to pick some Lladro pieces up for her. I'll just have them shipped to her, rather than carrying them around.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

Campers are shoes.

Shit, why did they go up like that?

I hit return. Ugh.

And shipping is expensive. Shipping for someone else, cool, they pay. But do you want to ship everything you buy?

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

Nope - only the shipping that someone else pays for.

I probably will bring just the minimum of stuff. Now I'm wondering what kind of food I can bring back into the States. I plan on bringing back saffron as it is expensive as hell over here, and some port from Lisbon...

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

I know you can only bring 2 liters of alcohol (duty free). You can probably bring as much as you want, but you pay for it. I have no idea about food. I think anything in a box or can would be fine. Obviously no fruit or veggies.

Packing's going to be hard. Especially since I'm a notorious overpacker.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001