Well, it´s been a whirlwind couple of weeks with the Zuks (Mandy´s parents) around Spain and Portugal. We tried to pack as much in as we could, including Gibraltar and Tangier, and a couple days lying on the beach on the Algarve (southern coast of Portugal). Here are all our latest photos from Europe, starting in Madrid and taking you up to date here in Lisbon...

Madrid

After a hard-working afternoon at the Sofia art museum:




Shopping for gifts at El Rastro flea market:

The Road Trip begins: Toledo, Grenada...

Placa Mayor in Toledo:




Do you think we can get this thing through airport security?




The Alhambra in Grenada, a truly amazing palace:






The view out from the Alhambra:




Typical tiles used at the Alhambra:

The original Sierra Nevadas:

This was the view from our cabin in the mountains:



An old stone bridge:

Gibraltar

There´s the big rock, the only place you can use British Pounds to pay for fish & chips on the Iberian Peninsula:




The apes of Gibraltar:

Tangier

Snake charmer with cobra:




Stalls in the Casbah:






Not sure which category we fit into ;)

Seville

Lagos, Sagres, & Ponta da Piedad

At last, the beach!




Mmmmm, Persimmons:




Ponta de Piedad, a rocky outcrop in Lagos:








Sagres & Cabo de Sao Vincente, the Southwestern tip of Europe:





Posing for the cover of my travel book:

Evora & Sintra

Tour guides in Evora:




A nice long hike up the Castle and palace. (Maybe we should´ve taken the bus?)












Azenhas do Mar, just down the road from Sintra:

Lisbon

This is our hotel balcony right in the middle of Lisbon.




Feeling at home by Lisbon´s version of the Golden Gate Bridge.




Belem Monastary and tower










Andrew with Paulo, Irene & Daniel:




Paulo's Amazing Art:




Daniel, Paulo & Irene's adorable son (playing with our camera):

New office ph# in Lisbon

Hi All,

We´ve been having a great time with the Zuks around Spain and Portugal, more updates to the website when we have time. In the meantime,
we´ll be in Lisbon for the next week, so if you feel like calling us (for a very high price I´m sure) here´s the number:

+351 916 285 459

For those of you with SMS, you can text message us.

The updated itinerary is as follows:

Lisbon - Paris Oct 26
Paris - Rome Nov 1
Rome - Istanbul Nov 8??
Istanbul - India Nov 20?? (a new entry, due to budget constraints and weight loss requirements)
India - Thailand Jan? .....etc

Hope everyone is doing well.

cheers
mandrew

Ah Barcelona!!! After getting up hideously early to drive from Bratislava to Vienna (saying goodbye to Susan), spending the day wandering Vienna with our Cousins, taking an overnight train to Milano (with a snorer going at it all night in our cabin), 6hrs to wander the streets of Milan, a 1hr bus ride, a 1hr flight and then another 1hr bus ride, we finally made it to our destination... Barcelona, and it was well worth the effort.

We stumbled upon a great pension in the heart of the city (Placa Catalunya), which coincidentally had an amazing vegetarian cafeteria right next door. We thought we found heaven on earth when the chef gave us a foul look when we asked if there was bacon in the paella. He thought maybe we were crazy and didn´t understand what vegetarian was. Too much time in Eastern Europe has made us a little paranoid expecting to find ham in "vegetarian" dishes.

But that was just the beginning. The architecture, the food, the people, the beach (ah, how we´ve missed the smell of the ocean - 6 weeks away from the sea is really torture) -- Barcelona seems to contain the best features of a few of our favorite cities. But it is expensive! We met up with our friend Laura for dinner at a great Catalan restaurant -- the Catalan Cream is delicious.

Two days was much too short -- we just managed to see a few of the major attractions -- La Sagrada Familia, an amazing unfinished cathedral by Gaudi which was started in 1886 and is still under construction. We also walked around Gaudi´s Parc Guell -- amazing beyond words so hopefully we will have pictures soon. And Barceloneta, the city beach. Plus walking La Rambla and through the old city and markets.

This morning we left Barcelona at 5am to catch a cheap flight to Madrid. Not sure how many more cheap flights we can afford in our sleep schedule ;) Again we managed to find a nice pension right in the middle of town (Placa de Sol), though this time it was with considerably more effort, and we are improving our vocabulary of "Spangles" continuously.

The Zuks arrive tomorrow, and we have a few days of wandering Madrid before we head south towards Sevilla.

Thanks for all the emails we´ve received since our last quarterly report. Keep them coming!

Photos will be posted when we get our act together (maybe sometime soon)

Barcelona

Barcelona: The Gaudi-designed Sagrada Familia, easily the most impressive piece of architecture we´ve seen yet.








Barcelonetta: Recovering from our overnight train ride with the loud snorers in our cabin keeping us up all night!




Out to dinner with Laura, showing us the local Catalan cuisine:




Gaudi´s Park Guell:

Barcelona

Barcelona: The Gaudi-designed Sagrada Familia, easily the most impressive piece of architecture we´ve seen yet.








Barcelonetta: Recovering from our overnight train ride with the loud snorers in our cabin keeping us up all night!




Out to dinner with Laura, showing us the local Catalan cuisine:




Gaudi´s Park Guell:

Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, & Milan

Our last week in eastern Europe, we visited Budapest and then heading through Vienna to catch an overnight train to Milan (to then fly out 4hrs later to Barcelona!)

Budapest: The View across the Danube.




Bratislava: Andrew´s mom, on our way to synagogue to celebrate Rosh Hashanah (New Years).




Vienna: Andrew and cousin Veronika at the Hundertwasserhaus.



Vienna: Kariskirche church.




Vienna: Schonbrun palace.



Milan: The Duomo. We took an overnight train from Vienna to Milan, stopped in for a few hours, then took off for Barcelona.

The final part of our Slovakian tour was broken up with a few trips to other countries. We spent a couple of days enjoying the luxury of western europe (soft toilet paper, choice of food) in Vienna, and then a few days in Budapest, which is now near the top of our list of favorite cities (but this was before Barcelona).

We were in Slovakia for so long that we almost became locals. People started coming up to us and asking us for directions in Slovak. We were invited to be guest lecturers at Veronica´s high school English class (what they didn´t realize was Mandy almost failed English in high school ;) ). We were also entertained at a real small-town ballroom dancing competition where Veronica was competing. After 5hrs of watching dancers from 17 to as young as 8 dancing their hearts out, mandy is still convincing andrew to take some classes on our return to NZ (and pigs might fly).

L´Shana Tova (Happy Jewish New Year) to everyone. We had the pleasure of going to the Rabbi´s house for dinner on New Year´s eve, and meeting his family of nine children, all of whom were adorable and spoke 5 languages fluently (well, the ones who were old enough to speak). The service at the Bratislava synagogue was an interesting experience -- the combined effects of rampant anti-semitism and communist-imposed atheism has left a very small community with very little Jewish knowledge (people were asking MANDY for Hebrew lessons! -- A most amusing concept), but the community has started to grow again in the last few years.

Our first two weeks in Slovakia have been pretty action-packed. My (Andrew's) mom has shown us many of the different places she grew up here, and we've spent a week in the beautiful High Tatras doing lots of hiking and sightseeing. We struggle with food here a little, as pretty much everything has ham in it. I mean everything. Vegetarian dishes, plenty of them, but all have some bacon shoved in. It's gotten so bad that I half-expect bacon bits to be sprinkled on top of every beer or ice-cream we order.

When we were in the High Tatras we did a couple of envigorating hikes, so one overcast day we spent at a pool and getting a massage. Well, the first surprise that should have set off warning bells was the sight of the masseuse -- a leathery tanned old man in all-white pants and ribbed tank-top. I thought I'd be nice and offer Mandy the first massage, and well, to make a long story short, Europe is one big naked continent, as Mandy ended up naked, face up, with her eyes closed, praying for it all to be over as soon as possible. With her virtue still in tact, she invited me in to go next, where I thanked god that I had only signed up for 30 minutes instead of the usual one hour massage.

Here are some photos from the last few weeks...

After a good hike in the High Tatras




Andrew and his Mom in the High Tatras




Andrew and his Mom outside one of the many cute Chatas (Chalets)




The closest Mandy will get to tasting Ham/Bacon:




Andrew across the street from his Grandfather's old house in Kezmarok (the blue building):




Andrew and Monica in front of Spissky Castle:




The view from Spissky Castle:




Andrew and his Mom at the top of the Orava Castle:




Andrea and Monica:




Mandy dressed up warmly in an Ice Cave:

Mandrewadventure Inc. (Q1) Quarterly Report June 2 - Sept 16

Due to many complaints from shareholders, regarding the poor performance of our communication staff, Mandrewadventure Inc has taken the unprecidented step of producing a full quarterly report for Q1. We hope this will give shareholders all the information that they were expecting to hear over the past 3 months.

Cheers
Mandrew
CEO/Founder
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Revenue is at 0, with costs particularly high over the first 2/3 of Q1. Offices were opened all through the Northwest US, Canada and Alaska, and a part-time employee (Kevin Wiggen) was brought in to the Valdez office. Due to the increase in beer costs and constant "sniping" problems, our Alaskan staff member was terminated only 2 weeks after being hired.

Mandrewadventure Inc. recommends the following areas to shareholders for further exploration in the US/Canada:
* Kayaking in the Queen Charlotte Islands (B.C)
* Kayaking in Valdez/Prince William Sound (Alaska)
* Bear viewing in Katmai National Park (Alaska)
* Hiking in Jasper National Park (Alberta)
* Hiking in the Grand Tetons National Park (Wyoming)

Thanks go out to those who organized temporary office space in Seattle (Mike & Julie), Vancouver (Pat), Anchorage (Tammy & Jeff), Jasper (Brent & Jen), Calgary (Unknown but friendly Australian), & Helena (Carol & Bill).

Profits this quarter took an additional hit with a one-time restructuring charge for the shutdown of our transportation department (the VW vanagon), due to low performance and rising costs within the department.

As costs were so high in the first 2/3 of the quarter, offices were closed in the US, and all opererations were moved to Europe in mid August.

After an initial office opening in London (thanks to Shareholder Sophie who financed the office lease), Mandrewadventure Inc, hit hard by the low $US were forced to quickly shut down operations and set up shop in Eastern Europe (Czech & Slovak Republics).

Expenses have decreased significantly due to the local Slovak employees (Andrew's cousins Andrea & Vlado) who have been subsidising the offices in Bratislava & the High Tatras. Foreign investment from our US/Slovak employee (Andrew's mum) has also reduced costs during the month in which she will be employed by Mandrewadventure Inc in Slovakia.

Mandrewadventure Inc. recommends the following areas to shareholders for further exploration in the Czech & Slovak republics:
* Prague (meeting andrew's great cousins Juraj, Teresa & Annelie Herz)
* Karlovy Vary (spa town in Czech R.)
* Cesky Krumlov (Czech R.)
* Castle Devin (Slovakia)
* Banska Stiavanica (Slovakia)
* Hiking in the High Tatras (Slovakia)
* Touring the Ice Caves (Slovakia)
* Orava Castle (Slovakia)

Projections for Q2 include office closures in Czech/Slovak republics and new offices opening in Spain, Portugal, Italy & Turkey. No revenue is projected, however we anticipate hiring more foreigners in Spain (Mandy's Parents).

Despite zero revenue and no revenue growth projections, Mandrewadventure Inc's board of directors has voted to continue funding the venture for another 9 months. After that point an additional round of funding may be sought.

If shareholders would like any further information about Mandrewadventure Inc. including photos and very brief and sporadic updates from the poor performing communications team, please go to www.wiggenout.com/mandrewadventure.html
(for europe pics look at http://www.wiggenout.com/2003_09_01_mandrewadventure_archive.html)
There may be additional paragraphs added to old sections from Alaska, and may be some fairly recent updates. (Nothing is being promised)
The current office phone number in Slovakia is: +421 907 172 539. We are 9 hours ahead of PST. A new office phone will be sent out when our Spanish office opens in October.

Cheers
Mandrew

We arrived in Bratislava on Saturday to meet up with my mother at my cousin´s place, and have been getting spoiled with home cooking, personal tour guides and translators ever since. So far we´ve seen 2 castles, and spent time in the cute downtown, and stuffing ourselves with great Slovak sweets, like Gashtanove Pire, a delicious chestnut and chocolate puree with nuts. Our clothes are shrinking swiftly ;)