San Sebastian, Bordeaux and a long bus ride. Or two.

Hello world. It is midnight on Saturday night, I'm in my favourite city, Paris, and I'm in bed! We've just arrived from a 12 hour bus ride from the lovely Bordeaux, and we have to wake up at 6.30am tomorrow for another 10 hour bus ride! No complaints it's all part of the fun, but I think I did go a bit delirious when we were at a standstill for 30 minutes in the Paris traffic, according to Joni I started making un-funny jokes which isn't like me at all...
So last time I wrote I had just arrived in San Sebastian, and I've since been to Bordeaux so I'll run you through those two.

SAN SEBASTIAN
Big call coming up. Favourite place? Maybe most livable place? I don't know, all I know is I really liked it. It is on the coast in Spain but very close to the French border, it's a very beautiful town with a smallish population, old style buildings with wide streets, and a proper beach with some sweet waves as you'll gather from the photos of me in a wetsuit. I though it was a good mix of Australia, France and Spain, and in my mind that's a good combo.

• Stayed in the Enjoy SS hostel which is the surfers hostel. Almost all the other hostellers were male surfers. No complaints it's all part of the fun.
• We did two nights of tapas bar-crawling, the first night with our Busabout guide as our leader, and the second we went solo. Tapas are called Pinxtos is San Sebastian, and as it is in the Basque region they also speak Basque instead of Spanish which added to the fun!
• We had the most tender, mouthwatering beef cheek, and I drank a fair share of Sangria, my new favourite drink.
• Due to my incompetent digestive system, and the fact all the Pinxtos are served on bread, one of the only other things I could eat was Patatas Bravas, which luckily are delicious. They're little potato wedges covered in hot tomatoey sauce and aioli. Heaven. I think my sister would like them too.
• Joni liked the Basque drink of red wine and coke: Kalimoxto. Caffeine plus antioxidants, they say it's the ultimate health drink.
• Our first day was spent on the beach, Joni and I tried our hand at surfing, you can hire boards and wetsuits on the beach. As I've only done it a handful of times I was a bit scared, the waves were decent and I kept getting in everyone's way, but I had fun anyway! Joni got some sweet waves though.
• There is a statue of Jesus on top off a large hill just next to the beach, and on our last day we hiked up there and the views were phenomenal. I had one of those moments of 'holy moly I'm very far from home', which was nice.
• On the morning we caught the bus out of San Seb, we got absolutely soaked, which was a reminder of the cold and rainy city we're moving to very soon.

BORDEAUX
Back to France! And I got to speak my second language again***. Bordeaux is another quiet, chilled out place, very French. It's alongside a long, wide river and in a famous wine region, although we didn't go to any vineyards as we only had 1 1/2 days there, but we soaked up the atmosphere and had a nice few days.
• I saw a man running with a long baguette in each hand which made me laugh.
• We stayed in a hotel due to lack of hostels in Bordeaux, so it was nice to not have a bunk bed and to have our own bathroom.
• Bordeaux has the longest shopping street in all of Europe, so we felt obliged to walk down it a couple of times.
• I accidentally paid a beggar inside a church 2 euros thinking she was collecting the entrance fee. Turns out the church was free, and I don't know how her plastic cup and unkempt appearance fooled me, but maybe I was feeling Christian.
• We lay in the Jardin Public (Mum you would have liked it) and read our books on a very sunny afternoon which was glorious! I read The Hunger Games in 3 days it was so good.
• While the other 2 went to the circus last night (!) I finished my Oktoberfest costume. Which you will all see in a week! On me! As I drink tankards of something other than beer due to the high gluten content.

So Paris right now. Tomorrow we will sleep in the tiny town of Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland before staying 2 nights in Lucerne. Also just letting everyone know, as I'll be on my own in London for my real birthday, the girls decided (and I agreed) that I should have an early birthday next the Friday 21st! A 21st on a 21st seems fitting, Joni will be performing a speech to Sophie and myself, and I hope I spend the day eating!

Here are some photos, as usual sorry for the jumble. Some of those photos are taken from Joni and Sophie's Facebook, so merci to them.

*** Hah!

Portugal & Madrid

This part of the trip was a little bit broken up, which ended up being a shame as we all wished we had at least 2 more nights in Madrid and Lisbon, they're both such cool cities with plenty to do and see! So we had 1 night in Madrid, flew to Lisbon for 2 nights, took the train to Lagos for 3 nights, train back to Lisbon for 1 night and flew back to Madrid for 2 nights. Sorry if that was confusing. I think we could have organised it better, but lesson learned so oh well! I'll do some dot points on each city:

LISBON

• Flight was the worst ever, and I don't mind flying but even my knuckles were pretty white on this one!
• We stayed in hands down the best hostel yet, they had everything you wanted and it had so much atmosphere, and a curtain around your bed! For us that's pretty luxurious.
• The city is very beautiful, it's hilly and has plenty of history and amazing buildings to look at, and it has a lot of graffiti that the council has commissioned, so it's quality art to enjoy for free.
• Due to lack of time we crammed a lot in: a walking tour, a visit to the beach town Cascais where we rode bikes along the coast, took the famous (and old) Tram 28 which goes up some seriously hilly streets, went to the oldest bookshop in the world, sat on the famous Fernando Passo statue, and found out that Nandos is not Portugese, there are no Nandos in Portugal, and peri peri chicken is South African....
• Some Portugese history:
~ in 1904 the Portugese king was shot a street away from our hostel.
~ a dictator called Salazar ruled from 1933 until his death in 1970. His name was borrowed by J.K Rowling in the Harry potter books after she taught in Porto.
~Portugal was neutral during WWII which is why many of the buildings date back to the last century and earlier.
~ Portugal was not so neutral to the huge earthquake that destroyed Lisbon in 1755, killing 10,000 people and causing Portugal to lose a lot of its power having to spend so much money rebuilding the city.

LAGOS

Before I even talk about the town, I just want to tell you about the best part of the whole trip that happened. We were sitting at a cafe in Lagos and Joni burped so loudly that the man sitting at the next table turned with a horrible disgusted look on his face, so awful that Joni had to apologise, I seriously haven't laughed so hard in a long time, I think I pulled a stomach muscle. So good.
• Lagos is a bit of a beach by day, party by night type of place, so that's what we did!
• The beaches were great and had real actual sand, and I swum in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time ever.
• Had a steak for the first time since I left Perth!
• Trying to get back to Lisbon we had to be at the train station for our 10am train. Of course we went out the night before so we were all very hungover. No train until 1. We had to wait at the cafe station for 3 hours. It was so bad the only thing we could do was laugh. Then Joni did the burp thing and it was sort of okay.

MADRID

We did some very Spanish things here in the capital:
• Ate tapas! My favourite is Patatas Bravas.
• Drank Sangria.
• Ate Paella. The hostel does 1 euro Paella, and it was really delicious. The average price in a restaurant is 8-9 euros. Hehe.
• Drank in bars, as the Spanish are famous for.
• We also went to some museums, looked at some amazing buildings including the royal palace and the statue of independence, and really enjoyed the atmosphere of Madrid.
• Went to a bull fight:
I'd decided to a bull fight a few weeks before and didn't really think about what I was going to see, so it was a bit of a shock when I was actually there! The big Toro stadium was about half full, and we got pretty good seats for only 7 euros. The first (of five) bulls came out, and there were 5-6 matadors with a pink cloak teasing the bull, then running behind the barrier when it charged. You could tell the bull wasn't quite right, it was uncoordinated and couldn't see properly. We heard that before they come out the bulls have injections in there testicles to make them angry, they have newspaper put in there ears and Vaseline in their eyes, so it's not really a fair fight. So once the bull is angry and frustrated a horse and rider comes out, and the bull charges it. When this first happened I started crying (!) and hid behind Joni as I didn't realize the cloak the horse was wearing was really thick rubber and the horns weren't hurting it. In fact the horses were fine which goes to show how strong horses are. They then take the horse away and the matadors each take turns in throwing sticks into its back. Then all but one matador leaves, and the remaining matador with the red cloak really riles up the bull, then finally gets a long sword in through it's neck and all the way in. A sign of a good matador is if he can get the sword in in one go and the bull sits down (dies) only a few moments later. The first bull took a really long time to die and I think it was embarrassing for the matadors, but the fourth matador got him to die almost straight away and the crowd went wild, he did a lap and people threw hats at him like he was a king. So it's obviously a really big deal for the Spanish locals, we saw some old Spanish men cheering and yelling instructions at the matadors passionately. So basically it's horrible and you see the same thing 5 times over, but it's funny how quickly you get used to the cruelty. At first I wanted to leave and was quite upset, but by the third I was sort of used to it. The key is to watch the matadors (who wear great glittery costumes and do a lot of hip thrusting and 'olay') rather than the bull. So in the end I'm glad we went, it's another one of those things we'll never go again, but it's very brutal and it really shouldn't be allowed. Poor bulls.

So am in San Sebastian now, the last Spanish city we are visiting. In my whole trip I will have spent the most time in Spain, 22 nights all up! Fine with me. So I have 2 weeks left until I'll be back in England: San Seb, Bordeaux, Lucerne and Munich. Am currently sewing myself an Oktoberfest costume! We'll see how that goes... So 2 weeks left, and I'm definately ready to get back to a normal way of living!
X

Ibiza, Valencia and La Tomatina!

IBIZA
We arrived in Ibiza on Friday lunchtime not really knowing what to expect. The island is definately bigger than I expected, with heaps of buildings (mainly hotels) and plenty of action on the streets. Our hotel room was really good, we had out own room with air con and our own kitchen. That kitchen made me really happy as I haven't done any cooking since I left Perth [10 weeks ago!]. So we did some food shopping then had a look around the hostel. Had a look at the pool. The lobby. Not many girls around. In fact they were mainly men. Tanned men. Wearing not much more than speedos. With their belly buttons pierced. As it turns out we were staying at a gay friendly hotel! After much laughter, we realised this was a good thing as we wouldn't have to worry about what we looked like in the pool etc.
So we went out all 3 nights, the first to Space where we saw Temper Trap who were really good and made us feel a little at home, even though the lead singer has developed an American accent? Entrance was only 35 euros, which for Ibiza is not too bad. We had a free drink ticket with entrance too, but we only remembered about it the next morning! Drinks at 12 euros are not fun. The second night we went to a smaller club called Sankeys which had a few different rooms with different dj's, a terrace area etc. 25 euros entry, water was 8 euros. I think the bartenders were a bit embarrassed when they had to say how much the water cost. The final night we almost didn't go out due to exhaustion, but we figured the only thing worse that going out would be staying in, so we went to Privlege (the biggest club in the world apparently) and saw Steve Aoki! He was nuts, crowd surfed in a blow up pool, sprayed the crowd with dry ice and jumped onto his table and danced every 2 seconds. Drinks were 18 euros! The club had lots of scary looking dancers, the males were perfectly chiseled and the girls were perfectly plastic, but I suppose it was Ibiza! So we had three really fun nights, and fell into a routine that only works when you're in Ibiza, which is a sort of magical land where the real world doesn't exist. Wake up at noon, have lunch, check Facebook etc., pool, go back to sleep at 4, wake up at 8, cook dinner, get ready, start drinking and go get a taxi at close to midnight, home by 6 or 7am. Luckily taxis and alcohol from the supermarket is quite cheap. So even though we had a blast, 3 nights was plenty and we were more than happy to get on the plane on the Monday morning.

VALENCIA
The plane took us to Valencia (which only took 30 minutes), where we were for La Tomatia! The tomato fight! We had 5 nights in Valencia which is a long time in one place for us, and after not having very high hopes for it we ended up really liking Valencia. This first night we did not a lot as we had some sleep to catch up on, so the second day we went exploring, did boring things like laundry and food shopping etc. Valencia has lots of cool street art and graffiti which I took a few snaps of. We found the city was a bit strange in that we'd be in a completely deserted street then turn a corner and there would be people everywhere! Another early night on Tuesday, then up at 5am on Wednesday for the fight!

LA TOMATINA
So up at 5am, wearing our cheap clothes we were prepared to throw away, and off the to the train station. The fight is held in a town called Bünol, which is about a 40 minute train ride out of Valencia, and even though we were up early the line for the train was still massive, but we managed to get to Bünol by 8am. The town itself is nothing special, you wouldn't go there except for the festival, but there was heaps of music blasting, street vendors selling bocadillos (sandwiches), beer, sangria, sausages and souvenirs. We all got a huge sangria which we would regret later... At 9ish all the crowds started heading down the sloping streets to where the fight is held, and by 9.30 we were in place, squished up next to hundreds and thousands of people from all over the world. The houses on the street were about 5 stories high, so all the locals were standing on their balconies throwing buckets of water and hosing down the crowd. The first time a big bucket of cold water landed on my head I was not too pleased, but it's all part of the fun and everyone is clapping and eggings the locals on before long. The fight doesn't start til 11 so you just have to wait around until then; going to the toilet is not a option. This is where we stated to regret the large sangrias! Anyway, at 11am a loud shot rang out, and the crowd started cheering. People were throwing their wet, ripped t-shirts, and some locals were throwing their own tomatoes at the crowd. As for the actual tomatoes, we had to wait a bit longer for them. There are 5 huge trucks filled with tomatoes that work there way through the crowds and the 15 or so people on the trucks throw tomatoes at the waiting crowd, who then re-throw them at each other. Every time a truck came through the crowd we had to squeeze together to let it past, which meant lack of lung capacity and squished body parts. When the last truck had passed and the crowd spread out, we found ourselves ankle deep in half squashed tomatoes and then all of a sudden everyone sort of forgets they are a nice polite humans and you just pick up and throw as many tomatoes at complete strangers as you can! People were squishing tomatoes into other peoples hair and ditching them at anyone within reach, slipping, sliding, laughing, the locals are watching and laughing from their balconies and it's just so much fun. By the end of it we were covered in tomatoes from head to toe, out hair was crusted with seeds and pulp and I knew my shoes were going in the bin as soon as possible! The locals are kind enough to hose you down, as you can't get back on the train if you're too messy. The festival atmosphere in Bünol goes on for the afternoon, but we headed back to Valencia for a much needed siesta and to relax before the after party, which ended up being pretty cool. You had to get a free shuttle bus there as it was sort of in the middle of nowhere, there was a pool and drinks were very cheap! By the time we left the pool water was murky grey and a bit gross, but it was a really fun night.

So the rest of our time in Valencia was spent at the beach, exploring the streets and watching some Flamenco! We went to an amateur Flamenco show on our last night, but the singer had an amazing voice and the dancers and guitar players were pretty impressive. We were chuffed there weren't too many tourists other than us, and it was mainly locals, so we felt like authentic Spaniards.

So we arrived in Madrid on the bus yesterday, and spend last night there. We've just arrived in Lisbon and we'll be in Portugal for the next 6 days. We are going to try and see a football game if there are any on, I can't marry Ronaldo without meeting him first. Will report back on how that goes. X

P.s: no photos from La Tomatina! We took a disposable 'outdoor waterproof' one. It didn't survive. And, as always, sorry the photos are all jumbled.

 

La Tomatina After Party

 

 

View from our Ibiza hotel

 

 

Valencia Street Art

 

 

View from our Valencia hostel

 

Ibiza hotel at night

 

 

Home-cooked family meal!

 

 

More Valencia street art

 

Kitchen in Ibiza

 

 

3 euro paella from the markets in Valencia, delicious!

 

 

Light show at Sankeys in Ibiza