Adios Espana!

FINALLY! An update! I hear you all cry, well sorry! It has been rather busy on the western front! What being back to work, moving house, parental visitors and London's open house weekend! But I'll leave all that updating for the next entry... this one is just to wrap up the Spain trip for all you avid readers! Now... where did we leave off?

Ahh... Ibiza! Be still my beating lovehearts, what an amazing place! We had an amazing three nights in San An, where we followed Alice down the rabbit hole to WONDERLAND! An amazing gig featuring Peter Tong and Groove Armada at Eden nightclub - a whole 5 minute walk from our sauna of a hotel! The second night was spent at Es Paradis where we entered as part of the VIP list and experienced our first agua (water) party! The last and most relaxing night was spent watching the last of the sunlight hours disappear at the sunset strip taking in the music of Cafe Del Mar and Savannah! Before we knew it we were back on the disco bus and heading to the airport to fly out to Valencia where tomatoes were waiting for us.

Our first night in Valencia we discovered litre sangria for 75cents and loaded up! This quickly lead to a hasty decision to join the pub crawl, which goes down as the worst on record! The second day we joined a free city tour of the sights, but bailed early in pursuit of the holy grail! That night we headed out to a local village to attend the water/wine festival but not before purchasing our vessels at a 1euro shop. The festival turned out to be one of the most amazing things we ended up doing all trip. Basically you take your vessel and hand it in to venders on the side of the street and they fill it with vino for free!!! We were unable to actually reach this but in broken English we (plus a few friends, popeye, wilma and fred) found a very friendly restaurant owner who sold us a 7 litre jug for 3 euro! The festival finishes with you wandering the maze of streets shortly before dawn where the locals throw water all over you from the balcony! We made a mad dash back to the bus at around 4am, as if you weren't there you were left behind. We arrived back to our hostel around 6am only to catch a few z's before being up and ready and back on the bus for 7:30am to head to La Tomatina.

La Tomatina is incredible, scary, but incredible... picture this, a town street about as wide as 4-5meters and thousands upon thousands squeeze in. Just when you think you can't possible squeeze anymore in, they drive 5 lorries through the street, dividing the people like a river and drop their load of tomatos. So the pictures you see of people frolickin in the puree is not exactly what we experienced. I think the most exciting and fun part was when we managed to escape the shirt ripping locals by following one of the lorries out and throwing tomato paste at the clean people we passed. Followed closely by the kind neighbours who hose you down before you scamper back onto your bus. The last afternoon we spent catchin up on sleep and testing our spainish by ordering from an entirely spainish menu.

The final days of our trip were spent in Madrid where we consolidated all we had learnt by taking in a free (private) tour of Madrid. We also enjoyed our last Tapas crawl where Bec introduced J to the most amazing gambas (prawns) alioli he had ever eaten!

All in all, Spain was remarkable!!! Without selling it short, it was the best holiday we have ever had!!!

"Follow that rabbitt!!!!" Crossing the looking glass into WONDERLAND

Bec and the Holy Grail

At the water/wine festival... vessell in hand!

Us in Madrid, our final day :(

Mañana is good enough for me...

Well it´s been 3 cities, 4 paellas, loads of tapas, a new theme song and a while since you´ve heard from us. But rest assured its not cause we dont love you we are just having a wicked time.

So, without further adue (in order of appearance) we give you the low down on our Spain trip, thus far:

Granada

Well after arriving from Seville into Granada we were very happy with our choice of hostel. High about the hill within the Medina walls, very close to the Alhambra and complete with swimming pool. All for the bargin price of 12 euros a night!!! The first afternoon we made value out of the pool and watched the sunset eating an assortment of Spainish deli cuisine, such as Chorrizo Sausage, sun-dried capiscum and Alhambra beer! Day 2 saw Bec ´take one for the team´and rise bright and early to purchase tickets for the Alhambra, which we spent most of the day looking at. That afternoon we joined two fellow Australians as they had given us ´no way out´ for a Tapas crawl in downtown Granada. Day 3 saw us explore the city by foot, taking in an amazing walking tour and eating a fantastic Paella!

Our deli feast!!!

Inside the Palacio Nazaries at the Alhambra

At the lookout point, Alhambra behind us!

Madrid

After arriving into Madrid in the late afternoon, we had no time for siesta and headed straight to the Palaca and Royal Chapel. Determined to change Bec´s negative opinion of Madrid from her previous visit Jarratt rallied the troops and we spent a night eating a pretty ordinary Paella, drinking jugs of Sangria and dancing to bad music in an Irish pub.... needless to say it wasnt much of a success. Unrattled by the previous night Jarratt pushed on in showing Bec ´his´ Madrid and we made a beeline for the fantastic El Rastro flea market, which proved to be a great success since Bec was permitted to buy two EXTREMELY pretty spainish dresses!!! From there it was onward and upward as Jarratt let Bec slipped out of the oath to eat ONLY Spainish food and had Maccas, he instead ate what seems to have been his millionith Bocadilla. To close out an amazing day we bought pretty amazing seats to the Sunday evening Bull fight and continued onto the hostels pub crawl which commenced at the ridiculously late time of 12:30am!!! But it was a pretty fantastic night to which we lost most of the next day! Needless to say, Jarratt may have turned Bec´s opinion on its head!

At the Palace in Madrid.

Out and about partying in Spain!

Ole Torro!

Salamanca

The last two days have been spent in Salamanca, Spains famed university town. We have explored much of the city, had another great Paella, done some frog-spotting and spent much of our time Siesta-ing!

Yummo! Wow, right? Paella is AMAZING

Plaza Mayor, NOT John Mayer as J likes to call it!

Tomorrow we´re off to San Sebastian for some very expensive downtime!
Hasta luego Amigos!