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!

Tapas Heaven!

Ola Amigos!

We come to you live from sweltering hot Sevilla! Yesterday we arrived into the bus terminal at around 6pm-ish and thought someone was having a laugh and left the heating on, but no no, in fact it was an amazing 42 degrees! We made our way quickly to our hostel. After checking in we headed out to Seville's beautiful bullring for a quick tour. We were taken into the arena and shown the varying details such as the purpose of each entrance, the kings seat and the bull hospital. Interestingly, the ring is not round like most others in Spain but in fact oval which was not a design element, but in fact a mistake! Later that night we did our own slightly inventive Tapas pub crawl, before ending up at a FREE flamenco show and sharing a jug of Sangria.

Today we rose late and headed to the Alcazar. The Alcazar is a building with has been built, rebuilt, remodelled and extended throughout the entirety of Spains history. It reflects the changes in religion, political opinion and monachs over the centuries. Therefore it is a little diverse in its make up, but spectatular nonetheless. It currently houses the royal monach of Spain and is free to students (no matter how old the card).

Afterwards we had a quick bite and continued on to the Cathedral. The cathedral houses Christopher Coloumbus´ tomb, the largest gothic alterpiece and a 90m bell tower that had originally been the minaret of the mosque which the Cathedral had been founded on. So similarly to the Alcazar, the Cathedral was a little from column a, and a little from column b. The afternoon has seen us book our tickets to Granada where we will spend the next three days and visiting the very gaudy looking Plaza de Espana and dancing around in its fountain. Tonight we plan to TapAs and revisit our free flamenco haunt in the hope of a new or at least repeat performance.

Love, Us. xoxo

At the bullring.

J at the Tapas bar, they kept our tally on the counter in chalk. Pretty cool huh?

Us at the Alcazar. Inner courtyard.

Plaza de Espana.

No Bull

Well it has been almost a week since we returned from our trip to Pamplona and the toe still remains pretty battered along with the rest of my feet. However, it is definitely the most memorable and enjoyable trip we have done so far.

We arrived last Saturday and after travelling from Bilbao to Pamplona for almost three hours we finally arrived at the campsite around 4pm. Stranded about 50 minutes out of Pamplona and with no where to go we met with a close friend Mr Jack Daniels and got down to partying!

The next day was the opening day of the festival. We headed in early (9ish) decked out in the tokenistic red and whites complete with flip flops (which is now what I call them after being caught out more than once for inappropriately referring to my ''thongs"). Once in town we made our way to the town hall square where for the next 3-4 hours the crowd got progressively bigger and rowdier! Memorable highlights include the chant of "T*ts out for the boys", Sangria showers and large inflatable dolls being hit around the crowd. By midday the crowd was surging worst than most mosh pits we'd been in and I can honestly say I had never been so scared. At this point I looked down at my feet which were painted red, and not by Sangria! Freaked out, I panicked and quickly exited, followed closely by J. We ended up performing some simple surgery and and thanks to some friendly locals found some pretty cheapo Crocs. I battled on and had the most amazing day/night!!!!

On Monday we headed into town for the first bull run of the festival. Once there J made his way to the assembly point and I began the anxious wait.... but I believe it is better to hear this day from a runners perspective... so without further adue, here it is.

We had to wait at the town square again, only so many people can run so the first objective is to stay firm and not let the surging crowd push you down the street and out of the square. With this done we had half an hour till the run, people were stretching and warming up. Not me, pure adrenaline would get me down the 800m and into the arena before those bulls.

With five minutes left they opened up the run and people started pumping up and getting nervous. I made my way to dead mens corner, approx half way, and waited for the rockets to go off. The first one means the gates are open for the bulls, the second one means all 12 bulls have left the pen, the third rocket means all bulls have made it into the arena, and the last one means all bulls a locked away. So after hearing the second rocket I ran. Soon realizing that people would be a worse obstacle than the bulls. Half way up the road 10 people fell ahead of me, which I had to jump over. Another fell right next to me and tried to grab me, a quick palm set me free and I kept running. Hearing bull hooves coming and grown mens faces turn pale I moved to the side and ran as 6 bulls stormed passed, making a clear path infront of them. I moved right into the clear path and ran. About 100m out from the areana the second lot of bulls came and went, all except 1, which fell over in front of me. After jumping up the bull wanted to run back down the track the wrong way. I had to turn and run, before his spainish handlers turned him around. This happened about 4-5 times.

Eventually he made it into the arena and I was about a metre behind him. Once inside the crowd abrupted and the third and fourth rocket went off. Then five minutes later, they bring the bulls out 1 at a time for about a 10 minute run around the arena, and if you're in the way, you get mowed down. I survived the run and the arena, what a day!!!!

And thats how it went, on the other side of the arena fence I sat anxiously as I spotted friend upon friend safely make it into the areana, but no J. Sick with worry I made my way back to our meet spot where J was waiting safe and sound, horn marks free! Later on the bus ride back to the campsite he was able to spot himself in one of the photos I had taken. I've included below.... feel free to play where's wally and spot him yourself...

Tuesday we headed back into town for one last spin around the sights, including a walk of the bull run track and a visit to the muscle bar. At about 8 we boarded our bus to Pamplona and began the 3 hour back track to Bilbao airport where we slept overnight. Most enjoyable!

We are currently preparing ourselves for the next trip So it is bye bye Theberton Street and hello 4 weeks backpacking around Portugal and Spain. I wish I could say I was sad... hehe

Anyways, heres some piccies!

Day 1. Hanging out at the campsite with Mr Daniels.

The sangria almost as big as me! Love it!

Jarratt after the Sangria shower.

Jarratt makes a friend! :)

The bulls enter the arena, my heart enters my throat!!!

Shortly after this photo, the guy bounced back up... it was amazing he wasn't badly injured!

A quick game of where's wally anyone?