Ole!

Day 94:



Well we ate our words. Apparently being in transit is very interesting indeed. It’s called missing your first Bus About out of Nice and having to book a train to Barcelona instead. It also means that your suitcase made it onto the bus without you (assuming we would have actually made it onto our bus, we saved ourselves the trouble of lugging our souvie bag with us to the hostel and left it on our bus), it also means that your train to Barcelona is delayed because there has been a train crash on your track. Wow. Can today get any worse? YUP. Before we were told that there was a delay, we had made ourselves quite comfy on THE WRONG TRAIN. Luckily Totti asked a kind old man if we were on the right train literally minutes before it departed. Who knows where we would have ended up! But by the way today is going, who knows if we will ever even make it to Barcelona.


While back on the platform we somehow managed to get stuck with a fellow who spoke English but was actually “Italian”, dressed like he belonged in a 50 cent video, yo. He would have been nice enough, had he understood the concept of personal hygiene – apparently he missed the memo on the introduction of the deodorant can into society. Pungent, stinging of the nostril area/region. Dry retching sensations. Cough. We could not get rid of our stinky little friend, he followed us onto the train and sat across from us. We’re pretty sure we gave ourselves away with the old “We’re going to get food excuse” – taking all our luggage may have given it away. We are still trying to figure that one out. However I feel Totti’s disguise is very stealthy – she is now wearing a banana peel for a hat. It’s amazing. You wouldn’t even be able to tell it was her. I just opted to sit in my seat and hope for the best. Original, I know. On the plus side I the air is much fresher down these parts. I wish we had a portable can of Glen 20. Or spray sanitiser – perhaps we are breaking into a new product to put on the market for travellers who get stuck in stinky situations. That, plus crap!


6 hours later.................annoyed. Arrived in some crap hole of a town called Monetpiller – soooooooooooooo, because our train was delayed (remember the crash....on a train track.....no oncoming traffic or sharp turns...how does your train possibly crash?), we lined up and hoped for the best. Yay tickets. Big shout out to the nice French man who loved Australia, he sold us our tickets to Barcelona.....................well not directly, we had to change trains at this place called “Port Bou” (imagine a perfect French pronunciation). Totti and I look up at the departures board – we do not see this Port Bou he speaks of. We both turn around to him and ask, with our finest, nasal Aussie accent - “Ohhhhh, ya mean Port Boo?” . He stared blankly back at us, and replied most unimpressed in his finest French – “Oui......Port Bou” (emphasis on Bou).


To Port Boo. The most shocking train ride ever with the most deranged assortment of human kind we have ever seen. We assumed the foetal position and hoped that we did not contract a random strand of herpes from sitting on the seats. Just a little side note here – Totti had been wanting to brush her teeth the entire time we had been on the train since Nice, and still had not got the chance. After three hours nature called, she couldn’t hold her pee any more, I wished her luck and told her not to sit on the seat, as she may become impregnated. She returned with a look of purest disgust on her face, she slumped down next to me. I asked her how it was.......she replied with exasperation “I want my mum”. She proceeded to empty the contents of her sanitiser and scrubbed every inch of bare skin she had. So no, she did not brush her teeth – she did not want to expose her toothbrush for fear of contracting Chlamydia of the mouth. She would also like everyone to know that she is not pregnant either. A thankyou.


We finally arrived in Port Bou – we were on the home stretch. 5 hrs to go. FML. Needless to say not much happened on this train ride. It was boring. We hated life, and wanted to die. There were tears off all descriptions, tears of anger, tears of joy, tears of tiredness. Just tears, ok! That is all. 12:30am – FINALLY, Barcelona! We caught the metro to our hostel, Barcelona Dream. We are grateful that we booked a private room – if we had a shared dorm it would have just topped off the last 14 miserable hours. So grateful for our own space, a shower, and a BED!!!!! We would also like to inform you that our suitcase arrived safe and sound, and we would be picking it up in the morning.


We shall now erase this day from our memories, and never speak of it again. EVER! Goodnight!


Day 95:


We took advantage of the fact that we didn’t have anywhere to be, and slept it until about 10:30 – well deserved we feel. We then took LONG showers and relished the fact that we were disease free! We decided to take it easy and caught the metro into the city centre, wondered up and down the main street and decided it was time to try some Tapas. Yumo! We went to pick up our suitcase and stopped by the supermarket to buy some hair dye – we were both starting to look too much like rangas; desperate times called for desperate measures!


We booked ourselves into a flamenco show for the evening, which would end in some tapas and a lot of Sangria. With our hairs newly died, we weren’t so ashamed of sticking our faces out in public, so we made our way to the meeting point and waited to be taken to the Flamenco dance studio for our first dose of tapas and homemade Sangria.


Smoked salmon and cream cheese, salami and cheese, olives tapas and sangria awaited us at the studio. We stood around chatting to our fellow Flamenco tour mates – we met a group of 5 Canberran’s and shared our travel stories. We then got taught the basic steps of a Flamenco dance – the clapping was a highlight!


Well tipsy, we made our way to the Flamenco show. TIP: If in Spain, definitely go to a Flamenco show. The dancing was spectacular as was the live band. Lots of clapping, booty shaking and stamping of the feet. We left the show inspired to become a Flamenco dancer – Totti practiced her moves all the way to the next pub.


At the next pub we enjoyed a mixture of traditional tapas and more sangria....and more sangria...and more sangria. As with most European countries we have visited, there are always Ethopian friends who approach us at the pubs and try and sell knick knacky crap really. There has been one particular item which always catches our eye – it’s just a piece of plastic with a rubber band which flashes in neon colours and they shoot up into the sky and catch it. It’s really shiny – we like shiny things. Anyways....Totti asked the man how much...he said $10 euro...Totti said $2 euro...he said $7 euro...Totti said $2 euro...he said $5 euro...Totti said $2 euro....he said $3 euro...Totti said $2 euro...he said $2 euro and the deal was done. Meanwhile, the whole table was enthralled by Totti’s bargaining skills and pissing themselves laughing. The other funny thing was that when Totti went into her wallet to get the $2 euro, she didn’t have any coins. So everyone pitched in and collectively bought the shiny helicopter toy. Soooooo..... it didn’t last long. First attempt at shooting the thing into the sky failed epically. Straight into the concrete. The helicopter was no more. That was even funnier!!!!


While trekking to the next pub, I think we created one of the most memorable quotes of the entire trip. Who knows how the subject came up, but it did. Totti innocently, yet excitedly turned to me, and exclaimed “Dude! You know those ladies...In Japan, The Quiches?!” All the while she was nodding her head enthusiastically while I just sort of stood there and let these words wash over me, before I actually registered what she meant... I was in the longest fit of laughter I literally struggled to get out my response. “DUDE!!!!! They’re called GEISHAS!!!” Oh my, we laughed all the way to the next pub. I often wonder what goes through that head of hers, and occasionally these little delightful, golden nuggets pop out. Priceless!


By this stage we had become fairly acquainted with our show buddies so we decided to hit the town of Barcelona and fuck shit up. There was imitation Flamenco, and some super awesome ghosting, mock break dancing and making shadow puppets on the dj’s projector screen. We got home at 5am...that is all.


Day 96:


It was a struggle to wake up this morning....... We almost threw in the towel and were tempted to forego the Barcelona bike tour for some more sleep, but, because we are awesome and can back up a big night with a four hour bike tour in the sweltering 35 degree heat, we opted to shower and made our way into town to the Fat Tyre Bike Tour meeting point.


Bike tours are an awesome way to see the main attractions in major cities like Barcelona. The tour guides are all really cool and make the historical element of the tour fun and interesting to listen to. Barcelona is a really beautiful city and has made it onto the favourites list for sure. We ended our tour by stopping at the Barcelona beach – where apparently you get the best Sangria you’ve ever tasted. We cringed at the thought of even coming near the stuff; we’d definitely had our fill the previous night. We opted for a coke and a smoothie!


That night we went back to the first pub from the night before and we got to see how they make traditional Paella and we also got to learn how to make Sangria. It was a good way to spend our last night in Barcelona and it was sad to have to say goodbye so soon. We went back to our hostel and packed our gear; we were determined NOT TO MISS OUR BUS the nest morning.


Day 97:


When an alarm sounds at 5:30am, it’s going to be a long day no matter what. We were out the door and walking the empty streets by 6:30am and headed to Barcelona Sound – the pick up point for the Bus About. We made it there by 7am and ate cereal while watching cartoons and used their free wifi. Fairly happy with our efforts so far, we were confident that at least today, nothing would go wrong :p And just in case you were wondering, nothing did. We sat on our bums all the way to Valencia (one of the rest stops and next drop off point).


We had 45 minutes to stop, revive, survive. To us girls that just means: go and find food and be back before the bus leaves lol. We came across a small cafe and sat outside while waiting for our meals. Totti entertained me with a matinee performance, her rendition of Shakira’s “wakka wakka” world cup song. As usual I was in hysterics. We soon noticed she had an audience other than myself. These two seedy feral men were gawking at her from the table behind us. To our horror one of them approached our table and asked us in Spanish if he could join us. After sitting in an awkward silence for about 10 seconds, Totti came up with “No, you can’t sit with us! What the fuck are we going to talk about!”. I completely lost it - LOL. We feel he got the gist, as he returned to his seat and did not bother us again. We were soon back on the bus – destination: Madrid.


We arrived in Madrid in the early evening and checked into the Mad Hostel – it’s a cool little hostel with a big common room. We roomed with 2 German lads who were backpacking on their own. They were pretty nerdy so we befriended them – Totti was amused that one of them owned a Ernie towel and once they had left the room, she quickly checked to see if the other one had a Bert towel. Fail! Lol.


Feeding our faces full of carbs for the past 3 wks is starting to take its toll on our little bodies and we were in desperate need for some asian influenced deliciousness. Ah...the Bangkok restaurant – thai delights. We made our way back into town and located the thai restaurant – not disappointed at all. We both enjoyed a red curry with fried rice and spring rolls.






Day 98:


We had a good sleep in today – about 9:30ish and decided that we would go do a tour of the RealMadrid football stadium: Estadio Santiago Bernabeu. The stadium was amazing – it was enormous. We did a walk through the trophy cabinet, the history of Real Madrid Club, the playing pitch, the benches, the dressing rooms...you name it, we saw it. It was really a highlight of our Spain trip – so many legends have played on this pitch. Definitely worth the 16 euro to do the tour.


It was time for food...again. So we made our way to Fresco Co restaurant. Pretty much the Spanish version of Sizzler – all you can eat and drink for $8.95 euro. The food wasn’t spectacular but there was lots of it and it did the job! We filled in the rest of the day chatting to people at our hostel common room and catching up with technology.


In the evening we decided we wanted to try some more Paella – we had seen this little restaurant which had pictures of Paella out the front – yes, we like pictures! So off we trotted. Totti got the black rice seafood paella and I had the vegetarian regular paella. The black rice one was delicious. Mmm....we love rice.


On our travels to and from our hostel we had passed a theatre which was advertising a Flamenco Ballet show called Carmen. We decided to pop our heads in to check the prices....5 minutes later and we had booked in for the 9pm session. We dashed back to our hostel, showered and prepared ourselves for the theatre.


What an awesome show! OMG....these guys danced their butts off – it was a good story line too. The show went for 2hrs (no interval) and they danced the whole time, spectacular.


We made our way back to our hostel...again, inspired to become flamenco dancers and we practised our moves all the way home.


Zzz....


Day 99:


We had a very lazy day today and just decided to wonder around the streets and see what we could find. Madrid is well known for its art scene and it has a lot of museums....we didn’t feel much like doing that – yes, we are bad tourists, we know. We did however venture past the Palace of the current royal family. Wow. Both of our houses could have fitted into their front courtyard about 7 times each – the place was ENOURMOUS! We were at a loss for what else to see, we came across a mall and decided to have a gander. It occurred to us that we had not been mall rats since we were in the states, so we were long overdue to peruse some mass produced goods. We spent a while just doing what you do in malls. What to do next? We decided that we’d get back in touch with the world and go and watch a moooooooooooooovie. So we hunted down the closest movie complex and bought two tickets to the new Angelina Jolie flick, Salt. Good show indeed. She’s a kick ass spy!


We wondered on back to our hostel via the supermarket – we decided we’d cook ourselves dinner tonight. Penne and cherry tomato pasta, yumo. The kitchen was so dodgy though, there was only one hot plate and a three person line in front of us. It seemed like we were never going to eat. When we finally got our turn and put the pot on to boil, Totti literally stood in front of the pot and stared at it, trying to use Jedi powers to make it boil. She stood there for about 20 minutes. FINALLY, dinner!! Sorry to our parents, but our table manners were completely neglected on this occasion, we ate right out of the pasta pot. We promise we have adopted a sense of propriety on every other occasion, but tonight was a special case. After all, we are well seasoned back packers. You gotta do what you gotta do! We made friends with some fellow Aussie lads and discussed the finer points of approaching girls as a European boy, and as an Aussie boy. We proffer the latter. The guys were shocked at how confronting Europeans are in bars and clubs, our Aussie boys are by far more of a gentleman. We also gave them our left over pot of pasta – we managed to overcook and couldn’t finish it all. They were very grateful for the feed and offered to marry us. Bless their souls lol.


Tonight we stayed in and packed our gear to get ready for our next leg of the trip; travel to San Sebastian. We are looking forward to this – we get to go and see a bull fight! As gory and intense as this is going to be, they are starting to ban them in Spain, and might not be around for much longer, so we thought that we would get in on the tradition before it’s not longer around.


Day 100:


We can’t believe it’s already a hundred days since we left. We went back and read a little bit of the blog from America and it seems like such a long time ago. It’s starting to dawn on us how much we have actually done and how much we have seen. The next few weeks are as jam packed as anything, and we are sure that they will fly by; we will be resuming our “normal” lives again in no time. Parents, you can officially begin the countdown – we will be gracing your presence with our excellent company in 31 days exactly.


The majority of today was spent on the road; a brief stopover in Valencia, then on to San Sebastian. A small beachside town in the Basque Country region of Spain; they have their own dialect and they also speak French. We arrived late in the afternoon and were told that we had arrived on the last night of a week- long festival, complete with a fireworks display coordinated by the people who did the Sydney Olympics – wew! We were taken to our little apartment room and had the afternoon to just chill out. It was schmelting hot and it looked like it was going to be a great night to do our Pintox (San Sebastian version of Tapas) Tour & Pub Crawl.


We decided to go in search of a supermarket, typical. We soon hunted one down and stocked up on some pasta, tinned tomatoes and bacon. We also thought we’d find something to have some pre drinks with; because we are now seasoned wine connoisseurs, we found a 50c bottle of Rose. Really broke the bank on that one! We headed back to our apartment and cooked up some pasta as a pre-pintox entree (they are all mostly sea food), and then headed down to meet the rest of the Bus About gang to begin our domination of San Sebastian. The local drink here is a mix made with half red wine and half coca cola – not too bad at all! In most other regions in Spain the local drink is Sangria, but in San Sebastian it’s *insert name here*.


We had a good time sampling the pintox and drinking the wine and coke. After we’d finished in the first bar, we went outside to find a parade in the main square. They had these huge figurines which we thought would be fun to ghost, so we did. We were also very mature and lifted up their skirts, and tried to perve on their non- existent bums. The photos are pretty funny. We cracked open our very expensive bottle of rose and carried on to the next bar. We’d just like to add, as a side note, that we are in fact not trash bags – it is perfectly acceptable to drink in the streets in San Sebastian and many other places in Europe, so we weren’t the only ones! We have learned two variations of scissor, paper, rock on our travels. The first one we learned all the way back on our venetian trail was called Bear, Ninja, Cowboy. But tonight, I think we learned the best game ever: Crocodile, Stingray, Steve. Enough said. We both wet our pants laughing, and proceeded to play this game for about half an hour. Entertainment plus! Rules: Steve beats the crocodile, Crocodile beats stingray, and last but not least – the stingray beats steve. LOL!






The Pintox sampling was forgotten, sooner than anticipated, and our little night out just turned into a pub crawl. Outside this one bar, we met a Mel Ho look alike, also from Australia. However, we would like to inform the original Mel Ho that she is way cooler than her look alike, just in case she was wondering. Any way, so we made friends with Mel (who’s name is not actually Mel, but we can’t remember her real name. So, for all intensive purposes, she is now Mel), and then we started a game of street soccer and dominated the locals – yeah-yuh! After 3.5 months we still have a kick ass first touch, even when intoxicated. I think by this stage we had moved onto Rum and Coke – one thing we will miss about the drinks here is that they free pour everything, definitely bang for your buck!


The streets were packed with hundreds of people having a great night. We worked our way to the main bridge to watch the fireworks, still more people, and a small carnival on the water’s edge attracted all the small kids and their parents. Totti made friends with a local lady who in the end wanted to adopt her. Their conversation went a little like this: Totti “So, are you on holidays here in San Sebastian?” Lady “Oh no, we live here”..........................5minutes later, between doing some kangaroo hopping and playing with some small kids, Totti returns, full of renewed enthusiasm and asks innocently “So, how long are you in San Sebastian for?” The lady politely replied “Oh no no, we live here”...............5minutes later “So, how long is your holiday here?” FAIL!!!! This went on for about 15 more minutes. LOL. The lady was absolutely lovely however, and humoured us, and continued to answer the same questions very politely. Bless.


The fireworks display did indeed live up to the hype, and completely kicked the crap out of the below par performance in Nice on Bastille Day. Not exactly sky fire, but it was up there. After the fireworks, we said goodbye to our San Sebastian family (did they mention they live there?) and wondered towards the beach party. We didn’t make it very far; it was pretty much all 14 year olds off their chops.


We decided to call it a night and headed back to our hotel......this took rather longer than usual, but we eventually made it back safe and sound :) Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.


Day 101:


We had a bit of a sleep in and with 2 sore heads we headed to the Information Centre to get ourselves orientated. We have been looking forward to seeing a bull fight since we arrived in Spain – the only fight on Sundays and so we thought today would be perfect weather and good day for a bull fight. The lady at the information centre kindly informed us that yes, bullfighting had been on ALL week EVERY day and yesterday was the last day. FML. So, yet again, we arrived a day late and missed out on seeing a bull fight. Boooooooooooo.


So we decided to punish ourselves by going on a massive hike up to the top of the San Seb hill to check out the view. Dehydrated, tired, headache, hungry, sweat, stink – we finally made it to the top. It was an awesome view of San Seb. There was even a water tap so we drank some so we didn’t faint in the heat. We headed back down the mountain in search of some breakfast/brunch...actually it was kinda lunchtime.


The rain soon set in for the afternoon, and with full belly’s and the opportunity to just do nothing – we watched a movie and chilled out in our hostel. We had some more pintox for dinner – a lot of the Pintox is made with really fresh seafood. It’s pretty easy to pick the ones which have seafood, well unless you’re a re-tard like Ela. First pick: A ball of crumbed, fried fish – a bit like a fish cake. FAIL. Second pick: A fish infested omelette. FAIL. She forced herself to eat it on principal. I happily enjoyed my sundried tomato and cheese and sausage pintox. YUMMO!


Day 102:


What to do, what to do? We decided to go into the new town and do some shopping. We did the regular stops – H&M, Zara, Bershka, Mango. I came away with a singular pair of leggings, woot. Totti ended up buying a shirt, some leggings and a new jump suit. All shopped out, we were ready to go home – we decided that we were sick of eating stupid service stop food, so we were determined to cook up a storm tonight, so that we’d have awesome leftovers for our huge, endless bus ride to Paris the following day. We stopped at a food stall and stocked up on some fresh veggies: Fried Rice for dinner! We also picked up some fresh cherry tomatoes and some more spaghetti. Before going back to the hostel, we took a detour via the body piercing place – Totti watched and relished the fact that this old woman was about to jab a needle through my tragus. Luckily she doused it in this freezing spray before she skewered my ear, she wasn’t exactly gentle. Yes mummy, another hole in my face. Sorry. It could be worse.


Iron chef, look out. We got back to the hostel and dominated the kitchen – it smelled awesome and we were looking forward to the fact that we’d have some deliciousness to take with us on the bus tomorrow. We then ate.....and sat......ate some more.....We were feeling like we’d been rather lazy today, so we forced ourselves to leave the comfort of the big squishy couch and went to buy half a litre of ice cream.................it was the only way we could get a container big enough to store our lunch for the next day :p excuses, excuses – the ice cream was delicious. We walked down to the beach side as people food stalked our ginormous tub of strawberry and chocolate yuminess!


Once back on the couch we reflected on the fact that we had actually eaten our weight worth in food; the only salvaging thought was that we should enjoy it while we could. Once back home we are going on a healthy diet of oxygen and h20. We packed our bags, showered and prepared for our early morning departure to Paris. Ni night!!!!


Say Adios to your Papa for us,
Love Kate & Ela xxx