Back to Sunny UK

From all accounts, londons weather is not as bad as its reputation. I can tell you however, that’s pure balls. In two weeks there I’ve yet to have a day without rain. Nevertheless I had an enjoyable week at Hayley & Jarids wondering the city, visiting friends nearby, sinking lager, wearing rain coats and seeing an awesome Xavier Rudd and Michael Franti gig with Mike & Hammo (dibbos mate from Pamplona). Made a solo trip out to brighton, a loverly little pebbly beach town with decent weather, to catch up with zoe, a school mate. Another friend, lisa, unfortunately chose to live in Birmingham, pleasant enough but completely forgettable. I had 4 days or so their before heading up to Scotland. The highlights being in the next blog.

Brighton peir and looking back to the city

Adios Espana

To complete our Spanish sojourn we went to this very cool city known as Barcalona. Once again the building architecture was a highlight, although more modern and out there than other cities, and predominantly designed by Antonio Gaudi. His masterpiece & Barcalona's defining building, the Sagrada Familia, was an unforgettable experience, and despite over 124 years in the making is still only half built. Another notable Gaudi works we saw include the overpriced Casa Batlló (although only from the outside unfortunately) and the Park Güell (see photos below).

On our final day there, with the realisation that it may be my last opportunity in quite a while, we headed to the beach and spread our sparkling white hotel towels on the dirt that is rather misguidedly labelled as sand and soaked up the rays. Having enjoyed the salt laden water, European bikinis (or lack there of) and said dirt for a little too long, we unceremoniously dumped our now stained towels in the bin and made a mad rush to the bus station to say our goodbyes to marge and jump on the bus to Zaragoza. We had only the one night in Zaragoza, and took in our last Tapas meal before flying to London.

Frog & Bull Hunting

Returning to Spain, we made a whirlwind visit to Salamanca & Madrid. Salamanca is a beautiful old city with reputedly some of the country’s best examples of Plateresque, Churrigueresque & Spanish Gothic buildings, which being an expert on Plateresque & Churrigueresque architecture and all, was immediately apparent. One such building was the impressive cathedral nueva which took 220 years to complete. Another was the university, where we spent a good 30minutes gazing at its façade trying to locate a tiny stone frog in amongst the mass of ornate sculptures & carvings. Legend says that those who discover the frog will have good luck in studies, life & love (and lets face it, who wouldn’t want some of that). Unfortunately for myself, I’m not so sure it still applies if you require an old man to locate it for you.

Our biggest mistake in going to Madrid was to spend only 2 days there. Our second biggest mistake was to sleep in on the first day there. We eventually managed to get to the art museum which had a marvellous Picasso exhibit on. We managed to spend over 3hrs admiring his masterful works, and those whom he was inspired by. By the time we got out everything was closed for siesta and meant we wouldn’t get to see the other galleries on our to do list, so instead we went to another bullfight. For this fight it was the junior competition so our expectations weren’t great, but we were pleasantly suprissed to find that the matadors & bulls were far better than those we saw in Pamplona. The winning matador was a spring chicken at 17 (just ripe for picking according to Marge) and was awarded 2 pigs ears from the judges for his bull fighting skills.

Taking on a horse. These challenges were amazin.




















Never a doubt that this would be the end result. Poor bugger.

Meet Mike Cardillo

Otherwise known as Mr Clumsy.

Seriously, you give this man one drink and anything within his reach will soon be knocked to the floor. It makes me laugh.

San Sabastian

Arriving quite late at night we headed straight for the tapas bars and after the initial difficulty of actually finding space to eat, were amazed by the food being offered. A brilliant mix of chorizo, skewered meats, calamari, prawns, stuffed pastries and many other unidentifiable yet delicious concoctions and we were completely stuffed. We had an early night expecting a gorgeous day at the beach, but awoke the next day to drizzle. Not to be put off we made a day trip to Bilbao, primarily for the Frank Gehrey designed Guggenheim (see below), which was certainly no dissapointment. The day ended with a massive pub crawl, with Chunder living up to his namesake, and no one quite remembering what we actually did. Must have been good though.

The next morning sunlight pored into the room along with the sounds of a happy couple from the bunk bed above. We hastily hit up the wonderful surf beach & battled with the rest of the city for a spot on a wave, and then took on the european sun back on the beach.....it had nothing. It was late in the arvo before we left & enjoyed a home made meal and another late night. The following day could have been mistaken for de-ja-vu, albeit with a stroll around the headland to watch the sunset to vary it up. The nights activities including getting distracted as the others moved on to a new club, resulting in a messy solo night at an alternative club and major hassels getting back into the hostel as the others had the only keys.

Sunset scenes from one of the beaches, and the pedestrian walkway along the coastline.

A lesson in Shaving

Items Needed

• 1 beard trimmer
• 1 sharp razor
• shaving cream/oil/gel (whatever does it for you)
• 1 set of facial hair (as seen below)
  

Step 1

Trim and then shave your neck to just under the chin and a small patch in the middle of both cheeks, leaving a nice goatee & some wicked side burns. Take a photo.

















Step 2

Trim and shave the rest of the chin leaving massive handlebars and previous wicked side burns. Pretend you're riding a Harley and take a photo, then wonder the streets a count how many looks you get.

















Step 3

Trim then shave the wicked side burns and shorten the handlebars, leaving a fair dinkum mo'. Wonder how the old man puts up with such a look and then take photo.

















Step 4

Shave the top half of your mo' leaving a wonderful dirty sanchez. Pose with similarly sharp looking mate for photo. Then hit the town and pull all the ladies. Wollah.
















Next Lesson: Cool hair styles using shampoo in the shower.

Question of the Day

Why the hell doesn't Portugal have Portugese chicken burgers????

10 points to whoever can answer me that.

Portugal, Oporto, Port & Ports

From Lagos Mike & I left Dibbo behind and met up with Marguerite in the Nations capital - Lisbon. We took the first night easy walking around the Bairro Alto district listening to the numerous fado shows (traditional Portugese singing) from the streets, as the shows themselves were exhorbitently priced, and to be quite honest, totally uninspirring.

We spent our time in Lisbon eating the best custard tarts you could imagine in Belem, exploring the old referbished warves, wondering around the Castelo de Sao Jorge (castle) and walking around the cities steep streets. It was on one of these such walks that Marge's winter coat of skin had a huge disagreement with the sun. The resulting sunburn was severe and continued to take a turn for the worse by somehow morphing into some sort of leprossy like skin disease. Was gross. Unfortunately no photo.

Our last few days in Portugal were spent in Oporto, in a nice little hostel where late nights were the norm, and with 3 creepy old Scottish blokes who tried to lure young ladies with lollies, and had 'the 12 steps to beating heroin addicition' as their choice of reading material in our room. FREAKS. The city itself clings to both sides of the Douro river, making for some beautiful views of the run down river frontage district from any of the 5 bridges along the river. It is also famous for its Port (of the drinking variety), and Mike and I took full advantage of the free tours and tastings from many port companies.

Photo Above: crossing the Douro river
Below: port cellar
Bottom: fort in Belem

Lagos

After suffering the 46 degree heat of Seville, it was with much relief that we hit the beaches of Lagos. With a Byron Bayish atmosphere, we hit up the henna tattoo store and headed to the beach with football in hand & chewed through the hours swimming, diving off jump rocks and practising our Ronaldinho moves.

Above: The wonderful beach complete with jump rocks.
Below: Liger tatto. It's pretty much my favourite animal. It's like a lion and tiger mixed.....bred for its skills in magic.





On our first night there we got well loaded & Dibbo and I thought we should take Mike for his first visit to a strip club. We carried the poor drunken bastard through the door and plonked him on the seat whilst he hoped he could escape the compulsory $5 beer purchase entry fee. As the totally mesmorised Mike slept in his chair with his back to the dancers, the bouncer came over and woke sleeping beauty to inform him he needed to buy his beers or clear off. The crafty yet struggling Mike politely replied:
"nah sorry mate, i'm driving tonight" complete with driving hand signals and all. With the two of us in fits of laughter in the background, Chunder reluctently ordered his beer and went back to sleep.
















Two typical images for an afternoon in Lagos. Filling the sink with beer & ice, and enjoying a couple out on the loverly balcony.

Before Christians there were Muslims

Our troup was reduced to Dibbo, Chunder and Myself as we arrived in Granada, a wonderful city that was the capital of the Muslim kingdom in the 13 to 15th centuries. We lined up at 7am for what has to be one of the greatest examples of Islamic art and architecture, the Alhambra. One of the highlights of my trip, we spent most of the day there wondering around and trying to capture the beauty of the fortresses, patios, palace and gardens with hundreds of inadequate photos. The two photos above and left are just two examples.




Leaving Granada all too soon, we were greeted in Seville with a late afternoon temperature of 46 degrees. For the next few days we braved the hot hot heat and saw the main tourist attractions, and barely managed to sleep in a non air-conditioned room by lying down on the cold floor tiles. Seville is home to the 3rd largest cathedral in the world which was built in the 1400's on top of the Muslims mosque and houses Christopher Columbus' tomb (see bottom photo). We also tried to escape the heat by re-living our childhood running under the park sprinklers, before randomly appearing at the impressive Plaza de Espana (see photo below).

Goats Heads, Hot Danes & Scum

Vallencia was host to the best hostel yet, primarily due to the fantastic ratio of gorgeous girls and a nice outdoor patio where numerous games of scum were played and the previously mentioned girls were given the eye. On our first morning we visited a fresh food market and spotted a 1 euro skinned goats head with eyeballs still attached....bargain. An opportunity like that was too good to pass up, so we made our purchase and left the goody in the hostel fridge (see photo on left). We then sat back and giggled as chicks would open the door and jump back aghast at its contents. Later that night a dumb american (aint they all) was dared into eating the eyeball. Everyone watched intensly as the eye was wrenched from its socket with sinew attached, and then gagged as he bit into it and black eye juice squirted out of his mouth. Perhaps the best euro ever spent?


On the odd occasions that we left the hostel we went swimming in the town centre fountain (see photo left) until asked to leave by the police, visited the cathedral, and learnt how to cook the local dish paella.


On a side note I thought I might mention the fact that Mike has incredible, unhuman like restraint power. You should have seen this Danish girl!

Scary Horns & Bruises

After an all night drinking session with no sleep, running down some narrow streets along with hundreds of people being chased by 6 bulls is probably not the safest. In fact i'm quite sure it it's extremely dangerous. But it sounded like fun, so all the lads headed down at 7am to get on track for the 8am start. By the time the bells ring signalling the release of the bulls, the adrenaline has got you well and truly sober and its one big mad rush of people trying to get to the end and inside the stadium without the horns of a herd of 700kg bulls up your backside.

Once inside the stadium the madness continues, with the individual release of a further 6 smaller bulls to further the bucking mayhem. The bravest and not smartest in the crowd would kneel in front of the gate where the bulls enter the stadium, and sit and watch as the bulls rushed towards them, hoping to hell that they would jump over them. With a little of the liquid courage still circulating, Dibbo, Buldge & myself signed up for the task. Watching the gates open to see this massive, angry bull come charging at you was the second scariest thing i've seen all tour, (coming a close second to the big black scary man thing that offered buldge and I sexual favours on a dodgy corner in Florence). Thankfully the bull chose to jump over rather than through us, unfortunately, it fell a few feet short and the three of us collected some decent bruises.

We crashed for the rest of the afternoon before heading back into town for the evening bull fight. Whilst it was quite an awkward thing to watch we thought it was a cultural experience we needed to digest. After two extremely poor fights with numberous stuff ups by the matadores, the crowd lost interest in the bull fighting, and as tradition dictates, starting throwing any items of food and drink at people throughout the stadium. This was a game I was quite good at and found highly enjoyable.

Perhaps the best thing about the night was the Spanish crowd. The crowd throughout the show were amazingly friendly, generous and fun, creating a fantastic partying atmosphere, whilst all along the poor old bulls were carking it in the background. When the locals were not throwing food at you, they would seemingly be competing with one another to see who could give us the most food, and would often come up to try chat with you. No matter how many blank stares you would give them, they would still just keep chatting away to you. Was great. Michael 'the Italian Stalian from Seville' Cardillo even had a bunch of sisters trying to set him up with the youngest of the siblings. Hows that for generosity.

The bullring and our drinking crew minus hammo.

PS. I wish i had some photos of the running to show, however photos were the last thing on my mind at that particular moment of my life. All photos are thanks to Lisa.

New Body Clocks

For our next event we headed to Pamplona for the legendary San Fermin or running of the bulls festival. There we meet up with Dibbo, his mate Hammo and an unexpected Canadian midget. We arrived by bus about 10 hours earlier than planned, meaning we had no accomodation for the first night. No probs though, we grabbed some cardboard boxes and set up camp in a nearby park, much to Lisa's disgust. With the running of the bulls occuring at the highly innapropriate time of 8am, the logical thing to do was to load up with buckets (literally) of wine and coke, known as calamacho(spelling?) and pull an all nighter....four days in a row. This of course lead to a completely out of whack body clock, and sleep was had wherever it could be found including parks, pubs, chairs, buses, floor and occassionally a bed.

A night out under the stars, sharing sleeping bags, and sleeping on cardboard along with all the park bums. How loverly.















Buldge and Mike getting cosy on the bus. And all but buldge and I asleep in the pub.