The train to Valencia was full of backpackers making their way for the tomato fight tommorrow luckily we got on at the first stop because it got packed. I had booked the hostel we were staying at over a year in advance to make sure that we had got one because I looked to go to the last one in feb time and there was no accomodation at all!! The place was the cheapest and people were very worried about how to find it so we were worried we would get lost but the instructions were much better then others we had had.

It was like an apartment with three room 2 boys in one and 2 girls in the other the apartment was lovely and the guy bought pastries and fruit for us which was so nice and unexpected. He told us we had to get up at 5 if we wanted to make it to the tomato fight as after then it got too crowded and we wouldnt catch a train. we all decided to go together the next day.

Me and Dan then went down to the beach because after 5 weeks of traveling thats all we seemed to care about. The beach was so nice it was less crowded and cleaner then Barceona and the water was really really warm because it was shallow. I had never actually been in the sea before when its been warm and it was so nice! We ordered some paella and ended up getting the thing that was the one below the paella which was nasty hot dog sausages with a spanish omlette! I dont really understand how the man how the man didnt understand paella because it doesnt really sound like anything else on the menu and our accents can't be that bad!

LA TOMANTINA!!

The day after la tomantina we were heading back to the station to carry on to Madrid. The book we relied on all this time told us that we had to get a train to a place beginning with a and then change from there. We went to the Valencia church because I had seen on a programme that the "holy grail" was there it took me a while to see it because its so small and they had put loads and loads of stuff around it to make it look nicer. We did all this with our backpacks on which were really heavy now after having souvenirs from everywhere. I was scared they wouldnt let us in but it was fine.

We came back to the station and the place beginning with a at exactly the right time was up on the board so we got on board and there was 15 mins or so so Dan went to the toilet. I stayed with the bags and decided to check the time the other train we needed later was. Looking at the book it wasnt the same A place this was going further south whilst we needed to be up to Madrid I went and checked the board and they were definatley two different places they just happened to both begin with A and have the same departure time but the one we wanted wasnt even on there!! I had all the bags because Dan was still at the toilet and had to throw them off onto the platform before it was about to set off. It was stressful I'm just so glad that I went to check the book otherwise we would have been on that train!

We then went and lined up with all the other hundreds of backpackers trying to leave this place and asked for a train to Madrid that didnt need a reservation he said it was at the other valencia station and it came at 14.40 we had time to kill so we just sat around and got something to eat. Trains usually come in half an hour before hand so we were planning to set off at 2ish as we needed to get two tubes. at 5 past I wanted to go and double check we were going to the right station and a different guy was on the desk he handed me a leaflet and circled 14.14. the other guy had given us the wrong time! If hed of given us the leaflet like this guy it would've been fine we had to rush and in 42 degrees with a back pack it was hard we were trying to run as fast as we could but it was so hot. We got off the first tube and on the second tube was only one stop - we had 5 mins to go, we ran to the other platform and the next tube wasnt for 6 mins- we'd missed the train. It was so annoying and tiring so we headed back to the main station. There were no more unreserved trains to Madrid and so we queued in the giant queue to get a reserved ticket. It was still only 20 past two but because of the amount of people the next available train wasnt until 20 past 8- it arrived in Madrid at 8 minutes to 12 which was lucky as our interrail pass ran out at midnight- we could not miss this train. We had nothing left to do so we found a internet cafe and printed off our boarding cards for our flight back home that was in a few days time. We did make that train- luckily. It was so annoying that the last day being on the pass seemed to be the day we had the most problems with trains throughout our entire journey!