An update since Florence....

Left Florence on 3rd July (Thursday) and headed towards Nice. On the way we stopped off at Pisa and saw the remarkably uninspiring Leaning Tower. Anyway, at least we can tick it off the list of things done :)

Arrived in Nice around dinner time on Thursday night. We had a pretty low key evening, just went out to dinner and then went ten pin bowling (exciting huh??). France is incredibly expensive, and as we are naring the end of the trip we tried to conserve our monetary supplies by not going out too much in Nice. Friday night again was low key. We drank some cheap French wine in our hotel room (which is the worst hotel we have stayed in so far!) before going to a bar for a drink. However, as it was Friday night the bar was incredibly packed and we didn´t have much interest in hanging around.

Saturday was Malcolm's birthday, which started in the afternoon by a trip to Monte Carlo in Monaco. We had a bit of dinner and a few cocktails on the harbour before going to the famous casino. However we weren´t allowed in as we didn´t have passports for identification. Somehow they thought a 27 year old bloke, plus two unshaven 25 year olds (you should see Ryan´s beard!) can´t pass as 18 year olds!!! It was a shame cause we were looking forward to it.

We jumped back on the train and made the 25 minute journey back to Nice where we met up with some friends we made in Berlin (the ones we got drunk with at the hostel bar if anyone remeberes my Berlin blog entry). And to be honest, the night progressed much the same as that one in Berlin... playing drinking games with cheap alcohol from the supermarket!!!! So not only did we celebrate Malcolm´s birthday in style, we did it on the cheap!!!!

We had to get up early on sunday to catch our flight to Barcelona. Needless to say a couple of headaches existed! The flight was fine however and we arrived around lunch time. We checked into our hotel, which I must say is in a rather "interesting" (read: seedy and dodgy) area of Barcelona. We went out for a bit of a late lunch/early dinner and grabbed some wine and headed back to the hotel to watch the Wimbledon final. It was a nice quiet evening, which was certainly what we needed!

So that brings me to today (Monday). We had a decent sleep in (2pm!) before heading out for lunch. Turns out that we are only a short 5 minute walk from the really nice tourist like area in Barcelona, with losts of cafes and restaurants, shops and bars. It is actually really nice. Tonight we plan to again meet our friends from Berlin (Jimmy, Beck, Mark and Inge) who happened to have come to Barcelona after Nice as well. We plan on experiencing some Spanish cuisine (Tapas and Pallae?) and hitting a few bars though we will be saving ourselves for tommorow night for the big busabout pub crawl!!!

Anyhoo thats all to report for now. Only 2 and a half weeks to go, which is exciting and sad at the same time (I can´t wait to sleep in my own bed!!). Still much to see and do before then, with our Russia and Scandanavia contiki to come, which I have been looking forward to since day 1.

Take care xx