what can i say i am back at the beginning. sitting at my sisters place before all my adventures begin.

well to start off the first weekend i had here i was catching up with friends seeing bit of england you would ost likely only go to if you knew some one there .... but none the less beautiful. sunday i spent 4 and half hours going up to liverpool this would be the first of many bus rides. Liverpool what can i say about this city except i just didnt have enought time. the Liverpool Cathedral was absolutely breath taking and once on the roof on a clear day you can see all the way to the south of wales. catching up with Dave and Kristy was great as well we wandered around doing some Beatles things and generally just seeing the sights as they came. Didnt even touch on one of the 4 muesums they have or the blitz tour they had of all the undergoround bunkers they had during the war, OR even go to Anfield. definitely exceeded my expectations above and beyond. I will definitely be going back there one day.

After a big Tuesday night out on the town in London After watching an awesome show by The Hilltop Hoods, Wednesday was a bit of a struggle with a long bus ride to the airport and the thought that i had lost my shoes and shirt at the hostel and both myself and TOM ( bus stop boy ) were extremely hung over.

the flight did me good having a nap on the plane reaching Barcelona i was ready to do it all over again. Getting some bad instructions from the lady at the information desk at the airport who told us to get off at the last stop ( we assumed that the bus driver would kick us off - we thought wrong. the bus does loops of the city then back out to the airport) we jumped of at a big transport terminal Barcelona - Sants. this was the first realisation that we were in trouble each cab we talked to had no idea what we were saying and we didnt have any idea what they said either. Finally we stopped one and just showed him the address which proved to be an effect way of getting from one point to another during our stay in Barcelona. On Arrival tom was so tired he decided to have a nap, well i wasnt going to let waste happy hour 3€ for a liter of beer and in happy hour it was 2 for 1. after sitting down for a while and having a drink i decided to wake up tom as he was missing out on all the fun. on the way back up while waiting for the the lift a wee scottish lass ( Morag ) started chatting to me and so we became quick friends as she was on her own and at this stage i may well have been. after grabbing a a drink from her room and ran into a guy that i made friends with the night before in london. So we grabbed a drink down stairs and off we went to dinner. My first Sangria down off we went to the convinent store ( to whom i got to know quiet well, i think i was married to a few of them and one of which i was his daughter not sure how this all happenend usually at 3 in the morning thought) any way grabbing a bottle of vodka at spar express we headed back to the room to keep drinking on arrival we found 3 french men with the same idea as us. so we invited them over for a drinking game, it was there introduction to king of BEERs. with everyone on there way by this stage it was time to hit the town on exiting the building we picked up another drinker Lisa from Canada. 2 of the frenchies went back to the hostel as they were struggling with everyone speaking english. After finding a club for a bit and realising they dont believe in measure puring i came to love this place i was in and i had only been there for 5 hours.

Also girls it is the easiest place to pick up the first night we were sitting in the square drinking at the end of the night and walked past the fountain looked at some guy, he blow me a kiss so i blow one back the next thing i know the guy was at my side. and these guys were hot ( wish i took a photo ). but oh well .

The thursday we decided to go site seeing Holly ( toms mate from canada ) morag tom and i decided to walk the streets of barcelona to find Sagrada Familia just the biggest structure in barcelona. It has been under constrution for the past 124 years and still has about another 12 -16 to go. The construstion is still word for word as the orignal designer had intended it to be. THis guy was amazing he had other works scattered through out the city. He was well beyond his time.

after a big day walking the others were keen to hit the beach and i was up for a nap. so seista time here i came. that night was looking to be so tame until Sylvain saw that i wasnt drinking and decided to change that immediately all i can say from that was the next thing i know it was myself lisa her mate brian and Sylvain at barcelonetta beach at 3 am with cervaza and about to have a midnight swim. but it was all good as i had my shark protector so we were safe as houses.

Friday i was a little stressed as we didnt have any accommodation booked and we still didnt have away to get to pamplona. so Morag and holly set off for the beach and myself and tom went on a mission for some transport to pamplona the one thing that i could understand was that at Bacerlona Sants it was a major transport terminal. ( its were we first got off the bus into barcelona ) we must return. After speaking to about 10 different travel companies and car hire places we found a bus company that had some seats left, so my cranky pants were no longer needed and it was time to hit the beach for some birhtday fun for tom.

well what started at birthday fun lead in me getting almost second degree burns after falling asleep for about an hour with out reappling sunscreen. the lesson learnt here kids is dont drink coupous amounts of sangria on the beach and use stronger sunscreen the 30+ while in spain. either way that didnt stop me from having a great night as the two parisans were back as well as my french sky instructor Sylvain who was becoming more like an australian boy every day, especially when he wore my sunnies. and few more that joined us through out the night. with more drinking games and singing on table tops i think we were the loudest bunch in the bar this time. once again capping off the night with a kabab from our favourite indian resturant. but also it was hard having to say farewell to Sylvain who had really livened Barcelona for me and realy showed how arrogant i was coming overseas and not knowing another language( not in a bad way just that he could talk to so many more people as he knew spainish on top of french and english)

so saturday was another sad day saying goodbye to Morag ( though i will be visiting her in scotland ) we had a full day to kill as our bus didnt leave till about 11.40 pm so we treked down to the metro ( subway ) to make our way to a our first castle. holly unfortunately got pick pocketed which goes to prove that you have to be so carefull all the time .... these people are professionals. after calling her parents to cancel her cards we kept moving to Parc De Montjuic ( i had lead us to the wrong site. but it was awesome though seeing the city and listening to some awesome music as they were setting up for a festival ) After a long day of walking we went back to the hostel had some dinner then made our way across town to the bus terminal ( in its self an effort i was struggling to carry my pack due to the sunburn and to make matters worse it was jam packed and the train broke down . but we got there. finding our seats on the bus we climbed aboard and tried to get some sleep for what awaited us in Pamplona. an hour into the trip the bus broke down as there was a fire in the engine so that added another 2 hours to our trip. which iwas fine by me as everyone waited outside for the new bus i took up a few seats and tried to get some sleep, again hard as i had sunburn every where.

arriving at pamplona was like stepping back in time ( in my opinion world capital of the mullet ) And they really didnt speak ANY English here which was hard and ordering food and drinks involved a whole lot of hand signals. We bought our whites and red sashes and at 12 noon the party began. Sangria and champers were every where and on everyone. some how i managed to stay pretty clean, which was a good thing as we didnt have access to any showers till tuesday night when we got to madrid. we walked through the streets and found a place called muscle bar to which i heard people asking where it was and thought it was an actual bar, on arrival we saw this guy climb to the top of this 5 meter high pillar and then jump into the crowd below. time after time people would climb up and jump back down no one seemed to get to injured you just had make sure you belly flopped into the crowed. we then walked around some more jsut drinking and drinking some more. ran into some mates that holly had made that were from Oz and small world they knew some people i knew from dubbo.

that night though was a night i will never forget. I have never been more cold in my life then i was that night. waking up the next morning ready to leave we headed down to the arena for the first running of the bulls. we got tickets inside and it was amazing something i will never forget. The passion these people have for the this festival is more then just a drunken good time, there are rules on conduct that us tourist arent aware of that seemingly really pissed off alot of locals. And i can understand why. It was the first time in my life that i was ashamed to be australian. Some of the actions of these people were just down right disgraceful, in the way that they literially trashed this town then yelling at the locals for not speaking english. ( i was in the clear as i was wearing my liverpool jacket and the week before torris the guy that scored the winning goal in the euro cup plays for my team. so i was all good ) . the second day was alot claimer then the first and we befriend a guy that will forever be known as Mcgyver. he was a yankee block that just new everything especially were to get some good alco juice boxes for 2€. we ended up back in the park and i played some soccer with some randoms. to be honest with you cant really remember much of what happened for the rest of the day except this crazy fight i got into with some american cos he wanted to sleep early cos he had a death wish and wanted to run for a second day and the rest of us wanted to drink. as the night grew to a close i made some guy from bundgewoy share his sleeping bag with me as i didnt have one and it was 2 cold to do that again. ( and no nothing happened.... flithy minded people, and if it did i wasnt aware as 3 juice boxes and you were pretty s*** faced)

any way tuesday morning we got up and tom was running this morning i slept in as i had a late one. but oddly enough on my way to the bathroom i saw holly and yet another australian friend of hers Zeb from bathurst. yet another interesting character. well Tom ran and survived which i was happy about as i really didnt want to have to cut my trip short to fly back to sydney with him in a body bag.

so we once again went from park to park napping in each completing how 3 days as lagit hobo"s but it was off to madrid that afternoon, and as fun as pamplona was i have never been so happy to leave a place before in my life.

once we got the madrid magyver had given us direction to this hostel unfortunately they were booked out but were kind enough to call around.

the first thing we did when we got to the next place was shower. i think i was in there for about 20 mins. i didnt care about anyone else. BEST SHOWER EVER. almost a high light of the trip. also having a bed that night to was awesome.

the next morning we meet up with Holly and zeb and found this little hostel with this little nanna that ran it. i Paid 20€ for my own room and shower and had a little courtyard view. it was awesome .

Madrid had a completely different feel then barcelona. it was beautiful but it just didnt have that same charm. but either way it was a great way to end an awesome time in spain just wandering the city then when we got tired we would have a nap in a park or make our way back to the hostel and then go out again. my last night there i remeet up with Lisa who we had befriended in Barcelona for dinner which was awesome. just a shame i had to be up in the wee hours of the morning to get the flight back.

all and all i loved spain its sights and its people.

i would recommend everyone to go. and to learn a little spainish before you get there as well i will help you as well.

well i wont spend so much time between blogs next time.