Spain

Hey everyone!

I last wrote to you from Morocco and i guess a lot has happened since then which i will quickly run over.

It was all a bit of a hassle, as is the Morroccan way, to get out of town and I picked up a horrible sandwich on the way out of the country before boarding the ferry....

Morocco just had to give me one big salmonela kick in the arse on my way out! (well some sort of food poisoning). I really do wish i was such a pretty flower when it comes to internal bacteria warfare! So anyway, Aquaman I rebecame for the next few days. (on antibiotics again and doing strong!)

So we hit Tarifa (Spain) and wander about for a couple of hours. we missed the last bus to Seville that day and there wasnt a bed in the whole town. Saddened and tired we drowned ourselves in beer at the bar. On hearing our woes the bartender offered to let us leave our bags behind the bar at closing time and because he sleeps next to the door on the couch, we can knock and get them early. So we happily wandered down to the beach when the bar closed. Sleeping on the beach served to be both cold and once the beer wore off (i got a couple of hours sleep) impossible.

But it was VERY cheap! So the next morning we tiredly and grumpily boarded the bus to Seville. This was the first time james and i had to share a double bed this trip. but ill get to that later. So we wandered around that day! First Seeing the Palace which was very cool, before seeing the Biggest Gothic Cathedral in the world... i think....
Anyway it was pretty damn cool! Check out the photos here!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8075577@N02

That night we chilled upstairs at the hostel and ate Paella! awesome! lots of beers and i was ready for bed at midnight. james stayed on. at 2am james woke me to go to bed. on realisation that we had an aircon he walked back to reception (a building about 5 mins walk away, cos we were in a townhouse not the main hostel) to get the remote. I fall back to sleep before i hear james calling me from below the balcony to throw down his wallet for a 20 euro deposit. So i get up and throw his wallet at him before passing out again. ONLY to be woken again as he swears his head off at them giving him the wrong remote. So he went back again and i fell asleep again. AGAIN he swears his head off with another wrong remote before falling down beside me. Finally i angrily drift off to sleep....

TO BE WOKEN BY MOTHER F@!#ING JACKHAMMERS BELOW OUR BALCONY!!! Literally cliche jackhammers at 7am. So lous and they shook the whole building!!!! My god i was so angry. The words james and I yelled as we tried to sleep for the next hour would have made a sailor blush! the C word featured above all! GRRRRRR

I will upload a photo soon of the jackhammering bastards so you can see just how close they were. If there hadnt been a cage on our balcony i could have elbow dropped down on them.... I wish Macho Man Randy Savage had been there.... he would have known what to do.... OOOOHHH YEAH!

So again we have had a tough nights sleep but that was slightly lessened as we spent pretty much the entire day at wither the internet cafe or on the hostel roof in the spa drinking beers. oh yes, they had a spa. but then it was time for an overnight bus to valencia on which i got a total of 2 hours sleep. oh you bastard. the only thing that kept me going was the positivity of the pop punk (also known as pussy punk) music from New Found Glory. So we roll into Valencia and the hostel that i booked (in my sleepless stupor) was actually booked for the NEXT night! needless to say, profanities were used...

So we wandered until we found a decent youth hostel and I collapsed in a heap in my bed. That night i made on excursion to the supermarket for dinner before hitting the hay again. ONLY TO BE WOKEN BY A F@#KERS MOBILE PHONE ALARM WHICH HE SNOOZED 6 TIMES!!! In a dorm room! what a.... insert C word....

Anger slowly subsided in the presence of the only holy grail the vatican recognise and by the time i got the to the greatest (but most expensive) aquarium i have ever seen I was pretty happy again!! Oh it was awesome. im uploading so many photos at the moment but i wasnt allowed to use flash and the combination of my lack of camera skills and my auto settings lack of dark photo skills left them lacking. Oh Beluga Whales are the Coolest! i flashed one, cos i couldnt get a good shot, as it surfaced and it could have been coincidence but he screamed!!! so lous and everyone had to cover theyre ears!! Oh and there were seahorses!! i love them. just awesome and huge. i think it was designed by the same guy who did our opera house but it could all be lies!

So that was awesome but then it was time to jump ship to Barcelona! Our bus got in pretty late and we wandered around for ages lookinf for a place to stay before 2 american chicks came out of nowhere to tell us there was room at theyre hostel. sweet. we dropped our bags grabbed some dinner and some beers before stumbling to bed at 4am.

The next day, mildly hung we were kicked out of that hostel and walked for 2 hours before finding a new one. Actually the much shitter twin of the one from Valencia. and more expensive! jerks...
So we grabbed lunch then showers and met back up with the girls to see Gaudi´s house of Bones. Im just going to say this now cos i could rant at you for decades, but Gaudi is awesome! So freaking good! The thought he went through and the designs are amazing. I could seriously just go nuts but ill hold... Awesome!

Check the photos once i upload them and you will understand!

Then we bought a watermelon and wine before hitting the park for homemade awesome sangria and chilling. Broken slightly by a broken bottle fight, but no one got stabbed. intense though! then a walk along the beach before again passing out at 4am. erg, i just want some sleep.

So the next day it was james and i again and we piss farted around all day. i used the net a heap and james slept and eventually we dragged ourselves to Gaudis Sagrada Familia before hitting his Park Guell! There was an escalator up this massive hill to the park! awesome! and the cathedral (sagrada familia) was amazing!!! again the ranting could commence but ill let the photos speak for themselves!!! he really was the bomb though!!

then it was supermarket and bed time for me. Today all we have acheived is to buy our tickets to train our way to genoa (Genova) in Italy and come here to the internet cafe to blog. so thats where i leave you i guess. hungry and tired of typing in Spain. And Leaving spain too! bitter sweet but excited for Italy. will get back to france later.

Miss you all lots!

The Hutch. (I am bringing that name in cos i feel at least 20% more like a super hero with the ´The´)

Hey I went to the Alhambra above Granada today and I had some time to kill so i thought id upload the photos i took.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8075577@N02/

That is all. Off to Lisbon tomorrow so u should be safe for a day without me postng again.
Hutch

Firstly, I think you should all subscribe to this sucker, at the moment there is only Sam, Daino and Swaney subscribed. Daino actually subscribed twice. You dont want Daino to be more up to date than you do you? I dont even like her and shes subscribed 2 times more than a lot of you, get it together, especially you mum! Comeon!

You can see footage from our run on the 8th of July 2007 on youtube. If you checked this already check it again cos i have updated it as of the 10th of July.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znv71_QjPYc

and here is some footage of what happens in the bullring at the end. they release one bull at a time and these just run around goring until they get tired. its awesome they all have names, stats and crowd followings. they chant theyre names when they hit people. theyre horns are all taped up so they can gore all day. James and I are in that fray somewhere but neither of us were hit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG16N2lhfOU

Thats probably the best footage. James had it on his camera but it got corrupted. which sucks sooo freaken hard. we also lost some wicked photos from south america! Sorry plum the lake titicaca photos are gone too. We will always have the boat times though!

Now let me write about it. It is freaking intense, standing in the bull run waithing for it to start, looking at the paper from the day before and there are graffic photos of an australian, 36, who got a gorn through the thigh, in fact there will be footage on youtube. hold on. nah i looked and couldnt find the guy getting gored but ive seen the photos. crazy.
Anyway, looking at those photos then reading that we have the biggest bulls of the whole festival was a little unnerving to say the least. there was profiles and photos and each bull had the cold dead eyes of a killer. everyone had strategies but when the first firecracker goes off and the thunder of all the people begins everything goes out of the head and you RUN! hahaha i ran, then hid, then ran, big scary bastards!

Then they pass and you run like mad again before the little bulls come and once you get into the bullring you run around as the little horntaped ones have a gorefest! crazy crazy spaniards. the locals dont really run, they mostly just watch from balconies and the bullring and see all the stupid tourists getting smashed by the town heroes!

Ok, so now ill tell you how it came to pass that we were there to run.

The last post i did was in Pamplona, but we had already booked some accomadation in Santander so we checked our lugage in a place in Pamplona, bailed and caught the bus to Santander. the local bus took us way out of town and we had to search for ages to find the worst hotel EVER. can a hotel have minus stars? i think thats what this was, when u wish you had just slept in the grass but u paid for it so it would feel wrong even though you would probably rather it. anyway, im surprised there was even a nightly rate, i would have thought you rented the room by the hour. I guess you can tell the quality of a hotel by the number of cigarette burns and lipstick stains on the sheets. Anyway, just write this down. Hostal Golf, Santander, Spain. Dont ever go there. Its on the list with Iberia! hahaha, the Iberia slogan is ´service is our aim´. how half arsed is that?

Anyway, so after that we kicked back to Pamplona we dranks a couple of beers, (not nearly enough to help us sleep) and tried to find a comfy place. The town was PUMPING! there must have been 2 million people out partying in the streets. We did see one of the funniest things i have ever seen while waiting though. We were on a park bench and next to us a guy was sleeping. a couple with a young kid walked past and opened their garage. The noise must have woken the incredibly drunk guy as he sat up and stumbled around. he looked like he was looking for something. then he saw the open garage.... he walked in, pulled down his pants and crapped in the corner of the garage with the family watching him and yelling. hahahahahaha priceless! we also saw a different drunk girl sitting in the gutter crapping and a lot of other carnage done to that poor city!

Anyway, so we got an hours sleep in the park and it was time for the run. cheapest accom yet! Then after we ran we grabbed some celebratory beers and chilled out. Because it was sunday the supermarket wasnt open so we really couldnt afford to get smashed. and the town was much quieter cos of it being sunday so we decided to bail out of pamplona. Wait, that was everyones plan! no buses to madrid or barcelona for 3 days!!!

A hire car seemed the only option. after a lot of dicking around we were on our way in the offectionately named ´the turd burgalar´. Our Renault Clio was not quite a the engineering achievement renault make it out to be in the manual. It drove pretty well, with the a/c off, pedal on the floor and downhill. uphill was another matter. but it was a pretty freaken cool drive down to where we are now in Granada.

Very differnt though. to start with i took it easy, it was the wrong side of the road and a new car so it seemed the right thing to do. the speed limit was 100 and everyone was overtaking at such a speed. I settled for doing 130 in the 100 zone and still getting overtaked by everything but trucks. It was usually 120 though once we hit freeway. Anyway, this lead me to some conclusions.
a. The speed limit is 120 but everyone breaks it so they just cant enforce the law.
b. The speed limit is not a limit just a recommended speed.
c. The speed limit is the minimum you must be doing to be on the road. i think that might be the one.
Crazy, but so much fun, until we got to granada.
You know when u see those cool cobblestone streets and youre like, aw how quaint. TRY DRIVING ON THEM!!!!!
Theyre all oneway, there are no f!#@ing maps with which way they are on them. and theyre tight, tight as hell. GRRRRRR We got stuck down an alley, where i had 10cm either side of the car and some f!#@ing f!#@er parked his f!#@ing car in the f!#@ing corner of the f!#@ing street so i couldnt get around!!! i tried for f!#@ing ages and then had to reverse the f!#@ing car all the way out of the maze of streets. GRRRRRRR I have always been against the keying of cars, but right then and there i could have just written f!#@ you all over his f!#@ing car!

Im glad i have that off my chest. this has been an EPIC blog so i will cut it off. We have a cool little hostal in Granada and the city is beautiful. we have bought tickets to lisbon for friday and have plans to chill there for like a week to try and save some money back up! it has been REAL expensive of late!

Anyway i have some new photos on the flickr, not many as james photos are gone, but theres a few. I documented the parting of my beard. Hes gunna come back as soon as possible!! thanks for everyones concern over the bull run, nothing like some stupid 21 yr old getting hurt to make everyone send me comments and messages and stuff!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8075577@N02/

Send me a line if you´re bored, id love to hear what everyones up to back home. this is now the longest ive been out of oz and i must say im just the tiniest bit homesick!

Blog again probably from lisbon once something exciting has happened.

Miss you all, except you Daino, I thank god everyday that were as far away as possible from each other. Just kidding, you´re ok, no matter what everyone says about you, i still like ya.

Hutch

P.S. You know how its cold in Melb, well its 40 degrees here... that is all.

Hey everyone,

Im Spain now. We flew from Quito and our plane was delayed 3 hours then another hour which sucked before getting on the worst flight ever! Iberia is the suckiest airline to ever suck! I would reccomend you never fly with them and if anyone ever offers, you spit in their face!

Sigh, im glad i have that off my chest! So we arrived in Madrid and found ourselves a place to stay. AWESOME city, so much life and really warm. Will definately spend more time there on the way back. Everything has inflated in price because its the busy season and anywhere cheap is booked out so its making it very hard to do it cheaply.

From Madrid we trained to pamplona and checked outthe festival. we were there for the kick off and it wasnuts. everyone was dressed in all white with red sashes for belts and a red scarf around your neck. we bought costumes and had a look around then headed off to Santander.

A night in a horrible hotel that i wont talk about it was soo bad. and were still in Santander with a bus ticket back to pamplona. the plan is as follows.

Get in to Pamplona about 11pm. get ready to run, sleep the night in the park and get up early for running. then celebrate near death and drink all the following day as seems the standard. then another park night before bailing towards Portugal and cheaper chilling out.

Ok so if all goes well ill be posting again soon, if not, and I dont survive the bulls, tell Daino I hate her. just kidding, ill post again soon.

Tim.

P.S. The sun goes down at 10pm here, its nuts i havent bee sleeping cos nightime is only like 8 hours. stupid sun. awesome though, everythings kinda open with the sun. anyway. laters.