TravelStream™ news feed for member lingo83 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/lingo83 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:52:12 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1252457210/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1252457210/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1252457210/tpod.html Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:52:12 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Well, here I am back in Adelaide. Feels like I never left! Way too cold here, by the way :(

I start back at work on Monday next week so I have a few days to sort myself out in my new home, with Marty. Very exciting stuff. The whole trip seems like a distant memory already I am afraid. I am very poor, but consider it money well spent, it certainly was an experience of a lifetime. Plenty more stories to tell though when we catch up again. Plenty more photos as well! Thanks for reading :)

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1252231829/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1252231829/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1252231829/tpod.html Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:18:51 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Singapore, Singapore

Not many good things about 13 hour flights except that I imagine they are a lot less boring than they used to be thanks to video on demand. Saved my life.

Now I am about to do some duty free shopping.

I will save my last post for when I get back so I can complete the circle on my map and write something less hasty - free internet here does not last long!

In case anyone is wondering; vego food on planes SUCKS!!! Why couldn't I get the continental breakkie?? It had no meat, just fruit and yoghurt and muesli - why did I have to get tofu and yucky old vegies with noodles?? Did score 2 lots of chocolate though, so am happy :)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1252098572/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1252098572/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1252098572/tpod.html Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:34:55 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands

Turns out I had tickets to a kind of Russian ballet medley performed by the English National Ballet. Kind of a celebration of Russian contribution to ballet. There were 5 different mini-ballets. I guess there were acts from longer ballets - others seemed to be just short pieces.



First thing I noticed when I rocked up was that I appeared to be WAY underdressed. Seems that in order to get in you needed to have a scarf of some sort too - male or female. Luckily I had one on! Unfortunately, it was not woven of an approved material, being a $2 cotton job purchased in Ecuador. Something more like silk would have been appropriate. They let me in anyway, jolly generous of them. I think I was the only person there in jeans that didn´t cost more than my entire trip.

I had a seat on the side, in a small box. A very small box. Not sure what woudl have happened if there had been the suggested 6 people trying to squeeze in there, we had enough trouble with only 4. It is a new building too, which makes me wonder who they thought goes to the opera and ballet. Clearly people a lot shorter than any of us. I was up the front though, so I got to see all the action, unless the dancers decided to sneak off to the side and frolick, then I missed it.

The first act was Les Sylphides and appeared to be about some fairies. There were a lot of fairies all dressed the same, but 2 who got to dance out the front a lot more than the rest whose role seemed to be to pose as if for life drawing in the background. There was one bloke in painted-on white tights. His job was to dance with the 2 main fairies in turn. They looked very similar, wearing the same costumes as there were, and I got them mixed up a lot. It seemed like they were having some kind of menage-a-trois. Again, I could be getting this wrong.

Having never seen ballet before, the first 20 minutes I spent just looking at it practically. As I tend to do. First thing I noticed was that the girls have to dance with those uncomfortable shoes on, on their tippy toes all the time. The guy wears some comfy looking slippers. Second thing I noticed was that ballerinas are not as thin as they made out to be. Some were, but there were also just fit looking girls up there. They are all obviously very buff though! Which leads to my third note; the boys get to show off their physique with skin tight tights that border on the obscene and shirt off action, but the girls are always covered in long skirts and sleeves, seems contrary to all other uniform arrangements (beach volleyball uniform springs to mind). On the whole, the boys looked very silly indeed in most of their costumes while the girls looked like angels. Lastly, when the end of the scene comes, sometimes the music stops before the dancers do, and when it does all you can hear is the tapping of their feet on the floor as they run off stage - bit distracting and breaks the illusion somewhat.

I was not particularly impressed with the first number. They had a 30 minute break after it. Then was Le Spectre de la Rose during which a girly in very puffy pyjamas falls asleep and a man wearing nothing but a light grey bodystocking and a flower petal bathing cap jumps in through the window and dances with her in her dreams. At least, that is what I think was happening. Never seen quite such an outfit on a guy. He looked Ridiculous, it was all I could do to stop myself laughing outloud when he jumped through the window. General vibe told me you do not laugh at the ballet...

Third was La Mort del Cigne which means ´the death of the swan´ which I assume meant it was from Swan Lake, knowong that there is a ballet about a swan. It only went for 4 minutes and was great. Just one girly swan dying up on stage, it was very beautiful and made me think for the first time in the evening that there may be some aspects of ballet I can enjoy. Mostly they look silly, their faffing around softly waving their arms and legs does not seem to be in keeping with the violence of the music when things go bad. But when the music is soft and there isn´t heaps of them on the stage, it can be quite mesmorising.

Fourth was a bizarre one called Faun(e) (no idea why the e is in brackets). There was just one dude on stage when the curtain came up, contorting himself around to no music, wearing naught but a beige skirt/rag and mid-calf length beige slipper things. Ugly. The piano joined in after a while, then another beiged up man jumped out and they rolled around the stage together for 10 minutes in some barely disguised gay sex scene. If they had not been wearing beige I might have enjoyed it more.

Last was a 35 minute number after a 20 minute break. Scheherazade it is unpronunciably called. Set in middle east somewhere, a bloke promises his daughter to another fat bloke but she has other ideas and busts her anarchist boyfriend out of jail to be with him. Dad finds out and his guard kill the boyf so she stabs herself in the guts with a little knife and dies immediately. Sounds very silly, but it was actually very entertaining and I enjoyed it a lot!

I did enjoy my night at the ballet. Would not go and see something like Faune again, but would see Swan Lake, or the last one. Still, I find the lack of scope to portray real passion in ballet a little annoying. They are dying, or something bad is happening, the music is going nuts with brass, drums and cymbols crashing and they are just doing little delicate hops around the stage - hardly seems to keep up with the moment. Sometimes it seems like they are so focused on the technical aspects of it that they aren´t really enjoying it, or living it. Spoilt by contemporary stuff on So You Think You Can Dance I guess.

So to sum it up: yes I would go again.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251994336/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251994336/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251994336/tpod.html Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:31:16 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands

An ongoing problem Marty and I had while he was here was the absence of lawn upon which we could lie, or even walk. We had the hackey sack (sp?) and wanted to use it, but do you think we could find any greenery to play on? We did manage a brief ´hackey´ in Paris, right in front of the Louvre - Marty even lost it in the high hedges for a while there. But Spain is determined to keep us off the grass. Every potential grassy area is covered in concrete here. We found a small square of sparse, dog shit riddled, strangly lawn to play on the day before he left, but it was hardly adequate. And today, of course, after the hackey has left the country, along with my hackey partner, I find the biggest expanse of lawn in Spain. Well, that might be a slight over-statement, but still. It was a bit bit of grass. It also had ´Keep Off´ type signs around, but everyone else was laying on it, so I did too.

Lacking the frustrating ball of beans, it was actually somewhat pleasant to simply lie around on it and enjoy the warmth. No sunshine today, but it is still warm. I read 2 newspapers - one tabloid and one broadsheet and amused myself by comparing the two for evidence of bias in reporting. Yes, I know, aren´t I a barrel of fun! I think I have reached the pinnacle of intellectual boredom after so long on the road having had nothing more challenging than battling time zones to contend with. And as I recall, I did not win that battle! Still, there is nothing particularly challenging about finding bias in newsprint. It just made me nostalgic for uni and think about the Masters course, again.

With only 1.5 days left of my holidays (I do not count travelling time as being on holiday), I am starting to think more about what I will do when I get back. Lucky for me I still have a job (I think), so I don´t need to worry about that. But the previous hobby of Saving For and Planning the Holiday is now redundant, unless I go on another one, so I need a new project. I suspect it may have something to do with gardening, Spanish and figuring out how I can do my Masters without paying for it...

Tomorrow night I am going to see the English National Ballet perform something or other. For the last 2 years I have been intending to go to the ballet. Just because I never have, and you have to try everything at least once before you decide not to like it. I hope I do like it because I suspect it goes forever. No idea what they are performing, it wouldn´t make much difference to me since I am not familar with any of them. If it is boring, I can always do as car race spectators do; sit and hope for a crash. Perhaps that is what happened to Cate Blanchett?

Let you know how it goes...

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251128302/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251128302/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251128302/tpod.html Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:22:09 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Tangier, Morocco

We left Paris on Sunday morning without having encountered a single grumpy French service provider. Kind of disappointed, but still good to know their surly reputation isn’t entirely deserved. We had our last French dinner at a great place that served Marty the biggest cup of coffee I have ever seen and I got to tick the last item on my list by ordering a crËme brulee. Yum.

We set off for the airport in Paris at 5am and arrived in plenty of time to the check-in hall to find it closed due to some kind of vague ‘security issue’. When they finally did open, only 20 minutes before check-in for our flight was supposed to close, there was a mass stampede. Somehow we ended up being the last checked in to our flight. But it didn’t seem to matter in the end as our flight was delayed. There were only about 40 people flying with us so we all spread out on the plane.

We were greeted in Tanger by an empty hall with all the promises of sorting us out with the essentials such as maps, money and information, but failed to deliver anything of the kind. There were 2 exchange booths, both unmanned. There was an information desk; unmanned. No map. We just headed out the door and grabbed one of three beige Mercedes Benz cabs into Tanger central. The cabbie spoke about 3 words of English but we managed to get dropped at a hotel on the beachfront that turned out to be not too expensive.

The bloke at the desk was pretty disinterested in helping us out with info. Begrudgingly told us that internet access was ‘outside’. We dropped our bags off in our 5th storey room that had a great view over the deserted beach and ferry terminal. First order of business was to find food. Turns out that the abandoned airport was just a glimpse of things to come. Nothing was open. There was not a soul on the streets. It was 11am. Failing to find food and seeing nothing even slightly entertaining around we thought we should head straight to the ferry terminal and enquire about tickets to get the hell out. Turned out there are ferries to Spain running every hour. I do not understand why since we did not see any sign of a booming tourism trade in this city.

We went for a wander along the beach where a dead rat was amongst the first things we saw. There were a few kids playing too; one of them gobbed on my leg, which was nice.

There were a couple of guys in their wet, see through undies playing Frisbee with a paint can lid. Rather unsuccessful really. Exhausted by the sheer amount of NOTHING we had found everywhere we headed upstairs for a siesta. Since we couldn’t eat, there wasn’t much else to do. At about 4pm we headed out again to try and find food. This time there were a few little shops open selling basics and some fresh bread. We finally got a decent baguette!

We headed out again at about 7:30 to check out things at night. Dead town again. The shops were closed again. We walked along the beach, sat on some rocks and watched hundreds of rats fossick through the masses of rubbish lying around on the sand. The sun set. That was pretty. We looked longingly at the ferries leaving the harbour, bound, no doubt, for places where restaurants were open and beer was served. We walked past 30 or so restaurants and discos. All closed.

I needed to get some cash out to pay for the ferry the next day so we headed to an ATM. It didn’t have enough cash in it to cover what I needed. We headed to another one and it wouldn’t take my card. Couldn’t find any others. Walked for 5 minutes more through the abandoned streets wondering what the hell we were doing in Tanger at all before giving up and going back to the hotel room.

At about 1:30am I woke up to incredible street nose, looked outside, and there was everyone. Apparently everyone who lives here is nocturnal. Still, I didn’t see many tourists. Who ever put all that info I found on the web about Tanger being a great day trip from Europe certainly pulled a great one over on me!

This morning we thought we would try the ATM again. This time not only was it not accepting my card, but it also had had an egg thrown at it and was covered in dried egg white. !! We couldn’t even buy breakfast, everything was still closed. We gave up again and checked out. The guy dealing with us at the desk kept giving everything back to Marty, even though it was all my stuff. I paid with my credit card and he gave it back to Marty, same with the receipt. It was pretty funny. We just went to the ferry terminal and waited to leave. We just missed the ferry at 10am so had to wait to 12 (apparently the ‘ferry every hour’ thing was a lie too). Marty was a bit of a hero and found me some food, which tasted fabulous in the way that only shitty food in a shittier situation can. We are now on the ferry though, and very much looking forward to being back to a country that is open.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251830102/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251830102/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251830102/tpod.html Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:49:14 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands

Marty left to return to Australia today. He won´t be there for 2 days though! I think he is going via every major airport between here and Adelaide. I moved myself into a dorm in a hostel that is quiet central. Felt a bit lonely without him around all day. I have to remember how I keep myself entertained when travelling alone.

I went for a long walk around looking for a bookshop. Eventually found one with a tiny English book section and got the one thing I could find that seemed mildly like it wasn´t chic lit trash. I have vague recollections of having read it before though... I feel pretty lethargic and am struggling to get motivated to look around properly - I think the impending close of my journey is having some kind of effect on me. I just want to laze around and take advantage of being able to do nothing in particular as it won´t be long before I am back at work, back at touch and all the other activities that are part of the daily grind creep in and steal my time.

There are a few beaches near here so I may go and lie on one of them tomorrow. Not expecting such great weather in Adelaide for a while so might as well take advantage of it here. The Picasso Museum is very near my hostel so I might check that out too. There seems to be only art museums in this city. I have been looking for a historical museum to no avail. Strange, given all the fascinating civil war stories that come from this region. Guess I will just keep reading about them online and hearing about them from Marty then...

Barcelona seems to never sleep - except on Sundays. Sunday we could not find a single supermarket open. Kinda annoying really! I am all for getting up late and haivng a 3 hour break for lunch + siesta, but not for closing on Sundays. OK, well I might be up for it if I lived here and knew it was going to happen and had time to prepare for it!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251583590/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251583590/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251583590/tpod.html Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:26:05 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands

Here we are in our final destination: Barcelona.  We made it onto the train this morning without too much fuss at all, even had time to stop and purchase some chocolate croissants for breakfast :)  The train took us through some pretty bleak landscape, I thought Spain was greener.  I guess I was wrong, it was a bit moonscape-esque, all brown and dreary.  Still, was nice to get a look at the land.  We rocked into Barcelona about 20 minutes early which was odd, but still nice.  We trekked to our hostel.  The metro here seems to be owned by 3 different companies. In order to get to our hostel we had to take the Metro and also get on a line owned by something called FGC, and had to buy a separate ticket too.  Bit annoying really.  

The hostel is in a very quiet, posh area.  Plenty of fancy restaurants and shops selling ludicrously priced anti-aging creams.  Not many people around.  Sadly, also no bakery nearby.  Breakfast tomorrow will either be orange juice or red wine, both of which we purchased this evening on our way back here.  I can't remember if the wine or the OJ was cheaper...  

After a rather decadent and unplanned 4 hour nap, we headed in to Barcelona proper to see what we could see.  Started out at the top of La Rambla, the main shopping and dining out area near the harbour here.  There were masses of people there!  I was pretty hungry so we stopped at the first place that took my eye; a vego fast food joint.  It was serving falafels in pita bread with salad.  They were great!  You got to put your own salad on and there was heaps to choose from, plus several sauces - would be a great idea for Adelaide I reckon.  It is true that yiros places offer falafel yiros too, but they always seem just as greasy and horrible as the meat stuff.  This place was clean and everything looked fresh.  You could tell they really knew that lettuce is not salad.  Anyway, clearly I enjoyed my meal!

We walked along the waterfront, along with hundreds of other people from all over the world.  Saw some dudes performing skateboard tricks for the camera.  Saw the pedestrian bridge open up to let a boat through.  Saw Columbus pointing off to the Americas.  Saw thousands of performing 'statues'.  Seriously, when will people tire of this old act?  Is there anyone in the world who has not yet seen a man or woman painted entirely in gold or silver, or blue or green, standing still pretending they are a statue??  How are they still making money off this??  Saw plenty of dudes selling knock-off handbags and wallets etc.  They have their dodgy wares in a blanket bundle which can be both laid out on the footpath and bundled up again at lightening speed.  The 4 corners of the blanket are joined by a piece of rope so when they see the police they can just pull it all up over their shoulder and make a run for it.  It is quite funny to see actually.  

We have noticed that there are bikes sitting around the place, free for anyone to use.  So the plan is to get around on them for a while tomorrow.  Be nice to have a little picnic somewhere!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251490192/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251490192/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251490192/tpod.html Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:24:23 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Madrid, Autonomous Region of Madrid, Spain

Just had myself a mango ice cream.  Yummo.  Marty and I had a tight-arse dinner in the hostel tonight because our tickets to Barcelona cost a ridiculous amount of money and I just checked my credit card account.  We leave for the last city on our list tomorrow at 10:30am.  It took us forever to book the tickets because at first we were lazy, and then we didn't know when we were going to go, and then we didn't know whether to take the bus or train or what.  And then when I tried to book the tickets over the net the website didn't cooperate and I couldn't do it. SO this morning I had to go down to the office itself and wait in a very long line to spend twice as much as the tickets were 2 weeks ago.  Lesson learnt.

I spent the day wandering the streets of Madrid, just having a squiz at stuff.  Went down the the Palacio Real and witnessed a woman having a hissy fit in Spanish when she realised someone had stolen something from her backpack.  Pretty funny stuff.  Not sure how it happened as it really was not busy down there and she was with a big group of friends.  Perhaps one of her friends did it?  Headed back across town and visited the Botanic Gardens.  Not that much fun really, just a lot of herbs etc.   That is all well and good, but they don't look fancy do they?

I went and picked up Marty, who had been holed up in the room all day working on some job or other.  We headed to an art gallery, or museum which had nothing but art in it.  Was interesting at first, then a tad boring, then just plain tedious.  It was huge!  We picked up supplies for dinner on the way home; some bread, red wine and cheese etc :)  I had the leftovers from our dinner at a great vegetarian restaurant last night.  It was a random find, very delicious food.  I had a veggie paella, Marty the pizza.  We were going to head to a chocolateria for dessert, but both were too full so we did it this evening.  Very disappointing.  After the churros in Melbourne, these ones came a very poor second.  Not sure if it was just a one off bad shop, or if churros and chocolate in Spain are shit in general.  The chocolate just left a weird aftertaste.  Like $2 Shop chocolate. 

Not sure what my impression of Madrid is.  It seems like it would be a great place to come if you had lots of money to shop with.  It has been fabulous weather; not a cloud in the sky.  The locals are pretty friendly, or at least they have been to us.  It just feels a little empty though.  It is a big city, and clearly there must be lots going on, but I cannot figure out where, or what.  In New York I never felt like I might run out of things to do, but here I am ready to move on already. Besides which, there are roadworks going on EVERYWHERE here.  Seriously, we are in a hostel only 40m from Puerta del Sol which is undergoing major reconstruction, every street I walked along today to get to the various sights had roadworks, our hostel is having renovations done near the bathrooms and even the Palacio Real was half shut off with a massive crane going at it!  Clearly Madrid has plenty of money!  Must be all the fashionistas dropping their cash here.

Well, better get to packing I suppose.  Breakfast tomorrow promises to be a hot baguette (Paris may have let us down but Madrid will not on that front)!!
 

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251378677/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251378677/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251378677/tpod.html Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:28:50 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Madrid, Autonomous Region of Madrid, Spain

We ended up catching the night bus to Madrid.  The bus to Sevilla was late and it ended up taking 3 hours to get to Sevilla by which time our options were a night bus to Lisbon or Madrid.  Madrid was cheaper so we went there.  We had to hang around in Sevilla until 11pm before boarding the bus.  It was stinking hot and although I wanted to look around the place, I couldn't as I had all my bags with me and the lockers were broken :(  We sat in a cafe for a while, killing time.  Then sat outside having a few beers for a while longer.  'Twas a bit annoying to be wasting so much time just waiting for a bus, but I was not where near as annoyed as I would have been previously.   Travelling in South America has definitely made me much more chilled out about such things.  

When we boarded the bus there was a little boy screaming bloody murder a few seats behind us.  He was making a good effort to keep the tears coming and had a few of the passengers 'shushing' him too.  Eventually he calmed down though and fell into a much better sleep than the rest of us had, no doubt.  Dunno what he was so pissed off about, at least he could straighten his legs out and lie down flat!  There was another guy further back who kept making loud phone calls all night.  I am not sure who he was talking to at 3:30am, but it better have been important!  When we got off the bus we saw that he had one of those bluetooth wireless headsets sewn into his ear, dork.  

The bus took only 6.5 hours and we arrived in Madrid at 5:08am.  We then had to kill even more time waiting for it to be a decent hour so we could search for a hostel.  We sat in the bus station for a while before a security guard asked us to move on so we hopped on the train.  Somewhere between getting through the ticket gates and jumping on the train, Marty had his wallet stolen from his pocket :(  Not very happy about that + only 1 hour of sleep did not = good times this morning.  Luckily there was only cash and his Aussie driver's license in the wallet so credit cards are safe.  Still bloody annoying though as it smashes the budget somewhat!  Rather have smashed it on a nice meal tonight...

Upside is, we found a great hostel for only 30 Euro per night, much cheaper than anything else we have found anywhere.  They have air con and WIFI and are clean, PLUS the owner is really friendly.  Hard to find all those things in the one location!  The place is on the 4th floor of an ancient building and the stairs look heaps dodgy after the 3rd floor.  Might just use the lift from now on!  When I left Marty down the bottom and wet up to ask about vacancies and prices the woman dragged me into an argument she was having with some German tourists by asking me to translate for her.  She does not speak English, they do not speak Spanish.  Because I had managed to ask about a room over the intercom from the street in Spanish she figured I could translate for them all.  Well, I had a fair crack.  But it is not fun being the translator of an argument, you feel like you are getting yelled at by both sides when none of it has anything to do with you!  I did the best I could and they all seemed happy by the end of it, plus now the woman who runs this place is my friend so she is being super friendly to us both. 

I went out to have a little look around Madrid before, searching for fresh fruit.  Found some manky bananas and peaches so am going to have my lunch now.  I think yet another art gallery peruse is in order this arvo.  
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251279366/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251279366/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lingo83/1/1251279366/tpod.html Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:49:42 -0400 The Big Trip

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Tarifa, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

Bit of Groundhog Day going on here at the moment. Yesterday we were supposed to head off to Lisbon on the bus. We first had to catch the bus from here to Sevilla at 2:30pm. We got up quite early so had to waste heaps of time during the day. We did some shopping, did some web searches for hostels in Lisbon and Madrid, listened to the Ricky Gervais show on the iPod and finally went down to catch our bus. It didn´t show up for ages. There were plenty of buses coming along but none going to Sevilla. Eventually Marty showed the guy who worked there our tickets and he told us that that bus had gone ages ago and we would have to wait for the next at 5pm. Que?? Turns out my watch was still on Moroccon time which is an hour behind Spain so we had actually not gotten up that early after all and had missed our bus by ages. Oops!

After a bit of faffing around we got the guy to let us use the same tickets for the next day, today. But he wouldnt change the time so we still have to wait until 2:30pm again today. So now the plan has changed slightly and we are either going to Lisbon OR Madrid today depending on which bus comes through Sevilla first and/or which is cheaper. This is the kind of thing that previously would really have bothered me because we dont have that much time together here and we have wasted another day in this little town - but these days it doesn´t bother me. I just shrug my shoulders - whatever. I think I am turning Spanish! Everything can happen mañana.

It is a nice place here. It is good to be back using the Spanish again, although it is obviously a little different here. Plus, everyone speaks English so we have been cheating a bit. But they do give you a chance to have a crack at it and only step in with English when you start struggling. There are SO many brown brown people here, clearly being sunsmart has not caught on here at all. I appear positively ghostly in comparison to the girls here. All the beaches have topless girls running around on them and it was pretty funny watching this pale Englishman being not-at-all sublte with his eyes and his camera yesterday. He was like, ´Hmmm, I think I will just walk a bit further down here to get a better picture of that wave...´ Nothing to do with the fact that it brings him past a good view of Tits Out Girls 1, 2 and 3.

I am really looking forward to seeing a bit more of Spain. From what I have seen so far, I thinkI might like it here a lot! Still, it would be good to get a quick look at Lisbon (plus the airtickets from there to Madrid are non-refundable). The time seems to be flying by faster and faster these days, only 9 days til I start my big flight back to Australia! :(
]]>