Spain

¡Ola Amigos¡

Ok, ill try and give a good spain story, its been pretty cool.

On the ninth of january, steph and i flew into madrid. we used air comet as our air carrier. the flight was uneventful enough, we didnt crash or n e thing like that. of all 7 people on the plane, i had a comfy trip...but i slept most of it.

we landed in madrid, got our passports stamped -the stupid lady who did mine stamped my passport just after the bio page...so mych for continuity with stamps- and went and found a local eatery. boring stuff happened, we ate, congratulated ourselvs on going to spain, then decided to get to our accomodation.

now we actually hadnt booked any accomodation for that night. we left it so late that it was actually the same day we wanted to book it for, and almost all sites wont let u book in the present over the web. so we booked for the ay after. our plan was to see if we could rock up and get 2 beds n e way.
so off we went over the metro to the los amigos hostel right in the center of madrid. being the low season, we got some beds.

now my memory is already a bit hazy, but in my defence i was tired. i think we had a seista, and then went wondering for our first authentic spanish meal. after wondering the streets for about 40 mins, a lovely experience in itself, we decided on a cheap and cheerful all you can eat buffet for under 10 euros. we then proceeded to stuff ourslelves silly and get our money´s worth.

after dinner we went back to the hostel and slept for a good 12 hours.

the next day we didnt get moving untill about midday...man those beds were comfortable. our plan was to go to the palacio real and surrounds. the palace was surprisingly close, which was good cause we discovered that spain is very cold this time of year (go figure huh...) The palace itself is a massivly huge stone building, about 5 storys high, and about 75 meters long facing the street. behind it is the royal square thats about 100x100 meters. the square is surrounded on one side by the palace, another by the cathedral, and the third by the armoury. the square looks out over one side of the city that lies below it, as if the palac was built on a terrace of some kind.

inside the palace is room after room of pompous, ostentatious royal living quaters. stepoh and i got an audio tour player thingymabob which turned out to be pretty good. alot of the tour was like ¨spains best craftsmen at the time spent a year laying the bronze on these walls and ceiling in the kings room to put on his right shoe¨i must admit, the throne room was amazing. with red silk lining the walls, red carpet and all the royal trimmings, it really did give the feeling that we were in a palace.

the audio tour is good if you have a historical sort of mind that can appreciate all the names and dates, but for me, i just thought it looked really cool.

The royal amoury was also very interesting. by this time, the displays didnt have any numbers next to them, so the audio tour thing went out the window. the suits of armour were amazing. im sure i dont need to actually describe it, we all know what itn would look like. what was worthy of note was the handguns they had on display and the horse amour. The smaller guns looked like they were out of a movie set. then there were the massive rifle things. some of the biggest guns had barrels up to 2m long. they were transported around on wheeled mountings and would have weighed a ton, and had the accuracy of...of...a 2 pump chump virgin during his first time.

then there was the horse armour. imagine a fully grown steed, several meters tall and build like a brick shithouse. now imahine it covered in metal, with a tin can man in top with a long stick pointed at you. thats a sight to behold, and i would have taken fotos, but i didnt wanna get kicked out. after that we wondered out and then moved on

that was basically the Palacio Real. well worth the visit.
we then went for a bit of a wonder, and anded up in Plaza Mayor. a lovely place that really makes you feel like ur in spain. unfortunatly, we got there during siesta, so nothing was open. well bothing except over priced eateries. so we just wondered back to the hostel where we went for a siesta (because it has a tough day so far)

now is prolly a good time to tell you about tapas hopping. with the waether like it is, staying out isnt all that fun. especially less so because steph didnt bring any enclosed shoes, only thongs. so what we do is go from one cafe to the next, ordering a small beer and some tapas. it means we spend heaps on food, but every little cafe is always different and its quite fun.

we woke up from our siesta at about 10, and decided to try and get some food. we actually got a table at an ialian resturaunt and had a healthy feed. we then we wandering up and down the street our hostel is on. Called de Arenal is a lovely place with lots of bars and cool shops.º we ended up in a cocktail bar called colours, and we had some cocktails of 4 euros each. not bad i think. although im never having a black russian again. their long island ice teas were pretty good tho.

the next day we went to Ávila, about 2 hrs north west of madrid. all we basically did was pack our bags and go to the train station. the train trip was boring and i think i slept most of it.
when we arrived in avila, its was bloody freezing! im talking a 10.0 on the spanner meter. with our lonely planet guide in hand, we sent off looking for the cheapes place to sleep we could. The guide suggested Pension Santa Ana as a good place to stay. we tapas hopped around the town for 2 hrs looking for this place. in the end, a friendly little old lady basically walked us to the door. we never would have found it other wise.

while we were wondering around it snowed. it full on snowed for about 20 mins. i dread to think what the wather would have been like in england. at this point i should make you aware that steph is wearing thongs. she bearly complained as well. kudos on being hardcore steph.

Pension Santa Ana is run by a litle old lady who can speak next to no english. on opurt way we called her, but obviously that sisnt work out. i also learned that a local call in spain from a phone box is 15 euro cents.

we checked in and got comfy. that night we went to a smokey little tapas cafe and ate and drank with the locals. the atmosphere (aside from being nicotine ridden) was fun. we interacted with the locals as best we could with no common language. we got out there at about middnight after dinking lots of beer and some wine and tasting all the tapas they had there. aside from the seafood ones.

the nest day we went to the Ávila murals, or walls. Built in the 12th century (i think) these walls have really been build well. over 1km of walltop is available for the public to walk on. The weather that day was cold but clear. it was amazing to actually sit in the sun (!) and enjoy being outside. we walked on every bit of wall top we could, and took about 250 fotos. ill facebook the good ones, all 200 of them. they will do a better job at describing the walls than what i can manage at 1am here.

for the rest of that day we wondered around and soaked up the history. we had dinner that night at the same place we did last night, but it wasnt as fun.

we woke up the next day early. at 7.30 am believe it or not and went to the train station. go the train into madrid, and went back to the los amigos hostel. we got there before check in, so we left our bags there and went to the Reina Sofia museum of modern art. The main attraction of this museum is Piccaso´s Gurnica. Steph had a great time here, but me being me, i didnt get into it so much. i never really get art on canvas. some of the installations were pretty cool tho.

we then went back to the hostel, had a siesta and went out during the night. we got fotos of the royal palace and nearby cathedral at night time and wandered around a bit more (sound like bloody lost sheep dont we)

thats pretty much brings us up to now. tomorrow, we plan to spend lots of money at an amusement park.

cheers
Jash