BootsnAll Travel Network



Articles Tagged ‘Spain’

More articles about ‘Spain’
« Home

Spain!

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

Going to Spain for the last 2 months of work was a sweet way to finish off the season. Warm, cheap and awesome.

5 of us headed down to Spain, driving to Portsmouth then a painful 35 hour ferry to Bilbao and another long drive down to our first job.

We did two festivals, one in a town called Vic as hour north of Barcelona. Only a small tent but hard work in ridiculous heat. The festival itself was a city wide music thing with our tent being one of the main stages. Full of crazy world music, nothing I had heard of before but really interesting stuff. It was a cute little town with cobblestones and little cafe’s. While we were waiting to take the tent down 3 of us headed to Barcelona for a couple of days, only 5 euros on the train. I love Barcelona, its such a cool city. Wandered around the gothic areas, went to the beach and then went on this crazy pub crawl with a backpacking bar. Loads of Americans and trashy bars. A bit painful but fun.

(Our local bar across from the tent, which is in the background)

(Town square during festival)

After Vic we had a weekend free before our next job so passed through Mount Serrat, an amazing mountain of strange shaped rocks and a whole town built on top, based around this incredible monastery. We caught a train to the town and then walked 2 hours up to a view point. The whole place was incredible and we were camping in the nearby town which had a swimming pool. Perfect.

Our last job was in Zaragoza, for their huge 9 day Pilar festival. A bigger town, and bigger tents. We had another crew come an join us. After putting up the tent it was 9 intense days of music that went till 6am every day. We did have some very good nights out with some girls the guys had met before in previous years. Some great bars and clubs and all very cheap, our favourite place did beer for 80 cents!

(Lacing up the tent)

(Main cathedral in Zaragoza)

(Team Kiwi in Madrid)

(Typical Sunday afternoon)

I had my 24th birthday during the festival, another excuse for a very late night. One of the kiwi guys, Sam, I worked with was now living in Madrid with his girlfriend so me and Blair went along with him for a few days to check it out. Stayed at the awesome flat right in the middle of town with great coffee across the road. More cheap bars, which gave free food with every drink, loads of cool old buildings. Spain is pretty much amazing. Loved the food, people, culture, language. Sweet. back in Zaragoza we finally packed up, one last very last night and then with those of us who hadn’t gone off chasing girls (3 of them) or flying to London for another job, we began the long journey back to cold England. We had a night in Bilbao before the ferry and got a change to see the Guggenheim museum, possibly the coolest building ever.Full of amazing modern art and well worth the 12 euros. But the building itself is incredible. However about the only thing Bilbao has going for it. So it was back on the long painful ferry which involved a lot of movie watching.

“I`m sorry, we´ve got no room left”

Saturday, May 27th, 2006

thats what Im getting used to hearing now. Everything is always booked out! esp in weekends where everyone takes off to the nice beach places on cheap flights, unfortunate for us backpackers as weekends mean nothing any more. So after I found I had no bed in Barcelona had a bit of a stressful day trying to figure out what to do next. Should I go to France?? No theres atrain strike plus everyone coming from Nice said it was packed. Had no bed for the night so needed to go on an overnight train somewhere so cant go anywhere to close…should I go to San Sebastian…we´ll thats what I want to do but everywhere I ring is full…and everywhere around San Sebastian don´t have any youth hostels….aarrgghhgh dont know what to do!!! Well eventually I thought I might as well get the night train to San Sebastian (North about 9 hours on the beach very close to French boarder) beacause then I can postpone my worrying till at least the next morning. So went off to buy a very expensive train ticket and spent the afternoon eating sandwhich by the sea and went and saw another very amazing Gaudi house. Grabbed my bags from the hostel and took off to catch my night train which I happened to get a bed on which was a nice surprise. The whole sleeper section happened to be full of backpackers heading to San Sebastian who also didnt have any accomodation so that made me feel better!

Had a surprisingly good sleep and arrived around 8am to begin the search for a bed. It was kind of funny after making friends with all these people on the train once we arrived everyone got a bit suspicious that other people might steal their beds so everyone took off very fast!! Kind of funny

Anyway the tourist office directed me to a place a good 30 minutes walk away (with my heavy pack!) and luckily they had some space. Interesting hostel, kind of like a YMCA, big and no common area but clean and has kitchen and awesome free breakfasts. Meet some cool people from Canada and a guy from NZ so we cooked up a huge lunch and then I slept all afternoon. Today was a great day, myself, Ash and Christina (NZ and Canadien) went up to this hill and then walked along the beach. Brought nice food, sat on the beach…it was a really nice day, nice weather, good times. So no need to be worried as things always turn out in the end!

 

and then there was one

Wednesday, May 24th, 2006
Well I'm back to being by myself again as Mum and Sarita flew out on their stupidly cheap easyjet flight to London this morning. A wee bit sad but should meet up with them for at least a day in ... [Continue reading this entry]

Relaxing in the Spanish, oops I mean Catalonian, country side

Wednesday, May 24th, 2006
In Spain if you live in Valencia, your not Spanish you Valencian, if you live in the area around Barcelona its Catalonia, they have they’re own language and sort anal about the whole not being Spanish thing, and then there’s ... [Continue reading this entry]

Valencia part 2: Cirque du Soleil

Wednesday, May 24th, 2006

Ok…I have a bit more time to write now. So we went to the bullfight, like I said before a bit sick and strange that it still happens. And it’s funny because it’s this big manly sport but they all ... [Continue reading this entry]

I hate computers

Monday, May 22nd, 2006

for those of you worried (dont pretend I know you were) because I havent actually posted anything for ages...if anyone is actually reading this still (yes Grandma I know you are!) anyway I´ve been in the Spainish countryside for a ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bull fights, circus and more old buildings…

Monday, May 15th, 2006

Another overnight bus...I hate overnight buses, actually we almost missed it because we couldnt find a taxi that would take us to the bus station so we arrived 5 mins before the bus left, a bit hectic but luckily we ... [Continue reading this entry]

Granada and the big huge old building

Friday, May 12th, 2006

Granada is basically all about this huge old Islamic/Spainish castle/garden thing called the Alhambra. Apparently its really well known and can be hard to get tickets for, which I feel bit guilty about because Ive never even heard of it! ... [Continue reading this entry]

Europe…for more than one day this time

Wednesday, May 10th, 2006

Its been a few days since my last post and we´ve crossed over into Spain, into a clean country where stuff works, its kind of nice but soooo expensive. We left Chefchaouen and went to Tangier for one night. It ... [Continue reading this entry]