One way to the UK?

Time to catch up on the diary entries before life gets too far ahead of us too fast!

Valencia — Bunol — Madrid

On Monday, 25 August (a bank holiday in UK), Mara and I set off to Stansted to meet up with Sarah Schmidt (an old NHS HfL colleague of mine) for our 6 nights in Espanol! We arrived late into Valencia, and after stumbling our way though some barely-there-Spanish to a ‘help guy’ on a ‘speakerphone’ thing, we ended up jumping into a taxi to the Purple Nest Hostel located right in the old town. What a lovely hostel! Well, the room colours were all pretty cool, the bathrooms were good and the airconditioning was switched on from 10am through to about 10am to ensure everyone could get some real sleep – bliss! We asked at reception for a good place to eat, and ended up in an Italian Pizza/Pasta place…in Spain… but it was honestly the BEST pizza I’ve ever had! Much better than any even from Italy itself. After dinner we ended up taking a leisurely walk around Valencia’s old town including the amazing cathedral and what seemed like city walls etc before heading back to sleep.

Next morning, our Topdeck Tours package started, so we grabbed our bags and headed off to find out Hotel.. NH Ciudad de Valencia, located on Avenida del Peurto. Just a short walk away right?! Hrmmm! After crossing the large ‘river’ which is actually all grass and football fields, we stopped into a cafe for some brunch… and came across Tony Bird who Mara and I met in Croatia on the sailing boat! He was also in Valencia for La Tomatina festival. Anyhow, after a quick catch-up we proceeded to come across the Hotel in the 31 degree heat, and turned the aircon onto 18 as soon as we got in! Then, we got dressed for ‘ice cream finding’ and also headed down to the beach. Water! Sea Water! and Real Sand! Ahh it was beautiful. Anyway, the walk down to the beach was quite lengthy, especially as the barriers were all still up from the Valencia F1 Grand Prix which finished 2 days prior.  We caught up with Trevor and Holmsey (good Aussie mate Mara and I met in Turkey)  who were on the same Topdeck tour as us and ended up in the same hotel too!

Valencia was beautiful, and nice and warm. Sun sun and more sun. We spent days walking around, even did a town tour, and the rest of the time sampling foodstuffs (prawns fresh at the market) and relaxing at the beach.

On the day of La Tomatina, we had to wake up EARLY… and then everone (2 buses full) had to wait for Trev to wake up and get onto the bus (he’d had a big night out obviously!). Once on the bus and on our way to the little town of Bunol, home of La Tomatina… we realised the airconditioning in the bus was broken. Aarrgghh. Two hours later, we arrived in Bunol and made our way to the town centre… quite a long way actually! There were already soo many people in there, packed into the small cobbled streets! Mara, Sarah and I, and Sarah’s ‘hotel room mate’ Selina tried to get up to the ‘centre’ where the ‘greasy pole with the ham’ is located (once the ham is knocked off the pole by a local male, the tomatoes begin!) however, the crowds just compressed and compressed and we ended up getting separated! Selina and I found what we thought was a safe place (I was trying to protect my shoulder with tendonitis from further damage!) and I ended up running into my mate from Darwin Justin (Birdman) which was just another random event which occurs so often when people are travelling Europe! Anyway to cut to the chase… I’ve never been so squashed, and I now definitely know what a tomato in a canning factory feels like! Out of the about ‘2 hours’ of La Tomatina tomato throwing… 10 minutes were FUN and the rest I was worried for my life! People were panicked and crying, and everyone was clinging onto others as the wave upon wave of crowds ‘pushed’ down the street and tried to take everyone along with them!!!

However, all in all, the day was still fantastic! Especially trying to find a hose (and local) with decent strength to actually wash the tomato out of my hair and off my body!!! I took my top later of shirt off as it was beyond salvage, and everything else was being chucked out anyway, once back at the bus with new clothes, but I still had to get all the way to the bus so found a ‘trough’ thing to rinse off in! Apparently Mara had most her clothes ripped off her and was just in her boardies, shoes and her bra (HAHAHA) damn not being there to see that! Of course I would have given her one of my still in-tact shirts :o) (hehehe)

So Valencia was great, and La Tomatina was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime festival and despite thinking I would die in parts of it, it was worth doing!

On the Friday, Mara Sarah and I headed to Madrid which was a comfortable Renfe train ride (3 hours or so) where I spent most of the ride talking to a very chatty but nice Aussie guy who was travelling with his mate, literally until their funds ran out! Oh what a life!

We arrived into Madrid, found the Metro wasn’t working, but ended up catching the replacement bus service to right near our Hostel… which was very central, but also, we found out later, located right on the ‘prostitute strip’! We went out for dinner, and then after Sarah went back to the Hostel Mara and I headed into ‘Sol’ the main ‘lifeblood’ of Madrid. We ended up getting roped into a pubcrawl…. ahaha. We were just standing there deciding whether to find a pub, or to head home to sleep, when we were set upon by the organiser and the Aussies already going on it! Anyhow, for the 10 Euros we joined in! The pubs were pretty good and the group was actually an awesome mix of people… in about the second pub I started chatting to someone I thought was part of our group, but turned out to be a local. He was out with some mates (2 Aussies who live in Madrid too), so I ended up ditching the pubcrawl and heading out with them! Anyhow I had brilliant fun at some local pubs… but of a language barrier but dancing at a proper ‘underground-ish’ salsa place was awesome fun! We ended up heading home at about 9am… I woke up about 8pm, and then headed out with the Spanish guys to have dinner and play with the dog at a local park. It was really nice to not have to worry about anything, and to actually be relaxed for once! I also got a tour of Madrid on the back of the motorbike – sweet as. My last night pretty much went… back to Hostel on the bike, packed bags ready for airport at 5am, went down to the pub for last drinks with the locals, then walked back to the Hostel just in time for the cabride with Mara and Sarah!

To say my opinion of Spain has changed (after the crap rain in Barcelona) would have to be true.

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