Spanish Sunshine

After 4 big days and nights in Pamplona at the San Fermin fiesta it was time to head for the coast for some more sun, beach and recovery time. Hello San Sebastian, a picturesque Spanish holiday town with some very nice beaches. So dumb (Isaac) and myself (dumber) arrived in San Sebastian on a Friday expecting to walk straight into a hostel.... Yeah what were we thinking!! There we were sitting in an internet cafe searching for any type of bed. No hostels, No hotels and probably not even a park bench spare! As we were about to book a bus out of the place to somewhere a bit less touristy some Irish lassies came to our rescue. They had discovered a 9 bed villa and needed 5 more to make up the numbers. Unbelievably lucky! So 4 Irish girls, 3 other legendary lads from Melbourne and dumb + dumber made the trek to discover that this villa was something else! A beautiful old home full of antiques, books and most importantly a balcony area :) We couldn't have asked for anything more and at 35 euro a night it was a steal! One condition.... No fiestas as the owners live next door!



Our first night feast on our balcony!



4 Irish + 5 Melbournites = a happy villa!



Spanish Cider needs to be poured from a height to create some fizz... Isaac was all over it.

Our 2 storey villa! God knows how we scored this place :)

Sleep, beach, sun, bocadillos (Spanish baguettes), more beach, siestas, paella, tapas, san miguel beers and Spanish cider was basically the run down of our stay in San Sebastian. Ooooh and I almost forgot!!! The WORLD CUP!! ESPANA! Funny enough San Sebastian locals are from Basque country and do not associate themselves with Spain....! So technically we weren't in Spain for the final. Anyhow we found ourselves a crowded little pub with Spanish holiday makers and enjoyed the tense final. Definetly not as crazy as the semi final in Pamplona but still a great atmosphere on the streets after the win.

Beach, beach and more beach.

The food in San Sebastian was some of the best food I have had in Europe. We discovered this Paella restaurant that served up a mean feed of the local seafood dish. Good enough for a second visit the following night! Tapas, Tapas, Tapas.... it makes so much sense... Stand at the bar with a drink or two and then have a munch on whatever takes your fancy. At 2 euro a pop it was easy to burn through a bit of money but definetly worth every cent. After all this food and alcohol, we decided that a run to the Jesus monument was what we deserved. Painful yes but the views over San Sebastian were stunning. After 5 nights here in the villa it was time to say goodbye and head inland to a city called Zaragoza which is halfway between Pamplona and Barcelona.



Time to burn off these Tapas and head for the Jesus monument.



San Sebastian surf beach



San Sebastian sheltered beach - awesome views at the end of our run up.



San Sebastian by night.


Why did we go to Zaragoza you may ask? Well.. First to escape all of the Australians in Pamplona and San Sebastian and secondly for a Xavier Rudd and Ben Harper gig. The venue was an outdoor amphitheatre which was perfect as the sun went down with temperature still hovering around 30 degrees. Xavier played an amazing set that the Spanish loved and then Ben came on and played a mega long set. He didn't finish til 1.30am which was a tad over the top but a good night overall.

Without having any expectiations of Zaragoza it gave us quite a suprise. It was such a cool city with some amazing architecture and some interesting new developments down by the river. 2 nights here was enough and it was time for some more Spanish beach.



Zaragoza main square



Dumb and Dumber pose for a photo with Zaragoza city in the background

I promise I didn't photoshop that moon in to this photo....

Crazy shades down by the riverside

I love this thing!! So cool.



Water feature in the main square of Zaragoza.

40 degrees! Waiting for the gig to start.



The amphitheatre with the river just behind the stage



Xavier Rudd

Ben Harper

Our next stop was back on the east coast of Spain in a little town south of Barcelona called Tarragona. The food here was nothing compared to San Sebastian but the beach was pretty damn nice. We spent most of our time here inbetween wandering through old town, siestas and eating! Tough life hey.. This town was a great little end to a busy 2 weeks of Spanish sunshine, siestas and sangria. I arrived back in Edinburgh, clearly looking alot darker than most (well pretty much all) of the locals ready to start living in this beautiful city as Isaac continues his trip across Europe.


The views from the balcony over Tarragona beach



Pizza time... It wasn't as good as it looks!

Sunnies?

The old ruins of a small amphitheatre in Tarragona

Spain rocks!

San Fermin Festival/Running with the bulls

After 1 amazingly comfortable nights sleep in 24 Bellevue Crescent it was time to jump on a plane to Barcelona in preparation for the San Fermin Festival/Running of the bulls. After a delay of an hour and a half we finally boarded around 10.30pm. With minimal sleep compared to the Spanish onbaord who have perfected the art of siestas and falling asleep on planes we arrived in Barcelona at around 1.30am. We found ourselves a great little spot for a few hours of shuteye..... well we thought we did. I swear someone was against us sleeping and was having a blast watching us through the security cameras. The aircon got turned up full bore so we were freezing, the cleaners decided to come right up to us with there little racing cleaner cars, security slammed the door every 10minutes and the concrete floor felt more like a bed of nails. Come 6.00am we gave up and caught a train into the city in order to catch another train to Pamplona.

Good morning...

With no breakfast, no sleep and no common sense we decided that breakfast was more important than booking bus tickets. Boys will be boys. After being told that every bus was completely full to Pamplona we decided to try the trains... The man behind the desk says the following..."Pamplona?? No. Not today! Tomorrow... Yes. But not today!" Arggh! So with no way of getting to Pamplona today unless we forked out 80 euros to catch 2 different trains I called on a mate from Warrnambool who I knew was hiring a car and driving from Barcelona to Pamplona. Penny came to the rescue!! After waiting for around 2 hours for their car to turn up we squished our backpacks in the boot and crammed 5 of us into a little beast of a car. Somehow we took the scenic route to Pamplona.... Normally it is around 4.5 hours drive but we took about 8! It was such a beautiful drive and I never knew how mountainous Spain really was. The girls handled the first bit of driving whilst we caught up on some slee. Isaac thrived on the rally driving through the most twistiest roads you have ever seen and I drove the last stretch to our campsite 40kms out of Pamplona. Thankyou Penny, Sheridan and Mia for the lift or else we would be having another sleepless night in Barcelona.

Isaac and I had joined a TopDeck tour for the San Fermin festival as it appeared to be the easiest way to get accomodation. To be honest... it was pretty average and unorganised. Camping was alot of fun but late buses home and 5.00am starts to get good positions to see the bull runs we were soon over sleeping on air mattresses. The festival itself was unbelievable! The opening ceremony sees 20 000 people crammed into the main square - pretty much a huge mosh pit. After the mayor releases the rocket to start the festival sangria, champagne, wine, coke and whatever liquid you have is squirted into the air creating one big alcohol fight. Crazy. Following this it is fiesta time and the streets are filled with marching bands, flags, drunken Spaniards, dickhead Australians, families, children and plenty of smiles. The traditional dress (white and red) is worn by everyone making it a brilliant spectacle. But after litres of sangria being thrown around the place you can imagine that our whites didn't stay particularly white for long.

12 noon - Let the Fiesta begin!!!!!




Sangria stained and ready to go..



Contiki reunion. Isaac and I ran into about 25 people we knew. I swear half of Australia was in Spain!

Sangria sacks/Sangria squirters! Great investment!

Day 2 sees the first bull run where mainly locals run. We secured a good position in the arena to watch the bulls and humans come through the main gates. Why do people run with the bulls is probably what you are thinking...? Well back in the day the Bulls needed to be transported from their pens to the bull ring in order to be executed. Usually people would run behind them but one day a few daredevils decided to run in front of the bulls. And from there, well stupidity kicked in and everyone now thinks its a great idea to get in the way of a 650kg beast with 2 extremely sharp daggers.

I promise you I am awake.. The view from the bull ring onto the running track.

I have to confess... In a moment of stupidity Isaac and myself decided we would try out the tradition of running with the bulls. After about 4 hours sleep we must thank our bodies for producing enough adrenalin to get us out of the way of these beasts. We survived, no cuts, no grazes, just a terrible noise of cow bells haunting our minds as these things flew past us . Stupid, stupid, stupid. Don't do it. Sorry mum.

The next night we were lucky enough to see Spain smash Germany in the World Cup semi final. A huge big screen in another main area of town that was completely packed. When Spain scored it was as though the fiesta had been injected with 1000 red frogs. Thankgod they didn't lose is all I can say!!


Our position for the game - absolutely packed and so hot!



Such an awesome atmosphere



Espana! Let the celebrations begin!



Street performers stopped their work for the game!


The following night we headed to see another traditional event, the bull fights. We scored some free tickets off a disgusted American couple after 3 of the bulls had been executed. Entering the stadium was more like entering Bay 13 on acid. This place was going completely off! Most had turned their attention to sangria and food fights rather than watching the bull fights. Anyhow after watching 2 bulls get brutally killed and 3 aussie lads get dragged out of the stadium by some angry Spanish we had definetly had enough. We left the arena feeling a bit depressed as I definetly couldn't see how the locals get so excited over the killing of such an awesome creature. Animal cruelty....yes....but to the Spaniards it is also a culturally important tradition.

After every party there is always the damn clean up!

This was such an amazing festival. 9 days straight of nothing but celebrations. I would definetly come back and do it all again... minus the bull run and minus the bull fights.

Thankyou San Fermin!!!!

Beautiful Edinburgh

So after another week of recovery at Aunty Joy and Sandy's in Menmuir it was time to head to Edinburgh in search of a job and a place to live. I booked myself into The Caledonian Hostel where my housemates to be, Geoffrey and Anna (from Contiki) were waiting excitedly for our reunion. The hostel was awesome.... for about a week. Sleeping in a 20 bed dorm is fine, but when you get woken by drunken Irish rugby teams, fire alarms that cause evacuations at 8am and a line up for the 4 hot plates to cook dinner you start to get a wee bit over it. Whinge whinge i know!! Anyway the hostel had wii sports, couches, wifi, a beanbag cinema, a bar and with our discovery of white star cider (3 pound for 1 litre of 7.5 percent) we made it through our time here. Oh I almost forgot.. We did do some sight seeing inbetween all of the time spent sleeping, applying for jobs, handing out resumes, looking for houses and enjoying Scotlands finest Tenants beer and cider.

Mum... This one is for you. Thought you would enjoy the hair after riding up a nasty Scottish hill. Aunty Joy was still on her way up but not far behind! Looks like I have adopted the highland cattle look.

Welcome to Scotland! Bagpipes on arrival. :)

Anna and myself in the Princes Gardens with Edinburgh Castle in the background.

Some very cool artwork through the hostel.

The news of 1 more week in the hostel.. Depressed, tired and dirty.

Edinburgh Castle... I could look at this thing all day! Amazing.




Touristic time

The seagulls over here are something else. MASSIVE! And this guy was a daily visitor to the hostel kitchen window waiting for some scraps... Pity most backpackers are living off scraps too!





The climb to Arthurs Seat

I made it to the top... In my flip flops/thongs/jandals!
Stunning views over Edinburgh!!

Finding a job sounds pretty easy doesn't it....? Well, unfortunately there was about 2,587 other people doing the same thing! Very very frustrating. Anyhow after a couple of weeks I scored some interviews for jobs at the Edinburgh Fringe festival and I got offered a position! Woooh! I have now classified myself as a professional usher as the job is with a company called Underbelly where I believe there stages are set in a big cow??? I probably should know a bit more but I am sure I will find out next week. Minimum wage but it is sure to be a bit of fun and a great way of meeting some local Edinburghnians.

After 2 and a bit weeks for myself and Anna and almost a month for Geoffrey we finally left the Caledonian backpackers and made a very hungover walk to our new abode. 24 Bellevue crescent! A pretty large and bright 3 bedroom flat about 10mins walk from the city. It has been so nice to unpack all of our stuff, sit on a couch and stare blankly at the tv, cook food and not have to wait for hotplates and best of all sleep in a ridiculously comfortable bed! For me.... I had one night in our new home before I headed off to Spain with a mate from home (Isaac). Ridiculously bad timing i know but atleast I won't be heading back to a hostel on my return to Scotland.