Arrgh, woke at 10:30am and after much work I finally dragged my bum out of bed at 11am. Me made the noon checkout time just under the wire and then caught a taxi back into Arenas de Cabreles for the standard 1000ptas each. A pension wasn’t hard to find and the room we got was quite nice at 1500ptas each. After a bit of a walk we settled on a random restaurant where I got some bean stew with sausage, bread, red wine (the entire bottle came with the daily menu special :oP), and breaded lamb for around 1200ptas. We walked along the river a ways and admired the countryside until around 3pm. I found a nice post card to taunt my friends back at work with and enjoyed a cervesa as I wrote it. Ian took the opportunity to catch a bit of a siesta and I wandered the town a bit to see what I could see. The whole town is basically one street. The locals were doing farm type stuff as there are cows, horses, and the like here. I began to notice them preparing for a festival of sorts -- as much as a small town in the mountains of Spain really prepares for a festival. The signs I saw were kids driving around on decorated tractors and beer and liquor being stocked down near a covered area near the center of town. It seems we visited on the right day :o) I sat in the center on a wall where the bus stops with some old guys and watched things move at a less than snappy pace. Around 6pm I went up to the room to read a bit of the Simpson’s and noticed a parade at 6:12pm. I alerted Ian who grabbed his camera quickly and snapped a pic. Good thing he didn’t dally as the entire parade consisted of 3 tractors, a marching band of no more than a dozen, and a horse complete with rider.
Around 10pm that night (dusk) we headed down to the area where the party seemed to be waiting to happen and had some beers. We thought that we had misjudged the situation, but things finally got underway at about 11:30pm. We had our first taste of spanish cider -- it’s kinda salty with a real bite to it, but all in all not bad. Ian headed up at midnight and I stayed down trying to dance to the latin music until about 4am. The would play some really bad rock from time to time, but the majority of the music was latin -- welcome to Spain, aye? :o)
Morning came too damned early, booting me out of bed at 7:30am :o( I bought some multi-vitamin fruit juice (orange, lemon, carrot, etc) and a few donuts for us at the corner store as we waited for the 8:30 bus to Arriondas. Basically, Arriondas sucks. There was nobody at the bus or the train when we arrived at 9:30am. The sign for the tourist office said that they opened at 10am, so we waited. There were hundreds of plastic canoes lining the sides of the river, with more being brought in. It turns out that this is the launching point for the famous International Descent of Rio Sella river race. The run takes about 12 hours and is 20km in distance. The town’s 3,000 population swells to a whopping 300,000 on race day. The info-wench arrived at 10:15 and actually spoke english, which would really help. She informed us that the bus station was built 5 years ago and still has nobody working in it -- there isn’t even a chair there! She had to go to the pay phone to check on information for us as they have been promising her a phone for 10 years and it has yet to arrive. Welcome to Arriondas. We had initially planned to stay one night but changed our minds quickly and just wanted to escape asap. She said that the busses were on strike but the trains should get us somewhere where we could get a bus or connecting train to San Sebastian. We were hopeful. We got back to the train station at 10:40 only to find out that the train that would connect us to San Sebastian had left at 10:30. Great. There was actually a guy at the train ticket window, but he said something very quickly in spanish and shut the window, refusing to open it and talk with us more. We were disheartened. We waited, and I got a lousy sandwich and a coke in the meanwhile. A group of spanish girls arrived to hang out at the bus, obviously waiting to go or pick someone up. I approached them asked if any spoke english, and luckily one of them did. She knew a bit about the busses and trains, inquired inside with the barman and found that a bus was coming through at 12:20 headed for San Sebastian. Excellent!! I called Aussie Pension in San Sebastian to secure a bed (my first call in 8 months) and we sat back in confidence that we would actually get out of the town.
We got into San Sebastian at 6:15 and hiked back to our respective domiciles (Ian had reserved a single for his return a few weeks prior -- he’s such a planner). After meeting my new roomies Benn (aussie) and Michelle (californian) I caught a shower and then relaxed a bit with Ignathio. Ian and I met at the bar to catch France¦s victory over Italy in the Euro Cup final -- damn. We got Paella for dinner at 10:15pm where we met Harriet (south carolina) and a guy named Tapan (chicago) who I had met before in San Sebastian. Ian, Harriet, Benn, Michelle, and I hit Zibbibo and then Treboul, as usual. I called it an early night and hit the hay at 3:45am.
I woke at 10:30am, and then again at noon. Relaxed a bit with Ignathio before heading down to the restaurant where I met Ian for some spaghetti bolognaise, chips (french fries), and a ham, tomato, and egg toasted sandwich called a bikini. It generally has cheese instead of the tomato, but I prefer it like this :o) We then went down to the "dirty beach" to kick back. It is slightly dirtier than the other beach, which is utterly pristine, making the dirty beach simply beautiful. It’s also the beach where the surfers hang out, while families and such tend to go to the other beach. After the beach I tried some e-mail but kept having my connection dropped so I gave up and went back for a shower. Benn, Michelle, and I went in search of the "Muscle Bar" that Ignathio has been telling me about (supposed to be cheap beer there, and lots of it). We found it, but it was closed. Fine, we stopped off and got some tapas and sangria from 5-7pm and then went to meet Ian at the guiness pub, where we had more sangria :oP Dunno if I’ve mentioned it before, but sangria is a drink made mainly of red wine and fruit but can also have any number of liquors dumped into it. It’s nice to drink on a lazy afternoon as it doesn’t really make you drunk (ok, there was that once in Barcelona, but that was really strong sangria!). Tapas are basically small portions of different foods set out on top of the bar that cost very little... unless you buy alot of them. Try not to go there when you’re really hungry, go to the cheap restaurant instead :o) It began to pour, I mean really dump buckets. The rain pipes were spraying water out the sides. It was amazing and I stayed out of it as much as possible this time. We waited for a brief lull when it cut back to just really hard rain and dashed for the restaurant for beer, burger, fries, junk like that. We left there at 10pm when they closed and I went back to the pension to relax before going out to the clubs. This was a very typical evening of clubs, finishing up at 4:45am, but we all sat around and chatted until 6am. As the day was very busy I only got in a partial workout -- it’s very hard with such a hectic schedule ;oP
Happy 4th of July!!I woke from 10:30-12:30, it’s a proces... ;o) We headed down to the beach until 4pm and then I went with Ian to meet his aussie friend Dan up in town. I went back to the pension to relax a bit before going down to the restaurant for spaghetti bolognaise, a burger, and fries. Benn had checked out in the morning and a new aussie roomie had moved in named Mel. Soon thereafter Benn returned so Ignathio put another bed in the room and we were now four. Benn, Mel, and I went down and bought some of that spanish cider for them to try and hung out down at the pier for a while. After relaxing a bit more I caught a shower and headed out to the clubs where I met an irish chick named Babs-cabs who is travelling with her cousin. Boy can the irish drink! It’s not that they can hold more liquor than everyone else, they just drink more of it. Wow. Everyone moved on to Treboul, at which point Benn decided to leave and borrowed my key to get in (he didn’t get one as there were none left when he returned in the afternoon). I have no idea what I was thinking when I gave it to him. After pouring Babs-cabs back into her hostel at 6am I was left to wander the streets until I could get someone to let me into the pension. The upside is that I finally watched the sunrise, the downside is that it was not remarkable. I had a burger at this joint that opens at 7am and finally got inside at 8:50am when I collapsed into a deep death-like sleep.
The 4th of July passed relatively unnoticed, with the exception of some loud drunken americans shouting ôhappy fourth of july!!!ö. I never really got into that holiday anyway, so it was no great loss. Again, I utterly skipped exercising. I do, however, resume my regimen on the 5th, stay tuned...
I woke at 10:30am and 12:30, and listend to John Lee Hooker and finally got up at 2pm without further sleep. After a shower and food I headed down to the boardwalk to meet Babs-cabs who didn’t show. On the upside I got to play on the swings again while I waited :o) After giving up I headed down to do some e-mail, bought some water, found and purchased minidiscs, and had my sunglasses adjusted as they had taken a bit of wear during my travels. On the way back I stepped into a couple of bookstores to verify that they didn’t have any of the books I wanted to read, met up with Ian to eat at the restaurant, and then hung out back in my room to record Santana’s new album that Michelle was carrying (thanx!). We then hung out at the bar ‘til 1am drinking sangria. I went back to chat with Ignathio and relax big time, finally getting to sleep at 2:30am -- an early night ;o)
San Fermin! San Fermin! San Fermin! San Fermin!Up at 7:45am, grabbed a quick shower, and made it to the bus by 8:40am with Michelle to meet Ian, Harriet, Jason, and Daniel. The bus ticket to Pamplona cost 800ptas and the ride took only an hour, placing us there at 10:15am. The first order of the day was to buy a bottle of champagne each -- and then begin drinking it. Most of the folks congregated in the square were spraying champagne and wine, and throwing flower, eggs, chocolate powder, you name it, they threw it. I merely stood quietly sipping my champagne -- really I did ;oP Ok, perhaps I joined in a bit... The food fight was incredibly fun, and the square was completely packed. By noon the festival had been officially kicked off and everyone was in a festive spirit and covered in goo. We retired to another square where we got a table and chilled for a bit. The evening ahead of us was quite long as we had nothing to do but party and drink until about 6am when we would go get our place for the running of the bulls. We hooked up with a great group of folks and drank to excess and had generally an amazing time. Our group was: Me, Susan (aussie), Anthony (english), Richard (english), Bernie (aussie), Tony (aussie), Harriet (american), Jason (aussie), Ian (canadian), James (english), Michelle (american), Daniel (aussie), Colin (english), and Amanda (aussie). The brits organized a cricket match in the square that went well until the ball popped a kid in the head ending the game. We were all very sorry, and the kid was more startled than anything as the ball was foam and the bat being used was a large felt hat. The next interesting event was the fireworks at 11:15pm. They must have spent a mint as they were awesome. Then we all wandered about and tried to wedge ourselves into some clubs. You could actually get in, but you couldn’t move at all once you got there. Saw people passed out in places that you wouldn’t want to walk, and other people emptying their bladders and/or stomachs wherever they happened to be. Fine, back to the square where alot of folks were sleeping. One couple found a creative way to stay warm in their sleeping bag, which made the time pass more quickly for the rest of us as well (I got a lovely picture). Ya gotta love a festival ;oP
San Fermin! San Fermin! San Fermin! San Fermin!We went at 6am, drunk, tired, and dragging, to get a spot to watch the running of the bulls. My plan had always been to go over to Pamplona and see what the real scoop was with the running of the bulls, and then, if I felt good about it, go back and run with them. I’m glad I watched and didn’t run. We waited for two hours, until 8am when the bulls ran, to get a good spot and then watched the crowds run by without bulls. Finally the bulls blasted by and into the arena. The whole process lasted under three minutes. I was not impressed. It was good to see once, but I would only go back for the festival :o) Most of the runners didn’t even see a bull. Go figure. It was utterly anti-climactic, but I had a great vantage and should have at least a couple of good pics.
We caught the first bus out after at 9am, back in San Sebastian at 10am and in the pension by 10:30am. Benn, who we saw no sign of in Pamplona, showed back up at the pension and now we have five beds in the room! Mel left from Pamplona, leaving us with myself, Benn (aussie), Anna (aussie), Susan (english-kiwi), and Eric (american). I caught a shower where I scraped most of the crusted goo off my shoes and then went to breakfast with Ignathio for spaghetti bolognaise, eggs, bacon, toast, and fresh squeezed OJ. I have no idea why I didn’t sleep, but when I got back I met an american guy with some music so I recorded Alanis Morissette Unplugged, The Offspring Americana, and Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP. By 3:30pm I’m fading fast. I woke at 9pm, got my workout in, showered, and went down for a burger only to find their grill closed! I got a hotdog on my way to the pub and got the worst pour of guiness I’ve ever had. We went on the typical run to Zibbibo and Tas Tas, then The Iguana (an aussie bar) which was right acrossed the street from a place that served me up a burger (finally). We eventually ended up at Be Bop Bar and I got to bed at 5am for some much needed sleep.
Up at 11am, relaxed for a while, then headed down to the restaurant at noon. Everyone went down to hang out at the beach but I left them after a while to watch a surf competition, skateboard competition, and beach volleyball matches going on that afternoon. I got back to the pension around 7:30pm and relaxed some more before going out to the bars in search of my friends who I found around 9:30, then Babs-cabs turned up at 11pm. The night seemed like it was really going to go places, but it went bad and I escaped back to the pension around 4:30am where Jason, Anne, Benn and I just chatted and relaxed until like 6am.
I got up at noon and went straight to eat with Ian and Harriet (just breakfast and OJ), and then went back to sleep until 4:30pm (nice :o). I chatted with Anne for a bit and we went to do laundry but the place was shut. On the way back I bought some of those new popsicle-BB type things which were kinda good. When we got back our new roomies Stephanie and Tania (kiwis) were in so we all chatted for a while until I went out to meet Ian and Harriet at 8pm. We hooked up with Jason and Dan at the pub for sangria until he left for the train at 10pm. We then moved on Tas Tas at 11pm and finally to Zibbibo at 11:20. Ian and Harriet took off around 1am, leaving me all to my lonesome in the bar scene -- I perservered. At 3am when Zibbibo shut I met Kendra and Elizabeth from Massachusetts who were standing cold in the rain. Turns out that they had signed up with a tour company called Bus-About that basically busses folks about europe (go figure). In this particular instance, because it was high season, the girls were without accommodation and had to buy a bus ticket on a normal bus the next day as they didn’t book a reservation on Bus-About and the bus was full. Dang. I graciously took them with me to Be Bop Bar, that shut at 5am, where we met a Californian named Jim (nice guy). We closed Be Bop Bar at 4:30 and began wandering the streets. We avoided the intermittent showers and managed to keep them entertained until 6am when they were able to get their bags. From there I left them in Jim’s capable hands as he was going to Barcelona on the same bus that they intended to take, and I went to bed.
Up at 2pm. Shave, shower, and at the laundromat by 3pm, but it doesn’t re-open from siesta until 3:30pm. No worries, I’ll wait. Good thing I waited as a massive line developed. I got my stuff done by 6pm as there was a large line in front of my stuff for the dryer and it was a cool rainy day so folks didn’t feel like being at the beach. I at a rotisserie chicken while washing, and then chatted with folks for the next 2 1/2 hours while waiting for my clothes to be dried. Then, finally, I went with NArelle, Ben Benn, and Matt to the pub for beers -- Narelle and Ben are friends of Benn. Later that night, as Zibbibo was closing, I met Nori and Juliana (sisters originally from Slovakia but living for 6 years now in Australia) and Dipak and Dave (kiwis). I played pied piper to Be Bop Bar and we had an enjoyable one. I went back for a very comfortable shower and finally got some sleep at 6:30am.
Woke at the crack of noon and guided my new friends to the restaurant -- they were most impressed :o) I’d decided to go to Ibiza, which meant going back to Barcelona, but I’m ok with that now. Sleeper train to Barcelona runs 6300ptas (that’s like US$34 or something). On my way back from the train station I briefly re-met Leah who I had met in Prague -- that was weird seeing her totally out of context. The day was rainy so the group of us stopped off at a store and bought some sangria at around 6pm and had a mini-party up in some other guys room, which was way fun. About 15 of us hung out and talked until about 10:30pm when we went to Tas Tas for our free shot, then Zibbibo for a free drink and finally Be Bop Bar with me playing tour guide all the way. Finally, as the night oozed into day, I had a way comfortable shower and then slept at 5:15am. *sigh* once again, no workout :o(
Woke at 10:30 to pack and was out by the 11am checkout time. I knew I had been here too long when I got the bill for my bed -- ouch. I ate and did some internet until like 3pm. Everyone from the previous day was climbing the hill to see the statue of christ, so I followed them up for my third trip. It was a nice day, not too hot, but it could have been cooler. I was starvin and finally ate at 6pm and then watched a soccer game on a small concrete field. I think it was like indoor rules or something. They were definately league teams. I went to get my bags and made plans to call Ignathio from Munich after Oktoberfest (around mid to late october) and we’ll head down to Morocco. That should be a blast! We waited for the train by a cool fountain that reminds me of Friends (TV show, must see tv, you know...). We headed to the train station for our 11pm train at 10:30pm -- loads of time. Oooh, snickers :o) I met a cool Norwegian couple on the train and chatted with them for a while (I’m Norwegian! And Swedish, Danish, Welsh, German, etc...). I shared my cabin with a nice Taiwanese family (young couple, small boy and girl). Late at night an old woman came in and took the last bed, but she left before we got to Barcelona so I never met her. I slept well from 12:30-6:30-8:30am.
The conductor dude came around and woke us all at 8:30am in anticipation of our 9am arrival. We got to Kabul hostel at 9:30am and were 90th on the waiting list (doh!). I left my packs with Nori and Juliana and went in search of a pension. I found a fairly reasonable triple at the Pension Villanueva(2600ptas each) and booked it for the minimum two nights -- I was happy that we got beds :o) I met a big group of guys from South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Australia at the beach. Nori got her bag stolen and had to cancel things about midday. We hung out, drank beer, and ate paella from early afternoon until 11pm-ish when it took us an hour to make a 15 minute walk back to my pension where I changed to pants so I could get into the clubs. On our way down to the pier one of the guys got his pocket picked, right after I was telling him to beware of it, but we got his wallet back. We arrived at Pier Voll discos at around midnight and hooked up with the rest of our group part way through the night. It was all good fun and we shut the place at 5am. As I was about to enter my pension in La Plaza Real a guy came up and attempted to pick my pocket but I dissuaded him. Welcome back to Barcelona...
The girls wanted to get up early and tour the city -- I wanted to sleep :o) I snoozed the alarm multiple times for them at 9am-ish, kinda chatted with them at around 12:30, and finally woke at 6pm ;o) My headphones died :o( There was a buzz in one and then finally it just gave out. I was going to get another pair at 7:30pm but was unable to get my credit card from the woman running the pension until 8pm, when the place was shut. It can wait another day. I hit up burger king for a whopper meal and a nasty chicken sandwich. Won’t do that again. I met back up with Nori and Juliana at 9pm and we went out at 10:30pm to the Black Sheep Pub where I met Carlos and Julie (locals). We left the pub at 2:30am and made the transition back to Pier Voll for some dancin’ until 5:30am. A comfortable shower followed by a wayyyy comfortable bed made it very difficult to get up in the morning.
I went at 9:15am (intended 8am) to Kabul to secure a bed as the girls were leaving Barcelona and I had to give up the triple. Kabul just raised the rates to 2800ptas, which is slightly more than the triple making it one of the most expensive places I’ve stayed thus far. I got a bed there, then went back and chatted with the girls until around noon when I went and bought headphones and dropped a roll of film to be developed (my first developing in over 8 months). I went back and slept from 3-6pm and got a spicy chicken sandwich from the Colonel at 9pm (man those folks are slow there!). Back to the common room in Kabul to try to drum up some fun. I met a couple of Aussie chicks named Sher-rill and Anne Marie. Interesting that they’re travelling together as Anne Marie is totally off the scale of party animal and Sher-rill isn’t much into partying at all (from what I’ve seen). I moved over with a big group of folks playing a drinking game. The game itself wasn’t so fun but the company was as there was at least 25 of us.. We got done with that and headed out to the Black Sheep and then finally to the disco at 4am but Paulo wouldn’t let me in. Paulo is the mountainous mass that guards the door of the first club. There are at least five clubs down there so it’s not much of a hardship unless all of the folks you want to be with have gone into Paulo’s domain. His reasoning is that since "my friends" from the other night (a couple from that group at the beach that I met) got thrown out then I’m clearly trouble as well. I wasn’t even with them when they got pitched and I asked them about it and they don’t know what they did that was wrong. Anyway, Paulo isn’t totally unreasonable, I could pay him 2000ptas and he’d let me in, but that kinda irks me so I’m gonna just skip that club. Bastige. I hung out down there in the second club (80’s stuff, better music IMHO) until they shut at 5am. Slept at the early hour of 6am.