Travelling the world, cathy style! lets hope lisa doesn't kill me tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-04:/blog/?domain=lil-cath 2007-01-13T10:48:34Z lil_cath img/travel-blog-feed.png Home sweet home tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-01-13:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=20&entryid=38025 2007-01-13T10:48:34Z 2007-01-13T10:48:34Z Got back to sydney this morning. It's good to be home! key things i learned on this trip 1. Aussies are EVERYWHERE! Every city i go, there's more aussies than any other race of backpackers added together. Not sure if it's just this time of year, of if we are just a crazy travelling nation. But we are literaly, everywhere! 2. No-one likes americans We joke around about crappy americans at home, but i had ... Got back to sydney this morning. It's good to be home!

key things i learned on this trip

1. Aussies are EVERYWHERE! Every city i go, there's more aussies than any other race of backpackers added together. Not sure if it's just this time of year, of if we are just a crazy travelling nation. But we are literaly, everywhere!

2. No-one likes americans We joke around about crappy americans at home, but i had no idea JUSt how much the rest of the world hates them! Canandians all travel with a canadian flag patched onto their backpacks so that they don't get mistaken by americans. And americans travel with a canadian flag on their backpacks and pretend to be canadians! It's crazy!

3. Pack light. (enuff said)

4. Meeting people is the best fun!

Home sweet home remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Beer Beer Beer tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-01-07:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=19&entryid=37553 2007-01-08T04:36:02Z 2007-01-08T04:36:02Z Decided to come to Brussels yesterday. I'd been tossing up the idea for a few days, but wasn't totally sure about it. Even at waterloo station i almost chickened out and went home. But in the end decided i was sick of london and needed a change. The hostel was pretty dead when i got here. And there was one south african girl (Lerato) in my room who wanted to have an early night. So i just headed ... Decided to come to Brussels yesterday. I'd been tossing up the idea for a few days, but wasn't totally sure about it. Even at waterloo station i almost chickened out and went home. But in the end decided i was sick of london and needed a change.

The hostel was pretty dead when i got here. And there was one south african girl (Lerato) in my room who wanted to have an early night. So i just headed out and walked around brussels for a while.

Ended up meeting two aussie guys Dan & Sean, from Melbourne & Adelaide. We were all travelling alone, and decided to head out to the town for some beers. Belgium's known for beer, chocolate and waffles. And since i'd survived drinking beer last night, i figure a bit more won't kill me.

We asked the receptionist at our hostel and he recommended a pub called 'Delirum'. It was pretty awesome! They've only got about 8 or 9 beers on tap, but they stock over 2000. I think they have 2500 on the list, but at any one time not all are available and they say they generally have around 2000. They were pretty good, and went down pretty easily. I had a couple that were around 10% alcoholic. Man.. it hit me really hard later!

So the four of us went to some random irish pub for a spot of dancing after the beer cafe. i was already pretty drunk by this point and honestly don't remember how i got there. Lerato had some hand-drawn map that just looked like alot of right turns. The guys said the pub was very 'un-irish', whatever that means, but i was too drunk to notice. It was dimly lit, and had lots of wooden furniture. that's irish enough for me! Couple of hours later, sean had lost his mobile, and i my black skivvy. Thank god i packed a spare jumper. I'd left all my stuff in the hostel at london and had only taken my little backpack with a few bare essentials to brussels. At the last minute i threw in an extra jumper just in case. I never do just in case! Looks like lisa's rubbing off on me a bit! haha

Lerato had a hot date with some guy she'd been seeing over the internet the next day. So she wasn't actually up for going out. WE didn't get back home till around 5, so i think she was freaking out a little in the morning. I felt a teensy bit guilty about dragging her out, but its not like i put a gun to her head! and she was the one that wanted to go dancing at the irish pub!

The next day Dan, Sean and I ended up walking around the whole of brussels. We saw all of the main sights, and a couple of the minor ones. But the company was what made it great for me. So glad i met you. Thanks for a FANTASTIC DAY BOYS!

Beer Beer Beer remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> HAPPY NEW YEAR!! tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-01-03:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=18&entryid=37353 2007-01-03T11:51:09Z 2007-01-03T11:51:09Z Still in london. Can't believe i've been here for almost 10 days! Haven't posted for a while, have to pay for internet here. I bought an internet voucher and need to use it up, so i figure i'll just update all you guys on my last week or so. We spent christmas day bumming around jananie & Matt's flat, having a relaxing old time. It's sooo good to be in a REAL home! No locks on our stuff, ... Still in london. Can't believe i've been here for almost 10 days!

Haven't posted for a while, have to pay for internet here. I bought an internet voucher and need to use it up, so i figure i'll just update all you guys on my last week or so.

We spent christmas day bumming around jananie & Matt's flat, having a relaxing old time. It's sooo good to be in a REAL home! No locks on our stuff, no fear of bedbugs, no thongs in the shower, no random drunk people coming in in the middle of the night, comfortable beds, and clean bathrooms, and best of all the food! OMG! Thank you matt & Jananie sooo much for your fantastic food! I think i ate at least a kilo of mandarins while i was there! Haven't had real food/fruit for so long, i just went crazy.

We went to Lyuba's for christmas dinner. She has such a cute little apartment. It's soo bridget jones, and even has a turret! It's somewhere in london. I have absolutley no idea WHERE exactly it is. We drove there. Cars are really cheap to buy, and Jananie bought one just a week before we got here! Very convenient, especially since there is absolutley NO public transport available on xmas day. IT was great! We had roast turkey, roast vegetables, peas, chicken, the whole shebang! Christmas pudding, mince pies, trifle, and topped off with great french champagne (courtesy of me). We ate so much, i think i was almost about to burst! It was fantastic to get a REAL meal. me & lisa'd been living off cheap restaurants for so long, we stuffed ourselves silly!

After christmas, we hit the sales, couple of hundred pounds later.... oh man.. my wallet is so gonna be feelin this when i get back!!!

We eventually got kicked out of jananie's cause they've just got too many people staying with them. With Matt's parents & sister there, there just wasn't enough room in a 2 bedroom place for any more!(they also have housemates too)

Been staying at Globetrotters hostel. It's pretty awesome! Thanks benny for recommending it. It's kinda like a uni college dorm, with a huge dining room, tv room, movie room, bar. There's even a 24 hour convenience store and a GYM! (in a hostel!!) And the beds all have curtains, so there's some privacy. I love this place!!!

We met a maltese guy called Noel who was in lisa's room. he's travelling on his own and we were happy for him to tag along. He's been giving us an education on maltese culture. It's a really tiny place. Apparently 29K long, and 9K only wide, or something to that extent. Theres only 3 clubs in malta, and you can drive from one end to the other in less than an hour! Everyone knows everyone else, and you pretty much can't fart without the whole island knowing. Damn that must be really clastrophobic! And i thought sydney was small! Crazy stuff!

We met up with Wing for drinks last friday night. Was trying to get in contact with jacqui too, but stupid woman didn't check her email or her phone!
So me & lisa get ready to go out to meet wing. We don't get to the city til 10pm, which is pretty decent timing for a big night out right? Wing's there with her little posse of UK friends, which we are more than happy to meet and chat with. They seem like a nice bunch of guys! We got to some pub, seems pretty decent place, order a drink, and sit down to get to know each other. at 11 on the dot, the lights come on. WHAT THE!!>?!?!? Even sydney isn't that bad! Me and lisa are incredulous and can't believe that a pub is closing already! And it's in the middle of leciester square in london! Poms must be total wusses!
WE get kicked out at 11:20, and catch the tube home before 12. What a total anti-climax. They close early cause the tube closes at 12 and everyone needs to get home, but still.. it's pretty lame! I only got ONE drink at the bar! (prob a good thing tho, pretty darn expensive drinks here)

The next night i ask around at the hostel and find out that there are night buses that run back to the hostel, and yes, there ARE places that stay open later. So we try again, and hit a pretty decent night club for a few hours, and get home at a respectable time of 4:30am. That's more like it!!!

Since i've been here, the only touristy stuff i've done is gone on the london eye and see the changing of the guards. Pretty lame huh? I did eventually make it to trafalgar square, to catch the night bus home after a night at the pub! hehe.

Lisa left me for tokyo yesterday, so i've been on my own. Which is a good and a bad thing. It kinda forces you to meet new people. So i did. Me & Noel managed to convince a couple of guys to come out with us last night. They all had stuff to do this morning and didn't really want a big night, but i convinced them in the end. One of them (maddie) was Evan flower's little sister! What a small world! CRazy!!! There was also a french guy whos name sounds kinda like 'ehwan', no idea how to spell it. Reminds me of something from lord-of-the-rings. And there was Duston, the drunk american! hehe, gotta love those yanks!

Maddie knew this jazz/blues bar in the city, so we headed off to go there at 10. Didn't get to the joint until 11, but it was still packed and roaring! IT was awesome! Alcohol is pretty pricey here, so i've taken to drinking beer to save money. I had half a 500ml can before we left and another 2 pints at the pub. I NEVER DRINK BEER!!!! And it didn't taste horrendous either! I can't believe i didn't throw up, beer's usually sooo grosss!!

Maddie & the guys were gonna catch the last tube home, but we convinced them to stay out longer. YEs! Maybe i should be a salesman? WE ended up catchng a bus back to a station near our hostel and walking the rest of the way. The pub had been good, but everyone was a bit bummed cause we didn't exactly know where we were going, and it was like 2am in the morning.. We kept asking randoms on the street where we were, and how to get back to our hostel, one of the guys we asked was packing up a truck from a bakery. It was all leftover stock at the end of the day, and maddie asked if we could have some, and the guy let us take as much free pastry as we wanted! SCORE!!! WE all stuffed our pockets with donuts, croissants, sandwiches, apple turnovers, pies, pasties, the works! IT was the best mid-night snack ever! Maddie even took a loaf of bread! So that's lunch, and dinner sorted for the next few days!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Post-Christmas sales! tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-27:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=16&entryid=36374 2007-01-03T19:18:55Z 2006-12-27T23:59:51Z OMG, i've shopped soooo much in the last two days! I think i've bought more stuff than i originally brought with me on this trip! And all in pounds too, i feel so guilty! It's okay, i don't have THAT many clothes back in sydney. Hehe But they have so many nice boots and coats, and clothes! And it's all so affordable! Especially if i was earning pounds. There's just soo much more variety here! Even ... OMG, i've shopped soooo much in the last two days! I think i've bought more stuff than i originally brought with me on this trip! And all in pounds too, i feel so guilty! It's okay, i don't have THAT many clothes back in sydney. Hehe

But they have so many nice boots and coats, and clothes! And it's all so affordable! Especially if i was earning pounds. There's just soo much more variety here! Even if it's the same price as back home, just makes me wanna buy it anyway.

And it's so close to europe. jananie & Mat have travelled around europe so easily and cheapily. Especially if your earning pounds. Everywhere you go the currencly is lower.

But the weather here is pretty darn average. I guess it can't be perfect. It's grey and cold, and i haven't actually seen the sun yet. Plus it gets dark at around 4, which is just wierd.

Post-Christmas sales! remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> MERRY CHRISTMAS tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-25:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=15&entryid=36073 2006-12-25T15:19:21Z 2006-12-25T15:07:45Z Hope everyone's having a great christmas!! It's been christmas day for about 20mins here in london. I'm staying with Jananie & Matt. Huge thanks to your hospitality! arrived a few hours ago, but been crazy busy since. Had a little hiccup with things, and had to change my flight plan out of london. Will be leaving on the 5th instead of boxing day. I'll get to stay for the boxing day sales, yay!!! Lisa's been ... Hope everyone's having a great christmas!!

It's been christmas day for about 20mins here in london. I'm staying with Jananie & Matt. Huge thanks to your hospitality! arrived a few hours ago, but been crazy busy since.

Had a little hiccup with things, and had to change my flight plan out of london. Will be leaving on the 5th instead of boxing day. I'll get to stay for the boxing day sales, yay!!! Lisa's been shopping here for about 2 days already, and she says it's
fantastic. I better get ready for a spending spree.

The little hiccup is that i've lost my passport. (I can just hear you going 'oh no!', but calm down, it's okay. ) Wether its lost of stolen, i don't really know. I had it on me when i checked into my eurostar train journey at Gare De Nord in Paris, and had it stamped as coming to the UK. Then on the train i wanted to look at it and see my 'stamp', and realised it was missing. SHIT! I've been told the ONE thing you need when you travel irrelevant of anything else is your passport. And i managed to lose it. How much of a dumbass do i feel?? Not sure if it was stolen, but either way i don't have it anymore.

So i got to london and called the london police to lodge a report. They told me that since the passport went missing/stolen in paris, it's not their jurisdiction and i have to lodge a report with the french police. I call the french police, and they don't speak english! And i don't speak FRENCH!!! Eventually the guy on the phone managed to give me a number to call, which is kinda difficult since i don't really know the french numbers. Thank god Lisa knew a few more than i did.

The guy who answered also spoke french, and when i asked 'parley vou angles'? He said 'no' and kept talking at me in french which i obviously didn't understand. 5 mins later when i had tried to tell him i'd lost my passport for the 10th time in french, he started talking to me in english, and he spoke perfect english! What a PRICK! And then he tells me i can't lodge a report over the phone and have to go to Paris to do it in person! What the!?!?! I can't GO to paris, I DON'T HAVE A PASSPORT, I CAN'T TRAVEL TO ANOTHER COUNTRY!!!! 'so you just want to report your passport no? Just tell the english police you lost it in london' he says. I'm not gonna lie to the bloody police.

So I gave up on that. And did other stuff like change my flight to the 5th, and cancel my passport with the australian consulate. Then tried again this morning, hoping to get a reasonable police officer. Called the london police first, and told the guy i'd realised it was lost on the train almost at waterloo. Thank god he just took it as being lost/stolen at waterloo station, and let me file a report. Yay! Now i can try to claim it on my travel insurance.

Being christmas day, nothing is open. So i guess i'll just have to wait til the 27th to go to the embassy and get a new passport then.

What a drama. On the bright side i get to hang around here and see london instead. If i get my passport back a few days before i fly i might even have a chance to pop over to amsterdam for a day or two. Alls well that ends well.

MERRY CHRISTMAS remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Damn i lost 200 photos tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-23:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=14&entryid=35873 2006-12-23T21:13:41Z 2006-12-23T21:13:41Z I copied some photos over from my sim card to my usb drive. Unfortunately it got full, and the photos didn't get copied in order and i didn't realise that photos between 752 and 943 didn't get copied over before i deleted them. Damn!!! It's also very annoying typing on a french keyboard. The punctuation, A, Q, W, M and Z keys are in different spots but otherwise its the same. Currently in Fours. It's a ... I copied some photos over from my sim card to my usb drive. Unfortunately it got full, and the photos didn't get copied in order and i didn't realise that photos between 752 and 943 didn't get copied over before i deleted them. Damn!!!

It's also very annoying typing on a french keyboard. The punctuation, A, Q, W, M and Z keys are in different spots but otherwise its the same.

Currently in Fours. It's a little town near nevers in burgandy, france. I'm staying with Nico, Leia's boyfriend. Huge thanks to Nico & his family for letting me stay. It's so beautiful here, picturesqe. I woke up this morning and everything was covered in frost, and the landscape was fantastic. There are little cute cottages everywhere all covered in white. And its not even snowing!! Looks like something out of a painting. We walked past the town church today, you can hear it ring every hour on the hour from Nico's house. Its such a cute little town.

They've also been feeding me all this fantastic food!!! There is a type of cured ham that is similar to proscuito, Wonderful cheeses from all over france, fantastic bread!! Roast beef from the local special cows, and tonight we had crepes for dinner! yuuummmmmmmmmmm!!! I swear any weight i lost in spain has come right back plus more.

Leia arrived this morning. She got to heathrow last night but due to the fog there are no short haul flights. She was stuck there for 7 hours and was finally able to catch a bus to paris that took 8 hours. Damn!!! By the time she got to paris she'd missed the last train out to nevers and had to stay overnight and get one first thing in the morning. She Finally got here after 3 days of travelling. Poor thing, she's exhausted.

We went to Nico's Uncles farm today. They have cows, horses, and a duck! We got to see a calf that was only half an hour old. It was pretty darn hairy and big! Can't imagine giving birth to something like that!!!

Leia & myself were constantly amazed at the frost and frozen puddles. Nico & his sister (fanny) must've thought we were crazy, or stupid or both! hehe

They have three beautiful dogs, velour(velvet), bluebird, and titun. They are soooo cute! I could watch them and play with them all day!

Congrats to everyone who passed their part III exams!!! I finally got a chance to see the pass list, and looks like alot of people passed this semester, well alot of the people i know passed.

YAY i passed!!! happy dance!!!

Damn i lost 200 photos remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> woodstock bites dogs balls tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-21:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=13&entryid=35701 2006-12-21T18:57:04Z 2006-12-21T18:57:04Z okay, so i checked myself into this cheap hostel for one night to save money. it sucks. lots and lots of reasons why it sucks, but right now the main reason it sucks is because the internet will not allow me to open adobe pdf and check the exam results. Crystal, Bow, and Kiat all say i've passed. but i just want to see the results for myself!!!! Damn it! I can't quite grasp the idea that i ... okay, so i checked myself into this cheap hostel for one night to save money. it sucks. lots and lots of reasons why it sucks, but right now the main reason it sucks is because the internet will not allow me to open adobe pdf and check the exam results. Crystal, Bow, and Kiat all say i've passed. but i just want to see the results for myself!!!! Damn it! I can't quite grasp the idea that i don't have to study GI ever again.

Lisa's in london somewhere. Her flight got cancelled cause of fog in heathrow. But i think she gets to catch the train instead. She'll be Celebrating tonight probably. She passed too. yay!

I forgot to mention, lisa had her luggage lost at barcelona airport for 3 days. It sucked alot.

went to the catacombes today. Very freaky. First time i've seen any dead people. And there was heaps!!! In case any of you didn't know, it's a place underneath paris where they put all of their dead people a couple of hundred years ago. They had the plague and the dead were just being chucked in a big pit. It started to get full cause so many people were dying, and they were worried about the spread of diseases and stuff so they dug these catacombes instead and took 2 years to transport all the dead down there. Must've been a shit job! Lugging dead decaying people across paris in the dead of the night and shoving them into an underground storage place. They even arranged the bones into cool patterns and stuff. I went on my own, which was a pretty stupid idea, and got freaked out walking down the tunnel. Luckily i found a nice kiwi couple who were happy to hang out with me. Being in an underground cememtery alone is pretty scary. Especially when the lighting is pretty dim and it's just you and tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of skeletons. I"ll try to upload a photo when i can. Most of these places don't give you access to the actual computer hardware thingie.

Congrats to anyone else who passed. All i know of so far are Bow, Sarah, Mo, Laybutt, Nina... Not sure who else.

woodstock bites dogs balls remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> stupidly expensive internet tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-20:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=12&entryid=35545 2006-12-20T18:39:01Z 2006-12-20T18:39:01Z $1.50 euro for 10mins? what the ?!?!?! typing quickly paris is cool. lourve is massive. bought nice boots. food is good, been going by lisa's paris food book. Streets are fun, could possibly live up to most beautiful city in the world, the notre dame is okay, prefer the sac-recur. not sure how to spell that. shops are good, french people are okay, not too snobby. feel like an absolute dag, everyone is so well dressed. Wish i ... $1.50 euro for 10mins? what the ?!?!?!

typing quickly

paris is cool. lourve is massive. bought nice boots. food is good, been going by lisa's paris food book. Streets are fun, could possibly live up to most beautiful city in the world, the notre dame is okay, prefer the sac-recur. not sure how to spell that.
shops are good, french people are okay, not too snobby.

feel like an absolute dag, everyone is so well dressed. Wish i had nice coat and better clothes.

Going to the eiffel tower tonight. They like cats in this city. Beautiful views of stuff at night. Not as dirty as i've been told, and seen lots of chocolate shops, fromagaries, and bakeries. Could just eat all day here, if it wasn't so fucking expensive. Scuse my french. why do people say that??

Bye

stupidly expensive internet remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> lost in paris tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-20:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=11&entryid=35399 2006-12-20T18:28:50Z 2006-12-20T18:28:28Z quick post. Internet is expensive here. I'm lost. My phone died, and i seem to have misplaced my australia-europe adaptor. wE BOOKED A room at MIJE, but changed it yesterday cuase it was too expensive. Can't find lisa, phone died.. apparently her friends aren't at the mije hotel where she said they would be. i'm wondering around paris with my backpack.. damn it's heavy! Don't have lisa's mobile number and my sim card won't work on ... quick post. Internet is expensive here.
I'm lost.
My phone died, and i seem to have misplaced my australia-europe adaptor. wE BOOKED A room at MIJE, but changed it yesterday cuase it was too expensive. Can't find lisa, phone died.. apparently her friends aren't at the mije hotel where she said they would be.
i'm wondering around paris with my backpack.. damn it's heavy! Don't have lisa's mobile number and my sim card won't work on a paris mobile (tried it with a nice person on the street)

HOpe lisa's not freaking out too much.

lost in paris remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Barcelona tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-17:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=10&entryid=35120 2006-12-20T18:29:03Z 2006-12-17T11:48:33Z I´m pretty sure you guys are sick of my long tedious posts. So here´s a short one. Barcelona rocks!!! Found some food markets which have loads of fresh fruit, meat, and seafood. La Rumbla has lots and lots of different buskers. Every 10m therés a different one. The clubs are open very late, we finally got kicked out of one at 5am. Although the guy to girl ratio is very very high, and it makes us girls ... I´m pretty sure you guys are sick of my long tedious posts. So here´s a short one.

Barcelona rocks!!!
Found some food markets which have loads of fresh fruit, meat, and seafood.
La Rumbla has lots and lots of different buskers. Every 10m therés a different one.
The clubs are open very late, we finally got kicked out of one at 5am. Although the guy to girl ratio is very very high, and it makes us girls a bit scared. That and the fact that spanish guys don´t seem to understand ´no´. They just come up to you and maul you! It´s scary, a polite ´no´ won´t work, neither will running away, pushing them... nothing! They just don´t get it!!!! GET OFF ME!!!!!!!

we also met two actuaries. What are the chances?!?!?!?!

Barcelona remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Sevilla tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-16:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=9&entryid=35007 2006-12-20T18:29:14Z 2006-12-16T14:19:54Z Seville was alright. I preferred granada better. Probably because we weren´t very long in either city we weren´t able to really enjoy it to its full potential. The hostel we stayed at was practically empty, and we got to know the other backpackers pretty well. There was Barney & Charlotte from Melbourne, Geoff from the UK and Madeline from South Africa. Madeline was in a room with us, and she´s been travelling for a few ... Seville was alright. I preferred granada better. Probably because we weren´t very long in either city we weren´t able to really enjoy it to its full potential. The hostel we stayed at was practically empty, and we got to know the other backpackers pretty well. There was Barney & Charlotte from Melbourne, Geoff from the UK and Madeline from South Africa. Madeline was in a room with us, and she´s been travelling for a few months on her own now. Looks like travelling through europe on your own isn´t such a big deal after all. Makes me think i can do it. Makes me want to do it. One of these days i think i will.

We also found out that granada is the only place left that does free tapas. We did go to a tapas bar in granada, but we left around 12 cause we were pretty tired from the night before. If i´d have know it was the only time we were going to get free tapas i would´ve stayed up later! Doh!

There was a cathedral and alcazar in Seville, the cathedral is meant to be the third biggest in europe, and it probably was. But cause we´d seen the one in granada already it didn´t seem all that impressive. It was very similar, absolutley huge, big columns holding it up, lots of intricate sculptures and carvings on the walls and ceilings. But it was made of some darker stone, and i just wasn´t as blown over by it as i was by the one in granada. There was an alcazar too, which is meant to be another muslim palace. Apparently it has the entire koran carved into the walls. But we ran out of time and didn´t get a chance to check it out. From the postcard photos it looked alot like the alhambra, but minus the magnificient view of the city of granada. So i wasn´t too fussed on not seeing it.

Seville is meant to be the bullfighting and flamenco capital of spain. Since it wasn´t bull fighting season we wanted to at least catch some flamenco. Geoff from our hostel pointed us to a flamenco bar close by. It didn´t open until 12am, but it was pretty good once it did get going. It was free, which is what we were looking for (cheap), but not so fancy as the more expensive ones. It was just a cute cosy pub with a few middle aged guys playing instruments and singing. I think they did about 3 or 4 dances. Not many, but it didn´t feel really touristy. More relaxed and groovy. There were a few backpackers there, not many though.

Every hostel we´ve stayed at has aussies. It´s crazy! Everywhere we go it´s full of aussies, canadians, and american students who have finished their semester abroad and are travelling a bit. There are a few guys from other countries, but not many.

Sevilla remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Alhambra & Cathedral in Granada tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-14:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=8&entryid=34581 2006-12-14T23:04:19Z 2006-12-14T21:54:14Z Went to the Alhambra this morning. Kinda woke up late, and didn't get going until 11 which was probably later than we wanted. Lisa let off a sigh of relief once we finally got on the bus, but a second later i realised i'd left my camera back at the hostel (not locked away). I had to run back to the hostel and hope to god that no-one had stolen it. Thankfully the receptionist at the hostel ... Went to the Alhambra this morning. Kinda woke up late, and didn't get going until 11 which was probably later than we wanted. Lisa let off a sigh of relief once we finally got on the bus, but a second later i realised i'd left my camera back at the hostel (not locked away). I had to run back to the hostel and hope to god that no-one had stolen it. Thankfully the receptionist at the hostel had it. Wow! that NEVER happens to me. Every time i´ve ever misplaced something it gets stolen within 5 minutes never to be seen again. My luck must´ve turned! *touch wood*

There´s this palace in the Alhambra. And for some stupid reason it´s only open half an hour at a time, and you have to buy tickets to go into each half hour session. We got tickets to the 11:30 session, and it was 11:25, with the actual palace apparently being a 10min walk from the ticket booth. So in typical cathy style, we were running late, and had to make like maniacs to make it there by 11:30. We sprinted off towards the palace, and didn´t even have time to get an audio guide. I swear i´ve never run that much in so many clothes before!!! I had on my thermals, my big down jacket, and almost every other piece of clothing i owned.

The alhambra is a fortress-place-thing. I´m still not completley sure exactly WHAT it is, but it includes a palace, a summer palace, as well as a fortress. It´s very beautiful. The palace dates back to the 13th century (forgive me if i´ve got any of this wrong, i´m just going by what i remember. we didn´t get the audio guide so we just walked around the place oohing and aahing without any real idea what it was we were looking at).

The palace is heaps beautiful, in total contrast to the royal palace in madrid, there´s no marble, no fancy carpets or paintings. Just plain and carved walls. Really intricate carvings that you would expect on some small ornament, not a whole bloody wall! Lots of arches, old doorways, water fountains. It looked like it was from a much older era, where things had more of a simple beauty. The Generalife (a place where the sultans would go with their harem) was my favourite. Just really nice gardens and fountains. Very calming. I almost wanted to just sit there for hours and soak it all in. The Alhambra is also a fortress, so it sits at the top of this mountain looking down-across at the city of granada. The view of granada is breathtaking!! Rows and rows of little white houses along the side of the mountain. I swear i took like fifty bizillion shots of the city!
I have to say it´s my favourite place so far. A pitty we only stayed there for one day though. I think i will have to go back one of these days.

After all the rushing around to get there, they didn´t end up kicking us out of the palace at 12 like we thought they would. Must be that they only let people in between those hours, but once your in you can hang around as long as you like.

There was also lots of cats at the palace. Not sure if they were there for a reason, but they were really cute, and i couldn´t help taking lots of photos of them either! Especially the little kittens.

We went to the local cathedral after the Alhambra. IT´s MASSIVE!!! So huge it´s kind of insane. think the caves of Moira from Lord of the rings. A huge room/cavern with massive pillars olding up the roof. It honestly hurt my neck to look all the way to the top of any of the 2m wide pillars. The alter is also huge and decorated all around with gold edges, paintings and other fancy things. The organs are about 5m off the ground, and the doors to the outside of the chapel are almost 10m high! Even the books containing the organ music were a metre tall! I felt like alice in wonderland having fallen into some wierd ´giant´ world. Being in a place like it gets u thinking about god. He sure has it good! Convincing mere mortals to build you such huge and extravagant houses. I sure wouldn´t mind if someone built ME a house like that! I just totally couldn´t get over the size of it. Crazy stuff!!

I´m constantly amazed at how different lisa and I are. Especially when it comes to organising stuff and packing. She likes to book in advance, and know where we are going, what we are doing. I like to just wing it. For example, i booked the granada hostel online. But forgot to write down the address or the phone number. Luckily lisa went and looked them up later, otherwise we wouldn´ve been in a bit of strife. So having learned my lesson, when i booked the hostel in seville i wrote down the phone number, the address, and even the directions! I was so proud! Except that i forgot one tiny detail which is the name of the actual hostel. Lisa just kinda gave me that expaserated look and shook her head. Luckily we met two aussies at the train staion who were staying at the same place and knew the name of it. But honestly, if you have directions and a phone number is the name really that important? hehe, okay, i admit it. i´m just hopeless!

Alhambra & Cathedral in Granada remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> el tren es demorado tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-13:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=7&entryid=34533 2006-12-13T19:13:43Z 2006-12-13T09:34:47Z Another fiasco with the spanish rail system. Yesterday me & Lisa decided to go see some actual historical sights in madrid. Mainly the Prado and Thyssen museums. The prado was ´nice´. Lots of old paintings, never seen so many depictions of christ, the nativity, the virgin mary, the crucifiction, or the lamentation in one day before!!! ChRIST! After a while i kinda got sick of seeing just the same scenes over and over again. ... Another fiasco with the spanish rail system.
Yesterday me & Lisa decided to go see some actual historical sights in madrid. Mainly the Prado and Thyssen museums.

The prado was ´nice´. Lots of old paintings, never seen so many depictions of christ, the nativity, the virgin mary, the crucifiction, or the lamentation in one day before!!! ChRIST! After a while i kinda got sick of seeing just the same scenes over and over again. There was this one painting by some dude (i suck at remembering actualy names of stuff), but it was a three piece painting depicting the garden of eden, earthly pleasures, and hell. It had lots of fantastical animals, and scenes, kinda like an ancient where´s wally where you look for the man eating tree on two legs, or the two people making out in a bubble, that kinda thing. Unfortunately there were no cameras allowed, so i can´t really explain what it looked like.

The thyssen was laid out chronologically, but we didn´t realise, and kinda went backwards. Oh well. Otherwise it was heaps smaller than the prado, and there were a few too many landscapes for my liking.

We had planned to catch the 5pm train from Madrid to granada, and get there at 11:50pm. Got to the station around 4:20 so we wouldn´t be late. AS i said before, there´s there´s three train systems. The middle one is called the ´cercanias´. Turns out this train was a cercanias train, not a Renfe train as i had originally thought. So we spent about 20 mins figuring out exactly where we should be boarding the train. Unfortunately, when we tried to show people our tickets they just kept pointing us in the direction of the information office (where no-one spoke english), and the guys at information just kept just made hand guestures for us to stay there and saying ´no mobil´. With 5 mins to our train we were getting kinda worried we´d miss it. Some random chinese girl came up to us and started talking in chinese. Her train to some other city was delayed since 4pm, and she was hoping we would help her out. We have no idea!!! do we look like we know what we´re doing??? Stupid woman! We don´t even speak spanish!

Eventually a kindly old man who spoke english informed us that a truck had fallen on the railway tracks. Okay... so that means???? The train is delayed? cancelled? People kept telling us ´el tren es demorado´, which wasn´t in my spanish phrase book and we eventually found out it means ´the train is delayed´.

So we were just waiting around the station with no idea what was going on. We found two other english speaking backpackers who looked just as lost as we were who were also going to granada. We all sat around looking lost together. Strenght in numbers and what not. Alex (from melbourne) who can speak french, and Leslie from Canada. Eventually the nice old man told us that we could catch a train to chamartin (another station), catch a bus from chamartin to the station after where the accident happened, and then catch the train the rest of the way. yay, we could actually get there tonight!!!!

When we got to chamartin we found lots of spanish people looking just as lost as we were. I found the whole thing kinda funny, but i think lisa was freaking out just a little. Her 35Kg´s of luggage meant that it was kinda hard to move around from one station to another. So i just started going up to people and saying ´granada?´. If i got a ´si´, i would follow them. Sounds stupid i know, but it kinda worked! There was a cranky businessman who helped us out and spoke a little english. We also found two more canandian backpackers from quebec who were also heading to granada. We all just sat around waiting for the bus together. Lisa wasn´t being very social, which i figure is her way of coping with being stressed out. But the other guys were pretty fun.

In the end the bus eventually came, and we left madrid around 7ish. On the way to granda the quebec girls taught me how to say ´du e la station du tren´, (where is the train station) in french. Sweet, now i know how to get around in paris!

Eventually got to granada at 3am. Whoa! what a long day!

el tren es demorado remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Lisa´s here! tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-12:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=6&entryid=34343 2006-12-12T08:08:50Z 2006-12-12T08:08:50Z Started the day at the Palace. I figured, i should probably see SOMETHING in madrid before i leave. I kinda feel a bit bad cause pretty much all i´ve been doing is just going out partying at night, and bumming around during the day. Haven´t seen any museums, or historical monuments or anything. I was kinda waiting to do it with Lisa, but i´m getting sick of madrid already and don´t know if i really want to ... Started the day at the Palace. I figured, i should probably see SOMETHING in madrid before i leave. I kinda feel a bit bad cause pretty much all i´ve been doing is just going out partying at night, and bumming around during the day. Haven´t seen any museums, or historical monuments or anything. I was kinda waiting to do it with Lisa, but i´m getting sick of madrid already and don´t know if i really want to hang around for 3 more days here.

The palace was pretty cool. Big, Old, but still very well maintained. Vastly different from all the palaces i´d seen in china which were also old, but in a tacky sort of way. Each room had a completley different theme, and there so much effort had gone into the decoration of each, it was amazing! There were frescos on almost every ceiling, some even had porcelain shapes in 3D that matched the wall paper. Lots of ornamental furniture, portraits and statues of kings/queens, tapestries that covered an entire wall, marble floors, that kinda thing. I took lots of photos, but there´s no flash allowed, and it was kinda dark inside, so well see how they turn out.

AFter the palace, i got a messages from lisa saying she was at the airport getting her luggage and would be there soon. So i went home to meet her. I figured she´d be there by the time i managed to get there, we´d have lunch, get her settled in at the hostel, and maybe see some sights in the arvo. Unfortunatley it took her 1.5 hours to get her luggage, and she didn´t arrive until 3pm. I was so glad to see her when she go there, both herself and her 25Kg´s of luggage (Already)! Why the hell she needs so much stuff is way beyond me! But apparently she bought alot of stuff in the US. From what i could gather she spent a few whole days just shopping in NY. Now i have shopping envy. All i´ve managed to buy are a pair of shoes for going out in. She´s also got me a little paranoid that i don´t have enough stuff. Once i take my down jacket out of my back pack it´s practically half empty, and i have to use all the clothes i have to cushion that bottle of wine i´ve got at the bottom of the bag. I guess i could always buy more stuff, now i´ve got Lisa the shopping guru with me, it can´t be THAT hard!

Maybe we´ll try to see the Prado today. We´re going to granada this arvo. Apparently there´s an alhambra there. Lisa says it´s really worth seeing. Damned if i know what it is though.

Lisa´s here! remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Bumming around Madrid, and more Aussies tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-11:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=5&entryid=34212 2006-12-11T12:35:09Z 2006-12-11T09:29:11Z The spanish are pretty relaxed. Morgan told us that they don´t do much work. Their working day starts around 9-10ish, and then they have morning tea at 11, which goes for about an hour, lunch at 2, which goes for about 2 hours, and they finish work at 6. Pretty sweet working day! There´s also only 4 high-rise buildings in the whole of madrid. One of which is Deutche Bank. Looks like the Germans are running ... The spanish are pretty relaxed. Morgan told us that they don´t do much work. Their working day starts around 9-10ish, and then they have morning tea at 11, which goes for about an hour, lunch at 2, which goes for about 2 hours, and they finish work at 6. Pretty sweet working day! There´s also only 4 high-rise buildings in the whole of madrid. One of which is Deutche Bank. Looks like the Germans are running the country! It´s pretty wierd in the morning though. I went for a walk the other day at around 9am and there wasn´t a soul on the streets. I had to check my watch cause it felt like 5am in the morning rather than 9.

So the original plan for yesterday was to go to Toledo, another quaint little town just outside madrid, for the day and look around, take some photos, the usual touristy stuff. After the fiasco of getting to Avila yesterday, i figured it would be okay if i didn´t get going until a bit later, and maybe the relaxed spanish culture is getting through to me. So i went to the sunday morning flea markets to start the day. Truth be told, they were a bit of a let down. Think Paddy´s markets strewn across lots of little spanish streets, just with fewer chinese people. Yeah. The only decent stuff seemed to be jewellery, but even then there wasn´t anything that i hadn´t seen back at home before.

When i eventually got to the statin, there were no available seats on trains coming back to madrid from Toledo. Bummer! Okay, on the bright side, it´s only lunch time. I figured this would be a good chance to go see the rest of madrid instead. Maybe a museum or two? Went to the Palais Real ( i think thats how its spelt) only to find that the line went half way around the block, and it was closing in little over an hour. NO way i´m gonna line up and pay an entry fee just to see 5 mins of the inside. So that plan got shot down too. Instead i ended up walking around city´s shopping district, thought maybe i might find some good bargains. No such luck either. Probably cause i was so tired and not really concentrating on shopping. So in the end i just went back to my hostel (at 3pm) for a siesta.

Forgot to mention that i checked into Cat´s hostel on Saturday night. It´s where i originally wanted to stay, but they didn´t have any spare beds cause of the stupid public holiday. IT´s also about half the price of where i was before, AND includes breakfast! Met some nice people at the hostel once i woke up. They were just sittin´ around in the hostel and i thought i´d join them; Rainy, from Latvia who has been travelling for the last 4 years funding his trip by busking as a human stautue. Hank & Felix, two Dutch guys studying journalism and trying to learn Swedish. Jonathan, from Sweden trying to teach the dutchmen how to speak swedish. Reni, a thai Swedish girl (we asians really get everywere!). Danny, from Hondurus who dances like a crazy gay man, and Jane from Perth who´s been travelling on her own for a year now. We sat around, drinking vermouth, eating peanuts and sharing travel stories. Not that i had any. The dutch guys told me all about their country and kept trying to teach me dutch and convincing me to go there. Hey, i´d love to go, if i had the money or the time! Apparently it´s the birthplace of licorice.

I´d arranged to meet the girls for drinks at around 11, and i bought these guys with me. We ended up being a group of around 10 once again. It´s cool how easy it is to make friends when everyone´s so far away from home. Although i kinda feel like the grandma of the group with everyone still being in uni. Man.. i really wish i´d have been bothered to actually save while i was at uni and do this a few years ago. I feel so old and cynical compared to everyone else.

At the pub we met two Canadians (Geoff and... damn, i forgot the other one´s name, but he was cute) Both from Vancouver. They danced with us for a bit, but were on a pub crawl and had to leave to go to the next pub.

The pub scene is pretty cool! Last time i went out with Liz & Co we stayed out til 4am, and the clubs were still kickin´when we left. Apparently theres this area of madrid that totally goes off on saturday nights until around 6am. But i was so tired on saturday (after avila) that i just went to bed and slept. Another cool thing about the clubs is that although drinks are really expensive, if you´ve got a big enough group walking past the pub, they have people who try to get you go go in by offering you free drinks. If you walk in with one of these guys, everyone gets a free shot and they waive the cover charge. It makes it alot cheaper to just go to lots of different pubs instead of staying at the same one all the time.
So we went to another pub, and the canadians were there again. This pub crawl seemed like a good idea, so we decided to join up. Lucky for us the guys running it were pretty cool and we didnt´have to pay. Gary, the Irish man, and a spanish dude who was kind enough to keep offering me his jacket each time we went to a new pub, cause i didn´t bring mine and it was bloody freezing! I have to say though, that of all the accents i´ve heard so far, the irish one is probably my favourite.

THere were a few more aussies on the pub crawl. James and Evan from Adelaide, and Lyle from the Gong. There weren´t any americans in the group, and as a result there was quite a bit of american bashing. Mostly from the canadian guys, should i be suprised?

All in all, was a great group, and we ended up staying out till 4am. Went back to the spanish dancing club, and i felt less uncoordinated this time cause i was dancing with Lyle, your typical Aussie bloke who´s got absolutley no idea about salsa! I think we were more barn dancing than salsa dancing, but it was fun.

Lisa arrives today, Can´t wait to see a familiar face. Although this travelling alone thing isn´t as bad as i thought it was. I think i´ve about had enough of madrid though, ready to try somewhere new. Everyone i´ve spoken to says barcelona is pretty awesome. I´m looking forward to it!

Bumming around Madrid, and more Aussies remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Immaculate Conception in Madrid and Avila tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-10:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=4&entryid=34097 2006-12-10T18:46:13Z 2006-12-10T18:36:43Z So the public holiday on Friday was the day of the 'Immaculate Conception'. The Wednesday was constitution day. They have this cool thing in spain called a ´Bridge´, where if a public holiday falls a day short of a weekend, then the day in between is ... So the public holiday on Friday was the day of the 'Immaculate Conception'. The Wednesday was constitution day. They have this cool thing in spain called a ´Bridge´, where if a public holiday falls a day short of a weekend, then the day in between is also classified as a public holiday, so this means the country´s been on holiday since wednesday. Nice!

The four Aussie girls from my hostel turned out to be physio students from Syd Uni, Mel, Liz, Holly & Jacqui. We went out in search of a salsa club at around 11pm. You wouldn´t think it, but it was suprisingly difficult. As far as i can tell, there´s only one in the ´clubbing´ area near where our hostel was. But once we found it, it was pretty cool! There was an instructor dude, but it took us a while to figure out who he was, it wasn´t like a ´class´or anything. He just went around giving people hints, and demonstrating what to do and what not to do. It just kinda looked like a normal dance club, but with everyone doing the same dance. After a few dances, i begun to realise just how crap at Salsa i really am. Sure, it looks cool, (and Mel was pretty fantastic at it) But my partners may as well have been dancing with a broomstick. I just had absolutley No idea what i was doing! And spanish drinks are crazy! I asked for a ´rum and coke´, and i got literally half a glass of run, and a puny little 300ml coke. It was so strong, it took me near half an hour to drink it. And it cost 7euros too! Luckily the next place we went to gave us free drinks just for going in.

Yesterday, the girls had planned to go to Avila, and since i didn´t have any real plans, i went with them. It sounded like a fun day trip. At this pòint i had no idea where Avila was, and what there was to do there, but i figured it was better than hanging out in Madrid all day on my own. The guy at our hostel had said to catch a train there from Atocha Train station, so we hopped on the Metro towards Atocha. On the Metro we heard two guys speaking english, and started chatting to them. They were American college students (Steve & Andrew) and had been living in Madrid for the last 3 months on a ´Semester abroad´program. And they were going to Avila too! We figured they knew more about travelling in Madrid then we did, so we decided to just follow them.

At Atocha, we lined up to get tickets for the train to Avila. Half an hour later when we got to the ticket window, we found out we´d been lining up for the wrong train line. There´s three train systems in Madrid. The Metro, which is the underground subway system in the City, the Renfe, which is the National railway system which connects main cities and this third system (of which name i do not rememer) this system has fewer stops and is mainly for transporting commuters to the city centre. All in all, it kicks cityrail´s arse! We needed the Renfe, but had been lining up at the other train ticket booth. So then we went to the Renfe part of the station. And it was pretty cool! There was this huge indoor garden/green house thing filled with huge ferns and all sorts of other plans. We lined up at the Renfe ticket booth and the line was stupidly long, but it let us chat and get to know each other. Steve & Andrew´s three other friends arrived, Dana, Morgan and Mary-Catherine. All 5 of them are in the ´semester abroad´' program at NYU, although most of them are actually from different parts of the states. IF i remember correctly, Dana is from washington state, Morgan is from Virginia, and Steve is from New Jersey. The Americans learned that Australia has Summer now, one of them asked if we had xmas in july? No, we have xmas at xmas time, its just summer! *Rolls eyes at stupid american comment*

Half an hour later, we get 10 return tickets to Avila. I kinda felt like we were this huge tourist group! We had an hour to kill before our train arrived, so we sat in the garden to wait for our train. What i had previously thought was just grass turned out to be a pond filled with water lilies. And little turtles!! They were so cute, trying to climb up onto the rocks to sunbake. Me & Holly sat there 'oooh'ing and 'aaah'ing at them for a good 40mins. Then someone actually read their ticket and realised we were at the wrong station. The train for Avila left from Chamartin, not Atocha, and we weren´t going to get there in time (Chamartin´s on the other side of the city). The next train wasn´t until 1:30. Doh!! Someone decided it would be better to catch a bus instead which left at 1pm, and we all went to return our tickets. Only half of us got them returned, so half of us went to CHamartin to catch the next train, and the other half went somewhere else to catch a bus (i was one of the bus people). We got to the bus stop, and realised Morgan had read the bus time table wrong and there wasn´t a bus until 2... So then, we went to Chamartin to catch the train with the others instead. So after much to-ing and fro-ing, and running around almost all of madrid, we finally got on the train to Avila at 1:30. I figure if we hadn´t listened to the americans we´d be there by now! But it was fun meeting new people, and it wasn´t like i´d had other plans.

The train ride was very ´nice´. A word that the Americans seemed to use to describe everything! Especially steve, he seemed to say it almost every second sentence. There was pretty scenery, and even a castle on the way! Everything looked so green to me & Liz, although steve and Morgan said that this part of Spain was actually quite dry.
We taught them a few aussie phrases like ´Whinger´, ´Wanker´, ´Rock up´ and ´Maccas´, in turn they taught us that the word ´nice´can be used for absolutley everything!

Avila was really pretty. There´s this old city surrounded by a city wall that´s supposed to be one of the best preserved in the world. Consulting my Lonley Planet, it says that its been around since the 11th, 12th century. There was also a cathedral built into the wall, but by the time we went in there, it was too dark to really take any decent photos. The building felt really cold, ominous and opressive. The ceiling was really tall, and it seemed to be all built of grey stone, with some intricate carvings round the whole wall and ceiling. Perhaps it was because it was so dark, but the place was just so big and gloomy! Even the colourful stained glass windows looked depressing. It seemed to be built to make people scared of their god. I´d hate to go there on a sunday morning!

There was also a comic book festival on in Avila, and as a result there were all of these big plastic statues of comic book characters scattered around the old town. It´s a really wierd sight to see a tacky polystyrene spider man climbing a 11th century city wall!

On the way back to the station from the Wall it started to snow. Jacqui and Holly were really excited and they started taking photos of the snow. Unfortunatley it wasn´t really that cold, and it all just melted to water once it hit the ground, but it was still cool!

The train home was really full. Even though the tickets are meant to be reserved seats, alot of people got on who obviously had no seats and just sat wherever they wanted. One of them was in Liz´s seat, and when she told him it was her seat, he said to her ´there are too many people on the train, and some people have to stand, and there are old people standing´, implying that she should give up her seat to him cause he was old. She didn´t. Go girl! Stupid old man, if he wanted a seat he should´ve bought one! (It´s a hour and a half train ride!) Jacqui wasn´t so lucky, and the guy in her seat wouldn´t move for her so she ended up standing up most of the way. I was so tired, i just slept the whole way.

Immaculate Conception in Madrid and Avila remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> 22 hours of flights later, and i´m still alive (barely) tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-08:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=3&entryid=33908 2006-12-08T12:16:24Z 2006-12-08T12:16:24Z I have no idea what time it is, i think probably around midnight friday night sydney time, but here it´s about 1pm. It´s all so wierd. I haven´t been hungry yet either, although both tiredness and hunger could possibly kick in later, when i really don´t want it to. Madrid is beautiful! AT least what i´ve seen so far, which isn´t very much. Apparently there´s some sort of public holiday on at the moment, hence why ... I have no idea what time it is, i think probably around midnight friday night sydney time, but here it´s about 1pm. It´s all so wierd. I haven´t been hungry yet either, although both tiredness and hunger could possibly kick in later, when i really don´t want it to.

Madrid is beautiful! AT least what i´ve seen so far, which isn´t very much. Apparently there´s some sort of public holiday on at the moment, hence why i wasn´t able to book any accomodation before i arrived. it all makes sense now. I almost went to salamanca! I did eventually however, find a nice little hostel Madrid near Sol. I was kinda scared of being here on my own, but luckily there are 4 girls from Sydney staying in the rooms next door to me, and we´ve agreed to go out dancing together tonight. I´ve just gotta find some cute dancing shoes. Hopefully something´s open.

And i really wish i´d listened more when weiner tried to teach me spanish! I know nothing except ´si´and ´muchos´. We´ll see how i go.

22 hours of flights later, and i´m still alive (barely) remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> One flight down, two to go tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-07:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=2&entryid=33802 2006-12-07T15:10:34Z 2006-12-07T15:10:34Z So i'm at hong kong airport, taking advantage of the free internet that they have available. Yay for free internet! At least i made it out of the country. I was starting to feel it was impossible to leave the office. The inflight entertainment on Cathay Pacific was pretty average. No video on demand meant the same videos kept being played over and over again. I think i watched the same scene from 'Dead Mans Chest' about 4 times. And ... So i'm at hong kong airport, taking advantage of the free internet that they have available. Yay for free internet! At least i made it out of the country. I was starting to feel it was impossible to leave the office. The inflight entertainment on Cathay Pacific was pretty average. No video on demand meant the same videos kept being played over and over again. I think i watched the same scene from 'Dead Mans Chest' about 4 times. And the food was just awful. Thankfully i'm still not completley recovered from my tummy bug, and just not feeling hungry in general, so the lack of decent food hasn't been a problem yet. Fingers crossed i get better once i arrive in spain and want to eat a proper meal.

The lady who sat next to me on the plane was from hong kong. Going home after a short visit to Aus. We had a good chat and got along well. I've added her to my email list for photos & trip details. Here's to making lots more new friends on this trip.

The only things i'm still anxious about is wether my new hiking boots actually fit properly, and wether i'll survive my first 2 days in spain on my own. I guess time will tell with the shoes. And as for spain, if worst comes to worst i'll just sleep in the hostel until lisa gets there, god knows i'll have jetlag. Something i've never experienced, and am not looking forward to

One flight down, two to go remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]> Still at home tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-12-04:/blog/?domain=lil-cath&thisblog_entryid=1&entryid=33430 2006-12-04T10:49:33Z 2006-12-04T10:43:51Z So three days until i leave the country. Still running around like a headless chicken getting things ready. Camera; CHECK! Backpack; CHECK! Thermals; CHECK! Passport; CHECK! Tickets; CHECK! Walking shoes; CHECK! Bought this super hard-core pair of walking shoes from Mountain Designs. Gor-tex, and swiss made, they will probably last longer than me! Still need to pick up a few last minute items, but thanks heaps to robyn i've got a backpack, which is ... So three days until i leave the country. Still running around like a headless chicken getting things ready. Camera; CHECK! Backpack; CHECK! Thermals; CHECK! Passport; CHECK! Tickets; CHECK! Walking shoes; CHECK! Bought this super hard-core pair of walking shoes from Mountain Designs. Gor-tex, and swiss made, they will probably last longer than me!

Still need to pick up a few last minute items, but thanks heaps to robyn i've got a backpack, which is probably one of the most important things.

Let's hope this blog will help me keep track of where i am and what i'm doing. Will keep all you guys as updated as i possibly can. Here's to a fantastic trip!

Still at home remains copyright of the author lil_cath, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

]]>