Madrid

Madrid was hot. Stinking hot 39 degrees no breeze, no beach just hot.

We decided to get some tapas in an air conditioned restaurant close to where we were staying. I was excited for some amazing food given the beautiful tapas we had in Barcelona. The best thing about the meal was the aircon. Not a great start.

I hadn't really looked into the place we were staying at, to be honest I just booked it because it was the bus pick up point.. My bad

We watched Spain and Portugal in the Euro Cup in a crowded area of the hostel with a German school group.

The sun doesn't go down until ten so it was hot all night - too hot, you really need air conditioning or at least a fan to get through the night. We didn't have either.

After next to no sleep we got up bright and early to get on the bus bound for San Sebastian.

Barcelona

We arrived in Barcelona just before dinner, walking to the hotel we passed a lot of badly dressed middle aged women leaning against walls and sitting on the curb.. I didn't realise that they were prostitutes until one of them grabbed the crutch of an elderly man walking past.. Welcome to Barcelona!

The view from our hotel

After navigating our way through the maze of whores (I never thought I'd have reason to write that sentence) we dropped off our suitcases and went exploring in the backstreets. We had been told do not eat in the main drag. The tourist menus are no good.

So we went to a tiny little wine bar where only a few locals were hanging out and had the best tapas of my life. The food was so fresh, after all those days of pizza and cheese I was in heaven.
We spent the rest of the night people watching in Las Ramblas drinking sangria.

There were so many sights to see in Barcelona, all the Gaudi. But after two days in a row on a bus we wanted to stop learning and relax we walked the streets of Barcelona shopping and taking photos of alley ways.

After doing the same pose in every photo I've decided to mix it up by randomly waving my arms around. Holwell isn't thrilled with the concept..

We listened to Spanish street band Microquaqua who were that good we decided to buy their cd.

Desperate for amazing food like the night before we had our eye out for more tapas. And then we saw the tourist menu (knowing full well that tourist menus are no good) we sat down and ordered the (very cheap) paella special.

It was bad, really bad.
The calamari in mine was green, Sam's had prawns so small we were convinced that they were actually bait.

The moral of the story - THE TOURIST MENUS ARE NO GOOD!

We headed to the beach to recover from what was close to a near death experience.

The beach was beautiful, a nice relief from the heat of the day. Sam even managed to find something that was sort of a wave to body surf.

They were selling all sorts of stuff along the beach, "mojitos mojitos, saaaangrrriaaa sangria" was the background noise, until the police rocked up and all of a sudden the beverage sellers disappeared and became beach goers.

We were going to take photos of the beach but the topless ladies around us meant that we decided against it. Probably for the best.

After the beach we really couldn't be assed walking all the way back to our hotel so we got on a sort of bike powered tuk tuk. Our driver/rider's name was Cheese Bar.. "like cheese and like bar - Cheese Bar"

It was only fair that Sam introduced himself "G'day mate, I'm Wicked, Wicked Dude"

Cheese Bar and Wicked Dude really hit it off.

Cheese Bar and Wicked Dude - Photo: Embarrassed Girlfriend

When we got back to the hotel and I started to think about what I'd write in the blog.. That nothing terribly funny or ironic had happened. And then I checked the flight confirmation for the next day.
When I read the boarding pass I felt sick, I'd booked the plane for the wrong day. We'd already missed the flight - the lesson here is that a. Planning is better than winging it and b. Don't book flights in the middle of the night when you are tired and a little bit pissed.

I rebooked the flights for the morning and pretended I hadn't thrown all that money away with the help of some Spanish beer.

Dinner was at a Spanish/Mexican fusion restaurant that didn't look like much from the street but the food was sensational.

After dinner we joined he table next to us. The table was very multicultural, French, Spanish, Italian, Swiss and us..
I dazzled the group with my ability to locate the toilet in many a language.

We would have stayed longer with the group to chat more but we had an early flight to catch now so we headed back to the hotel to pack for Portugal.