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Published: April 26th 2010
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Ooooh, head hurts....what happened....
Thursday 26th April
Had a quiet night in Pamps and then left Pamplona the next morning and headed for sunny San Sebastian on the north coast of Spain. (If you want to know where all the mullets have died and gone to, San Sebastian is the place!) I found this great little hostel - Hostel Urban - and luckily managed to get checked in down the road at their spillover hostel (which was nice and quiet) Went back to the main hostel and met these crazy Frenchies - 3 guys and 3 girls - and a Yank chef called Ryan (good bloke - he'd even worked with Jamie Oliver a few times) who had all been drinking since 4 that day. I joined in as these new cold pills seemed to be working and the night kicked off. I actually went to the dark side and went had McDonalds, which I had been studiously avoiding the whole trip, but needs must... We finally left the hostel about midnight and went to a few local bars and had a ball. I think I got in about 3am so not a bad night at all.
The next
day I just kicked around town, checking out the old city and wandered around the bay. Not a whole lot to do here but a nice town nonetheless. I bumped into Ryan in one of the streets about 2.30pm and we fell into a nearby bar and I had my first Sangria!(3€ - $4.50 per glass) Yes, I know I'd said I'd be drinking lashings of it here but I found out that only tourists really drink it so have been sticking mainly to the beers instead. We headed back to the hostel about 6.30pm after solving the world's problems and one of the hostel guys, Rudy, had told me about these cider houses here. (They call cider "Sidre")
Ryan and I caught a cab to this wee town called Astigarraga just outside San Seb where all the cider houses are. We went inside this massive Cider House and paid 27€ ($40) for a four course meal (fish with green peppers, massive T-Bone steak, walnuts...) and as much cider as you can drink! Awesome! They had these huge 5000 litre barrels of cider and you just put your glass as far away as possible from it (why, you ask...because
it looks way cool) and turn on the tap and hopefully some of it ends up in your glass. This chorus group of older Spaniards sang their national anthem in one of the barrel rooms so that was quite neat.
Eventually dragged ourselves away after drinking 2 barrels of cider each and headed back to the hostel where we dragged the Frenchies out into the cool night air. Hit some bars, met some Spanish girls, couldn't speak Spanish to them so just talked drunk talk for a while and I think I ended up in bed about 3am again.
Sunday 24th April
Urrggghhhhhhh..........feel awful.......room spinning.......stupid cider......urrggghhhhhh
Finally lurched out of bed about 1pm and hit the road after managing to hold down some lunch. Haven't felt this bad in yonks. I checked out of hostel and drove an hour away to Bilbao. Drove around town in ever decreasing circles for about an hour trying to find the ever elusive tourist information centre. I gave up and tried to find the Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao's famous art gallery. After about 15 more minutes, there it was, right next to the Tourist Information Centre. D'oh! 13€ ($20) entry including
an audio guide and I wandered around for an hour or so. It was a nice place but the art world is all a bit lost on me. I know, philistine! I was taking photos for a while until a guard told me to turn my flash off. I kept taking photos and another guard said you couldn' take any photos at all! What kind of crazy museum is this where you can't take photos?
I was still hungover and feeling seedy and I saw a Subway across the street. I've been trying to avoid all these McDonald's etc but I just needed something quick and unhealthy and familiar. They also had a Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop attached so I gorged on some chocolate fudge brownie ice cream stuff. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........
I then tried to find the hostel the girl at the info centre told me about but drove around in circles for another half an hour before finally giving up and heading south east again towars Barcelona. I finally pulled into a wee town called Estella (which is on the Camino de Santiago trail - a 700 km pilgrimage walk across Spain) and stayed at a
hotel there. Found an Irish bar called the Faculty, but there wasn't an Irishman to be seen. Had some nice dinner there and then crashed.
Sunday 25th April
Hit the road about 10 am and passed about 7 or 8 more gorgeous wind farms and solar farms (Yes, they actually grow solar panels here!) I passed through one cute wee medieval town called Sos Del Rey Catolico and right behind it was a wind farm. Really nice juxtaposition of old and new. The Spanish are really switched on (as it were) with all this natural, clean energy.
Filled up some petrol - about 1.17€ per litre ($1.70)
Pulled over at one wee town to consult my map and this crazy Czech hitchhiker dude, Libor, jumped in. So I ended up carting him all the way back to Barcelona. I found a rockstar park just across the road from Alberta's place and then went inside and crashed. Alberta was a wee bit drunk wen she came in as she'd had a big day out with friends. Needless to say I forgot to mention my rockstar park.....
Monday 26th April
The next morning at about 9.30, Connie the
Corsa was gone. Of course, it was a clearway across the street and they'd towed the poor girl away. D'oh! I dragged Alberta kicking and screaming out of bed and we finally tracked down the council depot and for the mere sum of 165€ ($250) Connie was released back into the wild again. I had to drop her off at the Hertz depot by midday so made it with 3 minute to spare.
Currently at Alberta's for a couple of days while I plan my next move into the great Spanish unknown...
Ciao for now
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Willy Woods
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go west!
Stevo...loving the travel yarns. Now go west (or is it south, then west...?) and get to Granada and Seville. The Alambra is amazing, as is Sevilla! Have fun - and do it for us poor, mortgaged, and very jealous kiwis! cha'