albufeira-seville-alicante

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¡¡¡¡ note; we had a problem with the uploading of the pictures onto the blog so thats why we havent put any up ... but as soon as we can .. we will .... dont worry we´re taking a ton and they´re sooo nice!!!!!!

well well .. its been a lonngg time eh. well ill be sure to update you all on whats going on. Firstly everything is going greeatttt. Most of the time its hard to say what day it is or even what country we´re in. haha. OK lets start from where we left off. We prolonged our stay in ALBUFEIRA, PORTUGAL for an extra 2 nights because we loved it there so much. The beaches are gorgeous and just the atmosphere in general was amazing. The cocktails were so good .. with fresh fruit hanging off the sides with sparklers on them. It is a big tourist spot as english was the main language spoken. And everyone looked so chique. let´s just say we didnt fit in as much as we would have liked to. ohh well ...it was perfect. the night life was great with the streets packed with people having dinner and drinks and each bar had their own form of entertainment.. one day it was an OZZIE wannabe rocker and the next day it was a kareoke man belting songs... all in all ... very fun. On our last day at the beach .. we spent the morning tanning by the pool of the hotel and then going into town to watch the two huge soccer games. England vs Portugal. (now imagine this .. we are in portugual where there are SOO many English people... both of these countries LIVE for soccer!) and then Brasil VS France. WEEELLLLLL ..... the portuguese fans were VERY happy, celebrating their teams victory ... and it seemes as though the English fans were drinking off their sorrows of their team losing. NEXT comes the brasil game. So here I am all decked out in my brasil gear ... and sitting right infront of a big screen TV all ready to cheer for the best team in the world ... and .... yes i am still sad about it. LOL. so that was that .... we were leaving the next morning at 8 am.

july 2 - we leave Albufeira on the train and get to Faro and then to the boarder of portugal and spain. From there we took the ferry over to spain and took the bus to Sevilla. it was a long treck but we managed pretty well. We got into SEVILLA, SPAIN in the late afternoon. We met another couple from .... OTTAWA... hahah small world eh (it gets even smaller than as they are from .. ROCKLAND lol .. right next to Orleans). that was also backpacking through Europe this summer on the train and they were going to SEVILLA as well. So the four of us did the treck together and found a relatively cheap and conveniant hostel. We went exploring the city and had a nice dinner at a cafe. SEVILLA is soo pretty. it is a very historical city and is veryy beautiful. Seemed somewhat small compared to the other cities that we have been to even though it is actually quite large. Our guide book said that there would be bull flights on sunday nights .. so we found the bull fighting arena and unfortunately the guide book was wrong in saying that the bull fights were on sunday as they are on thursdays. That was a little upsetting but its alright .. it was still cool to be in Sevilla and to see all the bullfighting merchandise and accessories one can buy. So after the nice dinner and explaoring the city a little more at night we decided to call it a night and get up early the next day to see the cathedral and then head out to a city called Granada which is supposably just beautiful. The cathedral was very nice from the 14th century. there was a tomb of Christopher Colombas in there as well. We were there for about half an hour until we had to run to the train station to catch our train. WELLL ... we didnt not make it! after the 4 of us hopping into a taxi and then running through the train station and almost on the train .. it left without us. hmmphh .. lol. So there we were at the Seville train station with a decision to make ... where should we go....

we decided to head to MADRID for the night. so we went on a high speed train and ended up in the Spanish Capital City. Madrid is such a nice and bigg city... its too bad that i cant say that about the hostel we found. because our train to Alicante was for 7am the next morning we
sandeman barrel!
ian with a barrel full of portwanted to find the closest hostel to the tain station as possible. well we managed that .. but if you al think we are not roughing it ebough over here .. i beg to differ.... lol. this hostel was so scetchy. The room was tiny, had scratch marks on the door and walls, there was a sink in the room that had a leak and only let water go down the pipe VERRRYYY SLLOOOWWLY. there was a big window at the head of the bed which looked out into an alley .. im going to slip the part of explaining the smell of the room as well as the look of the guy who owned it (both just not right) and best of all .. there was mold on the walls... yup a winner for sure! but its ok neither of us touched the floor with our barefeet and also slept in sleeping sheet/bag... yikes! we were only there for 5 hrs though so its ok. So other than the hostel situation we both loved MADRID. We took a bus tour of the city where you could get off and on the bus whenever you wanted. It took us around historical madrid as well as modern madrid. both very cool both very gorgeous. It is such a busy city and also very fashionable.

SO here we are in ALICANTE. We arrived this morning and we have spent the whole day out exploring the city. Its not very big but there is a beach right near the city ..... as in you are walking down the city street and WHOOOPPSS youre on the beach. Not bad if you ask me. Not bad at all. We have a super market right beside our hostel so we´re going to stock up on PB & J and bread for the next couple of days for lunch. We leave tomorrow morning for BARCELONA. Looking forward to it.

So far this trip has been just amazing! everything is going good... we´re both happy and healthy! Hope all is good with everyone! happy canada day to everyone for july 1st!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM MACLEAN!
hopefully we'll have a chance to update this blog soon ....

xoxox K & I

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