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Published: September 3rd 2007
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Well I´m sad to say that Spain is coming to and end... it is our last day here in Valencia, the third largest city in Spain, known for it´s oranges and for being the creator of Paella. We´re just packing up everything, trying to put on as many clothes as possible, in preparation for our ¨wonderful¨Ryan Air flight this evening. For those of you who don´t know, Ryan Air is a budget airline here in Europe, known for insanely cheap flights - our flight cost 0.01 euros, before tacking on about 25 euros in fees.. still not bad for a flight from Valencia to Frankfurt. There, of course, is always a catch. Ryan Air usually flys in and out of small airports out of the city, which means getting to and from the airport can be costly. As well, you are only aloud 15 kg of checked luggage.. which does not suit me well consider my pack is upwards of 20kg.. oops, I dont know how that happened! This is the reason we are wearing a lot of clothes today.. to try and cut down on extra luggage fees.
So just to recap the last week or so.. we saw
Again.. The Beautiful Fountain
They do this every Thursday, Friday, Saturday night... you have to picture it with music and everything! some pretty amazing architecture in Barcelona... the Sagrada Familia, a cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi that has been in the works for over 100 years, and is STILL under construction, we also hiked up to Parc Guell, which was also designed by Gaudi (seems everything in Barcelona was) and saw some more of his crazy architecture. We also took the tram up to the Olympic Park and swam in the 1992 Olympic dive pool which overlooked the entire city. Our last night in Barcelona was spent as a ¨craft night¨making the infamous TEAM CANADA outfits for La Tomatina, which took place the next day. We ended up finding a couple mens wife beaters at the grocery store and some ugly red capris that we cut off, purchased a red pen and went at it. I ended up with ¨Pummeling Pittstorm¨on my back and Brianna with ¨Jawbreaker Jansson¨. We were ready to throw some tomatoes and no one was getting in our way. The next morning we headed to the train station where we met two guys who grew up in Duncan, right behind us in line. We ended up recruiting them to Team Canada and so off we went to
The Sagrada Familia
has been under construction for over 100 years.. and still isn´t done! find some matching clothes for them while our train got in. We also purchased some necessities for the following days events.. champagne and OJ was most certainly in our shopping bags.
So we got into Valencia and really only had a few hours there until we had to be at the train station.. again... at 5:30 am for our departure to Brunol, the location of La Tomatina. When we showed up at the train station, it was littered with Australians, Canadians, Americans, Kiwis, Brits.. you name it, all with cocktails in hand, waiting for the first train to arrive. At this point everyone was relatively clean, smelling some what decent (a little forshadowing for what´s to come).. and Team Canada was there representing like the champs they are, popping the champagne and mixing up some mimosas. We arrived in Brunol around 8 am, along with floods of other travelling coming out to give it their best shot.. when I say floods I mean approximately 40,000 people, all crammed into the smallest cobblestone street in a little village outside of Valencia. The festivities began with a game where the towns people grease up a huge wooden pole with an inch
View of The Sagrada Familia from Parc Guell
It kinda sticks out... pretty amazing if you ask me! thick of lard, and strap a pigs leg on top of it. The idea is the first person to climb the greased pole to get the pig wins, and starts the throwing of tomatos. First I would just like to say.. I have no idea where these Spaniards came up with such traditions and secondly, holy crap are they barbaric. Everyone is gathered around, more like sardined around this pole and the locals come charging through knocking anyone in their way out. They are ruthless.. it´s quite intimidating actually. They get to the pole and start ripping off everyone else trying, throwing elbows, stepping on heads.. it was insane. We stayed away from that obviously. So someone ended up getting the pig and the first gun shot was fired. The next thing we knew, 4 or 5 huge dump trucks the size of city buses were charging through the insanely packed street of Brunol dumping tomatos everywhere. By the time we got to them it was more like a 6 inch deep river of tomato, dirt, slimey-sludge hanging around our feet, which was scooped up and flung in any direction possible. I cannot begin to describe to you the smell
and taste of this mystery liquid.. it still haunts my dreams. Really, you have to get out of your comfort zone and not think about where it´s been and what is actually getting into your eyes, ears, nose and mouth. We have a bunch of pictures depicting this but they are off of a disposable waterproof camera and finding somewhere in Spain to put them onto a CD was like a wild goose chase.. needless to say, it never happened. Not only were people just throwing tomatos, but we were being line-driven by balls of wet t-shirts, judo-chopped by flying sandles, waterbottles, cups on sangria.. it was absolutely discusting, but so much fun, it´s hard to describe. That being said, I did it once and probably never need to do it again. We were finding tomato seeds in our ears and scalps for days afterward. Our Team Canada shirts took a beating as well let me tell you... and the smell.. oh god.. rotting tomatos, mixed with.. I don´t even need to go there.. I think you can picture it.
Besides that, Valencia has proven to be a wonderful place to spend our last days in Spain. There are
beautiful beaches here.. and you guessed it.. that is exactly where we have been spending most of our time, working on our tans! We´ve met some pretty cool people together, Brianna and I, and have seen some amazing cities in Spain. By far our favorites were down south.. Sevilla, Tarifa and Grenada. Everyone says Barcelona is the most amazing city but to be quite honest, I think it´s overrated. We liked the more authentic cities, that actually had a Spanish feel to them.
So tonight we are getting on a plane and heading to Frankfurt. We have one night there and then it´s off to the airport I go to meet my mom and Kirbi and my mom´s cousin Andreas, who is going to be our tour guide for a couple days. I´m really excited for Germany, and have actually been reading up using my German phrase book.. (thanks Leif!!).. Andreas, don´t expect too much though.. I´m still only at the please and thank you stages.
To everyone else, I love and miss you all. I´ll be sure to update you on Mom´s, Kirbi´s and my travels over the next week or so. We´re spending a week or
so in Germany, and then flying from Dusseldorf to Rome, where we start our journey up the west coast of Italy.. life is still tough, I know. Keep me updated on your lives as well!
xoxo Meg
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Peter Bond
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Other Team Canada members say Hi!
Hey Meghan, It´s the two fellow Canadians, Peter and Greg (The Canadian Ketchup Team 07) from Vancouver! I can´t believe I found your blog - just googled "Canada and Tomatina." Anyway, thanks for making an otherwise very early morning really fun! What a blast! -Peter (petersaurus/blogspot.com)