The Park or the Park Hotel

Once we left the beauty of Cinque Terre, unfortunately, things got less pretty for us.

We headed to Milano hoping to get a night train to Barcelona but being so deep into summer, the train was full. Spain is the bottleneck of Europe as there are only two ways to get in by train, one on the west coast and one on the east. If you don't get bookings early enough then you just won't get on the train and you're trip drastically changes from what you thought it could be. We got on a train to Nice so that we could hopefully get to Barcelona from there the next day. (With Eurorail you have to be at the train station you want to leave from in order to book your seat, this is what makes things difficult). Being unlucky so far, we were also unable to get on the next train to Barcelona so we spent two days in Nice. Nice is gorgeous. The capital of the French Riviera can be nothing but beautiful but spending two nights in a hotel that was advertised as a hostel on the internet just encourages the spending of more money than you want to.
After 12 hours on the train, we got into Barcelona late, called our hostel like they had requested us to do, only to find out that they had cancelled our booking without telling us. So at 12 o'clock at night we called all of the hostels in Barcelona...they were all full, of course. So our options were the Park or the Park Hotel. Having spent more money than we wanted to the past few days we seriously considered taking sleeping shifts in the park, but it started to rain, for the first time in months -- we went to the Park Hotel, only to spend more. The next day we thought we'd go into the train station to do a simple reservation for a train to Granada but 5.5 hours later we had a shortened and revised plan for our trip and all of our tickets back up to Paris -- all determined mostly by how busy Spain is as well as our funds. After the train station experience it took us extra long to get back our new hostel mostly because of poor directions as well as a bus driver who failed to open his doors for us just because we didn't raise our hands EVENTHOUGH HE PULLED OVER!
The next day we had the freedom to visit Barcelona itself. Perfect? No. We spent 30 euros getting out to Monteserrat -- an old Benedictine Monestary up in the mountains -- to visit Europe's oldest boy's choir (something we thought would be funny to see), only to discover that they were on summer vacation. This fact is not advertised anywhere. The Monestary was in fact a tourist trap -- complete with a bar, a giftshop and even those little trains that take people around the short distances (like the ones you see at the zoo and theme parks).

We've come to grips with the fact that things don't always work out the way you want them to but this is multiplied by 100 in Spain. The only good thing is that Spain is a bit cheaper than other parts of Europe we've been.

After Barcelona we went to Granada. Everyone says that if you go to Spain then you must see Granada. We were hoping for a better feeling about Spain here. Our first night we walked around in search for something to eat. We happened upon a little square with a fountain and a man playing classical guitar. We barely finished our meals due to our shrunken stomachs from a poor food routine.
The next day we walked the streets loned with white-washed moorish houses that you would expect to be close to the water but Granada lies right in the middle of the Sierra Nevada, where it's 40 degrees at 7pm and 30 at 11pm.
The Alhambra is the main attraction in Granada -- a very old palace that people line up very early and pay money to see. We opted for the view of it from the Mirador Piazza as the sun set with the best orange slushy I've ever tasted. Granada was nice, but that's about it.

We woke up early to catch our train at 7:30am which in actuality was at 10:22am. Someone, I'm not going to say who, didn't re-check the ticket he was so sure about. Haha.
We arrived in Madrid for the afternoon just in time to watch a Bullfight...we'll only the first out of six bulls.
I truly thought that I would be impartial to the whole thing, thinking yes, it's not right, but it's also Spainish tradition, but NO, this was disgusting.
The Spainish call it an "art" but it seems only at the cost of an animal's life.
The bull starts off with a disadvantage having been tagged before getting into the ring. After a grand entrance of the fighters and horses (armoured now since 1902) the bull enters, is teased by the more amateur fighters with capes. This begins to tire the bull out. Then the Piccador comes out on his armoured horse and punctures the bull with a sword between the shoulders. The bull takes it out on the armoured and blindfolded horse and who before 1902 would be disemboweled right in front of us. Poor horse! Now, the bull, drenched in his own blood, is taunted and teased more. More fighters are now in the ring with flags to puncture the bull. After about six of these flags are in the bull, right where he was previously stabbed, you can see just how exhausted he is, panting, taking longer to run at the cape and running for less time. This is when the more prestigious fighter comes out and shows how macho he is by getting closer to the bull and even turning his back to it at times. It's his job to plant the final sword into the bull. After being further taunted and teased, the bull surrounded by fighters, just collapses. He's had enough. And just to makes sure he's finished, one small knife is struck into his head. The bull is then dragged out of the ring by a team of horses. I at least hope he's made into hamburger or something useful. And for what? Granted, the fighters get dangerously close to this potentially deadly animal ranging from 600-750kg but that's it. It's just too unfair to watch or agree with so Conor and I left after the first bull. They kill about 24 bulls a month for entertainment. Apparently, if the bull has fought really well then the matador can stop and allow the bull to go back to where it was raised but with no vet care on the premises, the bulls often die before making it to the farm due to infection and loss of blood.
Watching this further created a disdain for Spain in my heart. How cruel can you be? Legalizing the killing of animals just for sport, entertainment and an excuse to say Ole!

We've finally left Spain. I almost regret saying it with such happiness. I feel like we've missed the Spain that we were supposed to see with 2,000 year old bridges and that feeling you get when you're in a place that has seen a lot over the years. Maybe another time. After travelling for a while you also get that notion that a church is just a church and unless you were keen on seeing something before you got there, it's not worth it.
We'll be in Amsterdam until the morning of the 16th when we make our way to Cherbourg, France, to catch our ferry to Ireland.

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