Advertisement
Published: July 24th 2008
Roho: It's the blog you've all been waiting for! Well, not really, it's the update some of you have been hassling us for. We're back in London now so plenty of time to update everything. So last time you heard from us we'd just arrived in Madrid...
Rich: It was Rohani's job when we got off the bus to walk us in the direction of our hotel. Yet again, we walked the wrong way. Thankfully this time it was only two to three hundred metres in the wrong direction.
Roho: Firstly, you tend to work your route out from the Busabout hostel, which is the 'drop off point'. But the bus almost never stops at the hostel. So when the bus stops a five minute walk from its hostel you have to start all over again. Secondly, our guide that day was a jerk. Not entirely relevant I know but certainly a distraction. Thirdly, the Puerta del Sol was full of roadworks and construction and didn't quite match the map. Lastly, I have learned that nothing in Europe ever matches the map. Richard refuses to comprehend this though and continues to second guess me every time I'm in charge
of directions. Consequently I happily and freely hand over all finding of all things to him and say nothing but smile sweetly when he cocks it up too.
Rich: When that happens I accept that I messed up and don't give four reasons as to why it happened. Anyway...
Roho: I would happily accept it too if it wasn't gone on and on about...
Rich: Anyway... we couldn't get beds at the Busabout hostel, which is why we had the walk.
Roho: Our hotel was better though anyway. The location was better and we had TV!
Rich: Yes, TV all in Spanish...it was by far the highlight of my stay in Madrid....
Roho: Apart from the tapas. I'd spent the bus ride guzzling water and throat drops...the non stop aircon blowing right over my bed in Barcelona meant another cold. Yay! So anyway on our first night we went in search of tapas. We were a bit shy of the Spanish places so went into an Irish pub...gawd, they're everywhere. The board outside promised 'the best free tapas in town'. Turned out you had a choice between a plate of potato chips or a
plate of olives. So after a drink and the olives we decamped across the lane.
Rich: It's really hard and kinda scary to order off a menu you can't read.
Roho: Um yeah, I thought I ordered a plate of mixed olives and pickles for us...I actually ordered a gherkin split down the middle and stuffed with two different types of anchovy. Lucky I like anchovies. And lucky we'd ordered other stuff too. Potato salad with garlic mayo, mixed paella and roquefort on bread. Yum. And some lovely Spanish wine of course.
Rich: The next day we didn't really have any plans, just decided to check out the Retiro Gardens.
Roho: Which was lucky, because our hotel room lacked pretty much any natural light or outside noise, so we ended up completely unintentionally sleeping until 12.30!!
Rich: These gardens belong to some royal family. I did get told their name but can't for the life of me remember. Right in the middle was a relatively big lake, where you could hire a little row boat and just paddle around with the goldfish.
Roho: Oh my god the goldfish. Talk about giving me the creeps.
If you're into game fishing or whatever, you know how you go looking for meatballs? Imagine like a bloody big pond that's probably only 3 foot deep spotted with enormous goldfish meatballs. Shudder.
Rich: Again tapas were on the menu for dinner and after meandering for about 10 or 15 minutes, we decided on a little place called Bar Cadiz, where it turns out the main waiter was from Colombia.
Roho: I couldn't resist mentioning Shakira.
Rich: Yeah, that was bad form.
Roho: What else was I supposed to mention related to Colombia? Drug running?
Rich: It IS their biggest pastime...but he was lovely and asked us where we were from, if we enjoyed the food - just an all round nice guy!
Roho: We ordered way too much food. Patatas Bravas, mushrooms fried with garlic, grilled prawns and fried chorizo. Not to mention our free plate of olives.
Rich: How were we supposed to know the serving sizes were going to be bigger than the previous night? But I think we did pretty well considering. I'd love to know what was going through the waiter's head when we ordered this huge amount
Monument on the lake
Retiro Gardens, Madrid.of food.
Roho: 'Get the big plates out, boys, it's a fat pair of Kiwi tourists!' Now they know how All Blacks eat. Richard was all like, full and stuff and we were still waiting for the chorizo. You should have seen his eyes light up when it appeared.
Rich: Yes, I took it like a real champion and thought I did pretty well, leaving only a couple of bits of chorizo. I did good.
Roho: The next day I was feeling like arse warmed up with a snot nose so we took it quietly and explored some of the shopping strips that run off Puerta del Sol. They're partly shaded with sails and pedestrianised so they're lovely. By this time I was beginning to want to buy stuff, figuring I didn't have far to carry it any more. But I resisted.
Rich: Turns out I picked a good day to go walking around the shopping district. Being a Sunday, 90% of the shops were closed, which made it all the more pleasurable.
Roho: And there was some kind of protest in the Puerta del Sol. It was very noisy with whistles and stuff but
we couldn't figure out what it was for.
Rich: There's something about protests that are kind of fun. Just makes you want a find a pan and wooden spoon and bang and chant with the rest of them!
Roho: They could have been communists from Nice.
Rich: You never know. Anyway, then it was on to San Sebastian. What a wonderful place it is. Definitely the highlight of Spain for me.
Roho: Me too.
Rich: Me three.
Roho: We'd been able to book the Busabout hostel here, yay! The bus parked only a very short walk away, yay! Turns out the hostel operates out of several different places and the one we stayed in was another not so short walk away. Definitely not yay. OK, it was a pretty short walk, but any walk with 20 kilos on your back is not short.
Rich: In San Sebastian, tapas aren't tapas, well, they are, but they're just called something different.
Roho: It's in the Basque region, so stuff technically isn't Spanish. So tapas are pintxos and they are yummy yum yum.
Rich: Slightly different process to the rest of Spain though. They're
San Sabastian view
This was taken from the amusement park. pre-made, sitting on the bar and you just ask for a plate, load it up, pay for what you've got and tuck in.
Roho: If you're food hygiene anal this probably doesn't appeal to you. But if you have a see food diet philosophy like me then this is definitely a smart business move.
Rich: So after a vodka and Red Bull, just so we could get a free Running With the Bulls scarf, we headed down to what turned into our 'local'. The barman spoke dodgy English but was a fun chap. We ended up eating from this place every night except that first one.
Roho: That first night we were too shy about asking for plates so we kept saying 'we'll finish this drink then get food at the next bar', which continued for several bars before we finally knocked back enough sangria to get the guts up for some grub.
Rich: Our first full day in San Sebastian included a visit to a small, very old school amusement park on a big hill overlooking the crescent shaped bay.
Roho: We walked the length of the beach to get to the bottom of
the hill, where you get a funicular railway ride up. It was really a lovely walk. Probably more so for Richard than me. He appreciated the 'sights' a lot more I think.
Rich: You were the one pointing them out to me!
Roho: I was helping you out with your general observation skills.
Rich: Admittedly, one of the main reasons I would head back to San Sebastian is because of the very crowded beaches and the ratio of bikini clad to topless sunbathers.
Roho: And he doesn't just mean the ratio of women to men...
Rich: The amusement park was well past its prime but just walking around you can imagine how packed it would've been in its heyday. We rode the equivalent of a log flume, which was just a boat following a water track, no ups and downs, nothing. We rode a very old school roller coaster, so much so it needed a man to physically sit in it and operate it. And we played a carnival game where Ramses the turtle defeated Diana the turtle and won a prize.
Roho: I'm sure you had more balls than me.
Rich: Well
Rollercoaster
The man in front of Rohani is the driver of the rollercoaster!! Old school huh?? you had more boobs than me, but more about that shortly!
Roho: That night it was back on the sangria and pintxos. Woo hoo! On our walk back from the hill along the beach that afternoon we'd made a deal about what to do the next day.
Rich: Let's just say that anything that includes Rohani being topless in public I'm definitely in on!
Roho: You make it sound like a regular thing! Wrong Evans, I think. This was a one time only, when in Rome, sort of thing.
Rich: Again, hence the reason I want to go back!
Roho: My reasoning is that I'm never going to do it again, everyone else is doing it, if anyone's going to stare, it sure as hell won't be at me when there are lots better 'things' to stare at and the worst case scenario is that I'll just scare people and get more beach space. Needless to say the only stares were from a few little boys, which is forgivable and a couple of tourists, one of which was Richard...plus there were plenty of other fatter, uglier, whiter tourist chicks than me with their tits hanging
out all over the place on the beach.
Rich: Was one of those me too?
Roho: No but I saw you look.
Rich: Overall it was a lovely day on the beach. The only downside is the tide comes in so far that everyone gets a bit crowded at high tide, but the water was lovely and warm and you kind of feel like you're in the tropics.
Roho: Which tropics would those be?
Rich: You know what I mean.
Roho: I actually went swimming! Top on. It was my kind of beach - no surf, very clear water. Lovely.
Rich: San Sebastian was easily one of the top three places we visited. If I was to recommend a place to go and relax and do nothing, in a place which is sort of like the Gold Coast, but not as touristy, this place would be it.
Roho: You can day trip to Bilbao in the East and Biarritz in the West too if you fancy it. We didn't. We are too lazy.
Rich: We apologise for the delay of the blog, it just got to a point where it would've been far easier to do it in Lisa's lounge rather than the last three stops of the trip!
Roho: We'll do another one for the rest of France and Richard IS going to do some photos.
Rich: Including photos for previous blogs that have none, so keep an eye out!
Roho: There are no topless photos.
Rich: Just a topless video of me at the top of this page. And PS - check out the view of the lady in the very last second at the top of the shot!
More soon,
Plenty of love,
R and R
Advertisement
Tot: 0.221s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.1814s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Julie
non-member comment
Typical, Matt watched the video with me and tried to see if he could see Rohanis half naked reflection in Richards sunglasses ..... and then made me pause the video on the lady at the end of the shot!!