basque region

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only had 2 nights in madrid but managed to fit quite a lot in. had great fun. i was a bit wary of madrid as i had been warned that it wasn't a very attractive city and the best place was the train station. i don't agree at all. madrid is really a beautiful place with magnificent architecture and wide paved streets. i really liked the city. i wish i had a bit more time there, but oh well. i got there on tuesday night and went out on the town. had a great time with the girls that we've been hanging out with for about 2 weeks who had arrived in madrid a few days before us. wednesday i went sightseeing on my own. went to the palace and wandered around the streets. palace was very beautiful and elaborate - of course. wednesday night.... guess who went to the soccer.... guess who saw real madrid... guess who saw beckham.... guess who won??!!! it was an awesome game and an amazing experience. 9 of us went - 3 groups though. we were a group of 5 and had seats quite high up, but is was fine. the atmosphere was insane. think of the cricket 10 fold over. lots of whistles, drums, songs, chants, cheering. the crowd wasn't too misbehaved so that was all fine. we were playing olympikados - a greek team. real madrid got a goal very early on in the 1st half, then dominated the rest of the half but didn't score anymore. 2nd half olympikados got a goal very quickly and the rest of the game was very thrilling and closely contested. real madrid then got a goal with 3 mintutes left!!!!!! obviously it was a great game and heaps of fun - we all got right into the cheering even though we had no idea what they were saying.
arrived here in san sebastian yesterday arvo and have just been wandering around a bit. it's quite a big town, which i didn't really expect. about 180,000 population. beach is beautiful. unfortuantely it's starting to get cool now. probably only mid to high 20s now 😞 should still be fun though. oh - spanish is so weird. if there's a question it's written like this ¿how are you? and same with exclamation marks - ¡that's so cool! looks a bit strange on signs and everything though. have just had breaky - churros. oh my goodness - these things are soooo yummy but oh so bad. the are long thin donut-y sticks and you get a cup of hot, runny chocolate that you dip them in. a spanish specialty - so just had to try them. soooo rich though - and a breakfast food too!!! yum!

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