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Published: June 11th 2006
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Yes, a while since the last blog, but I figured it better to wait until both a) I had something to write about, and b) I had free internet (ie at adam's place) on which to write. That plan back-fired when adam wouldn't let me near the computer cos he wanted to play online poker, so i'm using the free internet in my hostel in budapest, but i'll do the hungary blog at another date.
well the flight from Bangkok to London was fairly uneventful, but as soon as i got off the plane I promptly lost my cellphone, which made for mild hysteria at heathrow, but i made it to paddington station to meet adam and even got my phone back from this lovely old(ish) man who had picked it up.
I can't say that my first impressions of London were anything to write home about (and yet, what am i doing?). I had caught the tail end of the coldest may on record (or something to that effect) so what was meant to be the beginning of summer felt like the depths of winter back home - highs in the low teens and lows in the single
The Flaming Lips!!
One of the many mint bands at primavera digits. The sudden 20 degree drop in temperature both chilled and terrified me to the bone. After a day and a half I vowed to myself that if the temperature didn't pick up by July, I was movng to Singapore where at least I can be assured of decent temperatures.
The drop in temperature also gave me the mother of all colds, which didn't help the mood. Poor adam had to put up with some extreme mood swings (as well as fluctuating fever temperatures), which i suppose i can no longer blame on the malaria tablets.
On the bright side it was great to see everyone - catch up with the brother and sister and all the friends who have been here a while. And catch up I did, particularly with eveline, with whom I stayed up until 6am the first night i arrived... how i screw up one's body clock.
But three days was long enough in such chilly climes, and it was time to head to barcelona with adam and dedee for the three-day music festival - primavera. Of course "three-DAY" is really a misnomer, given we didn't get there until after 8pm each night,
Random Spaniards
Partying on a random saturday morning in Barceloneta after enjoying the wonderful spanish sun for most of the time it was in the sky.. Just to add to the body clock-confusion, I didn't get to bed until 6am the first two nights. The first night was by our own doing - too many dj's were playing (what I thought, not being a dj-buff like the other two, was) a really good set so we danced till we could see the new day on the horizon. The second night was not the best laid plan. We stayed till after the flaming lips (Bloody great!!), but unfortunately that was just after the metro had stopped working, so we decided that, rather than jump on the overcrowded shuttle bus back to the city, we'd walk a little bit and hail a cab... of course we didn't factor that at 4am on a saturday morning, the only cabs going towards the city would be those that are already full from picking people up from the festival. So after getting mildly lost, we ended up walking for almost two hours all the way home. no-one was pleased.
Three hours later we were awoken by what adam thought was some sort of cannon
What I can only assume to be apostles
with their judgemental glares, outside the Cathedral, Tarragona going off, which appeared to signal the start of random festivities at the end of our street with plenty of music and shouting, this lasted all morning.
The next morning, after I had had a slightly more reasonable bed-time (3am, although adam and dedee turned up again at 5.30), we checked out of our cute little apartment and caught the train to Tarragona, about an hour south of Barcelona. Hoowee she's a pretty wee town that one!! Back in the day it was a roman stronghold and so it's got all these roman ruins scattered throughout the city and when you add that to the view of the mediterranean and the unfettered sunshine, you get a hell of a lot of photo opportunities.
Once we had found a place to stay, which was slighter more of a hassle than we anticipated, we wandered around the area and started to get the feeling, by the sound and crowd control equipment being erected, that the town was gearing up to some sort of event. after a few attempts at asking locals, adam text-messaged his spanish flatmate who explained that tarragona's football team - Nastic - had just been promoted to
Novelty Over-sized Door
The Giant's entrance to the Cathedral, Tarragona first division, so they were have something of a parade to celebrate. As luck would have it our hotel room overlooked the square in which this parade to to be held, so we stood on our (tiny) balcony and watched as the whole town gathered and went crazy for these local heros. Queen's "We are the champions" and other golden oldies were on high rotation, interspersed with Nastic's team song - "Nas-tic, Nas-tic, dah dah dah dah dah".
So that made two carnival-type things in as many days - they're a festive lot those spaniards.
The next day we got up very late and went and lay on the beach for a long while, then swam in some of the clearest water I've ever seen... it was beautiful.
And that about sums up our trip to Spain. My first so-journ to continental europe was very enjoyoble, although to my surprise the language barrier there was greater than anything I experienced in asia... perhaps because I don't look so entirely foreign, or perhaps because Spain is wealthier and therefore sees tourists as just eveil rather than a necessary evil. But it really is lovely. With all the old
More Gratuitous Shirt-less-ness
The boy's not camera shy... or maybe he's just asleep buildings and stuff... I decided that if asia was like being in a national geographic, europe is like being in a lonely planet - very picturesque.
So we arrived back to a noticeably warmer london, and three days later I returned to my second home - Luton airport - to fly to Budapest, but as I said, I'll blog that at a later date.
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