Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Spain (South) - 30 July to 7 August 2009

I havent had the internet for about a week and a half, so blogging has been impossible. But here it is... finally!

Spain

Spain was probably my favourite place since Croatia. Its bright, beautiful, clean and interesting. Theres so much to see and do and the Spanish have an amazing street art scene, archicticture and beaches.



Barcelona

Barcelona was awsome, the main strip is called Las Rambles, and is ram jam with street performers that will blow your freaking mind! The one that i remembe the most, was a guy dressed as the Alien from Aliens, it was SO realistic that it was kinda freaky. Off the main strip is the most amazing market i have ever been into. The colours inside the market were so bright and vibrant and the atmosphere was electric. It was alive with people buying there fruit and veg, fresh meats, seafood , lollies and fruit juices. There were people eating at little eateries all along the rows of people selling there produce and the look on some peoples faces when they were eating flat out made me hungry as a mother bitch!

Off the main street there weres heaps of little alley ways trailing off it leading to boutique shops. Little retailers that sold everything from 2nd hand vintage clothing to skate clothing to high end brand names. There was also a sex musuem, of which we didnt get chance to go into :(


Mallorca

The main islands that people head to off the coast of Spain are Mallorca, the smaller island of Manorca to Mallorca's North and the one and only Ibiza.

Mallorca is were all the poms flock to so we made sure to not stay in the capital of Palma to try and avoid the crowds as much as we could! haha We hired a car for a few days and drove around the island looking for nice remote beaches to kick it and soak up the sun, little did we know that EVERY SINGLE BEACH, no matter how remote, was full of people. Not even full of poms, it was full of Germans!! Germans everywhere, im talking 10:1 Germans to other nationalities, i dont even think there were as many Spanish as there were Germans, it was insane.

In saying that tho, the beaches were still unreal and the water was incredbily clear and warm and full of sea life! The most disapointing and distressing thing we saw was the amount of disrespect for the ocean and the coastline. We stood at the top of this hill looking over this one particular bay and counted 26 plastic bags floating in the bay. When we went snorkling, there were plastic bags lining the bottom of the ocean in the bays. It was disgusting. So disrespectful by the holiday makers and so shit by the Spanish government to not be cleaning that shit up!


Vellencia

We stayed in a cool hostel in Vellencia, probably the best we have stayed in so far and wasnt the most expensive either. There were 3 of these Hostels in Vellencia, all run by the same company. Pink Nest, Purple Nest and Red Nest. We stayed in Purple Nest. The walls were graffitied differently in every room and all the hallways were graffitied to. There was free wifi internet, a common area with pool table and a sweet bar area. Dopeness!

The main thing that i loved about Vallencia was there Science and Technology Park, the architcture was off the chain, it was like being in a Sci-Fi movie!




Anyways, that was probably the worst blog so far, mainly because i left it so long and the enthusiasm to write it was gone. Next blog will be all about the madness that is set to take place in 7 days when the crew rocks up. 11 friends, tearing up Europe.... ohhhhh sheeeiitttttt!

PEACE!

Click through to the ; Spain Photo Gallery

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

France (South) - 24 to 30 July 2009

France (south)
Coastal Glam'whore

After the slight let down from my high expectations of Italy we went to France, a place where I really didn’t have any expectations at all. We came in through Morocco (the smallest country in the world if you didn’t already know) and arrived at our first stop, Nice! (No that isn’t a typo for all you unworldly wordsmiths, its pronounced Niece)

We didn’t book any accommodation for Nice and had to find a net cafe to find some accommodation. Nice was another quite expensive place to stay and we ended up going well over our budget for the 3 nights, which sucked ass because it meant skimming on food and fun. :(
Nice was a really nice place (heavily excuse the cheesy pun), it had a big ass tram line running down the main city centre, was very clean and vibrant and had a nice coast line.


We used Nice as a base to go see Cannes which was about an hour and a half train ride away. Cannes is home to the Cannes International Film Festival and is pricayyyyyyyyyy!!! Cannes was really nice, and if you’re female and want to do some mid to high-end clothes shopping, this seems the place for it!


We also went to a place called Phoenix park, which ended up being like a mini zoo that was unfortunately in revamp mode, so most the exhibits were off limits and the "Australia" section was a disgrace to our country hahaha.


Because of the expense of our accommodation we were eating 70 cent bullshit canned meals for 2 nights as our main meal... well I was, Suzie was eating cheese crackers. So on the last night, I was heavily over it and needed a sit down meal, so we found somewhere semi affordable and I ended up having the local speciality, fish stew. Which was offfff theeee chaaiiiiinnnnnn!!!!!!! So good!






We had to get a train to Barcelona and it got delayed by 3 hours because a train broke down blocking all these other trains (This was our 3rd delay using the French rail system of more than 2 hours, the first 2 were because of people topping themselves on the tracks). But in France when they something is delayed, they get straight down to the point....

Click through to the; France Photo Gallery