It seems the trains from Barcelona to Madrid are pretty popular, and I couldn’t get a seat until 3:30 this afternoon… I have to wait 4 hours! Not enough time to go touristing, but long enough for it to be, well, a long time. I thought I would take this opportunity to recap the trip so far.
But first:
After two days in Madrid I am heading to Saville. I’m pretty excited about it. Where should I go next? My train pass is valid for unlimited countries… so I could easily take a night train to Lisbon (in Portugal) and spend a few days there. Or, if you’d prefer, I could take a night train to San Sebastion and make my way to Italy from there. Or I could just start making my way over to Italy via Barcelona, stopping in Nice on the way.
Loading …
Anyway. Back to the recap.
The flight to London really wasn’t that bad. My mom bought me this inflatable pillow thing, and I felt like a tool pulling it out and inflating it… but it seriously made a big difference in my sleep. Now, I wouldn’t use the words “Beauty Sleep” since I was pretty haggard in the morning. But I don’t want to imagine what I would have looked like sans pool-pillow.
I sat beside this super cool girl on the plane (who I have since lost the contact information of… grrrr) and I could tell she was just dying to talk to someone. I was happy to oblige. I flew into Gatwick and then had to take a 9 pound ($20ish) train to Victoria Station. I was feeling cheap so I decided to walk to the hostel, and got horribly lost. The thought process I used bewilders me: I have no idea why I thought I could walk somewhere without a map or an address. I ended up walking for 3 hours, then taking the underground anyway: a one-way trip was 4 pounds ($9ish)! Ouch!
The next day I was too cheap to spend the 5 pounds on an underground day pass, so I bought a 3.5 pound bus pas. Big mistake. Busses suck. Undergrounds are cool. There’s also this thing called an Oyster card that cuts your fare down to about one pound per direction. Super cheep. I’m super stupid for not buying one. Oh well. The second day sort of sucked. I was feeling pretty sick and jet lagged, and spent most of the day on busses and walking around. I did get to see Notting Hill, and in the evening I met some cool backpackers and started to sap as much information as I could from them. They told me about Free Walking Tours, and I was excited to try them out.
Lessons learned so far:
1) Buy a small book and write addresses in it. A lot of people seem to use FaceBook… so sign up and add people galore.
2) Don’t cheap out on a metro pass. It’s worth it, and if you cheap out, you will end up buying one anyway and spend more than you would had you not cheaped out. Ha ha. In Paris and Barcelona you can buy packs of 10 tickets. They are pretty reasonable, and worked out better than buying day passes.
I already talked about the free walking tour I did the next day, but they have them in major cities all over Europe and I heart them.
I made a video of my museum hopping, and finally uploaded it. Here we go!
And unfortunately, since all good things must come to an end… I had to leave London and make my way down to the Tomato festival you sent me to. So I took a night bus. It sucked. It seriously sucked. There were 3 busses and no order. It was some sort of national Holiday (so I had to pay the 3 pound holiday fee) in addition to my 34 pound fare. When I got there, there were people at the table bartering for tickers. Pandaemonium. I had to stand outside in a crowd waiting for the busses, and when they arrived it was a free-for-all to get seats. How hard would it be to install a line?
The bus headed to Dover, we got off, went through customs, boarded a giant ferry, traveled on said ferry then got back on the bus and drove to Paris. I thought it was weird that there were no places to sleep on board, but there were people sprawled everywhere so I joined in. I think I got 3 or 4 hours of sleep on the entire journey so it wasn’t too bad. And I got to use that inflatable pillow again, ha ha, kudos to me. I’m not excited about taking another bus from Amsterdam back to London. But that’s what happens when you are cheap but hate taking cheap flights.
I don’t want to inundate you with to much text, so I’ll end it here and set up my blog to automatically post the Paris recap in twelve hours.
“Jeremy!?”
“WHAT? NO WAY!!”
“What are you doing here?”
“What are YOU doing here!?!?!”
In a city of twelve million people, I stumbled upon a friend from high school. Times like this always make me wonder how much we miss by mere seconds.
I had a fantastic day in London. It was rainy, but that didn’t stop me from taking a 3 hour walking tour around the city. Best of all, it was free. If you ever have the opportunity to take a free walking tour, do it. It’s amazing.
I also made it to the changing of the guards, which was really cool. Certainly worth your time if you are ever in London.
Tomorrow I am taking an night bus to Paris. The thirty pound one was sold out so I was forced to pay thirty seven… Eighty dollars to bus to Paris. *Shudder*. At least I’ll save a night of hostel expenses. My Master-card was decided and I had to call them. I was terrified when a voice told me I had a credit balance of $30. I thought this meant someone racked up $4970 in debt and I had a little panic attack… but it actually meant I paid too much money on my last bill. We figured stuff out, and all is good.
Tomorrow, before I peace out, I’ll go to the museums like Rosanna suggested. I’ll update you soon.
Any ideas of cities (with hostels in them) along the coast of Spance, France, and Italy I should check out?
Oh shoot, I forgot to tell you. Someone stole the power cord to my computer!!! I have no idea why, but I’m going to have to buy a replacement. Gosh darn it! I hope I can find a North America version and not spend $200. GRRRRR. It might be a while before I update this site again since I only have two hours left.
UPDATE! The person who “borrowed” my charger has since returned it to the front desk. I think I learned how important it is to be security conscious… and how foolish it is to be a bit careless.
Hey there! Sorry for not posting yesterday, the Internet was down.
Yesterday I came to a stark realization. Sitting in the hostel, searching website after website for a Hostel in Paris, emailing about 10 of them, waiting for a response, figuring out busses, making a reservation in Barcelona, canceling the reservation in Barcelona, blah blah blah for three hours was not the best use of a day in London. I did manage to bus around London and check out Hyde Park, but still. I think for my sanity (and to allow me to actually do the things you tell me to in the places you tell me to go to), we need to make plans in advance. A week should be fine.
Here’s the Itinerary so far:
On Friday I am taking an overnight bus to Paris. It’s going to be a terrible experience, but I think it’s going to be so bad that I might actually like it. Then I stay two days in Paris, take an overnight train to Barcelona, then one to Valencia for La Tomatina. I will be for three days.
I need to start booking hostels for the following week, so where do you think I should go?
Loading …
I’m off to tour London… and actually be a tourist. Ha ha. More pictures and videos to come soon.
Right now I’m experiencing total sensory overload. It’s 9:00 London time, and I’m trying to force myself to stay up until 10… my little anti-jet-lag trick. I probably had 3 hours of sleep in the last 30 hours? And surprisingly, I’m not hungry.
This whole backpacking thing is unbelievable. I think I’ll need to settle in to it a bit more before I can articulate my experiences, as I am having trouble finding words to describe the experience. It’s simply overwhelming, but in a very good way. The steep learning curve is actually a lot of fun.
Today I realized many things.
1) When you first arrive in London, don’t cheap out and assume you will be able to walk to your hostel. It’s not as easy as you think, and you’ll end up buying a ticket anyway. After you walk 2 hours in the wrong direction. Ha ha.
2) Find out how to get to your hostel before you leave. I assumed that the address was enough. I was wrong. Obviously I made it, but if I was in a non-english speaking country I would still be on the streets.
3) Meeting people is easy. Super easy, and backpackers are really nice.
4) When you get lost, make a video. It’ll probably be funny, and you’ll regret not having the footage if you don’t.
Loading …
