1. IMovie sucks. It garbles the sound when it does transitions. But whatever. I’m not planning on submitting the videos to the cannes film festival, ha ha.
2. It was suggested that I head to Monaco… so I shall. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I’m still sick, which sucks. Oh yeah, this is the video that I reveal that. Sorry for spoiling it, ha ha. But yeah, I have a terrible couch / headache. Hopefully it goes away soon. But I can’t let that stop me from having a god time.
As you probably guessed from the title of this post, I took another night train last night. I was in a room with an American student, a German surfer, and a French business person. Something interesting happened in the night… I’ll let your mind wander.
I’m off to buy my next train ticket, but here’s a video to enjoy.
I took a night train to Lisbon, and I freaking love night trains. This one cost 30 Euros (in addition to my railpass), but considering hostels cost 20… 10 to get to another country is pretty reasonable. On both trains I’ve gotten a decent amount of sleep. But I give all the credit to my earplugs. Without them, well, I wouldn’t be writing “I freaking love night trains.”
The people I was with didn’t speak any English, but I said hi and had an excuse to go to sleep. Super paranoid about my bags, I piled them by my feet and slept awkwardly.
When you’re on a night train, you have two options. The first is “couchettes” or “sleepers”. That’s what I choose. The supplement is a little steep, but it’s worth it in my eyes. Some people, however, choose to sit in a chair all night. Jesus, Mary, and Josehph! Wow! I’ve talked to about 10 people who’ve done it… and none of them slept one bit. Suckers. Hold on, I don’t want to get any bad Karma from this. Hmmmm.
Back to Lisbon. So far, 9 people have come up to me on the street and offered me drugs. One guy offered me poppers and did some pelvic thrust. He screamed “It will make you goood!!” as he trusted his… private regions… towards me. Seriously. Does my beard really make me look like a hobo? Probably. Ok random stranger, hook me up! Ha ha ha. I guess there must be people out there who say yes, or else the guys would have given up ages ago. I think one of the guys staying with me in the hostel actually said yes. Brave guy. He told me the pot was good… but that’s one thing I’ll veto if you choose it in my adventures. Ha ha.
I was randomly walking around town and came across this giant castle. Student entry was 2.5, so “Student Jeremy” checked it out. It was neat. Or as I like to say “interesting”. I’ve never been in a castle before. I wouldn’t do it again. But once was once and I can deal with that.
I’m downloading Transformers the movie for the train. Actually no. That would be illegal, and foolish to admit to on a blog. I would never pirate movies, and am adamantly opposed to it. Stop pirating! Haven’t you seen those commercials? It’s stealing.
I got to ride around all day on those little tram things. They are super cool! It’s like Disneyland. I also went to this bakery place and had a bakery thing. I quite liked it.
And yeah. That’s about it. I’m so glad I am leaving tonight, because I have run out of things to do. Lisbon is great… for a short time if you have a short attention span.
On the first night I arrived in Sevilla I met up with an Australian couple and we walked around the city at night. We stumbled across this random block party. Too bad they weren’t playing block party. But whatever. Hundreds of people were piled into a tiny street and were drinking beer and eating olives. Even the Policia joined in… except instead of drinking beer they drove their car through the crowed to clear a path. But I can relate to that… the whole “making an entrance” thing. Anyway.
It was a good night, and THANK GOD FOR EARPLUGS! Seriously. I wear them every-night and with them I sleep like my old roommate Jaylene. She wears earplugs, and sleeps well too. They make such a difference. Honestly. They only think that’s woken me up so far were these irritating kids that came home at 5:30 last night and decided to have a loud discussion and throw their bags around the room. Sometimes I wish I carried around a dart-gun. Seriously.
I quite like walking around cities at night, although the thought of me doing it alone does not tickle my fancy. But with people it’s mad fun.
The next day I headed out with an American guy named Hudson. We went inside this cathedral thing, climbed up the tower, listened to the bells toll twelve. I pretended I was a peasant and begged for bread. Ok fine, I didn’t. But I did pretend I was still a student so I only had to pay 2 Euros! Suh weet!
We also headed to this really amazing park. Insects buzzing sounded like a river in the trees. It honestly looked like Jurassic Park. So obviously I loved it.
We spent a few hours walking around and ended up at this old, abandoned expo/world fair kind of thing. It was overgrown, run down, collapsed. Pavillion of the Future or something like that. It was seriously like walking on to the set of a zombie movie: 28 years later. The thing must have been built in the 80s. There was this escalator all overgrown with grass that went up to a monorail station in the middle of nowhere: no connecting tracks, all the windows were broken, the tiles were bent up like desert sand. It was one of the coolest places I have ever seen. When I make my first zombie movie, I am going to film it there. Dibs on the name “28 years later”.
That night I went on a tapas-tour and flamencos show. The food was good and the entertainment was free.
First, I figured out why the ticket people were laughing at me yesterday. They sold me a ticket from Sevilla to Madrid, instead of Madrid to Sevilla. I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I cannot imagine how they would expect me to get to Sevilla in time to take a train back to Madrid. Especially when the train stations were closing. GRRR. I hope she dies alone. Just kidding.
I went to purchase the rest of my tickets this morning, and the super super helpful guy at the counter noticed the mistake and corrected it. He also helped book my return ticket, my sleeper trains to and from Lisbon, and then a train to San Sebastien. Except we made one small mistake which I will get fixed when I get back to Madrid (he booked the train from Madrid to San Sebastien before I actually arrive back to Madrid from Lisbon). I seriously need to pay more attention to these things.
Lessons learned? Always check your tickets. ESPECIALLY when the people selling you the tickets are laughing.
Now, the second “interesting” thing that happened today has more to do with my sheer stupidity. On the way to Sevilla the train stopped for about 20 minutes, and the power went off. I assumed the train was having trouble, so at 3:18 when the train stopped (when it was supposed to arrive), I assumed it was a station early. But just to make sure I got off the train and asked someone working there. I obviously don’t speak Spanish, but he pointed to the train, and gestured forward. I thought this meant I was supposed to get back on the train. I was wrong. As we rolled away from the station, I looked up and saw a sign. Sevilla. I missed my stop. One transfer and two and a half hours later, I arrived back in Sevilla.
I’m such an idiot.
Lesson two: When your train is scheduled to arrive at 3:18 and it is 3:18, look for a sign and get off the train. It wasn’t too, too much of a hassle to backtrack… but it could have been a disaster.
But I’m here now. In the hostel. Sevilla is like a sauna, but I like it.
Oh yeah, when I was checking in the woman “accidentally” shorted me on my change. Ten Euros, but I figured it out before I peaced out. I’m going to assume it was an accident.
Madrid was a big city. Really big. And I liked it.
I stayed at a hostel (hostelworld classifies it as a guesthouse for some reason, but it really is a hostel) called Sant Jordi, and it was outstanding. Great people, great rooms. A little hot, but they are installing air conditioning which will be complete the day I leave. Ha ha.
The first night I walked around the city and snapped some photos. It was fun, and I was hanging around with some pretty awesome people. Nothing too exciting happened, but the hot night air was really cool. He he.
The next day I made some chill friends and we went to see the Royal Palace and had ice-cream afterwards. The palace forbid photography…
… and the ice-cream was probably the best ice-cream I’ve ever had. Jesse - one of the people I was with - has a similar itinerary to me and wants to go to Greece as well. And now that I have someone to travel with, the 22 hour ferry won’t be as bad. So your decision to send me there is going to work out well (after Italy, of course).
We had some really weird experiences this evening. Jesse was taking a night train to Lisbon tonight so I tagged along since I had some train tickets to buy. On the metro a Spanish man was starring at us awkwardly, and then decided to talk.
“Where are you from!?”
“Uhhhhhhh…” “… Canada.” Jesse is American.
I piped in “Yeah. We’re from Vancouver.”
“Oh. Well, you’re still speaking English. But I like Canada.” The man’s body language became less aggressive. “You’re less violent.”
“Mhm.”
“And I like how you are multi-cultural. Less of a melting pot.”
“Mhm.”
“I was on the train the other day and these two girls from Quebec were speaking French. I had no idea what they were saying. I thought they were speaking Czech.”
“Mhm.”
He eventually got off the train. It’s funny that the whole “I HATE AMERICAN” attitude really does exist in Europe. Now I’m not going to make make generalizations because that would be extremely hypocritical, but there are certainly some people who hold it. I’d say they are a small minority, but they certainly make their presence known. I guess I understand why many Canadians travel with Canadian flags. Maybe I’ll iron mine onto my bag tomorrow.
It’s really weird though. The whole anti-american thing is EXTREMELY hypocritical. Generalizing all Americans as ignorant or whatever is just as ignorant as Americans are said to be. And extremely ironic. Honestly though, I’ve only met one “stereotypical” American throughout all of my life’s travels, and he wasn’t even that bad. Le sigh.
When I got to the train station I had a situation of my own. I was in line to buy a ticket, and the “take a number” machine wasn’t working. I went up to a person working there and said “Hola! Hable ingles?” [Hey there. Do you speak English].
“No speak English.”
So I pointed to the ticket Machine that wasn’t working, and said “No Bilettas.”
In perfect English, she replied “That’s because we are closing in thirty minutes. Do you have a phone? You should call our ticket reservation line and come back tomorrow. Or you can go on the internet and book your tickets there. Sorry.”
No English? Excuse me? I decided to take this opportunity and lie myself. I had found an expired “number” on top of the dispenser and picked it up. It was 904 and the machine was calling 905.
I held out my ticket “Sorry. I missed my number.”
“Didn’t you hear it?”
“No. Sorry. I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Well, you are going to have to come back tomorrow.”
So I turned around and went to the information desk. Moments later she walked up to me and ushered me to another line, and a man sold me my ticket. He certainly made the process difficult, and was not smiling. She was talking to him in Spanish the entire time and they kept looking at me and laughing. It was really awkward, and I had no idea what was going on. It’s unlikely that they were talking about me… but still. It’s certainly a story worth sharing.
Did it ruin my trip? Not in the slightest. All I learned was that woman is a bitch… ha ha… and it was stupid to wait until 8:30 to buy my tickets.
So I’m still sitting in a hostel in Barcelona waiting for my train, but this has turned into a really good opportunity to spend some time updating the blog. It’s also a really good opportunity to mow down on a box of cereal. Speaking of cereal, someone stole my Special K! I guess if someone is desperate enough that they have to steal a half-eaten box of cereal I should be totally fine with the donation. Ok, I can deal.
I spent two nights in Paris, and it actually was the perfect amount of time. On the first day of my arrival I dropped my bags into the storage place and headed out. I had 30 minutes to get to the free walking tour (the only great thing about night busses is that you get there in the morning) so I hopped on a metro and had fun. Randomly, my friend Mike from Vancouver has since moved to Paris and is a Free Tour guide. What are the chances? I wonder who I’ll meet on my next one. Anyway. I got to see the touristy stuff and had a great afternoon. I met some Aussis on the tour, so we walked around town afterwards and they shared their hostel horror stories with me. Their places were moldy, smelly, small, and hard to sleep in. I certainly wasn’t excited to check into my room. But fortunately for me, I was pleasantly surprised. I seemed to have lucked out on the cool hostel. Not that hostels are the reason I am traveling, but having a nice shower is still nice.
That night a bunch of people form the hostel headed up to the Sacre Cour to drink on the steps, and we were witness to a most bizarre street performer. I took a video clip, but it seemed to have deleted itself. He just did this little dance every 15 minutes, and was under the impression that his performance was impressive. After several bottles of wine, a few boxes of crackers, cheese, and olives, we headed to a Karaoke bar. It was an incredible night, and my best so far on this journey.
The next day I headed to the Louvre and the Eiffel tower. I found the Louvre somewhat overwhelming so I peaced out after taking my mona-lisa pictures. I gave my ticket to a random person, and it made her day so that was cool. Walking up the Eiffel tower was also cool. That night was pretty laid back and a bunch of us drank in the court-yard of the hostel.
“Ed” is my new favorite grocery store. Water was only .19 Euro, and Brie cheese was only .99! I went to the catacombs on my last day, but they were closed! GRRRR! I was super excited to go see them, but I guess I have a reason to go back to Paris someday.
The big adventure that you guys chose for me was to head to La Tomitana, so to get there in time I had to take a night train to Barcelona, then connect to Valencia. It was a long day of traveling, but obviously worth it. The night train was actually pretty nice. With my rail pass it costs 20ish to get a six person sleeper, or $1.50 for a seat. I made the right decision and was in a cabin with a couple from Latvia. If I ever am in their town, I have a free place to stay and people to show me around. Super nice people, and I’m sure someday I’ll take them up on their offer.
I didn’t have any trouble sleeping. I heard a whole bunch of stories of people’s bags getting stolen, blah blah blah, so I piled my bags in the corner by my head. There was a little fetal-positioning required for me to lie down, but there was no way someone would be able to move my bags without dropping them on me.
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.
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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.
Today is Beach day! I’m very excited to get rid of my terrible farmer’s tan.
I did all the touristy stuff in Barcelona. I went to a really cool market off of La Rambla… did all the Gaudi stuff (saw his famous park and buildings). A pretty cool day just wandering around.
A group of us from the hostel decided to go on this bar/pub crawl, but when we showed up at the first place it was canceled! Grrrr. At least we got our money back. What did we do instead? Drank in the streets, of course. Ha ha.
Tonight I’ll post all of my pictures so far. It will take about two hours to upload them all, but I’ll throw on a movie or something. I guess this is what happens when you keep putting things off.
This picture sums it up pretty well. La Tomitana was out of this world. I seriously recommend making your way to Bunol, Spain next year and attending it. Well, if you like the idea of being in a crowded town with hundreds of people moving in all directions, pushing you, with only your upper-body strength protecting you from suffocation.
It was like those pantings of purgatory from ancient Rome - the sea of bodies grabbing at the boats that cross the river. I loved every minute of it.
Too bad I missed the ham-grabbing. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll find it on YouTube.
I’m thinking Spain is too cool to miss. Do you think I should spend a bit more time here before heading to Italy? The trip’s not done until the end of October, so there’s certainly time to do this and everything thing else. But of course, it’s up to you.
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