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Monday, July 2nd, 2007
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4:35p - Spanish Sunshine - Tue 19th - Fri 22nd June 07
So having finished up in Granada, we hoped on a train to Almeria for a few days of Spanish sunshine by the cost. We were hoping to stay in San Jose, a lovely sounding little seaside town in the Cabo de Gata, a nature park famed for its remoteness and stark beauty. After some stuffing around we decided to stay in nearby Almeria instead. We knew there Were buses from there to San Jose, however we couldn't find what time they were for love nore money, nore could we get hold of the alleged hostel in San Jose to sort out accommodation, plus our train to Madrid was leaving Almeria at 7.15 in the morning, so we probably would have had to spend the night in Almeria anyway ...
San Jose was lovely, just what I was hoping for. Almeria was, well, not. On the plus side, the hotel was lovely. We had our own room with air con, our own big bathroom with a bath mat, big white fluffy towels and even a bath tub! Its amazing what'll impress you after you've been roughing it a bit in hostels for a few days :)
We basically saw everything there was to see in Almeria in like, an afternoon. The palace on the hill was pretty but still mostly a ruin, although the view of the town and coast was fantastic, even if you had to hold on tight to avoid being swept off the parapets! (argh, heights and strong winds, not a good combination as far as I'm concerned). And there was some animal park with lots of deer etc which was saw from the walls of the aforementioned palace. Plus the guide book had a few warning about 'don't go here, don't go here alone, don't go here with valuables' etc . . .
The upshot of all this is we decided to head to Madrid a day early, any only spend two nights in Almeria instead of 3. After rather a tasty breakfast on the beach we caught a bus to San Jose, which was everything I was hoping for, minus the black sand :) A cute, relaxed seaside town with lots of sunshine, a pretty quite beach and several places to get ice-cream and food :) One weird thing was the sand, which is black and yellow, giving it a strange grayish tinge. After a day on the beach having sand blown in your hair it really Does look like you've been rolling in the dirt (ew). I was picking grit out of my ears for about the next three days. We did have some of the Best seafood of the whole trip for dinner that night. Trying to find a place that would feed us as 6.30 was a bit challenging (yes I know the Spanish don't usually start thinking about dinner till at least 8pm, however we had to be on the last bus at 8 . . .), and ended up at a touristy italianesq place and had some fantastic calamari - sweet and tender and delicious!
The 7 hour train to Madrid the following day was surprisingly OK. We slept for the first couple of hours and trains in Spain are by and largely fast, efficient and clean. There was even some tv screens showing a couple of movies and free headphone, which weren't much good to us at they were English language films dubbed in Spanish :) (he he, in the hotel in Almeria we were watching Jerry Maguire and old episodes of Desperate House wives dubbed in Spanish, mostly for a laugh as much as anything else. Oh and did you know you can get one litre cartons of Sangria from the supermarket for only 65cents (euros). Bargain! Tastes much better than it sounds I assure you :) ).
Where was I? Oh yes, train to Madrid. A good way of seeing the country side, which largely consisted of endless, endless fiends and hill sides of gnarled, grayish green olive trees as far as the eye could see. Still now sight of the water source supplying all those fountains in the south, but I guess they must be some where. A few games of Flux, some chatting, a picnic of baguette, juicy sliced tomatoes and tasty liquid Camembert dip (delicious! and unfortunately not available outside Spain) and we were in Madrid b4 we knew it :)
Almeria's not somewhere I really want to go back to, but if you were looking for some where quite for some sunshine I'd recommend San Jose - I think easy jet fly to Almeria and you can get a bus from the Train Station to San Jose (the time table is available from the Almeria tourist information office).
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4:56p - Mad Madrid - Thurs 21st - Mon 25th June.
Madrid was interesting, but not somewhere I fell in love with in the same was as say, Barcelona or Seville. We did some of the usual touristy stuff like the Royal Palace, a walk along Gran Via (the main street), a stroll through some of the gardens and checked out a museum or two. The royal palace was certainly very impressive, but not really my thing. Lots of somewhat over the top decorated rooms with sparkling chandlers and golden tapestries. I thought the most interesting bit was actually the armoury, with row after row of shiny knights armour and big displays of horse armour with knights atop :) I'm not sure how you convince a horse to Wear that type of armour, let alone let then let a fully kited out knight sit on top, but I guess they managed it somehow. Also had an example of a little 'doggy coat' armour, which was cute :).
Madrid also had lots of lovely fountains and several gardens, many of which were light up a night. We stayed with our friends parents who live outside Madrid, who spoke very little English and were just lovely and fed us and looked after us, including making us proper paella on our last day for lunch and not letting us pay for dinner, despite our best efforts! (there may have bit a wee bit of wresting over the bill). Much eating and drinking and chatting and swimming in the pool in the backyard :)
Sat night we went out in Madrid and danced until the wee hours of the morning. An interesting mix of Spanish and English language songs, to the point where Jen and I were going 'we are in Madrid in Spain, right? 'cause we just about could be in a club in Melbourne right now' . . . We didn't Quite make it to El Rastro, the big market in Madrid on Sunday, and instead spend the day wandering from place to place refueling :).
After that it was off to Marrakesh, but that's defiantly anther story.
Cheers
S.
current mood:  busy (comment on this)
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5:27p - Best laid plans and all that . . .
Surprise! I'm still in London. Last night I got a text from BA saying my flight today had been cancelled, probably due to the recent security alerts in London atm. So last night I was on the phone to them at 12.30, speaking to a lovely American sounding guy who was very helpful and very apologetic. The up shot is they've booked me into the flight leaving at the same time/place tomorrow.
I remember about a week ago I was saying to a few people how I wish I had booked my flight to Italy a day later, as I had some errands I really needed to be in London for during business hours. Well I guess I got my wish :) Provided the flight goes OK tomorrow it should all be good (touch wood). Means I've been able to go to the bank, post office etc.
Anyway I'm now sitting here trying to get write ups of everything done whilst I have access to a property english keyboard, Arabic keyboards are whole new world of pain, and I though the Spanish ones were bad! *shudder*.
The next update will *hopefully* be from Italy talking about the summer job, unless I get the Morocco one finnished in the next 23 mins :)
Cheers
S.
current mood: accomplished (comment on this)
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