Portugal: The age of discovery

Lisbon:
Arriving early in the morning on Saturday September 7th after a severe lack of sleep and struggling to cope with the fact that a major capital city’s main train station literally felt like it was in the middle of woop woop! After about 5 mins of uming and aring with a few other travellers we all agreed it was the last stop and we should depart the train. Meeting a couple of Aussie girls as I got off the train who were heading to the same hostel as I we all left and caught the metro up to where we were staying, the awesome and hilariously named G Spot Hostel. After quickly checking in I was extremely excited to find free pancakes waiting on the table for breakfast for me followed by a quick nap before grabbing a map ready to go explore/get lost around Lisbon. First wandered to a park at the top of a hill just near where I was staying which had a great view of the entire town right out to the river, before catching the bus out to the aptly named “Thieves market” which was basically a huge street market selling every kind of random shit possible. Wandered around there for about an hour and sadly still couldn’t find anything worthwhile!

From there I walked around, getting ridiculously lost trying to find my way up to the St Georges Castle, to get some amazing views over the city. The castle itself really isn’t that exciting in terms of castleyness plus I’ve become a bit of a castle snob after being in Europe for a while, but the views were amazing and I spent a great deal of time just gazing out into the horizon pondering life’s mysteries for a while… After a bit of guess work I finally managed to work my way back up to the hostel where I was just in time to have a quick shower and catch an awesome Portuguese style BBQ and happy hour (which is why the G Spot is such an awesome hostel, as “Happy Hour” for them translates into 5€ for unlimited beers for an hour & a ton of awesome drinking games!!) From there the only logical answer was a pub crawl around Lisbon, which sadly after the first bar I started feeling really sick and ended my night way to early.

The following 2 days were far less than exciting, being basically bed bound the entire time except for my extremely frequent trips to the bathroom due to my lets put it politely, severe stomach bug combined with a raging fever! More or less slept for about 21hrs straight the first day only surfacing for about 3 hours literally to sit and watch TV while I waited for dinner. (Another awesome point about G Spot, they cook a massive pasta dish for dinner every night for a whole 1€!) Next day consisted of more or less the same, sleep and toilet trips before finally biting the bullet and carting myself off to the British hospital to go get myself properly checked out and sorted (not being able to hold down water is a means for concern). 3 and a bit hours, blood tests and a chest Xray later I discovered I had a raging fever, a weird white blood cell count and had probably eaten something bad to trigger it. Got some antibiotics and told to eat basically nothing but plain rice, apples and carrots (lol that happened..) I was back on my way home to head back to bed. (I did stop off at the supermarket on the way to buy some apples to be a good lil boy and follow Doc’s orders and eat not much at all, where fun fact, I decided to more or less chop off my thumb the following day being a tit trying to cut an apple with my pocket knife. True story, but being stubborn I decided a LOT of bandaids was a better option than heading to hospital 2 days in a row for stitches this time. More fun facts, it now has a lil baby scar & I’m pretty sure I’ve damaged nerves in there because it constantly has pins and needles every time I touch something.. Oh well!)

Double Bunk Beds! Another amazing feature of the G Spot!

Successfully stopped the bleeding!

Yes, so apart from the near amputation of my thumb, I spent that entire day on my ass in front of the telly watching Disney movies trying to make myself feel better with a bunch of other hungover strugglers from the hostel.

Finally on Wednesday the 11th I was feeling well enough to get back to my good ol self, get outside and go for an explore! (Hallelujah!) I jumped on the tram and headed on out to the suburb of Belem, just on the outskirts of Lisbon for a day of exploring the riverside, seeing monuments to explorers & fishermen, getting more great views, seeing an old palace, an old fort, seeing an old church/museum as well as indulging in the supposed original recipe for the famous Portuguese tarts! Had a very long and productive day and was extremely exhausted but happy to finally be out and about again! After another nice 1€ dinner back at the hostel (these seriously saved me SOOOO much money this week!) After dinner it was time for the biggest and most sober (for me as I was not keen on drinking on my antibiotics and wanted to give my body a better chance to rest!) game of King’s Cup known to man, with 4 decks of cards and 2 sets of nesquic cards complete with extra weird cards and with about 25 odd people crowded around it was a hilarious night before everyone headed off for the pub crawl and I had another early night.

The next morning I headed off for an awesome day trip out to the amazing town of Sintra, about an hrs train trip out from Lisbon with Ruby & Tarzan, 2 fun Sydney girls who were in my room and had dubbed me as the sleeping guy due to the fact that I literally hadn’t gotten out of bed for 3 days! First stop was the awesome ruins of an old castle with amazing views over the valley & town as well as visiting an amazing palace with incredible architecture and extremely well preserved rooms and decor! After an awesome late lunch in a nice little cafe it was back to Lisbon for a night of G Spot styled triva (complete with a “gender bender” theme, unlimited drinks and a ton of ridiculous rules it made for a good laugh) before heading out for a failed attempt of a pub crawl where I again called it another early night. (Probably had the most sleep out of my entire trip in Lisbon!)

Finally on my last day in Lisbon I did a big walking tour around Lisbon learning a lot about the city’s history & a great deal about the earthquake and the civil war. Followed by one last night of drinks out in the amazing bar and nightlife district which I sadly didn’t get to see enough of.

First night out, we found a frame on the way to the pubs…

Gender Bender night…

 

Porto:
Getting the train on Saturday the 14th I arrived in Porto in the early afternoon and found to my amazement the entire city in an absolute party mayhem! By sheer fluke I had stumbled into a city wide free music festival! (Epic win!) About 25 different local venues and a couple of big outdoor stage setups were scattered around the city and all hosting various free concerts from 3pm until midnight, plus my hostel was located right in the middle of the carnage! Threw my bags down, did a semi quick (bailed out towards the end) walking tour to get a bit of my bearings around the city, and then being me at a music festival… Grabbed a drink and started going wild! Had absolutely no idea who any of the bands that were playing were but managed to catch some cool music.

Met a cool Korean girl & grabbed a meal where I tried one of Porto’s delicacy, which is just about the most Fraser designed meal on the planet! I’m an epic fan of my toasties to start with, but man they do it properly in Porto! Introducing the Francesinha! The most amazing mouthwatering deliciously atery clogging toastie on earth! Picture: ham, beef and sausage on a sandwich, toasted, then covered in cheese over the top & baked in an oven to melt said cheese, then smothered in a delicious gravy like substance for the most amazing mouthgasimc experience!

After dinner I met a couple of Poms, Americans, Germans & Italians who I ended up drinking the night away with, but the vibe of the festival was absolutely insane! The main bar district consisted of 3 fairly small streets packed with different pubs & clubs (conveniently located right behind my hostel) which amazingly due to the entire city wanting to party was completely PACKED! Every pub and club was full, and all the streets were full as well! (Love the lack of drinking in public laws!) Spent the evening catching some awesome music, grabbing various drinks and socialising in the streets before a big group of us wandered up around the corner to a different club that was opening later than the rest & that we had heard would be mental, where we got to the street it was located on, only to discover that the street itself was mental! Someone had set up a big set of speakers on their 2nd floor balcony and was DJing outside & the streets themselves turned into a massive dance party! Should point out this street wasn’t actually blocked off from traffic for the festival so we had an epic time dancing in between the taxi’s and cars stuck in the carnage and eventually joining in with their horns!

Dancing in traffic in the streets!

After a long dance in the street & a bit of pushy shovey to get into the club it was time for dance party round 2.0 where as expected the music was appalling, even at my intoxication level, but the club itself was awesome & I still managed to have an awesome night out dancing the night away until the very very early hours of the morning!

Needless to say, Sunday morning never existed! Did a walking tour around the old town in the afternoon learning of the cities history & major figures including King something who’s name escapes me, but he did a lot for the country & in the Napoleonic Wars cleverly moved Portugals capital to Brazil to avoid losing the entire Portuguese empire, where after the war became a top bloke and even repaid Brazil for their help by giving them their independence! Also learnt a heap about Porto’s major export, Port wine, which funnily enough is mainly owned by British companies now days. (Sadly I must admit I didn’t end up making it across the river to one of the many Port wineries to do a tasting whilst I was in Porto, criminal I know, but it’s just giving me a reason to go back!)

The following day consisted of a wander around the rest of the town on my own including a good look through the famous Livraria Lello & Irmão bookstore, which is extremely old and considered to be the most beautiful bookstore in the world,  before heading off to go shopping for a billion dollar brand spanking new Camera (where if any of you actually bother to follow this, my old camera carked it in Lisbon after being broken for months) Had some amazing Portuguese chicken for a late lunch, before extremely foolishly I decided to check out and catch the night train up to San Sebastian in the north of Spain for a couple of nights there before making my way over to Munich for Oktoberfest! (Hindsight is a major bitch!) I should of stayed the extra days in Porto and explored the city properly, where the weather was good and I had a lot more options to see and do.

Apologies for shit photo quality I had to sneak this as your not aloud to take pics

New toy! So so so happy with this bad boy! Photo quality has gone through the roof since purchasing him!

Had my first proper sleeper night train experience which was awesome! Got a 4 person compartment all to myself and zipped up to Spain, where amazingly it was about 15 degrees, cold, rainy & shit & remained like that the entire time I was in San Sebastian! The major issue overcoming this problem is the fact that San Sebastian is an awesome summer holiday beach town, with little to do besides sit on the beach all day! So stupidly I more or less wasted 2 days being trapped in my hostel, meeting some cool people and going out and enjoying some amazing tapas styled food! (San Sebastian has the highest Michelin Stars per capita in the world!)

That there will have to conclude my Portuguese misadventures, with a hint of Spain, & I will also apologise for how delayed this is & also point out that I have abandoned any hope of ever catching up on this. I’m 2 months behind on this now & its beyond the point of being a lost cause! I may finish it one day but its too hard to keep up to date on the road. Points for trying though?

Adeus

 

Mad Madrid

Waking at 11 on Tuesday September 3^rd (Definitely missed my train) I said bye to everyone that was still left in Barcelona and head on over to the train station where I was told the next train to Madrid left in 5 minutes. Can you run I was asked… Challenge accepted! Grabbed my ticket and all my bags and again sprinted through Barcelona station trying to find my platform. After momentarily lining up for the wrong train I managed to race down the stairs & jump on the train for an extremely hot and bothered ride into Madrid.

Arrived in Madrid to find the nicest information centre help man ever. I hadn’t booked anywhere as I hadn’t planned on even being there, so arriving to this helpful little gem was definitely a bonus! Asked the area that all the hostels were located and instead of a direction to walk in like I was expecting, I received a page with 10 of the city’s most popular hostels & a map with 3 of the bigger ones already marked out! Champion! Recognised the name of a couple of them from friends stories so I grabbed my map and started walking. (Poor choice it was over 30 degrees so definitely should have caught the metro) after a couple of wrong turns and backtracking (my directions have gotten worse if anything on this trip!) I finally managed to find a place, check in and chill out after my hike across town! Had a particularly quiet and boring evening to myself as I decided I was pretty due for a bit of a detox and some R&R.

Next morning I was up and out and about nice and early to do the longest most information packed & exhausting free walking tour on the planet! Seriously after over 4 hours covering all over the city I learnt so much about Madrid’s history and so many amazing stories of the past! Seeing the Plaza Mayor (the main square) which was amazing & learning of massacres, revolutions and it burning down and being rebuilt. Visited the world’s oldest still operating restaurant (as according to the Guinness world records) which opened in 1725 and still has the original woodfire oven! Visited the Cathedral which contains a 300+yr old copy of a 500 or so yr old original silver plaque of the Virgin Mary which according to legend was hidden in the city walls themselves whilst the city was ruled by Muslims for some 200 or so years before the Christians reclaimed the city. (my memory of dates isn’t that good but basically it’s a way old town & a way old plaque!) Saw the royal palace (exterior) before taking a stroll through a nice park up to the opera house and finished the tour at the official centre of Madrid, where all official distances in Madrid are measured from.

Plaza Mayor, fun story the entire square used to stink for years with no apparent cause until during a protest someone threw some explosives into the mouth of the hollow horse statue where hundreds of kgs of dead birds fell out!

Centre of Madrid

The following day I wasn’t feeling too great so had a very quiet chilled morning before heading off to the station to organise my train to Lisbon the following day and having a wander through one of the main parks. Had a couple of drinks out and about that night with a couple of pommy guys but called it an early night. Next day wasn’t all exciting, went for a walk around some of the old town, did some shopping and replaced my lost shorts which being the change of season was actually really difficuly to find before wandering through some of the different areas of Madrid and finding a nice spot in the shade in one of the parks to read and relax all arvo.

After a quick feed and grabbing some food for the train it was off to get severely lost and confused on Madrids Metro system and after finally realising after a few stations I was going the opposite direction I packed it in, jumped out and caught a cab up to the station as I didn’t have time to try figure it out. (only 15 euros so wasn’t too bad) Found my train only to discover to my horror, that the Spanish man who had booked my tickets and didn’t speak English had misunderstood and booked me into a seat not a bed on the sleeper train. Awesome. 11 hrs stuck in my seat on a packed train with a screaming baby across from me… Great start to my Misadventures in Portugal which got even better from here on, but thats for the next addition!

Too-da-loo

Barcelona! It was the last time that we met!

After a fantastic sleep (even though I was in a 24 bed dorm!) it was up and atom for a pretty decent 5 euro fried breaky before taking the free walking tour around the old town which was a great introduction to the city and some of the history. Of course staying at a party hostel, the tour was taken by a big burley bloke from Brisbane but in and amongst his jokes about the Spanish economy I did learn quite about the old town and the Spanish inquisition. Ending the tour with “I’m about to head off to my favourite bar for some 2€ beers so if anyone wants to join?” How could we say no? So that basically wrote off the rest of our day, consuming many beers, going on our own bar crawl and more or less getting a hangover at around 11pm… Good effort!

Highest point in Barcelona!

Building built from old Jewish Gravestones…

Next morning Anna & I had to check out and find a new hostel for the next couple of nights as our place was fully booked for the rest of the weekend, so after some food we found out that Krystan who we’d we met in Valencia was staying in a place not too far from us, so we booked 2 nights there and walked on over and met up with her before renting a couple of bikes and spending the rest of the afternoon lounging about on the beach, having numerous swims, beers and just a very nice relaxed arvo singing the whole time “Barcelona! It was the last time that we met!” Which soon became the theme of our stay (but thankfully wasn’t true as I met up with both of these crazy girls again, but that’s another story!). After a quick stop off at an Irish pub for a couple of happy hr cocktails and a detour to our old hostel to pick up my shoes that I had stupidly forgotten (should point out I was ridiculously forgetful, or just drunk when I was packing during this 2 week period as I lost a pair of shorts in Valencia, forgot my shoes in Barca & then lost another pair of shorts when I left Barca!) Made it back to the hostel, and grabbed some delicious tapas (seriously addicted to tapas now!) Before, hilariously Anna met up with Matt & Tom, a couple of Aussie blokes she had met on the train into Valencia and after a bit of failed organisation attempts we decided to meet up with Clinton (Who we’d met in Valencia) at a shot bar for some drinks before heading out to Razamataz, an amazingly HUGE 5000 people capacity club to dance the night away. Stupidly we should of checked that there wasn’t more than 1 Chupitos (shot bar) in Barca as we were there for about 2 hours with no sign of Clinton, who we later discovered was at the other Chupito’s with his mates on the other side of town. (Should point out & recommend Chupitos’s to anybody in Barca as its amazing! Thousands of shots to pick from, all for 2€! Some are really elaborate and delicious! Eg the boy scout, wWhich was a bunch of something mixed and lit on fire, you get a marshmallow, toast it, take the shot and eat it!) A round each it was time to head off to Razamataz and basically lose each other within 10 mins of getting there. Basically it’s a massive multistory club with different rooms with different genres and styles. Awesome vibe awesome atmosphere again would recommend if you’re ever in Barcelona!

Bob Marley Shots

After a failed attempt at waking up the next morning, we had a very slow and boring afternoon before again some more amazing tapas for dinner and finally meeting up with Clinton at the “Magical Fountain” which is basically this big awesome fountain which basically puts on a show set to music and lights. All 3 of us had an awesome walk down childhood memory lane as the first show was set to Disney music (Sid I completely lost my shit when NAAAAAAAH-SHE-MENZYAAAAAAA was the opening song!) & we all danced and sang along to all the songs having way more fun than everybody else! (Was hilarious to hear Anna singing along in Dutch but knowing exactly what she was saying!) We had a bit of a wander around the park/palacey thing before a quick drink & heading off as Clinton had to get the Metro back in time & Anna & I wanted an early night to get up early, rent some bikes and actually see some of Barcelona the following morning!

Early breaky & on the bikes it was time to explore, riding down along the beach and up to the famous Sagrada Familia Goudi’s unfinished masterpiece, which sadly had about a 3 or so hr line to get in so we decided to skip over that one. Was amazing to marvel/question at the outside works though and see 131yrs on the construction works still going on! After that it was painfully and full of my bitching and moaning off to the spectacular Park Guell, which was uphill the entire way and a serious trek to get to (being 30 odd degrees was helping nobody either!) But so worth it! Finally get there to find the entire place laid out with the same Goudi style mosaics and architecture as well as absolutely amazing views over the city right out to the beaches!

From the park it was a less effortful, but just as painful downhill roll back into town (Anna’s breaks hardly worked and let out ear piercing screeches each time) before riding around getting seriously lost attempting to find some more of Goudi’s famous works, before having a bit of food in one of the markets  and then just basically getting aimlessly lost in some of the suburbs we hadn’t ventured into yet. Called it a day & being completely exhausted had a tactical nap before meeting up with all the others again for a big tapas feast for dinner and many drinks and farewells/until next time at the hostel.

After numerous tastey beverages my original plans to head north into France and spend a few nights around Nice and Monaco before heading across into Italy went completely out the window! Realising there was not a single chance I would be capable to wake up early enough to get the 10hr 9am train that left 1ce every few days, I decided the 3hr train leaving every hr over to Madrid was a far better option. So again my trips “plans” did another backflip and I started working my way in the complete opposite direction south west! Was that a good decision? OF COURSE! But you have to wait to find out about it!

Till then,

Yippee ki-ay, motherfucker!

Sight of an old old old synagogue, which was privately owned and operated as a hardware store for almost 30 years until recently before being discovered!

 

Old friends, new friends & a shitton of tomatos!

Arriving in Valencia on Sunday August 25^th and only getting a little lost trying to find my hostel I dumped my bags, grabbed a map and proceeded to get extremely lost wandering and marvelling at the narrow Spanish streets/alleyways. Valencia is a great little town, very easily walkable with a bunch of nice things to see and do. Eventually managed to find all the sites marked on my map before calling it a day, having a nap and enjoying the hostel’s happy hour 2-4-1 drink specials meeting a bunch of likeminded tomato throwers. Only had a couple of beers nothing too exciting but woke up with the filthiest hangover to discover (somebody told me) those beers I were drinking were in fact 1.5 pints (750mls) so I ended up consuming a lot more than initially thought..

Cannon holes from Napoleons Armies

Next morning I did a great walking tour which covered most of the sights I had been to the day earlier, in a far more logical & less lost manner & it was amazing to hear some of the context and history behind all these places. Learnt a lot about Spanish history including the wars with Napoleon, the dictatorship and the civil war & got to try Orchetta, a really strange Velancian drink made from crushed tiger nuts, which even more strangely tastes like carrots! Cleverly the tour company was running a tapas tour straight after the walking tour, and being starving of course I jumped on the bandwagon! (At 8€ it was actually really good value for money). Got a shitton of really nice food, a couple of drinks and had a good chat with a bunch of nice people before heading back to the hostel to meet up with Anna my Dutch friend I met singing Karaoke in Bath who had also last minute decided to come down for La Tomatina. Had a great night with of lots of drinks, great catchups and meeting a heap more new friends including Clinton from Melb, Krystan from Toronto & Holly from woop woop . At about 1am we realised dinner would probably be a good shout, insert maccas run. Was ridiculously impressed to discover you can buy beer in Maccas in Spain, before having a bit of a wander around the streets where I was amazed to discover everywhere empty & the clubs only just opening. Apparently in Spain you don’t go out before 2am!

Valencia’s very own masturbating gargoyle!

Mc Beer

Tuesday was a slow start but Anna & I decided to do a bike tour with Krys which was a great way to see a bit further outside of the city. Rode from the old town through an amazing park built in an old riverbed which was diverted due to huge floods. Explored the famous city of arts & sciences marvelling at some of the incredible & bizarre architecture before riding over to (not being a pedo) the most amazing looking kids park ever! Designed based on an episode of Gulliver’s Travels the park is basically Gulliver and has heaps of awesome slides and mazes and what nots for the kids to climb. Sadly as Spain is really lazy, the park was closed for siesta and we didn’t have time to go back and play later!  From there we rode all the way down to the beach where we found a great little restaurant for some really nice tapas and sangria before a leisurely ride back into town through a nice (normal) park. Should point out that it was during this tour was when my camera really started cracking the shits and playing up really badly. Did manage to get 4 more cities and almost another month out of it before it completely died though!

Got back to the hostel and all decided to accomplish our 6 S’s before meeting down in the bar at 8. (3 S’s Spanish style = Shit, Shower, Shave, Sex, Siesta, Sangria!) Anna & I did a big load of laundry, (which fun times we ended up spending 8 Euros trying to dry it in the broken drier, so we hung it out to dry, which of course got rained on and we ended up having to lug our bags full of wet clothes up to Barcelona adding close to an extra 10kgs!) before we went out and had some nice Paella and met everyone back at the hostel bar for an awesome night full of many many drinks/drinking games: “Here’s to Frank, 1 cute duck, 2 brown bears, 3 running hairs, open 4 doors look at 4 walls, 5 fat females sitting sipping scotch smoking cigarettes, 6 slit sheets slit by slippery Sam the professional sheet slitter, 7 saucy sailors sailing the 7 seas singing sea shanties!”  with a really fun crowd before calling it a night and getting a couple of hours sleep ahead of the carnage the following morning.

Not having to get the bus until 8 I had a pretty easy morning without having to rush off to the bus so was pretty stoked, (later discovered it would have been a much better option to get the 5am bus like some poor people, Anna included!) Went to the bus stop with Clinton, Holly and a couple of others from the hostel to discover absolute mayhem! Everyone had allocated buses with set departure times, but of course, being the first year La Tomatina had been ticketed and organised this way, plus the fact it’s Spanish, nothing went properly! It was basically like this “Oh we can make money and control numbers if we ticket it, lets make a website to sell them, make it half in English, not provide any information, go have a siesta and never finish it!” We arrived, none of the buses had numbers and it was just a huge shitshow of people more or less pushing, shoving and just jumping on any random bus. Got to the town of Bunol to find the same shitshow of people trying to line up to get entry wristbands/check their clothes & bags in. I being the stupid genius/smart idiot of course decided earlier “Eh I’ll get bye, I won’t need a change of clothes, worst case I’ll wear my birthday suit home!” So whilst the others waited for over 2hrs I used my time wisely purchasing many €1.5 beers and mingling with the crowd. (Couldn’t believe at a massive festival like that how cheep the drinks were! Absolutely blew my mind!) Sadly whilst waiting for the others to sort their stuff out (in the absolutely FREEZING pouring rain! First year its ever rained at La Tomatina!) I missed all the fun & games inside the tomato zone where they set up a slippery lil sucker of a poll and place a ham up the top for fools to try climb. Finally after hours we literally ran up the hill and straight into the tomato fight which had already started about 5 minutes prior. Got there and dived straight in, literally! Was in there all of 30 seconds before I was on the floor doing tomato snow angles and completely COVERED! Spent the next hour in an absolute tomato war zone! Words cannot describe what it is like! Disgustingly amazing comes to mind though! Nowhere else in the world can you go up to a complete stranger, slop a huge pile of smooshed food on their head and get a huge smile from them in return! Took a little too much amusement in seeing Mel, one of the girls I was with cop a huge pile to the face, so of course when I burst out laughing, someone did the exact same thing to me! Kg’s of disgusting tomatos in my mouth! I hate tomatos to start with but that was absolutely horrible! Amazing how quickly that hour disappeared though because sadly all of a sudden it was all over!

Found Clinton & Holly on the way out and together we wandered trying to find a shower, took one look at the 2-3hr line for one of the official showers and turned around to find a local with a hose, which around a few corners wasn’t that difficult to find at all. Got a magical hose down by some elderly locals who were all having fun and games washing thousands of tomato covered tourists down. Again insert a massive wait for the others to get to their bags, sneaky Fraser managed to scab one of the official La Tomatina T shirts & payed €5 for a pair of boardies, so in no time I was dry, free-balling, barefoot in a completely new set of clothes & ready to enjoy some more of those cheap beers waiting for the others. Through some magical fluke we all managed to get on a bus fairly easily (by pushing to the front of that familiar shitshow and cramming on the first bus we could.) Amazingly met up with Anna & a bunch of others from the hostel on the bus, where having not showered too well, Anna decided to continue the tomato fight half the way back into Valencia!

After the most  amazing shower and a larger than expected nap it was time to meet the others back in the bar for another merry night before all heading out together on the pub crawl and dancing the night away. Next morning, like a kid on Christmas I raced downstairs to reception to find out if my EuRail pass had been delivered, which excitingly it had been! Ripped it open and had a look/read through it all over breakfast and after a while figured out I still had NO IDEA how it works. (to this day I still don’t understand!) Pulled out the map of Europe and after discovering that Anna & a handful of my new mates were heading to Barcelona I basically decided to rock up to the station, get them to help me and catch the next train. After a bunch of byes, Anna & I headed off to the station together, where of course waiting in line to get tickets we missed the next train to Barca, which meant a painful 3hr wait before the next slow 5hr train, which also conveniently left from the other station! (At least my fare was completely free with EuRail!) Throwing our bags back on, complete with that extra 10Kgs in wet clothes we quickly got extremely hysterical walking the 1 or so Km’s to the other station, where we plonked ourselves, not getting much better. After a ridiculously long slow and boring train ride we arrived in Barca where I was greeted by a drunken homeless man vomiting basically on my feet & being tired and hysterical our plan to have a sober quiet night went right out the window where we had a recovery beer as soon as we got to the hostel!

And that’s all we have time for in this chapter, tune in next time for more ridiculous misadventures in Barcelona.

PS Apologies for the severe lack of actual La Tomatina photos, I took a waterproof disposable camera along with me and have not had a chance/the time to get them developed sorry! One day!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151565633921828&l=8205917684164045537

The United Kingdom!

Ok so I know how much all my avid readers love my epic novel length rant blogs detailing every single feature of my life but I must sincerely apologise as its too bloody hard anymore! In the month since my last update I have been to 10 different countries, on a Euro-road trip and have seriously TOO much to try fit into individual blogs. This stupid thing is impossible enough to write as is so sadly I’m going to have to do a mega catch-up summary post on the rest of my UK misadventures and try catch up ASAP!

Dublin:

Is a fun lively city. Its Irish! Enough said! They love a drink and it really is true, the Guinness does taste better in Dublin! First day I went for a quick stroll around the main streets seeing some old historic buildings/statures around the famous O’Connell St before wandering around the river and through the Temple Bar area before heading off to the Guinness Storehouse to indulge in some history of the Irish brew. Was awesome to see how the beer is crafted and with a pint included in the ticket price what’s not to love? Went out for a hilarious night listening to a long haired fat Irishman belting out classic tunes amongst his never ending number of Irish drinking songs which got everyone in the pub in a nice merry mood. The weather turned to shit on me the next day & I got absolutely drenched walking over to the old building where U2 recorded their first albums before trying to hide from the rain the rest of the day in any museum I could find, check some of the creepy ancient “bog people” in the pics bellow!

My visit to Ireland was extremely short but sweet, I would definitely like to see some more of the country but hey I’m just saving that for next time!

The only place in the world I’ve been so far that have the same familiar “shadoogadoogadoogadooga” crossing signals!

“Prick with the stick” aka James Joyce

Note the “4” the clever Irish made a typo on his birthday! Opps!

                

 

Newcastle:

Flying over to Newcastle ridiculously early I met up with Morgan, a super old family friend of mine (known him since birth) who’s been living and working over there for the past couple of years. Was awesome to catch up! After dumping my bags at his place we went for a stroll through town, had my mind blown witnessing the way one of their bridges lifts to let boats through (the whole thing tips on its side!) before thinking it would be a genius to save a couple of pounds by buying all the food shopping in Newcastle rather than at the more expensive store closer to Morgan’s place. Lets just say, carrying a shit ton of Kgs worth of shopping near 2Kms in near 30 degree heat with a billion % humidity is less than a favourable situation… The beers that followed were definitely hard earned!

We visited some of the smaller towns situated outside of Newcastle the following day of which I cant remember for the life of me what they were called, but I got to see a really nice cathedral, enjoy some nice coffee, visit a nice beach & see a cool castley thing all before going for a drink at 1 of Morgan’s regular Gin based cocktail bars. Morgan worked my last day in Newcastle & I used most of my day to organise accommodation and transport up to Edinburgh + looked through a bunch of things to see whilst there as the epic Fringe Festival was going on!

Sadly I admit I was a shit shit tourist in Newcastle and forgot to take more pictures because I was too busy having fun catching up with an old mate!

Looks familiar… Design stolen from the Harbour Bridge, pricks!

 

Edinburgh:

Sunday the 4^th of August (just realised I haven’t introduced the timeframe I was travelling in yet) I caught the train up to Edinburgh (after sprinting through Newcastle to the train station with all my bags as the metro was offline only to discover I had plenty of time as my train was at 10:15 not 10…) and after struggling to walk through the PACKED streets of performers, show promoters and millions of tourists annnnnnnd after doing my head in trying to figure out how on earth the city works having 2 different street levels! (Seriously its fucking weird!) I Managed to find my hostel, except it was on the street 20m below me and I had no way to climb down! Resulting in walking back around and down the hill where I finally managed to get there! Dumped my stuff and raced straight off to spend the entire arvo marveling at the amazing Edinburgh Castle! Absolutely stunning castle! LOVED it! Amazing architecture, amazing history and amazing views of the city, the coast and the hills beyond! Learned a bunch about the city/Scottish history as well as a ton about the Scottish Royals, got to see the Scottish crown jewels and the stone of destiny/coronation stone (big ass stone the English stole from the Scots and used/still will use for coronations). Spent the rest of my evening having a few drinks and laughing my ass off at a few comedy shows, including a very funny pommy bloke basically taking the piss out of stereotypical backpackers & holiday makers! Of course performing to a crowd of backpackers in a hostel made it even funnier! Favourite line from his list of “reasons people travel” his final reason of course was “being Aussie!” The truth behind it? Half the room cheered! The rest of my time in Edinburgh was more or less the same, wandering around, checking out some performers, comedy shows, found an awesome Aussie busker (could tell he was Aussie due to the fact he was  playing his guitar bare foot in Scotland..) Was pretty amazed walking around Edinburgh’s “new town” which is still even older then Australia! Went on an awesome pub crawl 1 night & was super excited when I found out Lior was performing for the Festival so I grabbed some tickets and caught an amazingly small and intimate gig! (So small he even unplugged & sat on the edge of the stage and played a song completely unamplified!) Went off and caught a famous shaggers comedy show, which was basically a bunch of extremely hilariously crude guys making jokes about sex all night! Again my time in Scotland was very short & sweet but I loved Edinburgh and again I’m just having to save some of the other areas for next time..

And there we have it! That’s basically the rest of my UK trip, spent the next day basically bored shitless on a bus travelling back down  south to meet up with my mate Pod again to start our crazy Euro Road trip but all that will have to wait for the next post.

Till then stay classey!

Amazing graffiti street artist!

Would have loved to buy one but had no way to take it with me in my bag! 😦

 

A beer in the English countryside!

Catching the train over to Basingstoke I met up with my good mate from Whistler Jack, and after a good man hug we jumped in his car and raced off to be tourists for the day! (Only living just over an hour away from the world famous Windsor Castle, I have no idea how Jack had never been, but it was good for him to be a tourist as well!) After a while trying to figure out if the flag which was up meant her Majesty was in the royal residence or not (still don’t know if she was there!) We grabbed an audio guide and wandered around the royal grounds getting a good history of the castle & its previous residents. It was interesting to see how the different royals in different periods had influenced the style/decor of the castle.

After a bite to eat & a quick stop to pick up the all important beers for the night, Jack took me for a bit of a driving tour of his home town of Basingstoke before driving out to his place, where I was in absolute awe the whole time at the unbelievable accuracy of the stereotypical English countryside! It’s all true! Seriously! The endless rolling green hills, the tiny narrow winding roads with little stone walls or hedges all lined either side most of the way, the thatched roofed cottages! All true!

After meeting all of Jacks lovely family and finding my room (which easily had the comfiest bed I’ve slept in this entire trip!) it was deemed time to crack the first of many long overdue catch up beverages! Naturally to go with the awesome Australian weather that was going on, (Everyone there was still moaning about the heat, but I took great pleasure in explaining that the only reason it was warm was that the Aussie was in town!) we of course had a delicious BBQ feast for dinner before a couple of Jacks mates came round for a night of many beverages and badminton.

Spent the following morning wandering around one of the local museums explaining the history of Basingstoke and had a bunch of cool old industrial revolution machinery, & spent way longer then is considered socially acceptable for an adult to play on all the oldschool 1p arcade games before spending the arvo round at one of Jacks friends places having a couple of beers, swimming, playing ping pong and just enjoying the sunshine! That night was spent devouring another delicious BBQ & a couple of Jacks close family friends came round for many many beverages and a night of taking the piss whilst getting pissed! Very hilarious guys!

The next morning it was time to continue being tourists so we drove out to go visit the infamous Stonehenge..  After paying 10 quid to go stare at some rocks, it was only natural to take the worlds shittest audio guide in human existence, Was seriously a half hour guide explaining that they honestly have no idea why or how the bloody rocks got there, or why there arranged so strangly! Pretty amazing considering they hauled the rocks from miles away in Wales somewhere but still.. Super weird. Ticked off the list though! From there we continued on through the English countryside out to the historic town of Bath where we went straight up to the historic ancient Roman Baths. Was absolutely amazing to see all the old ruins of the bath houses and see the amazing engineering feat to be able to tunnel and use geothermal warming to heat the water! Even a youtube video wouldn’t be able to teach me that!

 

Sadly after that it was time for one last farewell beer with Jack before he had  to race back home to be out that night as I was staying that night in Bath before moving on. Thanks a million for the hospitality and being a tourist with us mate! Was a shame it was a bit rushed but was still awesome fun to catch up again! Your more than welcome any time if your ever in Sydney!

I spent the rest of that afternoon exploring some of the older parts of Bath before ending up  spending a hilarious night in some random pub singing Karaoke AC/DC with a Kiwi guy and a Dutch girl in amongst a huge crowd of overly keen gay guys who could actually almost sing the songs…

Following day I moved on to Bristol, where my less than ideal state allowed me to achieve absolutely nothing! Got the train over at midday and proceeded to walk 2km with all my gear (around 22ishkgs) in 30+ degree heat. Nearly died by the time I got to my hostel! Had a good sleep that night for sure!

Next day I explored a little bit of Bristol but didn’t really have enough time to see anything properly as I was getting the train again around midday to head north to visit another mate Pod over the weekend up in Castlemorton, a tiny town no ones ever heard of, where our time was supposed to be dedicated to sitting down and actually planning out and organising out Euro road trip, but, of course being the laziest most disorganised people out, more or less turned into drinking beers the entire weekend! First arvo/evening was spent swimming and having a BBQ/drinks with a bunch of Pods mates, before spending the entire following day thrashing his paddock basher around various race tracks we set out in one of his fields. That evening, again instead of organising stuff was spent drinking beers and devouring pizzas. Finally on my last day visiting we were a bit of tourists and Pod showed me around the local area, went for a bit of a stroll up the Malvern Hills and through some of the towns in the area before heading to the pub for yep more beers and dinner in the evening. Finally at about 12pm that night we decided to actually do a little bit of organising, which basically resulted in we will leave on set date, drive to France, get lost, drive to Italy, continue getting lost, drive through Germany still lost and pass through The Nederland’s on the way back, also lost. More or less no plans, no worries! Exactly the way I like it!

Until the time be next when I actually have time to write this silly thing.

London 2.0 Feat. Dover & Canterbury!

Finding myself back in familiar London staying right next to Hyde Park in a far more touristy area then last time I was more then happy to have some more time to explore London! (Must admit from what I got to see, I am a huge fan of London! Apart from it being crazy expensive, I really enjoyed the vibe of London! It’s full of awesome little tucked away areas and back streets and alleys perfect for me to constantly get lost in! Definitely goes down as one of my favourite cities I’ve visited so far!)

Getting up super early on Saturday the 13th (yes I am that far behind sorry!) I embarked off on the tube to Victoria Station where I was leaving on my tour down south to Dover & Canterbury to see the castle, white cliffs and cathedral. Somehow I should have known this, but Fraser doesn’t take too well to organised schedules and tours…My day started off on a bad note when I stupidly left my camera’s memory card in my computer the night before when I was backing up all my photos, so I was annoyed all morning that I would have to take crap quality pics on my phone all day (my apologies) Having so much freedom with my travels has made me a bit of a snobby tourist that wants to do things my own way, at my own pace in my own time, so jumping on a bus, getting stuck in London traffic & then driving 2 hrs south only to get 1hr to explore Dover Castle due to said traffic did not really go down well. Was also royally pissed off when we arrived in Dover to the magnificently invisible White Cliffs! (Due to the “heat wave” the UK was experiencing, the extra humidity had caused a widespread fog around Dover sadly causing the cliffs to disappear!)

Although my visit was a bit rushed I did enjoy taking in the vast history of the sight, amazed by the strategic fortifications designed to protect from the French invading, as well as the thousand year old remains of the Roman times with an old lighthouse still standing within the castle grounds! Made myself dizzy climbing the spiral staircase to the roof of the castle which apparently served as a great lookout, being able to see all the way to France on a clear day… Not today though, could hardly see the water!

Casual 1000yr old Roman Lighthouse!

After the quick visit to the castle it was time to race (get stuck in more traffic) towards Canterbury to go see the infamous Canterbury Cathedral (infamous as the sight of the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket under orders of King Henry II in 1170.) Had a bit longer at the Cathedral so spent a good amount of time wandering around admiring the age and beauty before having a bit of lunch in the Cathedral gardens and going for a short explore of Canterbury around the Cathedral before it was time to jump back on the bus for you guessed it more traffic!

3 hours later and we were finally back in London, where I stupidly should have jumped off the tour and just got the tube back, as we were in Greenwich, an area I had already seen, but alas I continued being a sheep and followed the tour around Greenwich for a while before jumping on one of the ferries down the Thames to see most of the riverside sights I had already had a glance at from either bank of the river. Finally got off at Embankment where I was very happy to say farewell to that tour! Had I known it was going to be that shit I wouldn’t have bothered, I thought the guide was going to be of use and actually have a decent amount of information to share, but no, he just gave us our tickets and let us explore, which I am more then happy to do on my own, but I would have much preferred to do it at a far more leisurely pace. Ah well hindsight’s a bitch!

The following day I continued my musically influenced global wandering with a trip out to the Battersea Power Station where famously in 1977, Pink Floyd tied a giant inflatable pig to it for the cover art of their album Animals:

The sight is currently undergoing a re-development program turning the icon into a massive apartment block!

Afterwards I took a leisurely stroll up to the V&A museum to continue my educated tour of the world. After some more really old stuff I wandered up through Hyde Park for a tactical nap in the shade before discovering the most English looking pub in the world! Which also was home to a really really good Thai restaurant! Mouth was on fire after the end of my Pad Thai! The place was booked out when I rocked up at 8:30 so I just order some takeaway and enjoyed a fine ale outside admiring the pubs exterior:

And there we have my final 2 days in London! One day I will catch up on this run away blog properly!
Lots more to come soon I promise!

Sayounara

 

How to sit on a pebbly beach & do nothing?

Exactly that!

Have to admit my 3 days spent in Brighton were less then exciting. With the weather over here being extremely AWESOME! (Yes all you crazy English folk, this is awesome weather! It is not a heat wave, it has been hot at times, but it has been absolutely awesome for the majority, so stop your bloody moaning!) Yes, with the weather being awesome at around 30 degrees, and my mate from Whistler Jack being out of town until after the weekend I decided to head from London down to the south coast to spend 3 days sitting on the beach in Brighton, drinking beer, sitting in the sun, swimming, lounging about, sleeping and generally not a whole lot more!

To be honest I was an extremely shit tourist in Brighton, all I wanted was a bit of a holiday away from my holiday, some time out to relax and chill out, and I got exactly that so I’m not too put off.

I stayed in a pretty dingy hostel here but the location was great, only a 10 min walk to the beach and less to the pubs.

First 2 days I did nothing but sitting about on the beach during the day, swam a bit but being the English sea, its still bloody freezing! Had some good ol English fish n chips (Nope still don’t like even authentic English battered fish n chips, but I gave it a shot!)

Went out with a huge fun crowd from the hostel on my second night which of course being in the Gay capital of the UK I ended up awkwardly dancing in a gay club till the early hours of the morning…

My last day I finally mustered up some enthusiasm to be a bit of a tourist, (only because it was overcast and not as hot) wandered around the famous Brighton Pier for a while, a bit shocked at the whole arcade section in there which is literally just a kiddy casino! Full of kiddy 1c & 10c gambling games! Must admit I had a lot of fun on the Star Wars & Indiana Jones pokie type machines before having a bit of a wander around town checking out some of the hipster/vintage stores & very excitedly devouring my very first meat pie since leaving home, before grabbing my stuff to catch my nicely delayed bus back up to London for the weekend.

Warned you it wasn’t exciting!

Pożegnanie!

London Calling!

Dun dun dun dun, den den den den!

If I knew how to use a computer I would have added that song to this blog, but that will do. I know you read it as the opening riff anyway so the songs now stuck in your head, same effect!

Landing in Gatwick, I was pretty tired and out of it after having fatnormous all over me for the entire flight. Was very happy to see Londons trains/tube system running quickly and on time. Super easy to navigate and I found my hostel with no real dramas. After being told I couldn’t check in for an hour I decided to sit back, enjoy a beer and relax for a bit (lost my shit a bit when the beer I ordered was actually warm! Ooooh England, your crazy!) Sadly must admit I wasted my first day in the UK, basically checked in, showered and slept for the afternoon. Did wake feeling revived and decided not to waste my first night in London so of course I ended up in a group of rowdy Australians partying in some weird dingy club on the 8th floor somewhere near Leicester Square overlooking the city/the London Eye all lit up until the early hours of the morning which was quite fun. Also had my first experience with the famous double decker buses completely intoxicated and amazed!

Next day I wasn’t going to waste (lies I slept the whole morning) but ventured out and about the city for the afternoon getting lost in some of the history. Went over and checked out Big Ben & the houses of parliament before wandering through Westminster Abbey learning all about the incestrial 1000 years of royal history and what nots before going for a stroll along the Thames and past the London Eye (1 look at the line for that & I quickly decided it definitely wasn’t worth wasting my time) Proceeded to slowly walk all the way back to my hostel stopping off along the way at Trafalgar Square & having a bit of an artsy looksee in the National Gallery (seriously LOVE how all the museums here are FREE!) Saved a fortune! Wandered along Oxford St admiring the carnage of people, checked out a few shops and then had a very exciting experience shopping in Primark for the first time, which was exactly as Chris had described it! A huge department store full of absolute mayhem and people who just don’t give a shit! Burst out laughing when I walked in there and saw that the staff don’t even care! Literally just throwing stuff back on the racks! Stuff folding it! Biggest bargains though! Only cost me £7 for a Tshirt & singlet!

Trafalgar Square

My mate Ben

Old

Woke nice and early the next morning super excited to go meet up with my German mate Chris (who I’d travelled around Canada with) after a big ol bear hug and meeting Vanessa, Chris’s mate who he was in London with, it was time for another one of Chris’s awesome lunch spot tours around the area. Wandered past the Tower of London and over Tower Bridge before checking out some of the markets on the other side and then working our way back to see St Pauls Cathedral (visited a couple of times but actually never made it inside, (Chris and Vanessa weren’t keen on paying to get in & it was closed the other time I was there) Walked over the Themes again across the Millennium bridge (that 1 in harry potter) before grabbing some lunch in a park on that side and seeing the Tate Modern Art museum.

Millennium Bridge & St Pauls

Tower Bridge with Chris & Vanessa

By far my favourite piece of art in the Tate Modern: A mirror with my own reflection!

Spent the rest of the afternoon cruising around Camden Town, checking out the super hipster markets and shops. Took great amusement in the crazy rave/random shit/sex shop for a while before finding a nice pub down by the lochs with a rooftop terrace to have some beer and some dinner out in the glorious English sunshine, swapping stories and catching up on the remainder of each others travels through the good ol USofA.

Ride Pony! Cool little scooter benches for all the food stalls

Crazy Rave/Random shit/Sex shop

I bet I could get my head in its mouth…

Next morning I met Chris & Vanessa at Buckingham Palace to sit around in the sun for an hour waiting for the changing of the guard, which was sadly really less then exciting and I didn’t really understand what the hype is about… Just a bunch of guys dressed up funny looking marching past and into the palace grounds…From there we grabbed some food and had a nice picnic lunch in Hyde Park. Continued being tourists and checked out Piccadilly Circus, the China town area, SOHO and Trafalgar Square before heading back to Westminster Abbey & the London Eye where we thought it appropriate to buy some beers and sit in the shade, and watch the world go bye for the remainder of the arvo.

Nearly scolded my feet off climbing up on him! Trafalgar Square with National Gallery in background

That evening we ventured off to meet a bunch of Chris’s mates in a pub somewhere, where lets just say, the bouncer was less then impressed to see me in my shorts and thongs and wouldn’t let us in, so we found another pub that would let us drink the night away.

The following morning I had planned on getting up and going through the Tower of London on my own before meeting up with Chris & his mates for a BBQ in one of the parks, but having got up just in time for the start of the Wallabies V Lions test match I thought it would be a good idea to sit and have a beer and make a lot of noise in the pub full of Poms.. Bad idea, I should have gone to the Tower! After that humiliating defeat it was time to go try find Chris and his group of mainly German friends, where after a couple of laps around the huge lake in Victoria park I managed to txt Chris and make him find me! Spent the arvo having a BBQ and just lounging about in the sun like half of the city which was great to just sit and do nothing. That night I managed to tag along with Chris and all the Germans to a French girls house party in some random suburb in London, where all I can say is an absolutely hilarious night unfolded. Picture a tiny 1 bedroom flat packed half full of Frenchies, half full of Germans, 2 English & 1 Aussie and a crapton of rum… Fun educational night trying to learn French/German swear words, drinking songs and games haha! Managed to sleep very comfortably perched between 2 armchairs back at the Germans place. Good effort!

The following morning after waking at midday to the smell of delicious bacon and pancakes to cure my less than ideal state it was off with Chris & Vanessa for a venture over the Thames on like a big sky cable car thing, which wasn’t really that exciting because it was from Greenwich which is a fair way out from the city centre & you couldn’t see much. Did find it hilarious the weird beach sort of set up they had on the other side…

HAHAHA! Sadly this the the only sand I’ve seen in the UK. There is cable wakeboard course you can see but water was too dirty/cold for me to brave.

Afterwards it was time to venture up to the famous Abbey Road Studios where after after getting my standard tourist picture and marvelling at the studio, I sat and people watched the carnage for a while laughing at the fools constantly almost getting hit by pissed off passing traffic before walking my way back to my hostel, grabbing some food and calling it a very early night.

The following morning it was time to finally head out and go check out the incestrial Royal history at the Tower of London. After an interesting tour from a Royal Beefeater explaining the history and some of the grim stories about royal beheadings and what nots I lined up (god knows why, probably just because I was there) for bloody ages to get a glimpse at the crown jewels, which as spectacular as they were, really weren’t that exciting or worth while. Sadly due to this ridiculous wait I ended up missing lunch with Chris and Vanessa and didn’t get a chance to properly say bye as they had to head off to the airport straight afterwards! 😦 I proceeded to have a long slow wander around London in no real direction with less then no care, saw a bunch of old buildings and what nots before slowly making my way back to the hostel to get my stuffs ready to head off to Brighton early in the morning.

So there we have my time in London round 1.0, but you will have to wait for another day for the next part in my ridiculous adventure,

Until then,

Cheerio Chap

Oh Canada!

Toronto in the magical sunshine!

Oh Canada! How I’ve missed you! After spending an extended period of time all over Canada over the past couple of months, I can definitely say that this place truly is spectacular! I love this amazing country! The natural beauty, the extreme weather, the amazing cities, the culture and the amazing people!

After spending a month on the road travelling around the USofA and seeing that side of North America, landing back in Canada  in Toronto really did feel like I was back home! Being greeted at the airport with a big bear hug from my dad’s uncle Hymie definitely helped promote the home away from home feeling! Managed to JUST cram my big ol backpack into Hymie’s tiny little BMW Z6 convertible before we raced off to his place in north Toronto which is where I called home for the next week and a bit, broken up by a trip up north to check out some of the French side of  Canada in Montreal & Quebec City. Met Shirleen, Hymie’s wife who had prepared the most delicious lunch which I devoured! (Should definitely say a HUGE thanks to Shirleen for all the amazing food she provided for me! I seriously havn’t eaten that much or that well in MONTHS! Kept saying I never wanted to leave and go back to my shitty backpackers diet! Only been gone a week or so now and already miss it!) With my stomach full, I proceeded to sleep the afternoon away before having another massive and delicious meal (seriously half this blog is food sorry!) a lovely Canadian BBQ with Dad’s cousins Laurie and Myra for father’s day. Was really nice to see the girls, as I saw Laurie not too long ago back home (maybe 2 or 3 years), but I can’t even remember the last time I saw Myra, so it was definitely a long overdue visit!

Over the next 2 days Hymie took me on his grand tourist tour around Toronto, taking me absolutely all over the place, showing me all the different areas, suburbs and places to see in the city. Started with a brief tour around Hy’s own brewery (Hymies a part owner in a local brewing company) before checking out some of the views over lake Ontario from the scarbour bluffs and the “beaches area” I’m learning more and more how blessed we really have it back home with out pristine white sandy beaches! Apparently a couple of times a year they have to close the beaches completely due to pollution levels in the water from US industries on the other side of the lake…

Little different and warmer to when you were here Sid!

Cruised through some of the fancy schmancy areas of Toronto gawking at some of the mega mansions and really well kept gardens for a while before meeting Laurie for lunch at the Pub owned by Hy’s brewery which is located in this awesome little pocket of perfect urban renewal in an old industrial area which has been turned into nice restaurants, where I had some more awesome food before Hy and I took the ferry across to the Toronto Islands and ventured around there for while getting some pretty spectacular views of Toronto in the glorious sunshine!

The following day was part 2 of Hymies tourist tour of Toronto, taking in some of the areas including China Town, St Laurence Markets & the Kensington Markets (which I frequented a number of times on my own as it is just full of crazy hipster stuff to see and do), where Hy & I grabbed some pretty decent coffee (probably goes down as the best coffee I got in North America) before heading towards downtown for some seriously epic thai food for lunch! I love my thai food and am a pretty harsh critic on the stuff but man this was some good thai! Spent the rest of the arvo cruising around town checking out some of the other areas of Toronto before grabbing a couple of beers down by the water before I ventured off and met Andy (Laurie’s husband) to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Hockey Finals in a MASSIVE sports bar. I’m talking HUGE! So huge that I got there and realised I was never going to find Andy there and didn’t know what name he had booked a table under so I proceeded to undertake the only logical option and grab a beer and sit bye the door until I saw him (should point out I was without a phone the whole time I was back in Canada as I couldn’t be bothered to pay for it for the 2 weeks I was there) Finally found Andy and proceeded to stuff my face full of delicious ribs and watch some brutal hockey! Blackhawkes won, fun times!

The following day I thought it be appropriate to sleep half the day away before getting the subway downtown and exploring a bit myself before finding a nice pub with a patio in the sun to sit down, have a beer and read all afternoon! Can’t remember the last time I actually sat down for a long while and just got lost in a book so that was a pleasant change! 🙂 That evening I met up with Shirley (Dad’s Aunt on the other side) & all her kids & grandkids for dinner. Which was again delicious and lovely to see/meet everyone who again welcomed me with open arms & I must say there really is nothing like family!! (Dad seriously has the biggest family scattered across the globe, it’s amazing!) After another lovely family dinner it was time to call it an early night as I had to be up early to get my train up to Montreal in the morning.

5 hours later and I found myself lost and confused in a very French Canadian city! Hopped out of the train station and couldn’t read any of the signs or anything! Good ol google maps helped me find the subway & get the train to my hostel! Seriously the worst traveller! I’m absolutely screwed without my phone guiding my way! Dumped my stuff and proceeded to wander the pretty streets of Montreal check out some of the cafes, pubs and restaurants for the arvo before partying the night away at the hostel checking out local ska band which was fun.

Sadly you can see my good spell of weather ran thin here and I had a couple of miserable rainy days exploring Montreal, but that sure didn’t stop me! Still got out & about, went exploring and got rather drenched numerous times.

The following morning I went for a wander through the cobble stone streets old Montreal in the pouring rain, after getting miserably drenched I decided to find a nice cafe, and grab some smoked meat poutine (2 delicacies in Quebec) which I devoured before heading out to the old ’76 Olympics site to see the botanical gardens and some weird “biodome” zoo thing which was pretty strange. Was like a giant bubble greenhouse with different climates & plants and animals in there.

After this it was back to the hostel where of course I could never say no to a beer & ended up at some weird and dingy but cool hipster pub with a couple of Aussie and Scottish girls. It was definitely a locals pub as there was not even the slightest attempt to speak English in there, but it was still a fun night and good to see more of the local atmosphere.

Following morning I ventured out and continued my trend of being a little bit civilised and checked out the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts which apart from its strange contemporary section was quite enjoyable.

Life goal achieved! See and mimic “The Thinker”

After enough civilised time I walked up the shitton of hills/stairs up to the top of Mount Royal which is the highest point in Montreal and also a massive parkland area. Would have been fine had it not been like 4billion% humidity, practically swam up there! It was pretty overcast though sadly so the view wasn’t that great but at least I felt buggered and somewhat healthy..

From there I proceeded to do numerous laps around the steep, uneven and unsigned pathways around the park trying desperately to get the crap out of there and find the section of the park where they put on the weekly Tam Tam festivals in the summer months. Got there in the end to discover my ultimate Sunday afternoon! Picture half of the city packed into a massive park all with drums, tambourines, and anything slightly percussion related as well as eskies full of beer and a lot of energy to create massive drum & dance circles all over the whole place! It was insane! I sat there for about half an hour before the energy of the place was too much and I ended up diving in, stealing some random guys drum and bashing and dancing away for about 2 hours straight! I had even got there late in the arvo, its apparently even bigger around lunchtime!

Couldn’t figure out how to directly post this video but heres the link:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151471986531828&l=8029795606802300197

Again, being someone who loves sleep and all things healthy… I natureally ended out again until about 3 or 4 to another really awesome pub with a nice fun crowd from the hostel. The place called Le Saint Sulpice (seriously recommend it to anyone passing through Montreal!) is massnormous! I think I heard that it started as 1 building and then they started expanding (by purchasing the neighbouring buildings) and its turned into a pub that basically takes up a whole block! It’s about 4 stories tall and has an enormgous beer garden in the middle! (Shame it started pisssssssssing down as soon as we got there!) But it was still a really fun night & I got to meet some really fun and nice people!

The following morning we all surfaced rather slowly, but we did manage to get a group together which we had drunkenly organised to go get Crepes for breaky in the morning. Granted it was at lunch time but hey points for trying? Had the most amazingly mouthgazmic white chocolate crepes + an iced coffee which damn near defeated me they were so rich but I got there in the end with some positive encouragement! Of course naturally soon afterwards we proceeded to go off and grab some quick beers before I had to race off to get my train to Quebec City. This is where I discoverd my first major fuck up of huge series of fuck ups regarding my eastern Canadian travels. No plans, no worries failed me again! Little bit of planning DEFINITELY would have gone a LONG way, but my stupid nativity got the better of me! So basically the Province of Quebec, being French and different to Canada naturally has to have their Canada Day celebrations a week earlier then the rest of Canada, which of course was going on in Montreal that very afternoon including a massive parade of public intoxication which goes on into the early hours of the morning with music and fireworks! Sounds fun yeah!

Don’t worry I was told, the party’s even bigger up in Quebec City with the whole town piling into one of the parks for a similar scene plus a music festival! Awesome me thinks! I love festivals! I was getting into Quebec at 7pm so could dump my stuff and race off to the party! WRONG! Little did I know but apparently Quebec City had their party the night before! So not only did I miss both bit parties, I also rocked up to a seriously hungover and miserable Quebec City! So yeah royally screwed that one up! Had I known I would have definitely stayed an extra night in Montreal! Ah well hindsights a bitch!

Went for a bit of an evening explore of Old Quebec City where I was staying and checked out some of the parks & remains of the last standing walled city in North America:

The following morning I took the bus out to see again some more of Canada’s amazing natural beauty; the very impressive Montmorency Falls located just out of the city. Will admit it was insanely hot at about 33 degrees with again over 9000 humidity! So of course I deemed it a good idea to trek down to the waterfalls base, take some photo’s, get drenched by the spray and then trek it alllllllll the way back up the shitton of stairs back to the top. Was shattered afterwards!

This bad boy is 30m taller then the Niagara Falls! Still manages to freeze over each winter for people to ice climb!

You have no idea how painful this was!

Spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the very very French Quebec City’s streets and alleys before heading back to the hostel and pumping myself up to see the free Cirque Du Soleil show they put on during the summer months followed by a lightshow about some famous Quebec dude (Iwasnt really interested in that part..) SADLY 😦 Due to weather conditions (a shitton of rain) the shows were cancelled, but we only found this out after we had walked the 10 minutes from the hostel to the waterfront (whilst it was still dry). So only naturally this lead to another random pub crawl with random folk from the hostel.. Was fairly interesting sitting in a weird pub listening to live French Rap… Not my style to say the least but it was an experience I guess.

The following morning I met up with Leona & Jewell 2 nice American girls I’d met down in Montreal for a nice little brunch before before I had to jump back  on the train for the huge 8hr haul back to Toronto.

Had a very exciting and eventful first day in Toronto consisting of sleep, eat, vege and finding a place to stay for when I got to London in a couple of days. The following day was again only slightly more eventful which consisted sleep, eat, wander around town & the Kensington Markets, got drenched walking home, eat sleep. Saturday the 29th was another mammoth day starting early with me heading into town to borrow Laurie/Myra’s car for the day so I could trek out to Niagara Falls to be a tourist for a bit before heading to Niagara on the Lake to be immersed in the filthy music sluttage that I am oh so good at, where I got see Regina Spektor, Jimmy Eat World, Metric and City & Colour devour my eardrums. The estimated 1hr 50min drive out to Niagara Falls took exactly a heap longer then that due to the less then helpful directions from Hymies GPS which constantly decided to tell me to turn left after I had passed said road… + the fact that Laurie had programmed it to take me to some random exit off the highway 10kms out of town didn’t help either… Regardless I got there in the end and stood in awe for a couple of hours at the magical sight!

Did the touristy “journey behind the falls” which is basically an elevator that takes you down and after some stumbling around sopping wet dark tunnels you pop out right on the side of the falls where you can see behind (you can also go to another tunnel which is basically just a viewing window directly behind the falls, not as exciting as you cant see anything) but its pretty awesome to get that close to the power of the falls and get drenched by the constant spray! Definitely well worth it!

Found these signs hilarious, but apparently people are still stupid and die here…

After taking in yet another 1 of Canada’s spectacular waterfalls it was time to take in some of Canada’s spectacular musicians and I drove off to Niagara on the Lake which seriously needs another main road as it took me over an hour just to get the car into the carpark! (Getting out was even worse, but more on that later.) By the time I managed to finally get into the site I had already missed the first band (of which I cannot remember who it was, but I didn’t know them so not too annoyed) found myself a nice patch of grass and lounged in the sun listening to Regina Spektor before pushing further into the crowd for Jimmy Eat Worlds set which was awesome! Just as Metric took to the stage these ominous clouds started rolling in and during their 2^nd or 3^rd song it started pouring down, so of course the crowd’s only option was to embrace and go completely nuts! There were people crowd surfing left right and centre! Awesome atmosphere! Finally during their final song, singing about the sun coming out, good ol Mother Nature willingly obliged and stopped the downpour and returned a portion of the glorious sunshine we had earlier! City & Colour finally took to the stage and what do I say but wow! Everyone just stood there and listened in awe (apart from the 3 or 4 crazy people still trying to crowd surf to metric’s long gone performance!) City & Colour played a huge set with & without the band and played a massive encore which was pure bliss!

Trying to get out of the carpark and back home… Not so much! Took me over an hr to get out of the car park & then over 40 mins just to get onto the highway! (Niagara on the Lake has only 1 main road out back onto the highway! I ended up sitting stationary on that main road about 5kms out from the highway for about 15mins before I cracked the shits, turned around and proceeded to go get lost until the GPS found an alternative route. A couple of backstreets later with god knows how many moonshiners & I was back fanging down the highway on the wrong side of the road back towards Toronto and my nice comfortable bed waiting!

Would have loved a sleepin! But sadly had to be up early to drop the car back off for Myra & to go off and meet Shirley & all the family again for another delicious lunch/lounging about/I even went for a swim the weather was that nice! After some sad farewells and some stern encouragement for everyone to come visit us in Australia I had to head off for, yet another, yep you guessed it, delicious family dinner for Myra’s birthday. (Told you the whole post was food!) Had a lovely meal again at the pub/restaurant owned by Hy’s brewery before it was sadly time for more farewells to Laurie & Andy (All the best with the lil bub! Can’t wait to hear how everything goes!)

Next morning was the 3^rd and final instalment of my eastern Canadian screw ups! I flew out to London on Monday the 1^st of July (Canada Day!) Yep the hat trick complete! Not only did I miss the French Canadian celebrations, but I missed the rest of the nations party as well! I did head into town and wandered around a bit where I stumbled across a big “Chinese Canadian” parade through China Town, did find a Canadian flag to stick to my umbrella to get into the spirit before meeting up with Myra for some pretty epic “beast grilled chease” sandwiches and some final farewell beers before I flew out. Another farewell and it was time for one last huge thankyou and goodbye to Hymie & Shirleen for hosting and feeding me so well before scabbing one last favour, a ride out to the airport, where I truly discovered why you need to show up for flights 3hrs early! Flying out on Canada Day! There was all of 2 or 3 people working checkins with 4 flights due to depart within 30mins of eachother to London alone lets just say it was disasterous! Took me almost 2 hrs just to check in & another hr to get through customs & security! Literally got to my gate as they were on final boarding calls! (Was alright as half the plane rocked up after me.) Was cheering to have the emergency row which equals more leg room for all of about 5 mins before I embarked on the worst flight out. Que shitdonkulously fat guy (I’m talking like 2.5 times the size of a regular fat guy) sitting in the middle of me and this poor other bastard on the other side! Being forced to only have about 1/3^rd of my already tiny seat, and having to sit on an angle with my head out in the isle I proceeded to get smashed by every person/trolly going up and down the isles for the entire flight! Thank god it was only a quick 7hr flight otherwise I may have killed some people…

So there we have the final instalment to my North American adventures! Cheers and thanks for all the fun times!

Until next time,

Arrivederci