Running with the Bulls

Ben came, he saw, he conquered. And barely a scratch to prove it. He ran on the 7th of July with 8 bulls, the largest weighing 625kg. He did me so proud but I am glad to say hes got that out of his system!

Will write more soon.

Madrid

Hi everyone!

In Madrid. It´s our last full day here before we move on to Sans Sebastian. Weather here hasn´t really dropped below 30 degrees and the first day we arrived I´m pretty sure it was in the high 30s. Today isn´t to bad cos there´s a cool breeze and humidity is low. How´s the weather in Oz?

We´ve had some nice meals here in Madrid, not as nice as Barcelona or as cheap or so we´ve found so far, but last night we found this great tapas bar that was so crowded and everyone had to stand. With every drink you order you got a free tapa which made it a really cheap meal. For those that don´t know what a tapa is, it´s the Spanish word for lid. When you bought a beer, you´d be given a tapa that would fit on top of the beer to stop the flies from getting in, like a lid. Thus tapas! It´s great fun too cos you never know what you´re going to get!

Yesterday we also went to an art gallery with a name far to long to remember that houses Picasso’s Guernica. Photos in books do it no justice and it was interesting to see the preliminary drawings and paintings as well.

Tomorrow (Friday) we leave for Sans Sebastian but the festival in Pamplona doesn´t start til the Sunday so we´ll have some time to sit in the sun and go swimming at the beautiful beaches. Fingers crossed all goes well!

Not my pic, find it here but it gives you an idea.

  

Valencia

Howdy everyone!

First off. Happy Birthday Nick and Nana Monica! Both of us can´t wait to come home and wish you both a happy birthday in person with of course our wonderful gifts in tow!

Left Barcelona a few days ago with all our belongings thankfully. Saw the magic fountain which was cool. Arrived in Valencia two days ago and to be honest there isn´t much to do here other than see the official Holy Grail sanctioned by the Vatican and sit on the beach. Got quite a tan actually. Last night everyone in Spain was quite happy. If you didn´t know Europe has been holding the Euro soccer and the final was last night against Germany and Spain, 0-1. You can imagine the celebrations going on in the streets, fireworks, beeping horns, whistles, yelling and cheering! It was all quite exciting!

So far in Spain we´ve witnessed and re-creation of some famous battle with guns and funny hats, a gay parade with nude dancing men and women on top of buses and floats and the Euro 2008!

Tomorrow we´re off to Madrid where we will spend 3 nights and then to San Sebastian and the running with the bulls! Wish us luck!   

 

Pickpocketed

Don´t worry. We were pick pocketed but I got the wallet back with everything inside it. We were so very lucky. We were on the train back to our hostel when a guy behind Ben pushed past him to get to a door which wasn´t the closest one which should have sent warning bells a ringing! The guy pushed past me and must have slipped his hand into my bag and grabbed Ben´s wallet and if it was for a Spanish woman shouting and pointing at him all would be lost. I reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him from jumping of the train and he through the wallet at our feet and took off. Ben didn´t even notice. Then, between the next two stations, another guy tried to pickpocket an American couple who´d already been alerted to the attempt on my own wallet and it was quite a scuffle before the thief took off again without a wallet. It was quite a shocking experience as it happened so quickly and if it wasn´t for the woman next to me I may not even have noticed!

It has definitely given us a wake up call and one that I won´t forget for a very long time.

Barcelona no. 3

Ello,

Barcelona has really grown on us and to be honest first impressions weren’t that great. The smog sits heavily on the horizon and its very similiar to other cities we’ve visited, overcrowded and dirty. However the food here is excellent and at a good price to, the weather perfect as last night we stayed on the beach until midnight and it was still warm, and the architecture here is imaginative to say the least!

Click here for where this image came from as it is unfortunaetly not mine.

This is the Sagrada Familia designed by Antoni Gaudi in 1882 and will be completed in 2020. It is so imaginative and modern especially when you consider the time it was built in! Its theme is the holy family and Gaudi used a natural method of a hanging model to create the design.

There you go, you’ve learnt something new! William, I suggest you look into this guy cos his art reminds me a lot of your style!

Cheers,

Ferne and Ben from the other side of the world where the weather is perfect! (Here is a pic by our busabout friend Cat)

Barcelona and St John’s Day

Loving this free internet! It’s awesome.

Anyway, you wouldn’t believe our luck! We arrived in Spain in time for the summer soltice festivies also known as St John’s Day! Now we’ve stumbled upon officially two festivals, one with lemons and one with fireworks!

Last night after our great spanish cooking class where we watched someone else make pella but at the time and even more so in hindsight, no one was in any state to cook due to our home made sangria! Not sure how much i drank (i wasn’t completely sloshed) but i don’t think i appreciated the meal as much as i should have. We were meant to get the recipes but didn’t so i guess we’ll have to chase them down somehow. From there we (our numbers now equalling 4, later to expand to 7 and all from the busabout group) we headed home to get rid of all our gear and place any money and keycards into our bras (Ben not included) and we were off again! To the beach! Crammed onto trains like sardines (got very persoanl with complete strangers) and spilled forth onto the beach were thousands had already flocked. Fearing for our lives, we dodged home made and store bought fireworks with Ben getting hit in the leg but to no further injuries (both legs still accounted for!)

Anyway, thought i’d let you know cos it was pretty cool and i’m quite grateful for ear plugs! Problems with last nights festivities (which apparently won’t finish until noon today which is still a few hours away) means not much is open today but the clouds are rolling in so maybe that’s a good thing.

Salu! Prost! Cheers! Tok toy!

Ferne and Ben

 

Barcelona!

And weºre in Spain…well sort of. Actually in Catalonia. Long and very confusing story but the sun is out and the weather absolutely perfect. We have finally found summer!

Weºre in Barcelona for 5 nights having arrived yesterday and the place weºre staying is really nice, showers a bit odd (like stepping into a small dark cave and not in a good way) but the rooms are really nice and despite sharing the room with 8 other people, both Ben and I slept wonderfully thanks to our new acquisition of EARPLUGS!

So far today we walked down to the harbour, checked out the massive fresh food market and bought half a rock melon full of other fruit for only 1euro which was great and fed both of us for lunch. Tonight weºre going to a Spanish cooking class where we get to eat what we make which should be lots of fun and hopefully we wonºt starve. Thereºs plenty to do here,a huge night life that weºll get around to checking out eventually. We have free breakfast and free Internet here but the only reason iºm on the web is cos everyone else is napping cos thatºs what you apparently do here in Spain, sleep in the middle of the day. MAkes sense if the weather is hot but todayºs been pretty mild. However, who are we to stand in t he way of tradition? After the net Ben and I are gonna have a nap so weºre nice a fresh for our cooking class.

We leave on Friday for Valencia where weºre staying for 4 nights and then to Madrid for 3 nights and then to Sans Sebastian for a few nights. RUNNING WITH THE BULLS! Bout 2 weeks away! Excited but slightly nervous as Ben is still considering running but at least heºs promised to at least watch the first few races.

Both Ben and are a tanned so when we come home to all of you pasty people we will be the envy of the whole country!

Write more soon,

From the tanned (and loving it!) duo drinking sangria in the sun!

Geneva, Lauterbrunnen, Nice and onwards to Barcelona!

Heya!

In Nice at the moment at the worst hostel in all of Europe! Okay, i exaggeratebut not by much! We arrived and were placed in a 12 bed room with one bed spare and after we annoyed the desk clerk for a while he finally showed us to a 8 bed dorm with two spare beds! Yay! Doubt we will sleep though however the bus trip tomorrow to Barcelona is from 8am to 7pm so i guess we can sleep then.

Backtracking to Geneva (honest its this dodgy keyboard that is making the spelling mistakes, not me!) we had a ball. Spent three nights with Ben’s uncle John, eating great food pepared by Ben’s aunt Jenny and touring the city with his cousins Zoe and Roxane. We will be meeting up with Alex, Ben’s other cousin, hopefully in Berlin. It was so relaxing and now we are ready to tackle the rest of Europe!

Lauterbrunnen was as beautiful as it was when we last visited which was spring however there weren’t as many cows but the weather was perfect. Went white water rafting (have pictures to prove it) and had a blast!

Awesome awesome fun! Check out our kiwi guide Jezza and his legs!

The river wasn’t as choppy as it was when we were first booked to go rafting but the hot sunshine more than made up for it (and I’m sure everyone at home is breathing a sigh of relief that the river was a medium low level and not high as it would have been in May).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA! Sorry about not being able to get through for your birthday and I left a message on your phone but I will try again once we’re in Barcelona. Hope you had a wonderful day!

In Barcelona, just in case we don’t find cheap Internet, we will be taking Salsa and Spanish cooking classes and taking it real easy in the nice sun and in summer weather! Anyway, my eyes hurt cos it seems they don’t believe in lights in this “hotel” and the eye strain from looking at this daft keyboard and the screen are starting to take their toll. Will write more from Barcelona!

Ben says hi too. I haven’t left him anywhere, never fear!

Love from us.

Paris! Eiffel Tower, Euro Disney and all those other things!

Okay, this is our third full day in Paris and we have two more. Paris is so beautiful though very busy, big and absolutely mad when it comes to their train system and their roads. You literally take your own life into your hands when you attempt to cross any road. The key is to show no fear but that’s harder than you’d think. We arrived here on Tuesday (it’s now Friday about 10:30 in the morning due to a huge sleep in) at a great hostel which is pretty close to transport that allows us to get to all those cool, essential cultural stuff we must see. Wednesday we did a free walking tour (a tour for tips which have so far given us the best tour) and saw the Lourve (however that’s spelt) and lots of parks where you’re not allowed to lie on the grass which disappointed both Ben and I greatly. After the tour we saw the Arch of Triumph (but with a french spelling) which was an adventure in itself as it is the centre of a round about that has no less than TWELVE roads leading onto/away from it and can fit SIX cars side by side though that does not mean there are six lanes. In fact there are very little lane markings here in Paris.

After that exciting adventure (there is an underground passage way that goes under all the traffic so don’t worry mums, we didn’t play frogger with the traffic) we walked to the Eiffel tower and proceeded to climb to the second level (about 700 steps) and then caught the lift up to the final level. What a view! Very crowded though so we caught the lift down to the second level pretty quickly and than raced down the 700 odd steps again. Then we watched the Eiffel tower lights go on (10pm) and the sun begin to set but it was freezing so we never actually saw the flashing lights. We’re gonna try again tonight.

Yesterday we went to Euro disney and it was cool but to be honest, both Ben and I agree that Europe Park had more rides. The stunt show was pretty great though and some of the other shows and there were a few rides that were awesome like Crush’s Coaster (made us think of home as it’s set in “Australia”).

Anyway, running out of time, as usually.

Write more soon. 

Eep, Freiburg, Müllheim, Stuttgart

Well internet here is expensive. I’m used to the crazy keyboards now. I know, I know, it’s no excuse for not writing.

A few days ago, not sure how many, we arrived in Freiburg and so did the rain but that was okay as Freiburg is pretty small and easy to get around in despite wet weather. Best thing about Freiburg are the footpaths. In front of every store there is a mosaic depicting the stores wares eg pretzel for a bakery etc.

Second day in Freiburg we went to Europe’s second largest theme park “Europa Park” and it was awesome. Due to the weather, there weren’t any crowds so Ben and I managed to go on all the rides we wanted to (or didn’t want to in my case) as many times as we wanted.

Saturday we only just manged to catch a train to Müllheim to see Christian and his family. For those who don’t know, Christian is one of my favourite host brothers (Michael my other host brother is pretty cool too) who welcomed me into his amazing family to celebrate Christmas with them in 2004-05. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but now I wish I could have stayed longer and I plan to return again for longer. Christian’s mum, Renate took us to a cool castle and bought us cake and Matthias, Chrsitian’s dad, took us swimming. It was a true holiday away from the chaos our trip seems to be. I’m missing them already!

Arrived in Stuttgart yesterday and as there really isn’t that much to see and do here, we’ve been taking it pretty easy.

ANNOUCEMENT: we will be returning earlier than planned! We’ll be home in time for my brother’s 19th Birthday, leaving London on the 9th of August! 

Will post more sooner than I did this post! promise!