The Rest of Spain... Finally!

Hello Again,

And so finally you hear from me again. I believe I left you last with my account of Madrid, the city that we grew to love. After one last crazy all nighter, we found ourselves at the bus stop waiting to board a bus to take us to Valencia, a city we knew very little about.


This photo was taken at the bus stop, just to show you all back home how we felt that morning, a mix of tiredness and sadness of leaving Madrid.

We arrived at the hostel in Valencia after another long, boring and uncomfortable bus ride. We were staying at a place called Red Nest, which turned out to be one of the best hostels we have yet stayed in. Most of our memories from Valencia are all to do with Red Nest, as for some reason no one wanted to leave this hostel. Whether it was to do with the heat, or the apparent lack of anything to do in this city, we still managed to have a great time within the walls of our home away from home. We made a lot of friends in this place, though mainly one 25 year old Scottish guy called Keifer, and 3 Aussi girls called Penny, Harriet and Sophie.









One of our two days out and about in Valencia, we went on a trip to the beach with our new found friends. It was an incredibly hot day as per normal in Valencia, with the average temperature being around 35 degrees, and on this particular day there was not a bit of wind in the air.





On the girls last night we went out for the traditional Spanish food that originated from Valencia, Paella, a mixture of rice, chicken and seafood. It was a really nice restaurant where you order one huge dish and then just share it out between everyone.



Our other day out was to visit the equivalent ot the Americas Cup Village in New Zealand. As all of you may or may not know, the next Americas Cup is going to be held in Valencia, due to the fact that Switzerland is a completely landlocked country! So being the true Kiwis that we are, we went to visit the Team New Zealand base at the Village. It was an amazingly hot day, and we sat for a long time out on a little warf watching Team New Zealand service and maintain there boats. It made for quite a nice day out.









From there we caught yet ANOTHER bus to Barcelona, the city that we were very excited to see, yet ever so slightly nervous to be in due to the stories we had been told by almost everyone who visited this city. They ranged from simple pickpocketings, to a guy being batted on the back of the head, and robbed of everything he owned while unconcious on the ground. Despite this we trucked on and found ourselves in a hostel just off of "La Rambla", the main street in Barcelona. Our first night there was one of the most uncomfortable nights of my life, we were on the 5th floor of the building, the temperature outside was high 30's, and the air conditioning on the 4th and 5th floors was broken. I got about 2 hours sleep total, in between which I managed to have 4 cold showers, and get hit on the head with an eight hundred page travel guide... long story.


Our first view of La Rambla....


...the street where you can buy ANYTHING you want!

After the first terrible night in the hostel, we set out on our first day in Barcelona. After getting turned away from the first Cathedral we visited due to our clothes (you cant show your knees or shoulders), we returned with the appropriate clothing and went inside.






Sorry for being SOOOO slack with the updates, here is a little bit and i promise, more will come!!!

Much love to all,

Vinny xo

The Beautiful Country of Spain

Hello All!!

Sorry everyone for taking so long in between posts, I kept on putting off doing it, until I decided that I may as well wait untill we had finished Spain to do it, so here we are in Italy, and here is my post!

After we left Lagos, we travelled by bus the Seville, in the south of Spain. It was a somewhat eventful trip as Tamzin unfortunatly lost here phone, but we did reach Seville in one piece so we were happy! Seville is a beautiful city, though it is incredibly hot, reaching a max of 44 degrees while we were there, with rumors of 48 the week before we arrived! We only stayed for two nights, and our hostel sucked due to no social area and broken air conditioning, but the beauty of the city was still amazing!



Tamzin and Me infront of the Cathredral, origionally a Mosque, it was quite an unusual but beautiful building.



The Cathredral



The view from the top of the tower of the Cathredral, quite a climb in 44 degree heat, but as you can see well worth it!

Tamzin walking alongside the river in central Seville.

Me walking alongside the river.



Sitting on the roof of our hostel enjoying a bit of Seville beer!

After our short stay in Seville, we bussed on to Madrid, the beautiful capital city of Spain! Nadia, my old Spanish oral teacher was there to meet us at the bus stop which was really helpful, as she took us to where our hostel was and then took us out to dinner at a really good piza restaurant. I dont think either me or Tamzin really expected to like Madrid as much as we did, but because of a mix between our hostel and the wicked city, we had possibly our best time yet in Spain!

Highlights of this city were Los Amigos (our hostel where we made sooo many friends), the Prado and Rena Sophia Museums where we grew to love Picasso, chillin in the park at night and the human pyramid that resulted, the 'Mad Ride' pub crawl that we did twice... and much much more!


Us and Nadia out for lunch the day after we arrived, we had a traditional Spanish tortilla and salad which was very tasty.


Our Madrid crew heading our for a pub crawl.


Me making a fool out of myself, though everyone seems to find this photo funny...


Heading out for a night in the park.


Our human pyramid!!!! Awesome fun in Madrid!!!!


Our friend Opera (named opera as he was an opera singer and it was easier to remember than his real name!) being a statue in the park.


Tamzin in the HUGE park in Madrid.


Tamzin and our friend Rachel, cutest little girl in the world :P.


Tamzin, Rachel and Me with part of the beautiful park in the background.


The Flaminco that Tamzin and Me went to watch, the photos not great as I was not allowed a flash, but the dancing was sooo amazing!


More in the park. It is the Glass Palace in the background, a really random palace with mirror floors. The big bonus of this place is they gave you free socks...


Tamzin, Opera, our 35 year old friend Cedric and Me outside the Prado Museum.


The whole pubcrawl crew, take 2...


Rachel again, still the cutest girl in the world!

Thats all from the amazing city of Madrid, I think you all the gist (or jist?) of it!!!!

This is taking a long time to write, and I am just about to run out of Internet time, so I will post this now, just so you don't think that I have forgotten everyone, and finish off the rest of Spain at a later date. After Madrid we ent to Valencia, then Barcelona, then caught a flight to Milan, then Venice, and now we are in Florence. As you can see I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog, but I promise it will come soon! I expect lots of people to post comments this time! I love hearing from everyone!

Love to you all,
Vinny xo

Portugal Photos!

First morning in Porto, Portugal. Sitting in a lovely park eating a picnic lunch.


The sun setting behind a castle at the beach we spent the afternoon at.


Emile and I getting into the Portugal spirit the night of the very sad Portugal vs France game. The night was still good and surprisingly everyone´s spirits were still high!

After 2 nights in Porto Emile parted from us and we went on ourseparatee ways. We caught a bus to Lisbon, the countries Capital, to see what it as a city had to offer.


Tamzin and Me having a self photo in the bottom main square in Lisbon, the Capital of Portugal. This was just down the road from our hostel, a very good find at the last minute!


The bottom main square by the river, a busy place during the day with tourists.


An almost identicalpicturee, though this one shows how beautiful Lisbon was by night. It stayed busy well into the early hours of the morning, with street performers and pedestrians creating an amazing atmosphere!


Me next to a beautiful fountain at the top main square, it was such a hot day that we stood there for a while after the photo just for the spray that was comming off of it.


A photo of me up on the castle in Lisbon. It was an amazing castle right up on the top of the only hill in Lisbon, so from there you can see the whole of the city, all the way out to the ocean.


A lovely view of the city.


Dont really know how to explain this one... the Lisbonians (our made up word for people originating from lisbon) seemed to have something for cows. We named this one foamy cow as he was the one at the end of our street. Guess you had to be there...

That brings us to the end of our time in Lisbon, thoug this is a very short account of what happined, I didnt even go into our time in the irish bar with tamzin singing for beer, or bartering with taxi drivers, but that wil have to wait for my return to our lovely home country.

This brings me to Lagos! After a long bus ride we arrived in the little town of Lagos, and found our home for the next 5 nights at a place called Pachecos Guest House. It was cool as it was just an apartment with different locks put on the 3 bedrooms, good for meeting people!

We discovered that there are very few portugese people in Lagos, it is essentially the fiji of europe!



This was the 'Big' beach where we decided to spend our first day. We were told it was the kind of place where you had to go, but not spend to much time, because of the amazingly beautiful small beaches close by. So we got this over with, as well as gave our skin a little shock of seeing a lot of sun for a long time...

Following are some pictures of the small beaces where we spend the rest of our time. They are AMAZING!









The night life in Lagos was crazy 7 nights a week, and we saw ALOT of it. There are countless amonts of photos from this but I will put in a few of the best for those who want to see it!









That is all from me for now. Currently we are in Madrid, after staying 2 nights in the south of spain at a place called Seville. A spain blog will come soon i promise! Send emails or post comments, its great to hear from you, i havent forgotten you!

Lots of love for Spain,
Vin