Europe 06

The Rest of Spain... Finally!

2006-09-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-03T11:18:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-07-13T09:27:00.000-07:00

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

Portugal!!!

2006-07-08T04:45:00.000-07:00

And we find ourselves in Portugal!

We flew into a place called Porto on the night of the 4th, just in time to see Germany loose to Italy, which put me in very bad spirits. That soon changed though as we realised how anazing Porto was! The people are so relaxed and friendly, a very welcome change after spending time on the london underground during rush hour!

The next day we set out to find the beach, a walk that took about 2 hours, but was very well worth it in the end. It was a white sand surf beach, with freezing cold atlantic water, but this didnt matter as it was 30 degrees out and I was swimming no matter what. Even at neck depth I could still see my feet at the bottoma and the little fish swimming around!

That night was the very sad game between Portugal and France. The portugese attitude to the game is different though, and even though they lost everyone was still very happy that night when me and emile went out on the town. The night life was wicked, though we found ourselves at a place called Vogue with a bouncer who thought he was to cool for us...

Me and Tamzin then caught a bus to Lisbon, the country´s capital. After a little while we managed to find accomadation in an amazing place in the center of lisbon. We had a room on the 5th floor with a balcony looking out onto a street with restaurants and buskers. It was quite a cool experience.

Lisbon is a very beautiful city, with a castle in the middle of it on a big hill. I visited the castle and hopefull soon i can find a computer where i can upload photos, so i can showw everyone how amazing it was!

We are now about to head off to the south of portugal, to a place called Lagos. It is ment to be one of the most beautiful places in portugal with amzing beaches and very hot temperatures, so i think 5 days of lying on beaches is waithing for me!

Anyway that is only a brief description of the country that I have grown to love, to decribe everything good about it would take another few hours...

Email me or comment on here, i love hearing from everyone!

Love to all,
Vin

End of Berlin and London

2006-07-03T01:58:00.000-07:00

Carrying on from my last post...

The following day Mark and I went to Checkpoint Charlie, the American controled section of the Berlin Wall. There is a museum there with all the information on Germany before the collapse of the wall. It was quite amazing and neither of us really knew that all this stuff was going on only 15 years ago.

As the weather had been so lovely (around 32+ everyday), the next day we decided to visit one of the lakes of Berlin. Although I cannot remember the name, the lake itself was quite nice and warm, with lots of nice area around it to sunbath.

That trip followed with a visit to a place called Fan Mile, a designated world cup watching area, consisting of about a mile of very wide road sectioned off and filled with giant TV's, Food, Beer, and thousands of screaming fans. We watched the Brazil vs Ghana game and although it was 3 - 1 for Brazil, the atmosphere was still amazing!

This day was a long one, as after watching the 2nd game of the day (France vs Spain) at Marks sisters place, while indulging in some lovely german beer, we decided to head out into the night. We encountered a few strange things that night, but filally after meeting some nice, though slightly annoying scottish girls, we found our way to a all night club called Cafe Burger where we stayed until we stumbled home at around 7 or 8 in the morning.

The next day was a quiet one, as we jsut visited Marks Grandma and Auntie, with whom we sat in a park and drank coffee with. It was quite a nice day, and thankfully it wasnt as hot, it had dropped to around 28. Marks sister cooked us a lovely dinner that night, and my help in preparing it was entertaining Yoko, marks neice. She is such a cute little girl!

I then flew back to London the following day, and have spent the last 4 days relaxing in London at Alices house. We went to the Theater on my first night here, and saw a show from apparntly one of the most famous playrites ever, directed by one of the best directors of this time. It was really good! I watched the England Portugal game in a pub , where i was unable to express my joy of Portugal winning, as i do like the idea of keeping all of my teeth in my mouth. Everyone there was extreemly pissed off and angry, so i just pretended to be sad...

Tonight I am seeing my second cousin once removed or whatever she is, which should be nice, and then tomorrow afternoon I am flying out to Portugal! where i can show my thankfulness that they won, and watch the semifinal in a place where i hope the fans will be a little more peaceful! I hope this weather holds, i cannot wait for the lovely beaches of Portugal!

Anyway thats all for now, I will write again as soon as possible,

Lots of Love,
Vin

BERLIN!

2006-06-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

After a few more days of sight seeing in London i departed from Stanstead Airport to Berlin. Leaving Stanstead Airport was my first real experience traveling by myself so that was quite interesting, but all ended well after some confusion. I met a nice German girl on the plane who helped me out with finding the train I needed on arrival. It ended up she was 2nd in Germany for 10km endurance swimming, so we had some interesting conversations.

I met mark at the train station and we went back to his sisters apartment which is in an old renovated building in east germany, so its very nice, big and contemperary. Marks neice is very cute, she is learning 3 languages fluently: english, german and swedish!

We headed out this morning to walk through Berlin, the photo is of Fafas (Marks Sister) apartment, very very cool! The first stop was at a war memorial, although neither me or Mark really knew what it was for, none the less, we both got amongst it and the following photo resulted!

We then carried on to a museum with a fountain in the middle of a very nice park, there was also a monument for Albert Einstein, and naturally we got involved in all of this too.

At the place where the Nazis burned all those books, we met a friendly kiwi bear and got a photo with him, figure it out yourself, we werent even on drugs, and heres the photo to prove it!

We went to the german parliament and got a nice german lady to take a photo of us.

Germany is obviously in football fever, and with a little bit more exploring we found a giant pair of football boots that were screaming out at us to be climbed on.

On our walk back to Fafa`s house for dinner we got dragged onto a bus, little did we know, my decision to go on this bus would turn out to be a good one. It was a Corona bus, free beer and a free double decker bus tour of Berlin, we couldn`t believe our luck. We think we were liked by the corona girls on the bus, as they kept telling us we were only allowed one beer, but some how we ended up with 4 each... someones smiling down on us...

Anyway, thats all from me for now. Mark says hi and sends his love to anyone who deserves it. Will do another post in the next day or two, we are thinking of hopping on the bus again tomorrow.

Lots of love to all, post comments or email me, its great to hear from you,

From the other end of the world, Vinny

2006-06-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

Sightseeing in London

2006-06-22T02:12:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

We have spent the last 2 days sightseeing through London. On tuesday, our first day here, we went to the natural history and science museums, and had a ride on the London Eye, a huge ferris wheel style thing in the center of London. The views from the top were amazing!

On wednesday we went to Buckingham Palace, which was really nice, the sun was shining and the place was packed with tourists like us. After that we went to the British Museum which was probably my favourite spot yet in london. The building is amazing, and its so eye opening looking at all of the greek artifacts that are over 3000 years old. They also had a display on early humans, where they had the first human toold ever found, which were around 1.8million years old!

Las night we went to a litle English pub which was an experience, they serve tap beer warm here which was not liked by me and tamzin, so we now have to order cold beer. Tamzins aunt and cousins who we are staying with are really nice, we get lovely home cooked meals which we will definatly miss in a few days!

Thats all for now, hopefully i will have some photos soon when i find an electronics shop.

Much love, Vin

Arrived In London

2006-06-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

After 3 flights and 2 airports we finally arrived in Hethrow airport in london. The flights went well, I slept 80% of the time which always helps, and Hethrow was surprisingly easy to get through with almost no security to speak of.

Tamzin's cousin Rob picked us up from the airport and we went back to his house where we watched the world cup (everyone's crazy about it here) and had dinner. This was followed by a short walk and a visit to a litle pub which was quite an experience.

Its just past 9 at night now and definatly time for bed, seein as how is abou 8am at home!

Will write again soon!

Leaving Auckland

2006-06-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

My family (+ Scott) came to see me off at the airport yesterday...