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Madrid 2
Day 118
Friday Nov27
1145 (28Nov)
I’m sitting on the high speed train from Madrid to Barcelona. The digital readout has us on train AVE 3113, 11:47 carraige 7, 9 degress celcius and Velocidad 296kph. The train is absolutely hooking. I’m sitting watching Ice age 2, In Spanish. I figured it wouldn’t be in English but when I looked up at the screen the subtitles were in Spanish, well I assume it’s Spanish, so I figured it must be in English. Wrong.
I woke up yesterday morning at 0300, I’d shifted onto the floor and was laying across the isle and I woke up freezing. I was curled up on my side but still cold. Writing off going back to sleep I sat up and wrote I my diary for a while. Needing to use the amenities I went in search of the bathroom. I crossed into the adjoining carraige and I realized that again I’d got the cold carraige. I went back and grabbed my stuff and shifted. Falling back into a deep sleep. Awaking only an hour out of Madrid.
First things first I needed to book a hostel. So I found an internet café at the train station and paid my 70 Euro cents for 15 minutes. The cheapest hostel I could find was 20 Euros. I was seriously considering just sleeping at the train station. But I thought better of it and bit the bullet. This western leg of my trip has definitely been the most costly. It’s gone from spending less then 10 euros a day on transport and zero on accommodation to paying 25 Euros a day on transport and 15 to 20 on accommodation. My daily budget is quickly being eaten into. Luckily I’m not hanging around here for long. I’ve got accommodation sorted for Nice and paris too. So that should be cheaper.
After booking into the hostel the next step was checking in. so I caught the metro into town and using the photo I’d taken of the computer screen with the map I was able to navigate to the hostal. After walking past it twice.
The room wasn’t too bad. For 20 Euros anyway. I had my own double bed, a sink and the room to myself. Not being a dorm.
At 11 I went down for one of the free tours. No body showed. The same happened at the alleged 12 o’clock walking tour. I went back and checked on the net. Both were off for the winter. With this new knowledge I just set off by myself. Walking around looking at every thig which seemed worth looking at from the map.
The speedo on the clock has just clicked over 300. I’ve never been this fast on land.
I was pretty tired from the lack of sleep the night before. This coupled with just walking round by myself really really hit morale hard. I was well and truly over it. I was glad to be meeting My Californian Friends later. Even though I wasn’t nearly as into it as previously I needed the company.
I met Vanessa at 1330 at the park near her place. John was there too, and edher and meagen, Edher’s girl. Edher was sporting a cast on his arm too that went down over his right pinkie and ring finger, he hasn’t told anyone the story behind it. Hopefully I’ll get it out of him later.
I was immediately regretting dressing like Jerry springer. I’d opted for the runners with jeans because I was getting some pretty sore blisters on my feet from all the walking around in my new shoes. Need to harden them up a bit more.
We walked for a little while searching for a café. Man I could go another coffee right now. We found a place and sat down. I wasn’t hungry but the others were. A coffee satisfied me. That aswell as edher’s attempt to eat kept me well and truly humoured.
Next we went for a walk through the main park. John had already left, I could tell he was stressing about there exams that they have next week. So it was just myself, Vanessa, Meagan and Edher. The park was huge, apparently it used to be closed off to the public and was only available for the royal family.
I parted with these 3 and left them to go and do some study before dinner. I spent the afternoon just chilling in the hostal. Revitalizing watching a movie and doing situps.
Being a bit sick of sitting in the hostal I left at about 1930 to go to a bookshop I’d found on the internet. Age’s international bookshop it was called. The walk there was pretty cool. Straight throught the middle of town. There were heaps of people out too so there was a pretty cool vibe in the air.
The bookshop was nothing more then a shoebox of a second hand store. I really wanted to get another book. The book I’m reading at the moment is Oliver Twist and its really depressing. This coupled with the lonesome travel isn’t helping, so I wanted something to mix it up. I had no luck finding anything though.
Before meeting the guys I had about 20 minutes to kill so I went to the Boccadillo place near my hostel. This was the same place where I’d been a few times the week before. I spend my time here just watching one particular barman move around while I nursed my beer.
I met the team at Sol at 2030 and we went for dinner at a place called Bazaar. When we got ther it was empty yet less then 5 minutes later the place was absolutely packed.
The food here was really good. Not too bad on the hip pocket but not cheap either. The only thing was that it wasn’t real big. Luckily I wasn’t too hungry. We had a half letre of wine here and then moved on.
Madrid 2
Day 118
Friday Nov27
1145 (28Nov)
I’m sitting on the high speed train from Madrid to Barcelona. The digital readout has us on train AVE 3113, 11:47 carraige 7, 9 degress celcius and Velocidad 296kph. The train is absolutely hooking. I’m sitting watching Ice age 2, In Spanish. I figured it wouldn’t be in English but when I looked up at the screen the subtitles were in Spanish, well I assume it’s Spanish, so I figured it must be in English. Wrong.
I woke up yesterday morning at 0300, I’d shifted onto the floor and was laying across the isle and I woke up freezing. I was curled up on my side but still cold. Writing off going back to sleep I sat up and wrote I my diary for a while. Needing to use the amenities I went in search of the bathroom. I crossed into the adjoining carraige and I realized that again I’d got the cold carraige. I went back and grabbed my stuff and shifted. Falling back into a deep sleep. Awaking only an hour out of Madrid.
First things first I needed to book a hostel. So I found an internet café at the train station and paid my 70 Euro cents for 15 minutes. The cheapest hostel I could find was 20 Euros. I was seriously considering just sleeping at the train station. But I thought better of it and bit the bullet. This western leg of my trip has definitely been the most costly. It’s gone from spending less then 10 euros a day on transport and zero on accommodation to paying 25 Euros a day on transport and 15 to 20 on accommodation. My daily budget is quickly being eaten into. Luckily I’m not hanging around here for long. I’ve got accommodation sorted for Nice and paris too. So that should be cheaper.
After booking into the hostel the next step was checking in. so I caught the metro into town and using the photo I’d taken of the computer screen with the map I was able to navigate to the hostal. After walking past it twice.
The room wasn’t too bad. For 20 Euros anyway. I had my own double bed, a sink and the room to myself. Not being a dorm.
At 11 I went down for one of the free tours. No body showed. The same happened at the alleged 12 o’clock walking tour. I went back and checked on the net. Both were off for the winter. With this new knowledge I just set off by myself. Walking around looking at every thig which seemed worth looking at from the map.
The speedo on the clock has just clicked over 300. I’ve never been this fast on land.
I was pretty tired from the lack of sleep the night before. This coupled with just walking round by myself really really hit morale hard. I was well and truly over it. I was glad to be meeting My Californian Friends later. Even though I wasn’t nearly as into it as previously I needed the company.
I met Vanessa at 1330 at the park near her place. John was there too, and edher and meagen, Edher’s girl. Edher was sporting a cast on his arm too that went down over his right pinkie and ring finger, he hasn’t told anyone the story behind it. Hopefully I’ll get it out of him later.
I was immediately regretting dressing like Jerry springer. I’d opted for the runners with jeans because I was getting some pretty sore blisters on my feet from all the walking around in my new shoes. Need to harden them up a bit more.
We walked for a little while searching for a café. Man I could go another coffee right now. We found a place and sat down. I wasn’t hungry but the others were. A coffee satisfied me. That aswell as edher’s attempt to eat kept me well and truly humoured.
Next we went for a walk through the main park. John had already left, I could tell he was stressing about there exams that they have next week. So it was just myself, Vanessa, Meagan and Edher. The park was huge, apparently it used to be closed off to the public and was only available for the royal family.
I parted with these 3 and left them to go and do some study before dinner. I spent the afternoon just chilling in the hostal. Revitalizing watching a movie and doing situps.
Being a bit sick of sitting in the hostal I left at about 1930 to go to a bookshop I’d found on the internet. Age’s international bookshop it was called. The walk there was pretty cool. Straight throught the middle of town. There were heaps of people out too so there was a pretty cool vibe in the air.
The bookshop was nothing more then a shoebox of a second hand store. I really wanted to get another book. The book I’m reading at the moment is Oliver Twist and its really depressing. This coupled with the lonesome travel isn’t helping, so I wanted something to mix it up. I had no luck finding anything though.
Before meeting the guys I had about 20 minutes to kill so I went to the Boccadillo place near my hostel. This was the same place where I’d been a few times the week before. I spend my time here just watching one particular barman move around while I nursed my beer.
I met the team at Sol at 2030 and we went for dinner at a place called Bazaar. When we got ther it was empty yet less then 5 minutes later the place was absolutely packed.
The food here was really good. Not too bad on the hip pocket but not cheap either. The only thing was that it wasn’t real big. Luckily I wasn’t too hungry. We had a half letre of wine here and then moved on.
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