Espanol

Woooooo Whoooooooo !


How bloody good is Barcelona ? This place is off the hook !


After a long slow drive drive to Gatwick airport we were on our way, Easy Jet flight to Barcelona, Spain ! It wasn't very long at all between when the flight attendant was doing the safety demonstration and the captain tell us to buckle in for landing. As we came in I looked out the window to see the coast line and I started to get goose bumps. The beaches looked packed and the atmosphere electric ! Once on the ground we had to find our way from the airport to our hotel. Not so easy when the only Spanish word you know is "Hola" After some help from a lovely little Spanish lady we were heading in the right direction. On our very first train we had our very first encounter with pick pocketers. They were all over Maxi like flies to sh*t and wanted his wallet. Now I don't know if its because we are lifeguards and we're paid to be observant or this particular gang were just really bad at it but either way they stuck out like dogs *you know whats*. The whole carriage was onto them and they didn't get anything. Although we were also quietly thanking all the people that had warned us about them over the past few weeks ! After a lot of walking around we finally found our hotel, she's a little ripper. It's in a little side street of La Rambla with a pretty cool little bar next door that has live bands. Once checked in we dumped all our gear and jumped on bus 59 and headed straight to the beach !

The beach blew me away. Bondi gets pretty busy but this place was semi out of control. If they had waves here I reckon it would be mayhem ! We chatted to the lifeguards but it was only briefly. They take their job very seriously and didn't take their eyes off the water the whole conversation. They seem like an awesome crew and they offered us a little tour of their facilities on another day when it wasn't so busy. Looking forward to that ! We then went and got some food and an ice cold Stubbo at one of the places at the back of the beach. It was delicious, I was impressed.

Pretty sure in that 30mins we were at the beach I got sun stroke, (don't say that, its been a while since I've been in really hot weather :)) So we went back to the hotel to have a Siesta before some Fiesta. ("When in Rome right") It was around 4pm but i think the last few days had gotten the better of us and we just crashed and burned. I didn't wake up till 3:30am with Maxi not far behind me at 4:30am the next day !

After that massive sleep session we awoke, primed and ready to take on anything, well anything except something that weights between 2000-2800 pounds, has 2 very big "sharp and pokey" horns and likes to step on, or stab drunken Australians covered in blood red sangria !

We were headed to Pamplona, minus a Sat Nav. I trusted in Maxi's ability to read maps !

Maxi's map reading Ability = Us getting lost for well over an hour, 10 minutes in to the journey.

Our 4.5 hour journey went to 6 really quick. We gave up in the end and used the google maps app on our Travel SIM phones. It got us out of a very big mess. The highways in Spain are amazing. The speed limit is 120kph (although the locals seem to sit on about 200kph) and the scenery is beautiful although they do come at a cost. We paid about 35 euros in tolls. That's a lot of money I think for a 4.5 hour / 500+km journey. 

Once we arrived in Pamplona I was just blown away. The place, and its not very small, was just packed with people. They were EVERYWHERE ! It was actually a little scary at times. We stopped right outside a vendor selling the red and white clobber everyone else was getting around in and got changed. Then we drove halfway back out of town, parked the car and got straight in some very big beers and Sangria. Now I'm so sorry but I only have 1 picture for you all. My excuses are: I didn't really have safe pockets in my pants, the car was parked so far away and i had every intention of getting, well, pretty cactus ! I really wish I could have taken my camera as there were so many amazing photo opportunities.

Blah, Blah, Blah, we got blind drunk and had a ball with some really funny Aussie dudes from Melbourne and I don't remember much after about 6pm. There is a little twist though. When I woke up this morning at 3:30am I was sitting in the back of our hire car with Maxi and a random at the wheel, driving through the middle of Barcelona. Turns out the random was an old friend of Maxi's that needed to get back to Barcelona that night and in our drunken happy mood we offered our car but told him we we're to drunk to drive and he said "Its fine, I'm sober as a Judge, I'm a non-drinker". I am a little bummed we didn't get to watch people getting trampled and horned by bulls but on the other hand I'm happy I didn't have to do the long drive back hung over, much later the next day. If you really want to experience some Spanish culture then going to Running of the Bulls is something I highly recommend. Although I highly recommend you take a few spare T-shirts. This is what was left of ours !

Anyways its nearly 8am and we are off to see the sights of Barcelona. Were gonna try and hire a couple of scooters and head up the coast a little look see. We hear there are some beautiful, less crowded beaches a little further north. Very good chance we'll get lost again but that's all part of the adventure, right ? If anyone has any cool ideas for things we can do, feel free to drop them in the comments box below. Thank you all very much in advance !

In other excellent news from the team at Owl Marketing, HOPPO is coming to Dublin with us ! 

Hope everyone is having a good day/night. 

Cheers for stopping by :)

Reidy...