Lisbon….

On Friday we went our for a buffet lunch. It was really good, there was a huge selection of salad and some pasta, pizza, rice and dessert. It was really good and we were very full. In the afternoon we headed off to the train station. I read my book and Kath played some games while we waited for the train. When the train arrived at 10pm, we headed down to the platform and were one of the first ones to jump onto the carriage. Unfortunately it was not like our last sleeper train we had, it was quite squishy. We had quite a bad nights sleep. We found our hostel really easily and the staff were really nice, they gave us breakfast and stored our bags. We then headed out to the city to explore the city. We first went down to the river and sat in the sun. There is a huge bridge and God statue (like in Rio, but not on a mountain) which looked quite cool.

We then wound our way through some hilly streets to a Church and then up the Hill further to a Castle. As we went to enter the main entrance to the castle area, we were stopped by some people filming a movie… we are not sure which one (but some of the people sounded British, we are curious to know what movie it is). We got in with our student cards, which meant we got 50% off the admission fee. The Castle is on top of a hill and looks over Lisbon. We had really spectacular views of the city and the river. It was cold in the shade, but quite nice in the sun. We think that the Castle belongs to a cat family.. there were about 15 cats that we saw in the open, I’m sure there were plenty more in the gardens and around the grounds. The castle didn’t really have any rooms, but had cool towers which you could walk around the whole perimeter and Kath pretended she was a guard!

We saw the film people around a few times, and we saw a troop of Scouts as well. We soaked in some more of the views and had a snack before heading back down the hill. We then went to Rossio Square, it had a few statues and water fountains in it. We had lunch in a little cafe nearby. It was quite nice.

We were really tired by this point so we went back to the hostel and relaxed and showered. At this point we didn’t realise that there was a time difference between Madrid and Lisbon, so we were an hour ahead of time.. That night decided that we would treat ourselves to dinner. The hostel does a big cook up where you get a entree, main, dessert and 3 drinks for 8euros! So we had that for dinner. We got chatting to some American guys and an Aussie guy (from Cairns). The dinner took forever to come out. We had a “meat roll” (some sort of meat rolled up with ham and cheese), rice, chips, salad and breadrolls. It tasted ok, I wouldn’t be in a rush to eat it again though. We were very full by the end of it. Kath had 3 beers and I had 3 lemonades. By that point it was 10pm and Karaoke time. Some of the people were really good. Kath and I didn’t have a go. After hours of karaoke we decided to go to bed. We were both really exhausted so we headed up to bed. We had a spacious room and my bottom bunk has a curtain around it that gives me privacy. The beds are comfy and custom built.

After a great nights sleep we got up this morning and chatted to my family on Skype then had breakfast. We had a bowl of cereal and toast. It was good, though the milk was UHT milk and was warm so that was a bit disappointing, nonetheless it still tasted delicious.

Once we got ready we headed out to Belem, a suburb in Lisbon. We caught the tram there. Unfortunately the first “old” tram was full so we had to wait for the next one, which happened to be a modern one, so we were a bit disappointed with that. When we got off the tram we saw a little car show gathering, it had heaps of Mini Coopers and a Mini Ute, that was my favourite. We then wandered along the river and found a sail boat race happening. It was very windy and some of them looked like they were going to tip over. There was also a little kids competition and they were in tiny little one kid sail boats. They were really cool! There was a huge tower/monument/statue thing that had carvings on it, which were really large and also offered a 360 view of the area. We didn’t go up it, as we saw the view from the castle. We walked through a park to the monastery. There was a service about to begin so they were kicking people out. We went into the Museum and saw some things in there. Then we went over to the Maritime Museum. It was really amazing, it showed some clothes, boats, ships and pictures. There was a section on the Somalian Pirates and how they are dealing with them… not much was in English so we just guessed what it was saying. There was also a section on the royal cabins from the 18^th Century. It was good, but smelt a bit funny and old. We then saw some real boats, and some sea planes.

After we were all sea’d out we went to try a famous Pasteis De Belem, which is a pastry shop and we got a Pastel Belem. It had pastry with custard in it. They give you icing sugar and cinnamon with it. I didn’t really enjoy it that much, Kath really liked it and had lots of icing sugar on it. We then we to have some lunch. We got something to go and sat in the sun in the park. It was really nice. We sat in the park for an hour or so then decided to head back to the centre. We caught a tram back, again it was a new one. When we got off the tram we looked at some markets that were out, they weren’t to our liking, so we walked up the main pedestrian street and several times we were approached by men.. they asked us if we would like some Hash or Coke… I asked Kath if he was talking about some Coke a cola… apparently he was not… hahahaha. We then went to the supermarket to get some supplies. Now we are back in the hostel. The rugby is on the big screen and France is thrashing Italy.. So I decided that I might start wearing my jersey again now that it is warmer (and obviously football time).

Tomorrow we are hoping to go to the beach, where we can hopefully hire some free bikes and ride around making the cycling people in our family proud… Hopefully we don’t get run over or run anyone over! Haha.

That’s all from us for now.

Adios!

Mallorca comes to an end… Madrid begins..

Our last few days in Mallorca we didn’t do too much. On Friday we went down to Palma and wandered around the town and had lunch. It was quite a nice day, however it was quite cool in the shade.

On Sunday we went to the pub for lunch with Maxine, Kath’s Grandpa and Bill. Kath and Maxine had the Sunday lunch, which was really good and I had the pork chops and mash potato, that was also good.

The weather has been really shocking lately and you don’t want to leave the house.

Our last night in Mallorca we went out for dinner with Maxine to an Indian place. The food was really good and we had some apple schnaps at the end of the meal.

Maxine took us to the airport today.. on the way we hit a snow blizzard!! Snow in Mallorca, crazy! Our flight was late boarding, but we managed to leave on time..

When we arrived in Madrid it was 3degrees and sunny! By the time we took 3 metros and walked to the hostel we were really warm. We got upgraded to a 4 bed dorm (instead of a 6) as we said we were not willing to share with boys (since we did book a female dorm).. Apparently some male booked a bed in the female dorm! We are the only 2 in our room so we hope there are another 2 girls coming (or noone at all). They have funny keys for the rooms, it is basically a watch, but instead of the time it has a chip in it.

After we checked in we went to have some lunch and then went to the train station to  buy our tickets to Lisbon. They have really funny sounds for the pedestrian crossings at traffic lights, it makes a funny bird chirp.. we laughed a while about it… Kinda scary really… We got our tickets then went for a walk around the area and through the streets back to our hostel.

We are here for 2 nights then off to Lisbon for 4 nights, then back here for 1 night then back to Barcelona (then France).

Tomorrow we are doing a free walking tour, hopefully that is good.

Love Cindy and Kath

Milan in a nut shell, to Barcelona…

We went out for dinner the first night in Milan to a pizza place that was recommended in our lets go book. We ordered a pepperoni pizza… when the pizza arrived it was actually a capsicum pizza! So we ate that then left, we got charged a fortune. Kath enjoyed the pizza! The next day we thought we would see the one sight Milan has to offer. We caught the metro to the Duomo, a giant church. We walked around the outside, it was very detailed. We then wandered the streets for a while then went back to the hostel and we had a new roommate, he was Mexican. We chatted to him most the arvo/night. We had a horrible salad for dinner. We shouldn’t try and be healthy, it never turns out nicely lol…

The guy had a cold and snored really loudly most the night, so we didn’t get a great deal of sleep. The next morning we hung around the hostel until check out time then went to the train station. We waited around and had some lunch/dinner in a near by family restaurant. When our train arrived we were the first to jump on, we put our bags in the rack and got ready to set off. They gave you a kids find a word on the back of a brochure, It was in Italian so we had no idea what words we were meant to find, so Kath created words then I found them. Then we played boggle with it. We are very creative!

After we left the station a ticket lady came and took our tickets and passports. We watched a movie and then I tried to get some sleep. The seats reclined so they were ok. Kath chatted to some American guys in front of us. They were really nice. They offered her some cake. At our first check point in France it was snowing. The police were in our carriage questioning some guy, after discussion over his passport he was escorted off the train, Phew it wasn’t me! The rest of the journey we both just rested and tried to get sleep.

Kath woke up pretty early and saw the sunrise, then she kindly woke me to see it as well. Nice sunrise over the coast of somewhere (in either France or Spain).

When we arrived in Barcelona we jumped off the train and headed to the Metro to go to the hostel. It was boiling! We had left 4-6degree coldness and arrived in 12degree heat! We found the hostel really easily as they gave you great directions. We checked in, but had to leave our bags in the storage room as we were early. We then headed back to the Metro to try and find the port. We found the port really easily and sat by the water and had some strawberries and juice in the beautiful sun. We saw some really huge fish in the water. People obviously come there all the time to feed the fish bread. After sitting there for a while we decided to go for a walk over the bridge to see what was on the other side. There was a shopping mall, an Imax and the Aquarium. We decided to go for a walk to find the ferry we are going to take to Mallorca. The ferry ticket place was closed, so we went to sit back near the fish feeding area. Apparently there are lots of people who come to get rid of their old bread there. There was one lady that had bags and bags of baguettes she was throwing in the water (whole). The fish were amazing they were really big, Kath wanted to sneak in a line (Look below for a video). We sat and watched them for ages then we decided to go back to the hostel and to the supermarket for dinner food. We were getting quite tired and hungry as we hadn’t really had breakfast or lunch. We cooked pasta for dinner. It was really good, we are so glad to have good facilities in this hostel. There is a big kitchen, big dining/common area, pool table, foosball table, punching bag, 2 exercise bikes, a cinema, and a terrace. We then went to bed and watched a movie.

We were woken up this morning by a rude girl who didn’t even sleep in her bed last night, she came in, turned the light on then left and didn’t turn the light off, so I got up and turned it off. We got up about an hour after that and got ready. We had our breakfast, it was packed in the dining area. Kath spoke to her parents on Skype then we headed out to do a free walking tour. When we arrived in the place we thought the walking tour was meant to start we couldn’t find anyone, so we just wandered around the street. We visited the Martime Museum and then kept walking around and came across a church, it was having massive renovations done to it. We kept walking and found a street parade that was going on. So we went to watch that. There were lots of Spanish dancers.. it was really entertaining. People in the parade were walking along drinking beer! We thought that was hilarious. Then one group came along and set firecrackers off in front of us, it was a bit scary. After the parade finished we walked along to the beach. There were lots of people doing beach sculpting. We walked along for a while, then turned back as the weather was starting to get bad and our feet were getting sore. We walked through some markets then headed back to the metro as it had started raining. The first train we caught was quite busy, 3 guys followed us off the train and through the metro. We were watching our bags and wallets. Then when we were on the escalator one of the guys stepped up onto the step Kath and I were on, so we stepped up a step then he stepped up onto that. As there were people in front of us we couldn’t move anymore. Kath had her hand on her wallet and I turned so my bag was against the escalator wall. Kath thought she felt one of the guys hand trying to get in her camera bag. When we reached the top of the escalator we walked away pretty quickly to the next train line. The guys followed us there as well, but we walked down the other end of the line, Kath checked she had everything. After we got off the next train we realised that the clip on her bag was undone. Nothing was taken, and the guy was pretty stupid to think that we would not realise if her bag was opened (it has a huge velcro strip which is hard to undo at the best of times). We are now back to the hostel and are making an itinerary for tomorrow. We are having pasta again tonight, so I am looking forward to that. Kath had a new beer called Saaz, I thought it tasted ok. I had a magners and now we are sharing a drink called a Damm Lemon (it is 6 parts beer, 4 parts lemon). Tastes pretty good.

Hope everyone is well.
Hope to hear from you all soon (comments are welcome, we are a little sheltered from Aussie life over here).

Love Cindy and Kath

PS: new photos are up in Italy and Spain!

Updates

New Photos in Spain and new beers on beer page.

Mallorca II and back to Glasgow

I typed the blog up, but then I accidentally deleted it… so bit annoyed really.

We went to Palma by train from Inca. Trains were nice, saw some great scenery from the train. In Palma we walked around the streets and looked at some nice shops and market stalls. We bought some nice pictures from one shop. We then walked up to the cathedral and the architecture was brilliant. We saw the Spanish changing of the guard outside the Palace and the Cathedral.  We were going to go into the Cathedral but saw they were charging 4 euros to see inside… we walked around the back streets behind the cathedral and found the  banys arabs which are historic arab bath houses. It was amazing how they were standing between two apartment blocks, but still had a peaceful feel about it. We walked back to the cathedral and paid the 4 euros each to see the inside of the church.  The stained glass windows and the ceiling was amazing… you weren’t allowed to take photos but I took some sneaky shots because I saw everyone else taking photos.

We then walked around Palma for awhile and looked at stalls and shops. Everything closes from about 1-4 so we decided to just go home when things started to close.

On Sunday we had a great sunday roast at a little cafe in Port de Pollenca. Maxine and Grandpa had Roast Beef – we had the chicken. It was delicious. We had a yummy dessert as well. We all spent the afternoon at my aunts place and then we drove my Grandpa home.

We drove to the Caves of Drach and it was very impressive, they also had a little music show like the Cave of Arta but they actually played the music in boats so it was a bit cooler then the Caves of Arta but it just went on and on. The actual stalagmites and tites were really amazing and they had all these lakes within the caves… the water looked so clear. We weren’t allowed to take photos – one guy got yelled at so we didnt even try.

After the caves we drove to Palma in search for the Castell (castle).. It was too hard to find and the traffic was busy and scary drivers that we just kept going and had a nice drive to Port Andratx on the way back we had one more attempt at the Castell but didnt get much closer. Palma has some scary streets. There was this one street that had 3 lanes and merged into 1 without any warning and being in the middle lane with cars on both trying to merge on top of the car.

Tuesday we went for a nice drive off the motorway through the middle of Mallorca – we were looking for a walk but couldn’t find the start so we kept driving and ended up at Port Soller again where Cindy got a cool shot glass. We then drove through the scary windy cliff drive back to Pollenca. Later in the Afternoon we drove to this small little beach where we hung out for awhile before going home.

Wednesday we took the car back and hung out, Tommy arrived back from work today so we finally met him. He’s great – we hung out for a few hours then went back to the apartment where I made some great chicken burgers… if i do say so myself.  Thursday was a horrible wet and windy day so we stayed in and watched movies.

Friday we borrowed my Aunts Alfa Romeo and went to visit my Grandpa to say goodbye. We hung out there for the morning before a quick stop at the supermarket. We went over to Maxines and Tommys place in the afternoon and had a few drinks.

Saturday, Jan a family friend drove us to the Airport. The flight ended up leaving half an hour early – which we thought was kinda crazy. No wonder Ryanair is always early. We flew over the pyrenees mountains which were covered in snow so that was an amazing site from the plane.

Ellen kindly picked us up from the airport at prestwick. We hung out for the afternoon and we all went to the movies to see 2012… which was a laugh, you just couldn’t take it seriously but it was fun to watch.

So yeah… Santa fun run next sunday – I’m number 640 and Cindy is 645. We are also going to a Pantomine on Saturday which should be good fun.

Until next time.. Adios.