The expensive Spain

Phew, this place is expensive!!! Not because of the prices but because they have so much cool things to buy here. I´m already up to T-shirt number four on this trip and don´t know how many more my pack can hold. Then there´s all the great food and of course, the sangria.

We´re have a fantastic time here in Spain. Barcelona was a definite highlight of our trip and one of the world´s great cities in our opinion. It´s very modern but has also done a good job of preseving it´s history. So far in Spain we´ve discovered a relaxed modernism that we found lacking in the busier parts of Italy.

Then, there´s the amazing design and architectural works of Antoni Gaudi - this guy is a rock star round here...only they ran him over with a tram back in the 1920´s - opps. This guy was the genius behind the most amazing church (perhaps building) in the world - the Sagrada Familia, still under construction. We also visted other pices of his work including Park Guell and an amazing apartment block built in the 20´s.

We saw alot in our four days and there is still plenty more to see an do. We also finally discovered some decent falafel at a great vego place where you fill your own salad. We went there four times! Oh course, there are also the moments of insanity, where some dickwad in your dorm room decides to play video games on his mobile at 12:30am and you´re too polite or stupid to get out of bed and kick his butt.

Next it was on to Valencia. We were quite tired when we arrived and thought it might be an unnesecary stop on our trip. However, a rest and a cold shower later we discovered that this is also a great city and we´ve had a nice and relaxing two days here. Our room was a bit crap though, resembling a jail cell with only one window out into a well where the air was just as stagnant as in our room (yes, it had no AC other than a crappy fan), plus due to dodgy plumbing the shower also smelt like the toilet.

That aside, we headed to the beach yesterday using their great metro/tram system and also checked out the America´s cup village which is totally dead now that the racing is over. We then headed back to the same cheap little Tapas bar and Irish pub (sepearte places) as the night before and relaxed with some food and beer. Clare says it great to have a local, even if only for two days. It may sound a little boring but when you´ve been away for 10 weeks and you discover great cheap food and service, we figure it´s a good idea to stick with it.

In a couple of hours we head to Madrid.