Having not seen my friend Izzy since the end of uni last year, I was so excited on Friday for her to come and visit from where she is Barcelona. After arriving early evening, the first thing we did was crack open a bottle of red in preparation for the long catch up we desperately needed and then headed to one of my favourite restaurants in Madrid, Tartufo.
The rest of the weekend I had to put on my tour guide cap and I was fairly proud of what I could remember and how to get to places....my sense of direction isn´t the best and the invention of google maps on your phone is normally of big use to me. We started off by going to the Royal Palace which is absolutely huge. Each monarch had about three big rooms for wardrobe, sleeping and "chilling" and the decor was detailed with gold, paintings and intricate patterns on the walls. The next stop was for a fro-yo and a wander before a good old siesta and a night out.
Bringing Izzy into the Puerta del Sol (the place where it all happens) at 1.30am, we scrounged around for promoters who all wanted us to go to their particular club. After almost being persuaded to go to a place called Palace, we decided it wasn´t really our scene. He originally started his spiel with how it was house and electronic music and when we asked if there was commercial stuff he just agreed with us as to get us in. It´s probably pretty clear by now that that´s not really my thing and Izzy, being a big fan of The Den, Floritas and Dirty Pop in Newcastle, was on the same level. After then telling this random guy that the club, Joy, was shit, we ended up there, with an awkward moment of seeing him in the club and eating my words. However, it turned into a great night, with a bit of hat-stealing, running away from creepy Spanish men and dancing like we did in the toon. A night out with Izzy has never been a dull one.
Surprisingly, we felt less hungover on Sunday morning than we did on Saturday.....it seems to be that one glass of wine now can have a serious effect on how my head feels the next morning. The first stop for us that day was El Rastro, Spain´s biggest flea market and I´m really glad we went because Izzy seemed to really enjoy it. The best stall we came across was a crown stall and we spent a good 15 minutes taking selfies whilst trying them on before the owner started to realise that we were in fact not going to buy anything. We did think, however, it was a weirdly good look, that sort of elfish look that maybe could be taken as a new fashion statement in Newcastle....that´s "edgy" right?
Afterwards, we met up with our fellow course mate, Minna, for some good old Mexican food and then headed to the Prado museum, where I tried my best to be "cultural" and explain to Izzy my favourite paintings. I think the best I came up with though was "so this painting is famous". A walk through the beautiful Retiro Park was then on the cards before the lovely Spanish sunset hit, ending the night in El Tigre, one of my favourite bars in Madrid where you get mojitos the size of your head with platefuls of free food alongside. Oh, and then we had another fro-yo.
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend, potentially one of my favourites, and we are already planning now a trip to Murcia...although with 5 weeks left, I´m not sure how possible that will be.
Work is dull but it´s only a 3 day week this week and tomorrow I am off to La Rioja with Liz...the land of the Spanish wine!
Showing posts with label Tourists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tourists. Show all posts
Tuesday, 29 April 2014
Monday, 17 March 2014
DAY 169: Las Fallas
We had done a wee project translation thing on Las Fallas in Valencia at university last year and so I was really excited that I had booked tickets to go this weekend, even if it was just for 24 hours. Sophie, Mei and I hopped on the bus with the "tour group" who we had gone to Salamanca with and were buzzing for the oncoming antics. Jorge, the group later, the one that we all thought was very lovely looking in Salamanca, was there aannnd he remembered my name - what a cutie (girly scream). Unfortunately though, and just my luck, Mei had already got with him on one of the other trips to Cádiz during Carnaval a couple of weeks ago so he was firmly in her eyes only.
Anyway off we went, riding at the back of the bus (coz we all rebelious n shit) with a group of oh so annoying American boys. I mean seriously, they were those kind of people who thought they were THE shit, pumping their "g" beats loudly and bashing their beer bottles about. I might not have minded so much if they were British, as anti-American as that sounds, but their voices saying "this is fucking awesome bro" all the time was just bloody annoying. On top of that, they blatently thought they were hot, and no, they were not even average-looking, they were ugly. Anyway, I´ll stop my bitching. We stopped off halfway along the journey so that everyone could pee and I decided at this point I would get on board with the drinking and bought myself a beer. Sophie was like "ooh Sarah you´re such a lad" and I was like "I´ve been twiddling my hair listening to Cheryl Cole on my ipod for an hour...think that makes me very far from it".
We arrived in Valencia, late of course, and the choice of the group was to either do your own thing or carry on the bus to the beach. We went to the beach. Mei wipped off her clothes off into her bikini, much to Jorge´s satisfaction, and we sat there drinking and playing games until the early evening.
Feeling slightly pissed, we got on the bus back to the centre and felt that food was in order, and so where else did we go, but Subway. Not my first choice, I´m quite a sucker for sitting down in a nice restaurant whilst we sip on vino and eat leisurely, but Subway was fine and I had my first ever foot-long. The rest of the night mainly just entailed more alcohol consumption around the streets, plazas and gardens of Valencia, which by the way, seemed like a completely different city to two weeks ago. There were so many people there, every single one of those people was drunk and every single bar, club and restaurant was open, filling to the brims. There were even queues in the corner shops as everyone went in to buy their alcohol for the big "botellón" (the Spanish word for a drinking party on the street).
I met a lot of people on this trip, which I always like doing. First, we have Rachel from the West Country, lovely girl who I bonded with over going to the toilet together. (Us girls always like doing that for some reason). As we ran along from the bridge where we were watching the fireworks to the restaurant which we had decided was the "designated peeing area" the owner of the restaurant stopped us and told us we needed to buy a drink this time or otherwise we couldn´t use the toilet. We obliged and each bought a big glass of red wine, obviously not needed, and got into a deep drunken chat about love, heartbreak and boyfriends. We arrived back at the bridge half an hour later being like "I love this girl" whilst everyone wondered what on earth we had been doing in the toilet for so long. Another group of memorable people I met were the Mexican girls. They were so friendly and so funny and when I told them I was from Scotland they got way too excited. Turns out that they, all from Cancun, are going to Scotland for "spring break". Not going to lie, I´m slightly confused, a group of girls going to Scotland for a wild week of partying instead of their hometown which is probably the main hotspot for "spring break" in the world, but oh well each to their own. I just hope they understand that the trip might just not be as wild and that parties on the beach in their bikinis are likely to be much less fun along the Scottish coastline. Finally, there were the other two American boys, Jake and...Cooper..Wow Cooper was drunk and I took this opportunity to tell him that this Polish guy called Tom, who was with us that night, was my twin brother, I had had a baby when I was 13 and that I was married to a guy called Abdul who was back in Edinburgh looking after my child. Cooper belived all of this and I had the time of my life telling him.
Al in all, I have to say Las Fallas wasn´t what I expected. I wanted to go because it is a big festival in Spain and I wanted to see the big statues and bonfires around the town get set alight. I actually wanted, for a change, to be a bit more "cultural". However, all the trip was a straight 24 hours or so of drinking. Fun, but could have done it in Madrid to be honest. My voice is dying today and I am looking forward to this afternoon´s siesta.
Anyway off we went, riding at the back of the bus (coz we all rebelious n shit) with a group of oh so annoying American boys. I mean seriously, they were those kind of people who thought they were THE shit, pumping their "g" beats loudly and bashing their beer bottles about. I might not have minded so much if they were British, as anti-American as that sounds, but their voices saying "this is fucking awesome bro" all the time was just bloody annoying. On top of that, they blatently thought they were hot, and no, they were not even average-looking, they were ugly. Anyway, I´ll stop my bitching. We stopped off halfway along the journey so that everyone could pee and I decided at this point I would get on board with the drinking and bought myself a beer. Sophie was like "ooh Sarah you´re such a lad" and I was like "I´ve been twiddling my hair listening to Cheryl Cole on my ipod for an hour...think that makes me very far from it".
We arrived in Valencia, late of course, and the choice of the group was to either do your own thing or carry on the bus to the beach. We went to the beach. Mei wipped off her clothes off into her bikini, much to Jorge´s satisfaction, and we sat there drinking and playing games until the early evening.
Feeling slightly pissed, we got on the bus back to the centre and felt that food was in order, and so where else did we go, but Subway. Not my first choice, I´m quite a sucker for sitting down in a nice restaurant whilst we sip on vino and eat leisurely, but Subway was fine and I had my first ever foot-long. The rest of the night mainly just entailed more alcohol consumption around the streets, plazas and gardens of Valencia, which by the way, seemed like a completely different city to two weeks ago. There were so many people there, every single one of those people was drunk and every single bar, club and restaurant was open, filling to the brims. There were even queues in the corner shops as everyone went in to buy their alcohol for the big "botellón" (the Spanish word for a drinking party on the street).
I met a lot of people on this trip, which I always like doing. First, we have Rachel from the West Country, lovely girl who I bonded with over going to the toilet together. (Us girls always like doing that for some reason). As we ran along from the bridge where we were watching the fireworks to the restaurant which we had decided was the "designated peeing area" the owner of the restaurant stopped us and told us we needed to buy a drink this time or otherwise we couldn´t use the toilet. We obliged and each bought a big glass of red wine, obviously not needed, and got into a deep drunken chat about love, heartbreak and boyfriends. We arrived back at the bridge half an hour later being like "I love this girl" whilst everyone wondered what on earth we had been doing in the toilet for so long. Another group of memorable people I met were the Mexican girls. They were so friendly and so funny and when I told them I was from Scotland they got way too excited. Turns out that they, all from Cancun, are going to Scotland for "spring break". Not going to lie, I´m slightly confused, a group of girls going to Scotland for a wild week of partying instead of their hometown which is probably the main hotspot for "spring break" in the world, but oh well each to their own. I just hope they understand that the trip might just not be as wild and that parties on the beach in their bikinis are likely to be much less fun along the Scottish coastline. Finally, there were the other two American boys, Jake and...Cooper..Wow Cooper was drunk and I took this opportunity to tell him that this Polish guy called Tom, who was with us that night, was my twin brother, I had had a baby when I was 13 and that I was married to a guy called Abdul who was back in Edinburgh looking after my child. Cooper belived all of this and I had the time of my life telling him.
Al in all, I have to say Las Fallas wasn´t what I expected. I wanted to go because it is a big festival in Spain and I wanted to see the big statues and bonfires around the town get set alight. I actually wanted, for a change, to be a bit more "cultural". However, all the trip was a straight 24 hours or so of drinking. Fun, but could have done it in Madrid to be honest. My voice is dying today and I am looking forward to this afternoon´s siesta.
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