Our first full day in Madrid!

Hola!!!!

So we've spent a day in Madrid! I can't believe how much we've done and how good it's been. This place is FUCKING AMAZING. I don't think either of us can get our heads around how well everything has gone, and how good a time we're having. This is the MEIRDA.

We are currently using the internet in the lobby of our new hostel, University Club, where we will be spending the remainder of our time in Madrid. We are sitting on a comfy sofa, chilling and eating stuff. Good times :)

So without further ado, I'll take you through what has happened today.

________________________________

We woke about up at 8 (we set our alarms for this time). Surprisingly, I think Sam was more tired than I was despite the fact that he went to sleep at about 1am and I went to sleep at about 3.45am. Must be because he's such a fatty.

We both had a shower (the shower was SOOOOOOOOOO NICE) and checked our internet shit. As I said in a previous blog post, we were only booked in at Hostal Oliver for that night; for our next two nights in Madrid we would be staying at a new hostel called University Club (I still laugh at that name) not too far away from Hostal Oliver. So we decided that we would pack all our stuff and check out before we had breakfast, and then straight after breakfast we would check in at our new hostel.

Although I said in the last post that we'd already decided on where we were having breakfast, when we got out of the hostel there were so many nice-looking places that we just chose the one that looked best to us. First of all we ordered churros, which if you don't know are fried-pastry-stick things, kind of like doughnuts (more about those later...). Then we ordered our breakfasts: we both ordered scrambled egg and toast, Sam's had chorizo and mine had bacon.

This was an AWESOME breakfast. Here are a couple of pictures:

Sam doing what he does best... drinking coffee:

The orange juice was really nice too, you can tell it was completely fresh. In case you were interested!

The whole breakfast was pretty cheap which was a bonus, and we really enjoyed the experience in general. Like the night before, everyone was out on the streets - it was a really friendly atmosphere. Our surroundings weren't bad too, check out these photos:

The buildings look amazing!

So after this, we wandered around for a bit before getting the metro to Chueca where our new hostel is. Here are some photos that we took while wandering:

We got the metro to Chueca, used free wifi to find our hostel and checked in. The people were really friendly and spoke English very well. The room is a bit shabby (ok very shabby...the door barely fits in the fucking doorframe) but the bed looks comfortable and it has everything that we need, so that's fine for us.

We checked a few internet bits, got changed into shorts and put sun cream on (it was over 30 degrees and completely sunny in Madrid today :D) ready to head out.

We went to a nearby hypermarket thing to pack some food for the day. I got to use a bit of Spanish there - when we were buying fruit, there was an assistant who weighed it and put a price on it. I said:

"Deme dos peras, por favor" (Give me two pears please), which is the correct way of saying it in the kind of situation, as learned in year 9 Spanish. So I was happy I got to use that! I also used a bit at the checkout. So this went well.

Before we explored anywhere, the first thing we wanted to do was to reserve our seats for a train to San Sebastian on Sunday morning, just to make sure that we would definitely get there alright. We needed to do this in advance and also at the train station we would be travelling from, which in this case was Charmartin. So we travelled there on the metro and went up to the over-ground train section.

Despite a little bit of confusion about where to go to make our reservation (two Canadian tourists gave us a little bit of help!), reserving our seats with our InterRail tickets was actually much easier than we expected, it took like 5 minutes!! It seemed like the assistant who did it for us was used to it, so that was a good sign.

So we got our tickets, and then we decided that the first place we wanted to visit was Parque del Retiro, the most famous park in Madrid containing a lake, two large palaces and many other curiosities. We took the metro to the station 'Retiro' to get there, which didn't take too long.

The first thing we saw when we got out of the station was an ice-cream stall, and as we were hot and wanted a drink after the metro journey, we got an ice-cream each and sat down in the shade.

And then we had a look around. Here's what we found:

And then we found the monument to King Alfonso XII and the boating lake!!! AMAZING.



There were fish in the lake!



And also all around Madrid, there are these really friendly sparrows. They land right next to you, and one landed on my chair when I was eating breakfast!

So after walking beside the lake, we took a few different paths and came across the Palacio de Velázquez!! The building was beautiful and the inside of it was a really interesting art gallery, which was free! Here are some pictures:

After we looked around the art gallery, Sam wanted to take some time to sketch the building, which was very interesting architecturally. So Sam sat down on some grass near the building to sketch, and I went on a wander by myself. Here's what I found:

And now I can tell you about the SQUIZZA ENCOUNTER.

Just when I came back to the place where Sam was sketching, I saw two people getting really close to a squirrel to take photos of it. After they left, I got up really close too. This was the most human-friendly squizza ever. It was amazing, and sooooooooo cute. Here are the photos:

So that was pretty funny!

As Sam was still sketching, I went and visited the Palacio de Cristal which is about 200 yards away from the Palacio de Velázquez. Sam went there too after he finished his sketching.

It is an incredible building.

And now we move on to the water incident. While Sam went to look around the Palacio de Cristal, I went to fill up our water bottles from a nearby fountain.

While I was there, I saw a Spanish woman trying to give water to her dog, called Linda. She had a tiny little pot which she filled up with water, and she put it down on the ground. And then while I was filling up the bottles, all I could hear was:

"Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda, bebe el agua. Linda. Agua."

The dog wasn't having it. But the woman persisited.

"Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua.Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua.Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua. Linda. Agua."

LINDA JUST DRINK THE FUCKING AGUA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, the woman must have been saying this for about 5 minutes!!!! Crazy shit.

But anyway, after this, I met up again with Sam. Before we left the park, we went up close to the monument which you see across the lake. Here are some pictures:

And then we came across a cat having a siesta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This place never ceases to amaze.

So after this, we left Parque del Retiro and decided to go and see the Palacio Real and other nearby attractions. We got the metro to Ópera and everything was nearby. Here is a selection of photos:

And here is the Catedral de Almudena which is directly opposite the Palacio Real:

At this point, the coffee monster inside Sam was crying out for nourishment, so we decided to head back to the Puerta del Sol area and find a café on the way. We found a very nice one which also played loads of English music, including Aerosmith! Quite strange but nice to hear familiar songs.

This is where churros come into the story again. Sam ordered some for breakfast and bought a couple in Charmartin station, and then, without my knowledge, bought FOUR more at this café. What the fuck? Does he know how many calories must be in that shit?! I eat one and I can feel it sitting on my stomach; Sam can eat like three in a row. This proves beyond doubt that Sam is a FATTTTTTTTTTTY.

Before getting the train from Sol back to the hostel for the evening, we went to the Plaza Mayor, which happened to be on the road we were walking up. Here are some pictures:

And after this we travelled back to the hostel!!

We decided not to go out for a meal tonight because we still had a lot of food left over from earlier and neither of us were particularly hungry. So as I have been writing this blog post, we've been snacking on bread, grapes and crisps. That well-known diet.

Looking back on this post, I can see it has been mostly photos and description; I hope it's still entertaining. Once again I'm very tired, although at least I managed to start this post earlier tonight, so I've been trying to get though as much as possible in the time that I can stay awake!

As I'm sitting on this sofa, there is a light that keeps turning off periodically so I have to keep turning it on again. Fucking annoying! And when it turns off it makes this annoying clicking sound.... CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. This is like the only sound I've been hearing ALL NIGHT. FUCK!

Also just now some woman randomly ran up the stairs in front of me with a plate of cherries, screaming. Because that's normal behaviour.

But anyway, I better get to bed. We've got another full day in Madrid tomorrow so I better get some rest. I've been watching the pageview counter go up and up, so keep it going!! It's really good to feel so appreciated, so thanks for that.

So until tomorrow, buenos noches!

Jack - 26/5/12 - 01:14 in Madrid, 12:14 in the UK













We're in Madrid!!

Hey everyone!!!

We're here! We made it! We're even in the fucking hostel!

There's so much to say and it's getting late, so let's jump straight into what's happened today.

________________________________

We woke up at 8 and had breakfast in Subway in town. Sam, being the fatty that he is, ate a foot-long bacon, sausage, egg and cheese sandwich which came to half of his guideline daily amount of calories; I stuck to a modest 400 calories.

We went back to Sam's flat and finished getting all our stuff together, checking that we hadn't forgotten anything essential. We double-checked our trains. And then we headed to the station for a train at 12 o'clock.

The train from Canterbury East to Victoria took about an hour and 20 minutes; it's a journey that me and Sam are used to so that was fine. We only had to make one change to get on the train to Gatwick, so this went pretty smoothly. Notice how I'm getting through this part of the day quite quickly - this is so that we can get to the more interesting stuff sooner!

We checked in at the airport at about 2.30pm, our flight was at 5.05pm so we gave ourselves plenty of time. For those of you who do not know, I am (or "I was" - I'm not anymore!) a plane virgin - this was my first time flying, so I didn't really have much of a clue about all the stuff we had to go through. Luckily Sam has flown quite a lot so he was there to guide me through it all, however this was also a disadvantage as he kept tricking me by telling me random little "facts" about flying and the whole process, making me swear by them and then telling me that they weren't true - NOT FUNNY SAM.

Everything we had was in our hand luggage apart from my fucking HENCH rucksack which we put in checked luggage. This also contained our toiletries and therefore many liquids, which would have been too much to take in our hand luggage. So after we sorted out that, we got all of our shit x-rayed, went through security which (according to Sam) was very fast and simple compared to most flights, and then we were airside!

As we got to the airport so early, we had almost an hour and a half to wait until our gate opened. So where did we go? COSTA. Sam got a coffee and a lemon tart (fatty), I got a honey/granola yoghurt and a blueberry muffin (it had blueberries - healthy!!!).

 This was YUMMY.

As we hadn't had anything to eat for breakfast, we devoured this quite quickly, which meant that we still had ages to wait for our gate to open. We were going to have a look around but it turned out that the shopping area wasn't as big as we expected. We went to WH Smith - I got a copy of El Pais, a Spanish newspaper, in order to get my brain into Spanish mode (and admittedly to show Sam how inferior his Spanish skills are), and we both got some sweets. Sam got a fucking pic 'n' mix for some reason - I told him that it was a shit idea and so it proved (more about that later). But yeah so that occurred.

With nothing else to do, we sat around reading the newspaper until the gate opened. When it did, we headed down to the waiting area, which was so so so so so so so HOT - it must have been about 30 degrees down there, even the Spanish people were fanning themselves - and waited to board the plane.

We didn't get to choose what seats we wanted beforehand, and I really wanted a window seat as it was my first flight. Luckily, we found when we got on the plane that I had a window seat, and it was OVER THE WING!! So exciting!! (For me, anyway). So this all went really well.

Everything was in Spanish! We were flying with Air Europa, a Spanish airline, and it was lucky that I was there because Sam wouldn't have understood anything. Even when the people made announcements in English it was impossible to understand - I understood the Spanish better than the English!! So we went through all the usual safety announcements as we travelled to the runway. Yay.

And then we took off!!! I want to go into detail about how I amazing felt and stuff but I'm sure most of you have experienced this plenty of times. Put simply: it was FUCKING BRILLIANT. I loved it.

It didn't take very long to get up to altitude. I'll show you a few pictures we took up in the air!

Spanish water!!!

Sam's coffee - he said it was shit (suprise surprise)

Sammy!

Me!

THE WING

Going over Spain and landing in Madrid was awesome. As we went over the north of Spain you could see all of the mountains (specifically the Picos de Europa) and then just before we landed in Madrid we passed another set of mountains. This was stunning, especially as we were at a much lower altitude. I really loved landing, it was FUN :)

And when we got off the plane, we didn't go through one of the tunnels - there were steps down from the plane entrace straight to ground level!! Sam said he's only done that once before, so we were both pretty impressed. Here are some pictures:

The first thing that someone said to me on Spanish ground? "Watch your shoelaces." Could be worse I suppose.

 

Then we got on a nice little bus to the main airport building. Here's Sam on the bus!

 

 

And the bus itself...

 

 

Once we got in the main building, we got my rucksack from the checked luggage (this was easy, thank god, as the plane wasn't particularly big). However, we also found that, in our hand luggage, Sam's MOTHERFUCKING PIC 'N' MIX had opened in the bag and there were sweets EVERYWHERE. GIGALOLS. Sam was so deeply scarred by this event that he decided to leave the few remaining sweets that were in the cup on the floor in the airport. I hope they find theie way to a homeless person or something.

 

We then made our way to the metro station for the airport. This is the metro station:

 

 

And our train:

 

 

 

We had a few changes to do before we got to Sol, the station nearest to our hostel. Our first train took us about four stops to Nuevos Ministerios, we then went on a different line for one stop to Cuatro Caminos, and then finally about six stops to Sol. Here's a tube map so you can follow our route:

 

 

And here's the inside of a Spanish tube train:

 

 

This is where we reach the frantic part of our day. Sam remembered that the last check-in time for the hostel was 10pm, and yet we were still at the airport metro station at 9.30pm. All we could do was go as fast as we could. All of the metro stuff went pretty smoothly - we only had to buy one ticket each for the whole journey, so that was easy to do using the machines, and all of our changes went according to plan.

 

We arrived at Sol at about 9.55pm. Cue UTTER PANIC.

 

Firstly we walked about 100 yards up a road in the complete opposite direction to where our hostel was. Then we found a map, and I saw a road on it that I recognised - Calle del Espoz y Mina - which, in accordance with sod's law, was the complete opposite fucking direction. So we raced up the Puerta del Sol area until we found the street.

 

We walked up the street. No hostel.

 

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.

 

All we could do was wander around in desperation. We found about 300 other hostels, but not ours. All the streets are so tightly packed and look similar; it was very easy to get lost.

 

We saw a hotel and decided that we should ask for directions.

 

I said to the hotel receptionist "¿Puede decirme dónde está el Hostal Oliver?" (Can you tell me where the Hostal Oliver is?).

 

She realised that I was English from my accent and then started speaking to me in English. She was very helpful and got our hostel on Google Maps. And guess what? THE ROAD I RECOGNISED ON THE MAP WAS RIGHT! At least that was some comfort at the time.

 

It must have been about 10.30pm at this point. We got make to our road but still couldn't find the hostel. We tried more roads again. No luck. It was only when we were walking down the fucking road for about the 7th time when I noticed really high up a building the sign for 'Hostal Oliver'. There were so many signs on all levels of the buildings that it was very hard to pick out one in particular, so it's no surprise it took us quite a while.

 

The next question: was the hostel open?

 

No. But there was a voice thing by the door. We pushed the button for Hostal Oliver and prayed.

 

"Hola".

 

THANK FUCK.

 

Me: "Hola."

The Voice: "Booking?"

Me: "Yes."

 

And as if by magic, the door unlocked.

 

YES!!!

 

So we climbed the very steep stairs up to the fourth floor, paid, checked in with our passports, got our keys (one which opened the downstairs door, meaning that we could stay out as long as we wanted, and one for our room), and entered our room.

 

It really isn't bad at all. It has everything we need, including air conditioning, which is pretty fucking essential in this hot weather.

 

We put down our stuff, breathed a few sighs of relief, and then had a quick internet break and Skyping session.

 

 

After this, we finally allowed ourselves to eat. While we were desperately searching for the hostel, we passed quite a few places where we could eat, in particular this one small street where there were loads of small bars and restaurants with everyone eating outside.

 

The night life in Madrid is fucking INCREDIBLE. There are sooooooooo many people out, and so many places open. And it's so different from England - everyone is friendly, people drink responsibly, and the atmosphere is really nice. So when deciding where to get food, we headed for this small street and found a nice little place to eat.

 

Here is the street:

 

 

When we sat down, we ordered drinks (again they realised we were English after my attempts to speak Spanish) - I got some water and Sam got a Mojito cocktail, which he enjoyed. Then for food, we ordered a large Pollo de la Barbacoa (Barbecued Chicken) and two Ensaladas (Salads). As is normal in Europe, they gave us some bread before our meal, which I've always wondered why we don't do in England so much.

 

Our salads came out first: they came in a big bowl with some tuna which was nice :)

 

 

 

 

And then our main food came out. FUCK. We did not expect this.

 

 

This was the BEST FUCKING BARBECUED CHICKEN in the whole world. The sauces and barbecued peppers were great too. These were our reactions:

 

Sam:

 

 

Me:

 

 

It really was a great first meal. The food was lovely, the staff were all really friendly, and the atmosphere in general was great. Even the temperature was comfortably warm by this point. A man playing an accordion kept floating around us too which was nice; it added to the friendliness of everything.

 

The meal in total only came to 39 euros, which we were pretty happy with, especially considering the amount of food we ate. This is how you do it in ESPAÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑA.

 

After the meal, we decided to take a quick walk to the Puerta del Sol (the main central area of Madrid if I haven't mentioned this already) which has a few nice fountains, buildings and so on. Here are some pictures:

 

 

 

 

You can see how lively it is at night. I bet even if we couldn't find our hostel we could have stayed out in the Puerta del Sol all night and been fine!!!

 

We then headed back to the hostel for the final time. On the way, we saw a bus shelter which showed the temperature: 26 degrees. At MIDNIGHT. What the fuck? So glad we have air conditioning!

 

And that pretty much brings you up to date!

 

Oh and here's a random thing we noticed in our hostel:

 

 

It's clothes hanging from washing lines from the fourth floor. Pretty neat!

 

So anyway, that's how our first day went! In the end it wasn't too stressful, although already I have wanted to stab Sam repeatedly with a sharp object at some points. But we're ok.

 

I've been writing this blog post for 2 hours. Fuck. But it's worth the sleep deprivation. I'm sorry if the blog hasn't been as witty as you are accustomed to; there was so much stuff to get through and it is very very very very very late. Hopefully I've made up for that with the content: lots of pictures and the fact that we're actually on the trip now rather than just preparing for it. Today has been amazing but draining!

 

Just now there were loads of Spanish football fans chanting outside. NICE. I'll say it again, the night life here is MUY BUENO.

 

But anyway, I better get to bed now, I'm not gonna get much sleep! We've already chosen the café we're going to tomorrow morning so I'm looking forward to that.

 

Tomorrow is going to be very exciting so look forward to the blog post! I should start it earlier seeing as we won't be going through the panic we went through today, so hopefully this putting-words-in-some-logical-order business will come more naturally.

 

So for now, buenos noches!!!!!!!!!! And.........................sleep :)

 

 

Jack - 25/5/12 - 03:26 in Madrid, 02:26 in the UK

The Packing Blog

Hello everyone!!!!

This is fucking it! Me and Sam are all packed and we're ready to go!

Tonight I'm staying at Sam's flat in Canterbury, where we've been going through our big list of stuff to take and arranging everything in our two rucksacks. The last thing to do was to write this blog, and I suppose this is quite good practice seeing as this is probably how it's going to be when we're away: being crazily busy during the day and then writing about it in this blog at night and/or the following morning.

So make yourself comfortable, get a drink and maybe some chocolate, and let me take you on a magical journey through events of today...

___________________________________

1st Objective: Get my shit together and take it to Sam's crib.

To do this, I had to pack all of my stuff into my rucksack last night. Luckily I got a lift into Canterbury this morning, saving me the utter hell of lugging everything up to the train station in Adisham (where I live) and then from Canterbury East station to Sam's flat.

My bag was FUCKING HEAVY. When I packed it last night I included everything that we could possibly need, as well as some unnecessary things. I did this in the knowledge that I could leave stuff at Sam's place while we're away, so this was useful so that Sam could share his opinion on what was worth taking or not, and then we could pack accordingly.

At home I could access the list we've been updating too which meant that I didn't leave anything out, so this objective was completed with ease. Stress? What is that shit?

___________________________________

2nd Objective: Go through EVERYTHING.

Once I got to Sam's, we went through our various ideas of stuff that we needed to do and stuff that we needed to take.

We spread out all of our important documents on the floor, made photocopies of all of them and decided where we were going to put them in our bags. We did the same with the 140 euros cash that we are taking with us (without the photocopying part...that's called money laundering). This went well.

Before unpacking my stuff and packing it again (there was a point to this!) and packing Sam's stuff, our equivalent of a higher being, The List, told Sam that he needed to clean his flat before he left so that it isn't covered in six inches of rotting grime when we return. I put waaaaaaaaaaaay too much Fairy Liquid on a sponge and everything was covered in suds :) but at least it was clean!

After this episode, Sam decided that cleaning was too much for me and sent me out to get my hair cut, which really had to be done. If I left it as it was it would have been an uncontrollable monster by the end of the trip, so this was essential.

I spent a FUCKING ETERNITY waiting in the hairdressers though. And I almost left my mobile there too. But for those who are interested, here is the end result:

So this part of our preparation went pretty smoothly. Objective complete.

__________________________________

3rd Objective: Buy some more shit!

We only had to get a few more small things; specifically one light waterproof poncho-type clothing article, another pair of shorts for Sam (especially if it's as hot in Spain as it has been here today) and some other small toiletries. Certainly not any more batteries... but again there were no problems; so far so good.

__________________________________

4th Objective: Get everything together that we're taking and decide on the things we're not taking.

Now this is where significant shit occurred. If you read my last post you'll know that we planned to take a tent and two sleeping bags in case we needed to stay at a campsite, especially if we're visiting rural areas.

The tent, despite being very light compared to most, was probably the biggest burden of the stuff that I took from home to Sam's flat. It made my rucksack very bulky, and you could certainly notice the difference in weight when it was taken out. We looked at the sleeping bags too and realised that, although they're light, the amount of space they would have taken up would have been ridiculous.

So what could we do? In the end, we thought that if we didn't take them, that didn't mean that visiting rural areas was out of the question. We could still go out on day trips to areas close to towns and then return to a hostel back in the town at the end of the day. Also some rural areas will have bed and breakfasts and so on, so not being able to stay in a campsite wasn't a massive deal. For the comfort it would give us by not having lots of weight on our backs and being able to fit all our stuff in our rucksacks MUCH easier, we decided it was worth it.

There were a few smaller things that we omitted from our luggage too, but they weren't a big deal anyway. So after sorting out our stuff, we had everything organised into piles ready to be packed.

__________________________________

5th Objective: FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

This is the deal: I WAS FUCKING STARVING. We were so busy doing stuff that I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast at about 9.30am (it was about 7.30pm at this point). This is what our conversations became:

Sam: Ok, move that stuff over there, I'll go and...

Jack: I'm FUCKING HUNGRY.

Sam: So do you think we should take this?

Jack: Hmmm, maybe... but maybe we should get FOOD and then decide, because my stomach feels like a vacuous fucking empty piece of shit...

Sam: Shall we sort this pile out now?

Jack: Does it involve EATING ANYTHING? If not, then no.

...you get the picture.

So we went to Super Noodles! For those of you who don't know, it's a really good Chinese restaurant in Palace Streeet that is amazing in terms of cost and the amount of food you get. I would recommend it to anyone, it's great (although to be honest I was so giddy after realising the beauty of actually eating something that I would have said that about anywhere).

I am still so chuffed with that meal. That was the best last-proper-meal-before-leaving ever.

___________________________________

6th Objective: Get the shit in the bags.

This was the part that made me and Sam feel strange, but also very optimistic about everything.

It seemed almost too easy. Without the tent and the sleeping bags, there was so much more space. Clothes, toiletries, electronics, important documents...there was a place for everything, and everything fitted in perfectly. We weighed our bags, and they came to about 8kg and 6kg. What the fuck? We put them on our backs and realised that it was actually OK. I was especially surprised, considering how much my bag weighed earlier.

And then it was done. That was it! Nothing else to do but check train times for tomorrow and write this blog. Here's me with the two rucksacks:

We still can't believe how easy it's been. We keep thinking we've forgotten something. But this is actually it, and I think we feel so much better about this whole thing after today. What we're doing actually seems viable!

So I think that's it! I don't think there's anything else I need to bore you with!

So before I peel myself off this sofa and head off to bed, and this is from me and Sam: we love you all and we will see you when we get back. Keep following this blog, email us if you need to, and enjoy our journey with us. Why not make this drink and chocolate thing part of your daily routine?!

The next post is from Madrid. We'll see you there.

Jack - 24/5/12 - 01:08

Preparations

Hey everyone!

It's 4 days until we leave!!! Shit!

It's funny because it doesn't feel like it at all for me or for Sam. I've done all but two of my exams; Sam's been working ridiculously hard (at the time of writing I think he's had about 2 hours sleep in the last week?!) and he's reaching the climax of his workload. And I think that this other stuff that's going on is the thing that has stopped us from freaking out. It's like our brains are making sure that we only focus on the next thing that has to be done, whether it be an exam or some architecture-computer-modellling-rendering-designing thing, so that we don't completely lose our minds.

Which is funny, because my last exams and Sam's last assessment thing are on the Tuesday 22nd, which gives us exactly 2 days to mentally prepare ourselves for over a month's worth of hectic travelling.

Well that's going to be fun.

In the meantime, we (when I say 'we', I mean mostly 'I' because Sam has been slacking... *chuckle*) have made quite a few preparations for our trip - buying/lending the stuff that we need, transferring money between ourselves, booking things and constantly updating the list of things that we need to take with us. So for this post, I thought I'd just give you all an update of what we've been up to.

Oh, and if any of you have any clever ideas of things that we should do/take that you think might have escaped us, hit us in the comments. Because it's quite likely that we've missed something completely essential, like clothes... (don't worry, they're on the list).

Ok, so firstly I'll talk about the various objects we've acquired.

We have 2 large rucksacks. I had one at home already and we've been given another one to take with us. These are the two bags we'll be living out of, so let's hope they're good! We will also be taking two smaller bags with us so that we can leave our massive rucksacks in the hostel and just take the things we need with us if we want to.

I bought a really good European-to-British plug adapter off Amazon - it has four slots!!

We have a tent which we will use if we are staying anywhere without hostels. It packs away to quite a small size and is very light too, which is good for reducing the weight of our luggage:

In case we do not have access to laundry facilties (although hopefully the vast majority of hostels will have them) we have some liquid detergent and some handy travel-sized detergent so that we can hand-wash our clothes in a sink if we have to. Not ideal, I know, but it's there if we need it!

Right, and here's when I have an embarrassing confession to make. Yesterday I went out and bought loads of batteries for our digital cameras, including rechargable ones, pictured here:

I bought this, another pack of 4 rechargable batteries to go with it and 16 more non-rechargable batteries. I thought that, considering the amount of photos we would be taking, buying this many would make sure that we would have enough.

However, I literally just realised, in the process of creating this post, that my camera has its own battery that charges VIA PLUG SOCKET OR USB.

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!

I can't believe I spent £11 on high-quality batteries, most of which we will not use during our trip. In fact Sam's camera uses four batteries, so I could have just bought the thing in the picture for £5 and that would have probably been enough!!! Oh dear. Well at least they're something that we can actually use at home anyway so it hasn't been a complete waste. Still, I'm an idiot. Next time Sam can do the fucking shopping.

Finally, a couple of other little bits that we got were two small padlocks (for our rucksacks when we leave them in the hostels, for added security) and some pocket-sized sanitizer gel that we can wash our hands with quickly.

Oh, and I also bought some new noise-cancelling headphones recently seeing as my previous ones were deteriorating rapidly. I had to keep twisting them in the socket so that music wasn't just playing out of one earphone, it was like tuning a radio. That would have got very annoying very quickly on the trip. So yay for good music!

__________________________________

Now let's talk about the money situation.

I can't remember if I've said already (I can't be bothered to check) but the money we are taking with us will be on a card, so we've had to transfer all of our money into the account linked with that card. In total, we budgeted roughly £3000 as the cost of the whole trip. £1300 of that has already been spent on our flight out to Spain, our InterRail tickets and our travel insurance, so recently we've been transferring about £1700-£2000 into the account.

Only Sam and Mum are authorised to transfer money to the account, so a couple of weeks ago I had to undergo the arduous task of transferring £1500 to Sam from my account. I have never let go of such a large amount of money before in my life, let alone to Sam. I almost died.

Thankfully, I'm pretty sure all the money's there now. We had to wait for cheques to be processed and stuff too, which was annoying, but now it looks like the money side of things is all sorted out. If you wait for blog post #15, though, I'm sure there will be some story about how we've lost all of our money for your entertainment.

__________________________________

In the last post, I said that we're not going to book any trains before we leave. However, there is one train which we've had to book as it's an important part of our journey and is very popular amongst tourists, so we had to make sure we reserved our seats way in advance.

This is the Glacier Express, a scenic train which travels through the Swiss Alps. It travels between Zermatt, where the Matterhorn is located, to St. Moritz in the east of Switzerland. Here is a map:

As described on the Glacier Express website, "It is a day trip through untouched mountain landscapes, glamorous health resorts, deep gorges, delightful valleys, 91 tunnels and across 291 impressive bridges." Here's a picture of the train in its natural environment:

As you can hopefully see, the carriages have MASSIVE windows which allow you to see a lot of the landscape.

So this is something we're really looking forward to, and another bonus was that we were able to print out our tickets, so it was easy to organise. Suddenly all my ranting about trains in the last post seems a bit unfounded!

_____________________________________

Finally, I'll show you a SIMPLIFIED version of the list of stuff to take which me and Sam have been updating:

Electronics:
Jack's phone, fully charged
Jack's iPod and plug-in charger
Sam's iPhone and cable USB
Digital Cameras and SD-USB adapter
Netbook and charger
Batteries and charger
Eng-Eur adapter
Sam's 8GB USB stick

Toiletries:
(All the usual stuff, plus sun cream, insect-repellent wipes and pocket sanitizer)

Money stuff:
Card, 100 euros cash

Documents:
Passports
Holiday itinerary
InterRail tickets
Glacier Express e-tickets
(All with photocopies)

Clothes:
(This part of the list is massive; I'll spare you the boredom of reading it)

Survival:
Rucksacks
Sleeping bags
Tent
Waterproofs

Extra:
Sketchbook and pencils
Padlocks for bags
Pens
Hand-wash detergent


As you can see, in terms of a computer, we are just taking my netbook. This is for a number of reasons: Sam's MacBook is heavy and if he loses it, IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD. Seriously. Also my netbook is light, small and can cope with the stuff we'll be using it for. And if it gets lost, we can cope.

You can also see that we are both taking our mobile phones. Mine is purely for emergencies and will be off almost the whole time. Sam's iPhone has some useful apps on it and will be good for quick internet browsing, however he will disconnect it from the phone network when we get to Spain. So this is a good time to remind you all, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TEXT OR CALL US WHEN WE ARE AWAY!!! If you need to get in touch, email is the best way.

_____________________________________

Right, so you should be pretty much up to date now! I can't believe how close we are, I can even check the weather for Madrid while we're there. At the moment it's saying 25 degrees and completely sunny the whole time we're there, so that's nice. Not like I'm rubbing it in your faces or anything.

Actually, it looks like the weather's turning much better here just as we leave. Typical!

But anyway, I think I'm going to do one more post before we leave, and that will be on Wednesday, the day before, probably late in the evening. That will be the mega, adrenaline-fuelled, crazy, last-minute packing post, which I'm sure will give you plenty of entertainment. For us: stress. For you: enjoyment.

So until then, adios!

Jack - 20/5/12 - 16:47