My addiction to gyros begins..

As we continue our way around Greece, I am currently sitting on a four hour ferry to Paros and taking the opportunity to update you on the adventures in Santorini and Ios.

First off was Santorini where we stayed in the capital of Fira for 5 nights.  After arriving at around midnight we were straight to bed before a day of exploring.  We spent our first day looking around the main streets and doing a little shopping.   The buildings are even more breathtaking than what we saw in Crete not to mention the views of the uniqueness of the volcanic island. After exploring the main strip and doing a spot of shopping it was time to grab some lunch and I opted for a falafel pita.  After tasting this amazingly cheap €2.50 Greek cuisine Santorini quickly turned into the island of gyros (kebab/pita) for me.

Day two and after some much needed pool time we decided to hire a quad bike (Mikey the Bikey) for three days to explore the island.  Everyone we spoke to told us we MUST watch the sunset from Oia (for all you movie buffs/chicks flick lovers this is where a large part of Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants was filmed) and then eat some seafood from the restaurant with the orange chairs! So we took their advice and took Mikey for a late afternoon spin where it’s fair to say everyone’s reviews were accurate.  We started off with a swim at Amoudi Bay to work up an appetite for calamari and prawns.  The seafood was so fresh and well worth the expense, after some calamari disasters I am happy to report both this and the prawns are close to, if not the best I have ever had.  Time to head up to watch the sunset but we decided take a €5 donkey taxi up the extremely long climb.  It was so much fun but my donkey was a little unstable on his feet and I was just happy to make it up to the top without ending up on the ground! 

Day two with Mikey and we headed off to explore the southern part of the island.  First stop was the most beautiful preserved village in Santorini, Megalochori.  The entire village is crisp white with blue trimmings and in my opinion is the most breathtaking village I have seen in Greece.  The photos do not do this village justice and I would advise anyone visiting that it a must see to get a real understanding of what is traditionally a Greek village.  We then headed off to check out the red sand beach.  I was somewhat disappointed with what I saw as this was by far the dirtiest water I have seen with twigs and rubbish floating around, not at all what you expect when you consider the other crystal clear waters we have seen.  The sand was certainly unique and is the main attraction for the beach, but it was the black sand beach of Perrisa, the most famous beach of this island, where we headed for lunch. Time to try some gyros, this time chicken and it was certainly a step above the falafel.  The meat is roasted to perfection and I would be ever so grateful if a lovely Greek family would open up a gyros shop in Ballarat!  We headed back to Fira to catch up with some friends and spent the night checking out the nighlife.

Our last full day with Mikey and we headed back to the southern part of the island to check out Ancient Thira, which I must admit after such a long night we probably did not appreciate its beauty as much as we should have!  We decided to head back down the mountain to Kamari for some lunch, yes you are correct, I had gyros but I at least branched out and tried Pork with some chips where the lovely owner provided me with a smile for more efforts! After trying multiple types of gyros, the verdict is in and chicken is easily the most delicious.  We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach.  The black sand/pebbles are unfortunately not as comfortable to nap on as white sand but we made the most of it and spent a lot of time in the clear waters relaxing.  With sunset soon approaching we decided to head further north to get a better view.  The sun seemed almost out of place as it was like a giant red ball in the sky before it disappeared into the horizon.  All this sitting and sleeping was such tiring work that we had some more petrol to burn in Mikey and headed back down south to Perrisa for some more seafood where I opted for swordfish.  My expectations of seafood is admittedly very high as I expect that somewhere surrounded by water and well known for seafood should deliver every time.  The fish was overcooked and dry and I am sadly trying to lower my expectations for the next time I try some fish.

Our final day in Santorini we decided to grab some lunch before catching the ferry to Ios.  Our hotel was situated across the road from a bakery so we decided to take advantage of another cheap option.  I choose bread filled with a tomato and feta filling.  It was delicious and reminded me so much of bakers delight bread, something that we have both missed on this trip!
For those of you that don’t know, Ios is well known as a party island.  We lived up to the islands expectation and spent many hours at our pool that overlooked the beach as well as at the beach yet again working on our tans.  The three nights that we spent in Ios we ate a lot of food from the pool bar where they made the most amazing wood fire pizzas and delicious chicken nuggets and chips!  We did however venture out to a restaurant that the barman recommended to us and I chose prawn saganaki , prawns cooked in tomatoes and feta.  I was unaware that this dish was Greek but I have eaten it in Australia and even made a version myself, so I thought why not give it a crack at a Greek restaurant.  The prawns were cooked to perfection and my only wish was that there was more in the dish!  I think I might have to give this one another try before leaving Greece.  We decided to treat ourselves with a dessert and opted for chocolate soufflé with ice cream.  It was rich rich rich but super amazing.

We are now on the ferry heading to Paros, which we are planning to be the island of rest!  Time to watch some more of the Olympics as the beach volleyball is on and its more entertaining than the weightlifting I was watching earlier!! xxx

Road Triping in Crete

If only Greece was closer to home I would pack up and move here in a heartbeat.  To put it simply, the food is amazing, the people are amazing and the views are of course amazing.  After spending a week in Crete, the largest of the Greek Islands, I have already fallen in love with the culture of this amazing country.  It is to date easily my favourite place I have visited.  We finally arrived at Agios Nikolas after a long 24hrs where the receptionist had been waiting patiently for our arrival.  Being too tired to sleep we decided to spend some time by the pool as it was forecast for 40+ degrees.  Taking the opportunity to nap for a few hours here and there we headed into town to have a late lunch.  My first taste of Greek was not traditional at all but being too tired to actually taste food I settled for a chicken burger and chips.  It was surprisingly delicious and we enjoyed sitting by the bay for a quiet afternoon before heading home for an even quieter night and a good nights sleep with an amazing view from our balcony.

Day two and we were much livelier so we decided to head to the beach for another scorching 43 degree day.  It was about a 10 minute walk and in the heat of the day, that was far enough let me tell you!  The view was breathtaking and well worth the effort, the water is bluer than any picture can show so we spent the morning soaking up some sunshine before another late lunch. This time we decided to eat by the beach at a cute little restaurant with some set menu options.  This was my first real taste of how amazing the locals are here.  The moment we arrived the owner made sure we were sitting right beside a fan and that we were drinking some water.  I opted for the tzatziki with pita bread, Sole fish with salad and garlic potatoes and mixed Ice cream for dessert.  The meal was amazing but I have to comment on the tzatziki. I have tasted a lot of tzatziki over the past week (it may have become a habit to have this before most meals, delicious) and this one was easily the best I have had.  It was of course homemade and I think the owner should start selling this commercially as it was amazing.  Between our entree and our main is the moment I fell for the Greek! To keep us entertained he came out with a bunch of puzzles, similar to rubix cubes, for us to solve.  Mine was meant to be a circle...as you can see from the photo I failed to put it together but we ended up staying for hours after our meal testing out about 6 of his puzzles. 
It was time to give our brains a rest so we headed back to the pool to try and cool off for the afternoon.   It was a great way to spend the day and we again had an early night as our lack of sleep was still catching up with us.  The most we could muster up for dinner was making ourselves chicken and salad sandwiches before crawling under the covers.

We decided to take advantage of this insane heat wave so we made plans to catch a bus to one of the local water parks.  About an hour on the bus and we arrived at a wet and wild type adventure park and we were there for around 5 hours.  I think we managed to go on all the rides as well as have a break by relaxing in a donut floating down the river.  The day was so much fun when we arrived home we decided we would head into town for some dinner and a few cocktails.  I decided on a traditional greek tasting plate.  It included stuffed tomatoes, mousaka, beef rissoles, beans and stuffed vine leaves.  It was so filling, but the mousakka, a traditional greek dish similar to lasagne but with a layer of egg plant, was easily the best part of the meal.  The flavour of the eggplant and the spices used gave it a sweet taste that is unlike any lasagne you have tasted.  After checking out a few of the local bars we decided to head home as we had planned a day of exploring the island.

We decided to hire a car for the next 5 days and explore more of the island than we first anticipated as we were unaware of how much there was to see.  We had originally planned to drive down to Chrissy Island, however the weather was so windy all of the ferries were cancelled over to the island.  It wouldn’t be a road trip without malteasers so we made a quick detour to the supermarket before we decided to take the opportunity to drive around the East coast, our first stop being Via.  It was a beautiful palm tree beach that seemed to appear out of nowhere, but we decided to spend a few hours here again working on our tans.  It was a gorgeous day driving with lots of little stops on the way but so very strange to adjust to not only being on the wrong side of the road while driving, but everything being reversed, luckily the accelerator and brake where in the same spots!
We took the opportunity to check out Elounda, a small town nearby for dinner.  The port area was lovely and we settled for a restaurant that looked to have good seafood.  Lets just say that I am not longer going to try grilled calamari without it first being recommended to me as it was worse than the one in Barcelona!

The next day we were back on the road heading towards the west coast of the island.  We had heard magnificent things of Ballos Lagoon so we packed up all of our things and made the 4 hours journey over to the other side of the island.  The drive was very scenic but on arrival to what we thought was the top of the mountain we found out we needed to make the 1000 step track to the lagoon.  It was so very tempting to take a donkey taxi, but we soldiered on and it was certainly an oh wow moment.  We spent all afternoon here with our packed sandwiches for lunch before heading back to the small town of Kissamoss for the night.  After the disappointment of seafood the previous night I stuck with what we have decided is our fallback option in Greece, mousakka with a greek salad to share (kinda like a chicken parma is for an aussie where you can’t decide what to order so you just choose mousakka!)  The locals at this family run restaurant were amazing and after finishing work they showed us around the town, somewhere I wish I we were staying for more than a night as everyone we met here was so friendly.

Coincidently our breakfast the next day provided by our hotel was at the same restaurant.  I realise I have had little to say about breakfast in the past.  Before heading overseas I loathed the word breakfast and would purely because I knew I had to. It has taken 20 or so years, but I am not looking forward to breakfast each morning! My newest addiction is Cretan honey with greek yoghurt and muesli.  This was one of the nicest breakfasts I have had since being away with the inclusion of stewed like tomatoes with the most amazing flavour ever and feta on toast. 
After saying farewell to our new favourite town we headed to the bustling Chania to spend a night.  It was just that, a bustling city with a large number of tourists crawling the streets.  We had an early dinner, grilled salmon with potatoes and a side salad, while watching the sunset of the beach.  The salmon was cooked to perfection and my only real disappointment was the large amount of bones I had to pick out before swallowing.  We then headed into town to check out the old town and the port.  There were some beautiful views including the lighthouse and well worth the walk before hitting the hay.

Another early morning drive heading towards Crete’s capital, Heraklion.  We decided to head out of town for breakfast to  Venizelou’s tomb, an influential Greek politician.  The tomb is located on a cliff face with some gorgeous cafes and views overlooking Chania.  I settled for a Cheese and Bacon crepe and it was a great start to the morning.  Back in the car to the next stop, Tzagarolon Monastery, one of few monasteries where Monks still live today.  I had no clue what to expect, but it was beautiful.  The old buildings were a sight on their own, but the well kept grounds make the place stunning.  We have also come to notice the large number of stray cats that wander Greece, the monastery was no exception as they wander around like the own the place.  Next stop was for lunch and a dip in the Kourna Lake.  I opted for a refreshing ceaser salad, although it was drowned in dressing, while sitting on a cliff face overlooking the lake.  It was a nice change from the beach to be looking out at the mountains when swimming versus the endless horizon of the sea.  Our last stop before our final destination was Rethimno where we wandered the old town and the beach.  Another town that would be lovely to stay over in as the stretches of beach were magnificent.  We finally reached our destination of Heraklion which evidently is a large industrial city with not a great deal to do or see for the tourist.  We headed to a strip of restaurants and being as hungry as I was, I took the fallback option of mousakka!  Definitely not as nice as previous encounters but still nice enough to continue being the fallback option in future should I need it.

Finally the long awaited day of our departure to Santorini arrived.  We couldn’t be more excited to head to one of, if not the most famous Greek Islands of them all.  A ferry did not leave until 4pm so we had a late brunch in town, I opted for a bacon and cheese baguette.  I found it very strange that all the meals are served with potato chips at this cafe, but that did not stop me gobbling them down!
It was time to drop of our trusty car and head to the port for our ferry.  The sun was belting down so we took cover under shade and met some other travellers also waiting for the ferry.  It was a long wait as we didn’t end up departing until 5:30pm. It was an enjoyable ride seeing the sunset and meeting some more backpackers along the way before finally arriving around 11:30pm.  

We are now in Santorini loving life here and look forward to giving you updates on the delicious food and amazing time we are having the next time I stumble across wifi, but for now we are off to check out the night life xoxox

The tapas feast has come to an end

Our Spanish feast has finally come to an end.  I never thought I would say how excited I am to be out of Spain so I do not have to eat any more tapas!!  I have never eaten so many things served cold on bread that we would normally serve hot before.  After running with the bulls we decided to try and avoid tapas as much as possible and on reflection managed to succeed.
We finally caught up on some sleep when reaching San Sebastian and ventured out of our very cool balcony overlooking the old town to get a meal for dinner.  We had been recommended a burger shop on the boulevard so we jumped at the chance to have something that was warm.   There was a bunch of burgers to choose from but I opted for a classic chicken, lettuce, tomato & mayo burger as it had been a while since I had had some poultry.  We were a little surprised that it still came with a pintxos spike and was basically a small burger so we did fail a little on avoiding the tapas but it still hit the spot and was great to eat something warm and freshly cooked.

The weather in San Seb unfortunately was not beach weather so I decided to get up and go for a run along the river to see some more of the town.  I cannot believe how clear the water is in the river let alone the beach, it was so clear you could easily see the bottom which made for a lovely morning out in the fresh air.
I spent a lazy afternoon wandering around the old town and looking at some shops which was a very relaxing day.  We met up with some friends from our top deck tour and also from running with the bulls to give tapas one last go.  We may have hit the jackpot with the tapas bar we randomly decided to go to (for anyone going to San Seb I would highly recommend this bar txalupa fatelxea which is in the old town).  It is clearly a very popular bar with the locals and the only down side is that they rush people through and if you don’t have food in your mouth, you are off the tables.  I wasn’t keen to choose some pintxos off the bar and ordered some calamari from the menu.  This was possibly the best calamari I have ever had.  I realise this is a big call but it was cooked to perfection and the only way to make the night better was to top it off with a cocktail before bed.

This was our last full day in San Sebastian so I decided I would check out the beach, even though I was in leggings and a jumper, it was another relaxing day wandering the streets and watching some kids attempt to get in the freezing water.  We decided it was time to cook another meal while we had the chance and my sick little travel buddy requested one of her favourites to make her feel better, chicken pesto pasta salad.  I got some fresh produce from the markets and made a very basic version of the dish with chicken, semidried tomatoes, tomato pesto, capsicum, spinach and pasta. It was very tasty and again so happy to get to cook something myself.
We decided that we should use what little time we had left to explore more of San Seb so we hired some bikes for a couple of hours after dinner and rode around the coast of both the swimming beach and the surf beach.  A thunderstorm was brewing so it made for an interesting ride but the views were amazing and I loved that there are swimming pools on the surf beach, my first beach pools that I have seen.  A great way to finish our time in San Sebastian making me want to return when the weather allows for some beach time.

An early flight to Barcelona meant we had checked in to our hotel and organised ourselves by around 1pm just in time for lunch. Not knowing anything about our street yet again we went for a wander until we found a buffet all you can eat and drink for €10, it was amazing! It mainly consisted of salads with a selection of meats to cook on a grill but most importantly it had frozen yoghurt and chocolate ice cream to finish off the meal, yum yum. 

The weather at Barcelona was a major step up from San Seb and we were taking full advantage of this by heading straight to the beach for the afternoon.  We soaked up enough sun to work up an appetite so we headed back home to tackle the other direction of our street.  We were still well over the tapas so when we found a Mexican restaurant we jumped at the chance to have some spice.  My method for choosing was anything that had jalapeños on the list as I miss them oh so very much.  I decided on the burger even though the waiter was trying to talk me out of it as his logic was ‘you are not from here and this will be too hot for you’ he was somewhat surprised after I had cleaned my plate and told him that it could have been spicier.

The next day we were back into the sightseeing swing and headed to Barcelona Football Stadium.  It was a pretty nifty tour and we got to see some amazing trophies in the museum, including the FIFA world cup from 2011/12.  After spending a good few hours admiring the views we headed into the La Rambla, the main street in Barcelona, to find some lunch.  We went to a gorgeous little cafe that is designed as if you are in a tree house.  It is off the main strip but one of the travel girls had been there before so took us there for the experience.  I was yet to try an empanada (a pie/pasty) since arriving and I have heard great things so I jumped at the chance for a jamon(a cross between prosciutto and ham) empanada.  It was a flavour sensation which included many herbs and spices with potato and cheese, a delicious choice.  Before once again hitting the beach we took a look around the famous food markets.  These are well known for the fresh juices you can buy at almost every stall.  I tried what was meant to be passionfruit, but to my disappointment it had an odd orange juice flavour to it and a rare trace of passionfruit but on the upside mine seemed to be the only one from the group that was not enjoyable, I must be bad at picking!

After some more sunning on the beach we headed back to get ready for dinner and a visit to the magic fountain.  We decided to catch the metro into the fountain and find a place to eat here.  There were a number of restaurants so we choose what looked to have great food and the moment I saw calamari that was not deep fried I couldn’t resist. I am sure you have noticed that I have been devouring a lot of calamari but the seafood options have been limited and for someone that eats limited red meat when I get the chance to eat chicken or seafood I am there.  Before I tried the calamari I decided to give this Russian salad another try, it was enjoyable and luckily as the second disappointment for the day was the overcooked chewy calamari.  I did not even finish my meal I was so shattered.  I was looking forward to the magic fountain that plays music and it was awesome.  I would highly recommend this to anyone that travels to Barcelona.  This was an instant pick me up of my mood and people were grooving to the tunes.  It was breathtaking and we spent a good hour or more here taking in the atmosphere.

It was time for our additional travel buddy to jet set home but before doing so we were up and off to check out park Guell, Gaudi’s park, where he built structures that look similar to gingerbread houses.  It was not as breathtaking as I expected but was massive.  Something that I would say you could give a miss, perhaps for a day at the beach I would suggest. After seeing our buddy off we had some lunch and I was so excited to have a prawn salad dressed with tomatoes and cranberry sauce.  A very refreshing meal after all of the bread we had been served recently.  We decided we best check off the other major sights on the Barcelona list and visited the Casa Batllo and Lasagrada Familia, both Gaudi’s artwork.  Our last night in Barcelona was spent sipping cocktails and enjoying some nachos before heading home to pack.

Our time to head to Greece had all but arrived.  We were both so excited, but our flight was not until 11pm.  Unfortunately for us we had to check out of our hostel at 11am so that was a total of 12 hours to kill. We decided to head into town and have a juice and some lunch to pass some time overlooking La Rambla as it was much busier on a Saturday with lots of markets on.  We finally made it to the airport around 3 with the intention of doing some shopping as this was a new airport and we had heard that there was a lot of shops.  We thought we would try our luck and check our bags in, the attendant basically laughed at us and told us we were crazy for being there so early but he kindly checked in our bags 9hrs early! We headed into the shops and well, we see why he thought we were crazy.  We had done the shops in about an hour and spent the next 8hrs walking around and around trying to kill some time.  We even found some play equipment in the middle of one of the terminals!  After eating some horrible tapas we finally boarded our plane at 11:30 but due to air traffic control we did not actually leave until 12:30.  Greece was waiting patiently for us at 4am, however we then had to sit another 3 hours at the airport for our bus to arrive.  After all of our sitting around and running off about 2 hours sleep we were so happy to finally arrive at our destination at 8am where we have spent most of the day sitting around/sleeping by our amazing pool and enjoying the sunshine.

Yep I did it, I ran with the bulls....the fireworks bull

The time finally arrived to experience one of the most amazing, well known festivals of the world, San Fermin or Running with the Bulls as us Aussies call it.  After spending a few quiet nights in Pamplona prior to the event with an extremely sick travel buddy we joined the BusABout crew for our 5 day camping adventure.  The camping ground is situated about 25mins out of Pamplona and is quite literally in the middle of a paddock, you would never know it when sitting by the massive pool with poolside bar and hundreds to thousands of people staying here, there are 400+ in our group alone.
After our last tour experience I was getting very excited to have some catered food again as we were getting breakfast every morning and a welcoming three course dinner the night of arrival.  After finally checking in and setting up, dinner time was already upon us.  I regret to inform you that the sheer disappointment in what was served does not do the meal justice.  There was an option of soup, calamari or spaghetti as an entree, followed by chicken nuggets, chicken wings or meatballs all served with chips as the main.  Desert was fruit which was indeed just that, an orange or an apple.  To paint a picture for you, as I was too disappointed to take one, here is a description of a few of the options.  The spaghetti was out of a tin, barely warmed up, the nuggets were cold and crusty (there was 6 served) and I think I have had better from kfc or maccas.   After a few drinks to meet some of the people, it was a fairly early night for us in our cute little tents!

The next morning we were up for a late breakfast.  Sadly it was eggs which I decided to try eating as it had chorizo mixed in and I covered my bun with tomato sauce.  My travel buddy informed me that the look on my face was priceless, she even burst out laughing at one stage, as i was trying to force it down.  That was the last morning I had eggs and I stuck to sauce rolls on the days that there was no bacon.  It was time to have a day trip into San Sebastian to gather some of the gear that we would be wearing for opening ceremony.  On the way I learnt a few things that I was oblivious to about Spain.  Spain has a multiple regions that are Basque districts where the locals do not speak Spanish but they speak Basque.  Pamplona, San Sebastian and Barcelona are all in these regions.  The Basque people are very proud and make it very clear they are not Spanish.  The conflict between the two has been ongoing for years and there are still attempts today to try and separate from the Spanish people.  This meant a whole new language to learn just as I had figured out some words in Spanish! San Sebastian however is the home to some of the greatest food of all time.  It is famous for its pintxos, the Basque version of tapas.  Pintxos means spike in the traditional language so all the food served is with a toothpick or spike of some kind.  The food is in the bar and you simply choose what it is you want to eat and then pay for the number of toothpicks you have at the end.  It is a very honest culture and is amazing to see bars lined with all sorts of food and people just going up and eating something as they walk past with a drink.  After collecting all our red and whites for opening ceremony we headed on a pintxos crawl to some great bars where I tried a number of foods before heading back to camp to get some sleep for opening ceremony of San Fermin. 

Opening ceremony officially kicks off at 12 noon by the mayor of Pamplona, however we arrived in town around 9am to check out the running track where the bulls will have their first run the following morning.  There are many traditions for this event including the attire you wear (all white with a red scarf around your neck and waist) and once the party starts at 12 noon, the locals stay up partying all night until 8am the next day for the first run.  They will then go home for a siesta until about 6pm when they again party hard through the night until 8am the next morning for the run.  We were warned before going into town not to take any valuables as the tradition is celebrated by sangria and champagne being thrown into the crowd, meaning you are covered in sticky, smelly clothes for hours on end.  Our food this day consisted of whatever we could find, meaning pizza for lunch, which ended up in the bin and a burger with some chips for dinner.  We spent a lot of the day in town celebrating but unlike the locals, these Aussies needed some sleep before the first run.

An early rise at 5am to head for the first run of the event.  I was so excited to see my first run and we decided that we would watch from the arena on day one as this was apparently the best place to see all the action and the actual run itself is broadcast live on the big screens.  By the time we worked our way through the crowds we made it to the arena by 7am in time to get tickets and up into the stands.  We nervously listened to the band in preparation for the first of 3 cannons at 8am meaning the bulls have been released the second meaning that all bulls have left the holding area and the third that all bulls are through the arena and have completed the run.  There are 6 bulls that run and 6 oxen with cow bells to help keep them in a pack, we were lucky enough to have a clean run meaning that no bulls split from the pack.  Once the bulls are all through successfully they release 6 baby bulls with their horns taped up, one at a time, into the arena.  When I saw ‘baby’ this is what the locals call them, personally I thought they were huge, you can judge for yourself.  These provide a bit of action and there were some good hits taken by both locals and tourists.  It is apparently rare that anyone gets injured by these bulls. 

Once the commotion had calmed down we headed back to the campsite for our brunch and siesta.  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon to spend in the sun reading and napping.  We then took the opportunity to head back into town to have some dinner before checking out the rest of the festivities that would keep the crowd going until 8am for the next run.  We firstly discovered the food markets that were set up in one of the gardens.  They had massive pans full of paella, one that was cooked and another that was still simmering.  It was really cool to see how they cook it as as we were there, they added more stock and will continue to cook this batch for many hours to come.  I couldn’t resist giving this traditional dish another go in a market style location and did not disappoint.  Similar to the first one I tried in Seville, adding the lemon to the rice really makes the flavours come alive.  The only gripe I would have about this dish is that I did not get a prawn served with mine!  The next thing to try was a Spanish traditional desert and as every market should they provided endless options.  I was feeling very traditional tonight so I had some churros with chocolate dipping sauce.  These were unfortunately not as pleasing as I had hoped, very different to the Australian version of churros.  These were very dense compared to the doughnut like texture we have at home. 

Once we let this insane amount of food settle down, we headed back into the thick of the action to see the running of the firework bull.  Not knowing what to expect we perched ourselves up on a side rail to ensure we could see.  Before we knew it a huge structure came running through spurting fireworks that ran down the bull track.  It was a lot of fun running with it and I will be saying that I technically ran with a bull on the bull track at Pamplona!  Before heading back to the camping site we checked out the fireworks in the main park, a spectacular display.  The Spanish sure know how to put on a party.   Leaving the bus depo to head home was an event in itself.  The streets were swimming with white and red and the roads may well have been sidewalks as not a single person was getting out of the buses way.  Instead of a 25 minute trip, it took us well over an hour to get home.

An early rise at 4am (yep we managed to steal about 2 hours sleep) for day 2 of the runs, our final day with the BusABout crew.  We arrived in town before 5am to secure a spot on the railing outside of the arena.  Today we decided to watch from the street to get a feel of the atmosphere in the crowds.  The streets were still crawling with people partying from the night before and we had a fight on our hands to secure these spots for the next 3 hours.  We had a few locals offer us up to 300 Euros for our spot but there was no way we were giving that up after being there for so long.  8am finally approached, I was so tired that at some stages I thought I could fall asleep on that railing!  People climb anything and everything they can to get a view of the track such as rubbish bins, vehicles or traffic lights.  Another clean run today, but I was astonished by the amount of people that were running.  It seemed to be so much more than the previous day, however they do lock the arena once all the bulls are in so it’s possible that there were similar amounts but we did not get to see them.  You do get told that it is over in flash, but it’s hard to comprehend just how quick these bulls run.  On average it will take the bulls approx 3 minutes to complete the entire course, which would take us around 10 minutes to walk.  Once the crowd started to spread out, we one last time headed back to the camping site to check out before heading to San Sebastian.   It is going to be an early night for us as we are already struggling to keep our eyes open and the sun is still up!

Spanish Tapas

I cannot believe we have already been in Spain for a week and it has taken the entire week for us to eat anywhere worth writing about!  Before I catch you up on our Spanish adventures to date, you may recall that I was planning to work off some of those sweets that I have been enjoying with an early morning run in London.  Either my body was really against the idea of exercising or that Jamaican food we ate at Nottingham was not so great.  As we were both sick, I will say the Jamaican was disappointingly the culprit and we therefore spent our last day in London trudging around trying to pass the time until we could check into the next hostel for our 7:30am flight to Madrid.

I am not really sure where to start with Madrid.  We arrived on an incredibly hot day and after getting up at 5am for our flights we were rather exhausted.  Some quick food before joining the locals for a siesta was about all we could manage on a 40 degree afternoon.  After recovering from our lack of sleep we decided to explore a little the next day.  Our first sights of Madrid had already done less than impress us, the city is dirty, busy and not the safest place to roam around.  We did however manage to blend in with the locals yet again and have breakfast at 12 noon (I am still obsessed with goats cheese so I opted for this with caramelised onions and cranberry sauce, it was tasty!) followed by lunch at 3pm outside of Real Madrid Stadium (I cannot tell you what we ate here as the menu was in Spanish so we just picked some random things haha) and dinner at 8:30pm.  Now I feel I should set the scene a little before telling you what was presented to us at dinner.  We decided to head to a bar for some sangria before Spain played in the soccer and before having dinner at another restaurant as the menu was only in Spanish.  So we ordered a jug to share thinking it was a small 1 litre jug which had seemed to be the trend.  The waitress came back with two 2 litre jugs and we attempted to send them back but she just kept saying happy hour, happy hour.  So our glass of Sangria turned into 2 jugs of sangria all for €11 before we decided we should order some food.  The only thing on the menu we could figure out was potatoes, so we gave it a crack.  We were presented with a scallop potato like dish with bacon and cheese however it had 2 raw eggs sitting on top.  If you know me, you know how much I despise eggs and I am sure the look on my face was priceless (so much so that I didn’t even get a photo) when the waitressed pulled out two spoons and began mixing the eggs through the potato on our table.  Luckily it tasted just like scallop potato and the egg was not noticeable, perhaps the sangria helped!  

Time to head to Seville the next day which I was really looking forward to.  4 nights in the one town was pure bliss as moving every second day has started to become exhausting...oh how the unemployed travellers of the world have such problems I know!  We had already decided in advance of arriving at Seville that we were going to try and cook as much as possible and pack lunches as we had a kitchen and a supermarket was across the road from our hostel.  On our first night we made a chicken salad with coleslaw and it was amazing! We used the left over salad to make sandwiches for the next day as we had planned a day trip to Cadiz, which is home to a beautiful beach and is about an hour away by bus.  It was a magnificent day to be at the beach and we spent a good few hours soaking up some sunshine, without getting burnt I might add.  Before catching a 9pm bus back to Seville we decided to have some tapas for dinner and the disappointment was unbelievable.  The food was so horrible we didn’t finish and moved on to another restaurant for round two.  Unfortunately there was nothing to rave about here either and the only thing I bothered to take a photo of was the baked camembert.  It looked delicious but it was not cooked correctly.  The middle had not melted on the inside enough and was almost a curdled like texture.

Today was our first real chance to explore Seville.  There were some magnificent parks near our hostel that we decided it was a perfect opportunity to attempt another run and succeed we did.  I am amazed at how green and well kept the town centre is in comparison to Madrid and also the rest of the countryside.  It is clear that there are no water restrictions in Spain!  The outskirts of the city are very arid and when travelling between cities you could almost confuse yourself with being in Australia as the landscape is unbelievably similar.
After recovering from our run we made some more bread rolls and headed to the town to see some sights.  There are some unbelievable buildings in Seville including the university which is an old tobacco factory (I think if our uni looked like this it would have made attending more enjoyable!), the Cathedral (where we climbed the bell tower to see the view of the city) and the Parliament buildings to name a few.  As the afternoon sun was taking its toll we decided to head to the river to have our lunch.  It was very relaxing and we enjoyed some time sitting and reading a book in the shade of the trees.  We made our way home late afternoon to have some homemade chicken wraps and decided we would try and meet some more backpackers by attending the pub crawl that was put on by the hostel.  It was a lot of fun and we even caught up with some of our old top deckers.

Day 4 in Seville and it was time for a lazy day which first started with left over chicken wraps for lunch.  We decided to do some more exploring and ended up back at the river for some more time on the grass watching the world go by.  Today was Euro cup final day and we had decided to go to the town square to watch with the locals but before doing so we ready for another attempt at tapas.  We finally found somewhere worth writing about! I have been debating trying paella since arriving as being a traditional Spanish dish I wanted to make sure it left a good impression on me as I have been looking forward to this for some time!  This did not disappoint and had the traditional seafood mixed with peas and chicken.  We chose 5 tapas to share, calamari, potato, croquettes, paella and chicken baguette.  Croquettes was our random pick off the menu, something we are trying to do throughout Spain but so far we have not had a win until now.  Croquettes are a small breadcrumbed food with potato, ground meat (I think ours was tuna), herbs, spices etc and then deep fried. These were a tastier than I imagined and we wish we had gotten more than 3 to share. It was time for us to head to the town square and wow is an understatement.  The crowd was insane as we watched in the Metropol Parasol, the largest wooden structure in the world, the floor was vibrating and I would not have been surprised if the building came toppling down!  Thankfully we were with a happy crowd as Spain our now the 2012 Euro Cup champions with a 4-0 win over Italy.

Time to head back to our hostel to prepare for a 12 hour travel day to Pamplona with three connecting buses to catch.  Before we left Seville I decided I was going to take the opportunity to go for one last run in the morning in the beautiful parks.  This meant a 6am start and while my body hated me for doing it was a brilliant idea as I am now in Pamplona and slept a lot of the 12 hour journey where we managed to catch all 3 buses successfully. I must comment on one of the buses though, a supra bus which we assumed was a fast bus.  It turns out this was a luxury bus!  It was as if we were on an aeroplane where we had a seat to ourselves and with a ‘bus attendant’ who served us snacks and drinks during the ride.  It was certainly a nice way to break the trip up.  We are now in Pamplona and after sleeping so much during the day I am more awake then I should be but I am now going to sign off and try and get some shut eye to recharge for the remainder of our jam packed Spanish adventure xx