It’s hot. I’m all sticky and I’m still damn jetlagged. But…that’s about all there is to complain about (maybe bar how freaking expensive everything is here). I’m in Spain, baby!
We just arrived in San Sebastian and checked into our little family run hostel. Hell, it’s not even a hostel – essentially an older couple living in an apartment with a spare room (or maybe two) that they rent out to backpackers. They are lovely and friendly, speak the odd English word and LOVE to talk/communicate/interact. We haven’t seen much of San Sebastian yet, having just arrived not even three hours ago. We went for a wander around the you-can’t-doubt-you’re-in-Europe-now-bitch town with its peatonal areas, tall colonial style buildings with wrought iron splattered everywhere, pot plants hanging off the plethora of balconies and motorscooters parked on every corner. It’s not exactly piping hot here, but it is really humid so you just feel really sticky. It might be because of the thunderstorm we’re in the middle of here, or not. It’s on the northern coast of Spain, so I daresay it can’t be too much of a dry place.
In stark contrast to San Sebastian, Madrid was HOT, averaging mid 30s through the day, and I doubt it dropped below 25 degrees at night, though thankfully it wasn’t very humid. Kind of like Melbourne stuck in a medium-hot (no 40ºC, but hot nonetheless) phase, although the sun doesn’t pack the punch that I’m used to. We forgot to put sunscreen on, were out in the sun for two and half hours, and didn’t even turn slightly pink. How the hell am I supposed to work on my tan? Sigh. It must be such a nice thing to have an intact ozone layer.
We stayed in Madrid for 3 days whilst we tried to sort out accommodation for the coming couple of weeks, which was no easy feat. I have never really travelled in the high season before, and it sucks dogs’ balls. It was so freaking hard and time consuming to find accommodation that we wouldn’t have to pay through the nose for. It still feels like it’s draining the wallet, having come from Quito where we ate out 3 meals a day, had a large comfy room with cable TV and wouldn’t have spent more than $70 a day between us. Here, we budget for $100 EACH, and that’s snacking through the day and eating out at cheap restaurants for dinner. Sigh. I’m sure gonna miss paying $4 for a beautiful big breakfast that included breads, croissants, and the biggest and yummiest fruit salad with muesli and yoghurt. Double sigh.
That does remind me though – upon leaving our hotel in Quito, the beautiful, beautiful owners presented us both with small gifts (Galapagos ornaments) to thank us for staying so long (about 9 days – mostly the fault of the Brazilian embassy, you ****s). They were SO gorgeous. The women helped us out to the taxi and waved us off. I could have just grabbed her and kissed her. Too cute.
Anyway….when we finally got into the Madrid airport, exhausted from our delayed flight and plane ‘sleeping’, we found out that Andrew had gotten so frustrated with trying to find accommodation that he forgot to check where the hotel he had booked was. Yep, out in the fricking suburbs. The cab cost us just under fifty euros. For those who have never been to Europe, that’s about $80. I was spewing. Thankfully we were able to change our reservation to only one night, and headed into the city the next day (though not after having to pay fourteen euros for a wireless internet connection to find more accommodation – who makes you pay for goddamned wireless???? Europeans, apparently. Bastards!!!).
We got into our newly booked hostel, Don Juan, which turned out to be gorgeous. The woman greeting us wasn’t entirely friendly, but I think she is just an abrupt person – she wasn’t nasty or unhelpful. Just….brusque. The hostel was filled with the most beautiful décor – every room was different, splashed with art and sculptures, usually a gilded ornamental mirror and some beautiful wooden furniture. We were only paying 53 euros a night, which although seems expensive to what we were paying earlier, is not too bad for Madrid in the high season, and fantastic considering what we got. It even had internet, although it functioned sporadically, and the wireless didn’t work at all, which was a shame.
We were lucky enough to get another 2 nights (one lady told us there was no room, but when we asked again we were accepted. Yay!!) and then spent all that night booking accommodation until the 4th when we fly to Morocco. It IS going to be interesting trying to book stuff when I don’t speak a word of Arabic. Shite.
But anyway, Madrid. It’s hot, full of people and contradictions. They say that Madrid is in drought and needs to conserve water, yet they have a billion fountains going nuts at 35ºC. They have quite a few recycling bins, yet litter (especially cigarettes). And others that I can’t think of right now. Dusk is at 10pm, night about 10:30pm, nobody eats till then (which hurts me). It has been really nice to walk around in a city at night and not be highly alert to my security. I didn’t realise just how edgy the dodgy characters in Quito made me, checking my surroundings every 10 seconds, clutching my bag tightly whenever I was outside, drawing a sweat whenever I used an ATM…all things of the past. Sure, you always have to be careful, but it’s just nice to not have to be worried about getting mugged all the time. Madrid reminds me a bit of Melbourne at night – loads of people around and really safe (providing you’re not stupid and you avoid tiny dark alleyways).
Madrid has a lot of beautiful old buildings (I guess like a lot of Europe) and makes for great walks, if you can bear the heat. You certainly have to walk in the shade, because you start feeling faint if you carry on in the heat for too long. At least I did.
So anyway, we went to the Australian embassy this morning to fix up some stuff for Andrew (and found them really helpful – and Australian, believe it or not), and jumped onto a 6 hour bus that seemed to take forever to get to San Sebastian. And here we are. Haven´t found a sexy Spaniard to whisk me away yet, but it´s only early days. I´ve just got to get this pesky Andrew thing away for a bit....
Hope you’re all enjoying winter and being at work.
XX
Madrid photos
Northern Spain photos
