No rest for the wicked!

Raise your hands if you want to do an over-nighter at an airport! 'Cause that's exactly what WE did! ('We' being Andrea and myself, I haven't suddenly developed a multiple personality complex, although I'm a Gemini, so Castor and Pollox will no doubt appear soon (dressed as a gay pirate and a Jedi) and make me sound a little bonkers in the process.) Right, all-nighter at Madrid airport. This marks my second time of nuttiness and second time as such a tight-ass for using Ryanair, but but the entire trip, from Madrid and back again, cost just €11,50, including taxes and other airline costs. It was Andrea's first, and she was quite excited by the all-nighter. But she can sleep anywhere, and is clearly nuts, but I put up a brave face and dreamed of Hula Hoops (the potato chips, not the waist twirling thing).


The airport experience was not as bad as last time, because my flight was earlier and I had company, but I was eager to get to Oporto in Portugal. Unfortunately by the time we got there we were both wrecked and buggered. The metro is really cute, because it's half metro, half tram. Oporto is small, there's not much to do, but we had a fantastic little room with no door into the bathroom, so everything is hot and sexy while the girl is in the shower, but shortly after dinner you start to wish that you didn't hear everything that went on in there.


On Wednesday we checked out and explored Oporto a little, and awaited our late night flight into London. We arrived at 23.30, caught a bus into Victoria station, and arrived at our hostel at 3am. We originally did not have a booking for this night, but after doing an all nighter in Madrid and discovering that NOTHING is open in London at 3am, we headed off past Harrods and near Hyde Park to see if there were a couple of beds available. Thankfully there were, and so we managed to get a few hours of sleep in.

And thus started Day 1 of the monopoly street tour. I have always wanted to do this, but was a little underplanned for my first day and so we didn't get everything done that we wanted. There was some doubling back and wandering around, but all in all we saw a good portion of the city and got 13 of the 26 unique sites on the board. It took us 12 hours of walking, but we did it.


We finished off the day with a gourmet burger and chips and it was fantastic. Mouth watering good. Naturally being a Brit I was quickly falling in love with London again and buying all the crap that I used to eat as a kid, like Swiss Fingers, Hula Hoops, Fry's Mint Chocolates, etc. The Coke Tour is also coming along well, and those photos will soon be up for all to enjoy and mock. :) It was good to sit down at the restaurant but as soon as we stood up our legs died on us, thanks to all the walking we'd done. We returned to the room to find that we were sharing with an Aussie from Sydney and a Kiwi from Auckland. Aussies everywhere, I tell ya.


Day 2 of the monopoly street tour required us to buy a daily rail pass, and man was it worth it. We may have spent several hours zipping around on the tube, but we got just about everything that we needed. We also saw the changing of the guard, took a photo of a police public call box (the TARDIS!) and I was meeting up with Elena later in the day, while Andy was to meet up with Visa, Thao and Russell. It was great to catch up with Elena again, as we seem to only see each other once or twice a year (usually in different countries).


We went off to see Waiting for Godot with Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard and Professor X), Ian McKellen (Gandalf and Magneto) and Simon Callow (he's the Funeral in Four Weddings and a ). The seats were uncomfy but the show was reasonable, and the actors were fantastic. I got a great kick out of finally seeing those two, and never thought that I would. I returned to the hostel and bumped into Andrea, and we needed to leave at 3am to make our next flight. I know, flights suck, but they are cheap, and we are young and poor.

We got to the bus without getting lost and my exceptional navigation and map reading skills have exonerated themselves for a little hiccup in Verona. We had a 7am flight to Memmingen in Germany. I've never heard of it either. But since there were no cheap direct flights to Madrid from London, we had to go to Germany....and then Girona in Spain. We spent a few hours in Girona and it's a dinky little town, and we'll be back there again on Wednesday on our way to Malta. I paid €17,50 for a fucking pizza at Pizza Hut! Never again! The fuckers! I spent less than that on my accomodation! Fucking fuck fucks. After Girona was Madrid, so we arrived home 19 hours after leaving the hostel.

And that concludes the travel adventures! All up I missed just 3 of the sites on the Monopoly Board (couldn't find Vine street, Old Kent Road was miles away and Marlborough St was near the river), but we actually walked along Vine and Marlborough road and never knew it, so I took all of those street names from wikipedia and claimed them as my own. It's only fair.

And still the travelling continues. Malta this week, possibly Salamanca and Toledo next week, Dublin the week after, then the south of Spain, Poland and Greece, if possible. I know, it's nuts, and I *should* be studying, but I'm in Europe and enjoying myself. And if I can enjoy myself on such little money, then why not!