Spain

Well I have enjoyed my last few days in the new hostel, which is actually
just a 3 bedroom apartment, in a nice old neighborhood of Barcelona. It's a
nice break from the crazy large hostel life. I like to have a mix of both.

This place is in a nice area, which is not as touristy, lots of locals go
about there daily routines, and I try to fit in, most shops close around
2pm, and open again around 6pm or so. That's nap time, which is definitely
required, since the streets are alive with people of all ages well past
midnight. I an also very close to a middle eastern section of town, which
is neat considering I am leaving for Morocco tomorrow, so I have been having
some very tasty donairs for lunch. The last few days the weather has been
cool and cloudy, with the odd sunny break, which I try to use to work on my
tan.

I have enjoyed my time here in Spain, I would have liked to check out a
couple more places, but time just wasn't permitting this time, I may come
back to the south of Spain after Morocco, as I have to be in Gibraltar on
May 15th to catch my flight to Turkey, oddly enough it was the cheapest
place in Europe to do so, I have to fly to London and have a 2 hour
stopover, which is kind of a pain, but the whole trip only cost $125, which
was substantially cheaper than any other flights I could find. It's with
British Airways as well, and I enjoy there service.

Today I wandered around a bit, and am now just doing some laundry, and will
pack, as I have to get up bright and early tomorrow morning, around 6:30am,
which will be hard for me. I also had to find a new global cell phone
provider, as the company I had been dealing with decided to cancel there
service, so I have a new SIM card arriving back home next week. Fortunately
Mike is kind enough to bring it with him to Turkey, as it is nice to have
the safety net of a cell phone, which I really only use for incoming calls.
Skype handles the calls back home nicely!

I am excited for my tour of Morocco, it definitely will be the most
different place culture wise that I have traveled to, at least French is
widely spoken so I will be able to communicate a little bit. I am glad to
be on a tour for the next couple weeks, I don't have to worry about figuring
out where I am going to stay, or how to get from place to place, which at
times can be a little taxing. I am excited to try new foods, well not
everything they eat, since Goat Heads, Pigeon, and Snail Soup are favorites,
but I am sure they have other lovely spicy foods for me to test my stomach
on!

Again I doubt I will have great internet access while on the tour, but I
will try to update as much as possible.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well just a quick update, as I am going to have a nap. I slept ok in the
dorm room, it was a little hot, as the A/C is on the fritz, and one of the
guys snored. I am sharing the room with 3 other guys, 2 guys from Sao Paulo
Brazil, only one of them speaks English, but it was cool to talk to him
about Brazil. He commented on how much he thought Buenos Aires was like
Madrid, which I totally agree with. And the other guy is from Izmir Turkey,
where I am going after Morocco to try to meet up with Mike & Denise for a
couple days, he says mid May is the perfect time to go, so looking forward
to that!

Today I checked out the Sagrada Familia, which was started in 1866 and Gaudi
spent the last 15 years of his life working on it, and it's still under
construction today! It is a very peculiar building, it is neat how it
merges engineering and natural designs together. A good portion of Barcelona
was designed by Gaudi, he was a pretty weird character I think, but quite
brilliant, and a math genius.

The rest of the day I laid out near the port, watched some big boats roll
in, and worked on the ole tan, which was fading from the week in Madrid.

Barcelona is definitely not as clean as Madrid, but still is quite a nice
city, with lots of interesting architectures. Even though it is in Spain,
they consider themselves Catalan, and that is the main language as opposed
to Spanish, and it is quite different, fortunately most people have a decent
grasp of English as well.

Well enjoy the photos of the Sagrada Familia, and if you want to read more
about it, click here.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I have arrived at Barcelona! The train ride was ok, a little long, the
scenery got a bit repetitive, but it was neat to see ancient walls, and
stone structures, in the middle of farmer fields, the train was going to
quickly to take photos. I am thinking of renting a car for a day later in
the week to just drive around some of the country side, but we will see.

The hostel I am staying at is massive, there are tons of people here in the
main lobby, on the internet, and drinking beer. There is a pool table as
well, so that should be fun, haven't met any of my roommates yet, it looks
like currently there is only one other person in the room. The hostel is
very secure with digital key locks on the lockers in the room, and to the
doors. My bed is right next to the door, and the room is right next to the
bathroom, so I imagine I will be needing to use the old ear plugs.

I did a quick stroll to the port of Barcelona which was quite nice, some
pretty nice boats in the port. I will upload the photos later on. Upon
first impression I would say that Barcelona is a more relaxed city than
Madrid, I would imagine that would be part of the beach mentality. The city
certainly doesn't seem as green or as clean as Madrid, but that could just
be the area I am in, the hostel is in a nice little plaza, right next to a
trendy little street that is filled with street performers, and street
statues.

I am keen on checking out the city tomorrow!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well the weekend is nearing the end, as is my stay in Madrid, as I leave
tomorrow morning for Barcelona.

Friday night I took it easy, just had a nice seafood dinner, oddly enough
Madrid is apparently the seafood capital of Spain, even though it's
landlocked, they ship in fresh seafood every day, and went back to the Royal
Palace, and the large Cathedral, as I heard they were quite nice at night,
the Cathedral was lit up, and did look quite nice indeed, the Palace however
was dark, it would have looked quite cool all lit up I am sure.

Saturday I got up early had a good buffet breakfast at the hotel, and got
set on my way to check out a couple Museums, the first one to be the Museo
del Prado, which is apparently one of the best art museums in all of Europe,
so I got on the metro, and made my way there, and low and behold it was
under some serious renovation, which seemed rather odd, and I figured it was
just my bad luck with museums continuing. But as I wrote this I checked
online, and it seems I was at the older building, and not the new one a
couple blocks away, I should have asked someone I guess, but I was fed up.
So I went down the street to the archaeological museum, which was pretty
cool, lots of ancient roman works, it was a massive museum, and took nearly
two hours to explore it. I was done with museums for the day, my feat were
sore, I think I have walked way to much the last week, but Madrid is known
as a 'great walking city' which is true, as everywhere you walk, there is
something cool to look at. So after a great stir fry lunch, I made it back
to the hotel for a little siesta.

Got up had a lovely donair for dinner, and got ready with some beverages to
watch the Flames game over the internet on my laptop, and a snooker match on
the tv. Quite a shame we played so poorly. It was just after midnight when
the game finished, so I decided to head out and check out the nightlife.
There was a club called Pacha which I also went to when I was in the Canary
Islands, and it was all right, so I figured I would check out the one here.
My GPS told me it was about a ten minute walk, but my GPS has been rather
annoying here in Madrid, it keeps sending me in circles, so it took me about
an hour to get there.

Which was just as well, as when I walked in at just after 1am, there was
about 15 people in the place, every seat however was 'reserved'. So I sipped
my free drink, which was included in the 15euro (23cdn) cover charge. I
contemplated leaving to find another place, but every place would have a
15-20euro cover charge, so I figured I would give it a bit longer. Towards
3am it started filling up, and right at 3:00 a wall dropped down, and showed
another d.j set up. That is when the place started getting lively. It was
really bad techno music though, so after another hour of that I was done,
and made my way back home with out the GPS and sure enough it took ten
minutes.

Sunday I took it easy, and just took a little stroll down a few streets
here, it was a totally different vibe, a regular week day, Madrid is already
a pretty slow, relaxed place, but Sunday it seems everyone is out, walking
the dogs, or kids, and every café is jam packed, and there are these little
dog parks in most of the plaza's and there are often several people there
letting there dogs make friends, and there are also little garbage cans that
have plastic bags for picking up dog do-do every few blocks, it's a shame
not everyone bothers picking up after there dog though.

Tonight I will just take it easy, probably go out for a decent dinner again,
and get a good nights sleep for the 5 hour train ride tomorrow. Flying is
actually cheaper than the train, 37euro for a flight, and 62euro for the
train. I figured it will be a nice way to see the Spanish country side, and
experience the euro-train. I have decided to stay all six nights in
Barcelona, mainly because I couldn't find a place to stay in Valencia, so I
have 3 nights in a dorm room, and then 3 nights in a little hotel near the
beach in Barcelona, then it is off to Casablanca Morocco, which has been a
little unstable of late, so hopefully it's calm the two days I am there, I
should be safe in the tour group though.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well sorry for the lack of updates, the hostel I was staying in did not have
internet, and I was busy seeing stuff.
I am now staying in a hotel for the weekend, as the hostel was all booked
up, as were most others I checked, so I can do a few updates this weekend.

Anyhow I must say Madrid is quite a vibrant city, there are so many cool
buildings, parks, plaza's and little café's all over the place. You can walk
in any direction and see some pretty amazing stuff. And the city is very
well kept, it is so clean, there is always people cleaning every where you
look. The food is pretty good, and the weather has been quite nice, clear
blue skies every day!

The hostel was all right, nothing to amazing, but it was clean, and I got a
good nights sleep, and met some interesting people, so that is all that
matters!

I met this retired guy named Tom from Liverpool at the hostel, interesting
character, he was on a three week vacation. Spent a day with him checking
out some of the sites on Wednesay, took a ton of pictures. The Royal Palace
was amazing, just the sheer size and the details were amazing! After
spending about 11 hours out and about, came back and had a little siesta.
Then I figured I would check out the Madrid nightlife, which I head read was
quite good. During the day I noticed a club not far from the hostel that had
a hip-hop night on Wednesday so I thought that would be a good place to
check out. I arrived at about 12:30 and the place was pretty empty except
for a group of 15 or so girls from Sweden, so that made me not notice the
lack of people so much. I talked and danced with some of them for a while.
Sure enough by 2am the place was starting to fill up, it reminded me of a
Buenos Aires night club, they even had the same Red Bull clone called Speed.
I ended up staying there all night, and left the place just before 5:00am!
So Thursday I didn't do a whole lot, just hung out at the Plaza Mayor and
people watched with a guy from Japan that was leaving that day to go to
South America. He has been traveling for 10 months, and has 4 more to go, so
we shared some tips. Most people I have met at the hostel are Europeans
just doing shorter 2-3week type trips.

I purchased a train ticket to Barcelona for Monday, my first Euro Train
trip. I booked a bed in a 4 bed dorm room for three nights, so we will see
how that goes, hopefully I get some good roomies! Then I think I will down
to Valencia for a couple days before heading back to Barcelona for my flight
to Morocco to start my tour.

Now I will start uploading the pictures, and go check out this new part of
Madrid I am in.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well today was my last day on the island of Gran Canary, and the weather was
simply amazing, not a cloud in the sky, a slight breeze to keep things not
too hot, and temperatures in the high 20's, the beaches were just packed,
all sorts of scenery!

I can see why the Canaries are such a popular tourist destination for
Europeans, at least this island. The main city Las Palmas, is very clean, I
hardly saw any homeless people, the odd one, but that is to be expected for
a city of this size, (nearly 800,000). The infrastructure is great, amazing
road and bus system. The many birds and lizards must be doing there job as I
hardly saw any bugs, even on the windshield of the busses after driving down
the highway to the south, hardly a bug splatter to be seen. Judging by the
number of seniors I have seen in the residential area I am staying in, I
would assume this is a retirement haven. I could definitely see myself
living in a place like this when I am old. Especially with the mixed bag of
cultures. Today the restaurant I ate in, the menu was in 8 languages!

I definitely recommend here is a nice winter getaway, something different
than Mexico for sure, and as a couple, or a group of friends you could have
a lot of fun here, and not be harassed every 5 steps like you are in Mexico.
Only downside is it takes a heck of a lot longer to get here.

Off to Madrid tomorrow, I'm looking forward to that city a lot, and I can
now see why most people only spend a few days in each place, as there is
just so much to see in Europe, I pretty much have my calendar full until mid
June already!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well just a quick update as I am getting ready to go out for dinner.

Friday, I took the bus down to the south of the Island, it was a nice drive,
it is a neat landscape loaded with Windmills, they are everywhere.
Once I got to the beach down south it was apparent why they have so many
windmills. It was so windy on the beach, sand was blowing everywhere, I
only took two photos, as I didn't want to get sand in the camera, and well I
was getting sand in my eyes, which wasn't overly enjoyable.

I made my way down the beach to some of the lounge chairs, where they have
built wind screens around them all, so I layed there for a couple hours and
got a bit of a tan! Then I wandered around the town, which is just hotels,
restaurants and bars, all the signs are in English, Spanish, German, and
some Swedish. (Same as most of the restaurant menus in Las Palmas).
It is very touristy, and I am glad I didn't choose to stay there.

I decided to try to go out the clubs on Friday, as there are a few about a
15min walk from my hostel, I got there entirely too early (12:30), as they
were just opening, and don't really get busy until 1:30, so I went to a busy
little pub called 'Pick Up' had a couple beers, but it was way to smokey in
there for my liking, everyone was smoking Camels, and well they stink.

Today was fairly cloudy, so I just went for a stroll down the Cathedral, it
of course was under construction, as was the Plaza in which is across from
it, but it was still fairly nice too look at, and the cathedral bells still
worked, and sounded quite nice, when they rang 3:00.

Now I am going out for dinner, and then will come back here for a few beers
with a guy from Finland before trying my luck at the nightclub again.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I was planning on heading down to the south of the island today, but I
kind of slept in, and when I checked the webcams for there it was pretty
cloudy, so I decided to see what I could see around here again. It was
fairly cloudy and windy when I got up, but still comfortable enough for
Shorts, and a T-Shirt. Unless of course you are a local, most of them were
wearing pants, and heavy jackets!

I checked with my little GPS device about tourist attractions near me, and
it showed there was a castle about 2.5km from me, so I did a quick Google
search of the name, and it was a nice looking castle from 1599 that was the
stage of many fights between the Spanish and the Dutch, so I was pretty keen
on checking that out. So a nice little hike, along the port where it is
mostly fishing and cargo ships, lots of Japanese Fishing boats oddly enough.
Anyhow the sun had made it's way out and made for a nice walk. I get to the
Castle from the back of it all I can see is a metal fence, with construction
vehicles. I thought surely my luck with castles from S. America can not be
continuing, but alas when I got closer I could see that the Castle was
defiantly under some major surgery, and was closed!!! (See Photos)

I was a tad distraught, but noticed I was close to the boardwalk where the
nice beach in the city is, and all the hotels and restaurants, so I decided
I would go have a nice lunch, which was a nice fresh sole fish, with shrimp,
muscles, and squid, very tasty! After lunch since it was so nice I thought
I would stroll along the beach, it is a topless beach. The nice thing about
topless beaches is that while most of the scenery is not overly exciting,
and hard on the eyes, every now and then you see something that is just
fantastic! The beach was pretty quiet all in all, but it was a relaxing
walk. Although I did get a bit sun burnt on the top of my head, but nothing to serious.

Tomorrow I am getting up early and making my way down to the south of the
Island. I have started to notice that as the week is progressing things are
getting busier, so I suspect that it should be pretty busy in the more
touristy part of the island.

I was busy planning things last night, I have booked the tour of Morocco for
April 29th - May 10th, that should be quite interesting. Monday I am leaving
here and heading to Madrid, and will check out Spain for the next couple of
weeks. It would seem that hostels are nearly impossible to book in two or
three week notice for weekends, and most hostels here have big dorm rooms of
10 - 20 people! A big switch from S. America. I found a two bed dorm room
in Madrid that was free for 4 nights, so I booked both of those beds, giving
me my own room, from there I am not sure what I will do, it will depend on
how much I am enjoying Madrid I suppose. If I have to get hotel rooms for
the weekends that isn't too bad as there are loads of budget hotels.

Enough babbling, time to have a little nap before dinner, life is rough.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I have had a while to explore the city of Las Palmas, it is quite a
nice city, lots of parks, and statues all over the place. I think it must be
off season, as lots of places are closed. It rained for a good portion of
Tuesday afternoon, and late evening. The winds off the atlantic make it a
bit cool when the sun is not out. Lots of Canaries here, hard to take a
photo of them though, they are so fast, and seem pretty afraid of humans.

I have never seen so many Chinese Food buffet restaurants, they are
everywhere here, and since it's not really busy here, I have to wonder about
the quality of the food, as I only have seen a couple people in them. There
is also a noticable Arabic population here, with some Arabic restaurants,
all which seem to be closed.

Lots of itallian restaurants as well, I had a nice beef with 5 kinds of
pepper dish and pasta for dinner last night, it was quite tasty. Prices are
pretty similar to back home.

Tomorrow I think I will head down to the south of the island to some of the
nicer beaches, apparently the weather is generally nicer there as well.
There are some Sand Dunes there as well that

I think my next stop will be Madrid, just because flights to there are quite
cheap from here, or I may head to another Island of the Canaries. All
depends on where I can find a place to stay, I am having a heck of a time
finding a hostel that isn't all booked in Madrid, it seems finding hostels
in Europe is going to be a bit harder than in S. America. It's even harder
to find a hostel where you can get your own room, especially if you are only
booking a week in advance. There are always hotels in a pinch I suppose.

Posted by Jason Willock

Whew, that was a pretty long trek I decided to book for myself, not sure
what made me decide that nearly 24 hours of travel would be fun. But I have
made it into Las Palmas, and I seem to have already made up for the 7 hour
time zone difference, so I guess that is a bonus.

The flight from Calgary to London was pretty uneventful, it was filled
mostly with Scottish people, as we did a quick drop off at Glasgow first.
Sat next to a little old Scottish lady, and this young Scottish kid who
broke his collarbone snow boarding in Calgary. They were interesting to talk
to, but I actually got a good amount of sleep on the plane which was good,
considering it was filled with little kids that were coming back home from
Spring Break in the mountains, they all had ski goggle tan lines, quite
amusing. The flight with Zoom Airlines was allright, pretty old plane, and
even though I was in the 'Premium' Class with more leg room, the seats were
pretty uncomfortable, if I was to fly with them again I don't think I would
opt to spend the extra bucks for the nicer seats.

Had four hours to kill at the London Gatwick Airport, that is definitely one
of the largest airports I have ever been in. I was worried about how bad
British Customs would be, since in the news they always seem to be so picky.
However I spent a total of about 5 minutes in Customs line my entire time
there, that included clearing customs when I landed, and then when I boarded
the new flight to Spain. I was very impressed. Hopefully the rest of Europe
is similar! I must say I am quite impressed with British Airways, even
though the flight only cost $175cdn I got a great meal, and wine. The plane
was nearly brand new, and the seats were very comfortable, I definatley will
fly with them again!

Customs here in the Canary Islands took a whole 10 seconds, someone looked at my passport, stamped it, and that was it.

Well I am pretty beat now so I am going to crash and hopefully wake up at a
decent hour nicely refreshed to explore the island. As I didn't get to see
much of it on the way to the hostel, as it is dark out, and the cab driver
was driving rather speedy like, but I think the hostel is in a pretty neat
part of town. At least it is really clean, and for under $200 for a week,
with my own bathroom. I can't complain!

Posted by Jason Willock