Barcelona

This is the view from my hostel window common room. It looks onto the Plaza Reial. It's full of people at all hours of the night and day, packed with restaurants, clubs and cafes. Around three in the morning, the police come and stand around while the street cleaners hose it down.

The plaza is also famous for containing two street lamps that are the first public work Gaudi did. I'll get some pictures up a bit later.

The Trains in Spain are Mainly a Pain.

The first sign that things were not going to go so well was that my train was due to depart in fifteen minutes and the departure platform still hadn't been posted on the departure board. I was waiting for a train from Valencia to Barcelona, departing at 12 noon and they were still showing trains that had left at 9:47 and 10:38. Spain takes a relaxed approach to its train system.

After clearing the x-ray machine (At a train station? Really? Are you even looking at what's in my bag, mister? You missed the corkscrew, the nail clippers and the pocket knife, just so you know) I took the escalator down to the platform. And just to be clear, there is one escalator to the platform. No stairs. And about two hundred people wanting to get to the train. No bottleneck whatsoever.

So I got to the platform. And waited. And waited. I think the train was about 15 minutes late, but it could've been closer to twenty. I don't know, I think I passed out from the boredom.

Then everyone began pushing like mad to get on, only for some reason my compartment contained people who couldn't seem to get past the door. Never mind that the rest of the carriage is empty, these people want to hover. Look people, my seat is down at the other end, and there is one door for this carriage so I have to get past you to sit down. Then I get down there, look up and realize there is no way my bag will fit on the luggage rack, plus I would have to stand on the seat to get it up there. I have to haul my bag back down to the other end of the carriage and force it into a rack there. (Where's a nice French luggage rack when you need it?)

Finally I get to sit down. That's when I discover something that usually isn't a problem for me: there is absolutely no leg room. I'm 157cm or 5 ft, 2in and I couldn't move anywhere. And it's going to be another 3 hours of this. Sigh. I listen for the announcement telling me that I'll be in Valencia, but it doesn't come. In fact, I couldn't hear them announce Valencia as our final destination at any point during the trip until we actually pulled into the city. I thought I was going to end up in some town in the middle of nowhere. At least I'd be able to get off of the train.

Luckily I was able to sleep most of the rest of the time, and thus bring my journey to an end more quickly. Off the train, into the hostel, done.

But don't even get me started on the reservation system.

Best Mates

It seems that Barcelona and Blogger don't get along. I can't get any pictures to load, despite trying for a few days. So I'm going to write a text-only post today. The blog equivalent of doing phoner interview on TV. Here goes:

So far, at every hostel I've been at, there have been Aussies, at least a few, generally a lot. And we always have the same conversation which goes something like this:

Me: Where you from?
Them: Australia, X City. Where you from?
Me: I'm from Toronto, Canada but really I was born in the middle of nowhere.
Them: Oh cool. I like Canadians/Canada/dated a Canadian once/worked at a ski resort/want to go soon/was there and can't wait to go back.
Me: That's cool, I like Australia. I'm going to be living there this winter, I mean your summer. I'm really excited!
Them: Oh yeah, you're going to have a great time. Canadians and Australians get along real well, I reckon. We're like best friends.
Me: Yeah we have the same sense of humour. And with every Australian I meet, we talk about how Canadians and Australians get on so well.
Them: It's because you're not Americans.

Then we drink some beer, and talk about which wild animals in our respective countries have attacked who and when. Last night it was cougars vs. sharks. Sometimes it's bears vs. jellyfish. But in terms of poisonous creatures, Australia still wins hands down.

What I did for Thanksgiving

As Thanksgiving is a North American holiday, I had a distinct lack of invitations to turkey dinners this past weekend. No perogies, no ham, no dressing and no pumpkin pie. Not even un peu du poulet avec des patates.
So without an eight-thousand course dinner to sit down to, I had a bit of time on my hands. "What to do, what to do?" I wondered to myself. Then it hit me. I had been in Paris for four days already and I still had not gone to the most obvious tourist attraction on Earth. It was time to acquaint myself with Le Tour Eiffel.

Riding a Bike to the Beach

This video is from my trip to the beach two days ago with Jason and two lovely Aussies that we met in Nice. We rented bikes from the tourism office for two euros for the day and headed off with only a map of downtown and a vague sense of which way south was to guide us. We ended up first at a Maison De Vins, and being hot and thirsty despite the fact we had only been riding for about twenty minutes, we decided to stop and have a wine tasting.
After purchasing two bottles we continued on our way, first across a highway overpass, then down a rutted trail through bamboo along the side of a canal and finally to a paved path through salt marshes. On one side of the trail there were pink flamingos grazing in the marshes, and on the other were rows of sailboats lining the length of the canal.
The quality of the light is really fantastic and I hope the glow shows in the videos and pictures. If I were a filmmaker or photographer you couldn`t get me to stop shooting when it looks that pretty.

France: Either or Or

Before travelling to France, I heard horror story after horror story about rude French people, that they're impossible, refuse to speak to you in French even if you have addressed them so and generally wish you didn't exist.
Let me correct this fallacy: only half of all French people are like this. The other half are brilliant, kind, funny and sweet. Like the gentleman who runs the crepe place up the street from my hostel in Montpellier, who discusses his favorite movie actors with us, and talked about the French author Marcel Pagnol who he says really stirs the emotions. He was absolutely lovely.

Compare him to the wait staff we had at a cafe this afternoon. My friend went to get change for a twenty and the the woman behind the counter said they had no change, and perhaps he should try to find a little cafe that could help him. My friend was understandably confused, seeing as we were AT A LITTLE CAFE. Then the waiter refused to give us change for the twenty, and had the gall to tell me that in France NO ONE USES A FIVE EURO BILL. EVER. French people only use tens or twenties. Nothing else. It should be noted he said this while waving around the only five euro bill he happened to have in my face.

So, we did the only reasonable thing, and paid the bill in one, two and five cent pieces, because he obviously needed some change.

France really is either terrifc or terrible. Nothing in between.