I was leaving for the biggest trip of my young life so far. I had just had my birthday at the start of the month, which coincided with my week-long hockey tournament, before coming home to prepare a totally original Birthday present (a customized set of dresser drawers and a pet axolotl) for a couple of friends who were throwing a joint party- the biggest one I'd been to so far. It was a big month! But I wasn't phased. I had literally left it to the last minute to pack for my overseas experience.
In the airport, we took a couple of group photos and my Mum cried (what a sweetie). This was the first time I'd ever been overseas by myself- not to mention on the other side of the world. Monique (my lovely step-sister) got there from work just in time to see me off she didn't have to come but it was nice of her to say goodbye and keep Mum company, making it a bit of a family affair.
And before we knew it we were off! Embarking on an estimated 12 hour flight to our layover, a 2 hour rest in Bangkok, Thailand- before another 12 hour flight to Spanish soil. Unfortunately, I was ill from falling in the pool at the aforementioned joint party (thanks to the help of a rather intoxicated friend), and my voice was croaky and weird. We had all been seated in alphabetical order with my peers in our Spanish group in a stuffy aeroplane. Lucky them! Even luckier, the flight was only 10 hours thanks to some strong tail winds. Still a pretty long flight however, in which we played games, slept and watched movies. The layover was great, my friend Dylan and I wandered around the Bangkok airport for those two hours, being the typical tourists and taking photos of ourselves in front of some great structures, interesting people, trying the dodgy food that everyone back home warns you about,
and testing our boundaries with a good old fashioned game of 'I'VE GOT A BOMB'- a game that can only be played in airport, by travellers like us who are often suspected of carrying odd possessions and are usually kept closely monitored. Well, may I comment that the guard was extremly low in this airport, but it made for an interesting layover flight. The objective is to complete the sentence with a slightly louder volume than the last player's attempt, whilst avoiding being spear tackled and arrested by security. I'm stupidly proud to say I won that, hands down. By that time our fellow traveller Sean Airey had joined us, and shouted Dylan and I come sort of chocolate smoothie. But we were too sick to accept, from eating all those dodgy tasters. We tried to tell him, but with no avail. I cant remember if I actually drank it. The two hours whizzed by, and I got to show off my (extremely limited) skills on Sean's guitar while we were sitting at the table drinking those chocolate smoothies, playing 'wonderwall' by Oasis. We engaged in a rather intense game of hackey, and were pretty soon told off for that because we were scaring customers away from nearby stores. Oops. The time soon came to get back on a plane! This time, I actually tried to sleep on the flight, getting a good few hours of catch-up but it was mostly uncomfortable. We landed, finally, in Madrid and bussed into the city centre, passing a graveyard on the highway covering a 700m distance! Not to mention the width! And we were assigned rooms and room mates at Rex Tryp Hotel. That's when the headband went missing. My headband, of a quite unique leafy design went missing after last being seen on my bed. Odd? The only people in my room were my room mates...
While we were in Madrid, we visited a beautiful Arts museum, El Reina Sofia. It had some beautiful rooms and a crazy contraption (watch the video)
. We also visited a park- it was immaculate, and you could hire a dinghy to take out into a man made lake, which was really cool! Going in packs of 4, I don't know how I ended up with Sean, Justin and Vinnie, who insisted on rowing most of the time, and Dylan ending up with the girls' boat.
They performed a move called the '360 death thrust'- which involved paddling around in a circle as fast as they possibly could (which was fast), effectively going nowhere and attracting attention from locals- they'd obviously never heard of the 360 death thrust. I will never go rowing with these three boys again.
After our stay in Madrid, we caught a bus and the avión (a bullet train that can travel at 500km/h as I remember?)
We only got up to about 294km, but that's still very impressive to get through Sevilla and finally arrive in Vejer- 5 hours later. Tiring! There, we were all paired up with our home stays and brought back to our rooms for the next two weeks. Jess and I met Pepita, a lovely elderly woman who's daughter owned a baby's clothing shop on a main shopping street in Vejer, with absolutely no knowledge of English and an eccentric cooking style.
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