Hello again,
My records tell me the last email was nigh on 2 weeks ago... doesn't feel like it! I'm sitting in the strangely empty common room of the hostel in Budapest after researching skydiving in Switzerland on the surprisingly excellent wifi. I've gotten a lot of praise for the previous two emails, and Wendy's pointed out that they're a good reference for me, too, when I want to remember what I've done, so bear with me if I go into too much detail.
Actually I've just read this one back and it's pretty long, so like... get a coffee or something.
SO... let's see... I was hung over in Spain last time, right? Where did I go from that...
Annie and I watched movies with our whiskey hangovers for most of the afternoon, then she went off to Barcelona and I sat around on the balcony with the other backpackers, who were apparently also all nursing hangovers. They kicked us off the balcony at about 11.30, which they do, so we took our booze down to the beach for a while, and eventually went off to bed.
On the Saturday a large group of us spent pretty much all day on the beach. I didn't do any more surfing, unfortunately, mainly because there were only two places where the waves were surfable and they were packed with people already. Not, I thought, the place for a beginner. But I finally got some reading done and we all had a good yarn. Periodically one of us would wander off to get a kebab from the little man on the corner who didn't seem to speak any English or much Spanish, but who made a good kebab at the right price.
After a delicious burger at the Irish pub around the corner... Oh! The burger! They had two burgers on the menu, right, one with beef, lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, ketchup and mayo (so your standard Whopper formula). The other had beef, bacon, egg and cheese. So I'm like, "I want a number one but with bacon and egg on it". Pete and Fergal also saw the genius of my plan and with the help of Fergal's Spanish skills we managed to get the bartender to make it happen. They didn't even charge us extra. They also had Murphy's Red Ale on tap, which was the best beer I've had all holiday. I had 2 pints. That there was a memorable meal.
So, after that (around 8) we did the whole backpackers on the balcony thing until we got kicked off at 11 again. The thing about San Sebastian, and I think the rest of Spain, is that you eat dinner at 10 to 11ish, and you go out at like 2 in the morning, so since we were all Aussies and liked our early dinners the balcony was always the place to be between 8 and 11, then the beach to finish whatever takeaway alcohol we had. Later that night we all went out to a night club, where all you had to was say "Olga's Place" at the bar and they gave you 2 Amstels for the price of 1. At about 3.30, upon realising that there were no girls left in the bar Darren, Fergal, Person-Whose-Name-I've-Forgotten and I buggered off in search of some. We found heaps, but none of them spoke English. :(
The next day, Sunday, was about 30 degrees, so it was another beach day. We were all pretty screwed from the night before anyway so we didn't really mind. I wanted a big dinner so I made myself an enormous bowl of pasta and ate in on the balcony. It took me a bottle of wine and a litre of beer to get through it. I had to go upstairs twice to reheat it.
So Monday morning I was sitting around drinking an extremely strong coffee and eating Nutella on toast, pondering my next move. Most of my friends were due to leave that night so I was determined to as well. The plan was to meet up with them again in Barcelona on Wedndesday and go to a Champion's League soccer game. I knew I wanted to visit Toulouse and Tourezelle so I decided I'd rent a car for a few days and cruise through the South of France. It seemed like a good idea so I did a bit of research, discovered the cheapest way was to hire the car from Biarritz in France, just over the border to the North from San Sebastian, and take it back to Paris. It was the same price to hire it for 4 days as it was for a week, so I hired it for a week.
I booked the thing, got myself a bus ticket to Biarritz and went off. I had no accommodation for that night, because I reckoned I could probably drive somewhere and get some, or maybe just sleep in the car. When I got to Biarritz it was 4:15 and I was a bit concerned that the car rental place would shut (I knew it shut at 5:00) before I managed to get to it. It was supposed to be at the railway station and so I got a map and set off on foot. The street didn't look very long on the map so I thought it would be cool. At 4:35, when I realised I wasn't even half way and I was drenched in sweat with my 35kg of luggage, I was more than a little concerned. Thankfully I happened upon a bus going in that direction and it managed to get me there a bit after 4:45.
I found the Europcar at the station not just closed but completely empty of furniture and with bare walls. A sign on the door informed me that it was only open from May to September (?!?) and that I had to call the Downtown office or the Airport office. I couldn't get through to either of them until about 4:55, by which time I was quite anxious. Somebody finally answered and said they'd come to get me. They did, and I got myself a 6-speed diesel Renault Megane, which was pretty cool, but didn't have sat-nav or any kind of MP3 capabilities.
The guy was nice enough to give me a map of France, and I headed back into the town of Biarritz... no, wait, I drove halfway to Bayonne, realised I was going the wrong way, turned around, and with only one incident of driving on the wrong side of the road, managed to get into Biarritz, park and find an Irish pub with which to calm my nerves. There was a nice Kiwi girl behind the bar, who spoke absolutely no French at all, so we chatted for a while and I translated for her on the rare occasion that a customer came in who didn't speak English. I'd been to an Internet cafe to look for accomodation, found none, and she'd informed me that there was a surf tournament on and that she herself, who'd only been there 4 days, was in the camp ground out of town.
So, given the options of Bordeaux, 2 hours away, Toulouse, 2.5 hours away or San Sebastian, 40 minutes away by car, I opted to go back to Olga's. It turned out to be a great decision because I got into a game of Texas Hold 'Em with some Irishmen (thanks for the chips, Tineke!) and won the entire pot of 25 Euros.
I woke in the morning, checked that the car was OK, bought some blank CDs, burned a couple, packed my stuff and set off to dump it in the car, which wasn't there. In fact, no cars were there. I stood there agape for a few moments before having the following dialogue with a guy who would have placed well in a Mario lookalike competition.
Mario (pointing at the empty space): "You?"
Me: "Yeah! I was here like half and hour ago and it was still there!"
Mario: "Police... pffft!" (points off into to distance)
Me: "Oh... Where are the police?" (doing my best "Where are the police" hand gestures)
Mario gives me the universal "I don't know" hand gesture.
Me (pointing at my watch): "How long? When?"
Mario holds up ten fingers and says "dis" or whatever the Spanish for "ten" is.
So I drag my suitcase back to Olga's and explain to Olga, whose English isn't too great, what's happened. She figured it out, told me where to get my car and 30 minutes and 150 Euros later I had my car back. Pauline sent me a message that it was OK to stay with her in Toulouse that night so off I went.
The South of France is beautiful, even the bits right next to the motorway. I thoroughly enjoyed driving through it, but I really wished I had a GPS so that I could take some side roads, go exploring and not get lost. I enjoyed it even more once I found the cruise control (which I set at roughly 2 million km/h).
Toulouse is a very pretty city. They call it "la ville rose" because most of the buildings are made out of pink-red bricks, not stone like most of the cities in France. It's on the banks of the Garonne river and right at the moment they've got coloured lights decorating the buildings and bridges the city. It's the fourth largest city in France. Pauline took me out for dinner and we headed back to her awesome flat, which is nice and big and in the middle of the city. There's a soap shop out the front that blows bubbles at you.
After nerding it up in an internet cafe in the morning we had some excellent crêpes for lunch and I headed off for my Champion's league game in Barcelona, which turned out to be sold out. I met up with Darren, Liz, Pete and Fergal anyway and we watched it in an Irish pub before hitting the town in Barcelona.
Barcelona's great. I wish I'd spent more time there, but was there for a week in 2005 so it's not so bad. I should mention at this point that the car had now cost me over 80 Euros in tolls, 50 Euros in petrol, 50 Euros in parking, 150 Euros in fines and it was 190 Euros in the first place. So, like, what, 520 Euros in 2 days. Thats AU$845. I didn't get lost, I didn't mind the drive (though I would have liked to explore a lot more), but Jesus Christ I wanted to get rid of that thing.
Holy shit it's 2:30 in the morning... to be continued.
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