One Last Time

this will be the last post of my journey. for those that don't know i'll be coming home on this thursday, the 20th and i guess i should write up what i've been doing the last few weeks as a conclusion to this story.

so for the past few weeks i've been working, earning money but not having any fun cause i was getting quite homesick. since i had booked the flights i have just wanted to jump on the plane and go. so one of my colleagues saw that i was looking bummed and suggested i go on one last trip and go met some people and have some fun before i leave. best advice ever. i was saving my money to come home with and pay off some debts but i decided to blow it all over here. i booked a trip to Madrid as i had always wanted to go to spain and its another world capital i can tick off the list.
i flew out last monday and while i got to madrid safe and sound my luggage did not. it was still in amsterdam. so for the first day and most of the second i was stuck wearing the same clothes which was made worse for the fact that i was wearing pants coming from holland (as its still stupidly cold here) and i came to spain to wear some shorts and get some colour back in me as i am pasty white at the moment. so i soildered on, i had faith that it would show up eventually and i didn't come to another country to dwell and worrying about things. so on monday after checking into the hostel i walked down to the city centre, the puerta del sol, and walked around from there. Madrid is a really busy city with people everywhere and at the end of just about every street there is a fountain or statue of something. so with every street there was something new to discover. i saw the Plaza Mayor, which is a big open air square, the Palace and a good lot of the centre from walking everywhere.
tuesday i met some girls at breakfast and got to talking and they invited me to hang with them for the day. thats the best thing about travelling, you get to meet some fantastic people that even though you only know for a day you feel like they'll have an impact on you for the rest of your life with the stories you share and the times you have together. so with these girls we first went to check out an art museum, however that was booked out so we walked back to the plaza mayor (i did so much walking on this trip i was ready for bed around 10 each night) and decided to grab something to eat and one of the terraces. we found a place that served to dishes and included a drink and dessert for under 9 euros. the best part was that the food was actually really good and we sat there for a few hours eating and drinking some wine, which is also incredibly cheap there. after that we went on a guided tour of some of the old places in madrid and then headed back to the hostel for a seista as after all the walking and eating we'd done we were quite tried.
that night we went to Parque del buen Retiro, which was an old palace gardens with plently of monuments and nice areas to see if there was somewhere there we could grab a drink. unfortunately there was not so we walked back to the centre and found a place in one of the side streets to have a drink and a little something to eat. along the way i was approached by this kid, would have been no older than 16, and he started shouting "discotech, discotech" at me and tried to get me to dance with him or something. i tried to brush him off and he grabbed that arm and with his free hand he made a go for my wallet in my pocket. i caught on straight away and pushed him away and gave him a look that would have said in the strongest possible way "fuck off".
the place we went to was just a small place where i ordered some tapas and sangrina and spent the next 2 hours just chilling out. at this stage we where joined with 2 other people from the hostel as well, including a guy from switzerland that i hung out with on the next few days.
wednesday i went to the Museo del Prado, which is a huge art museum in madrid. however, try as i might i still can't spend more than an hour in those places without getting bored. what i did find interesting though was they had an exhibit for the guy that invented landscape painting. as if someone had to actually come up with the concept! again more walking around the city, eating, sleeping. that night i hung out with one of the girls from the night before and an american guy from the same room as me and we went and got some food (which i couldn't finish as it was too much and thats saying something!) and then went to a pub to watch the soccer that was on. i thought i was in the middle of a joke when i walked into an irish bar with an american, mexican, swiss, austrian and myself. again, thats the beauty of travelling.
the next day, thursday, i was meant to go to a town called Toledo with the mexican guy from the night before as a day trip but by the time we got to the train station the train had been sold out and the next one wasn't for 2 hours. since i had already paid for a Don Quixote tour later that night at 8 i needed to be back by then so it didn't give me any time in Toledo. instead, i went on a tour of the bull fighting arena, went to Retiro Park to have a look at day time and then got back to the hostel to met the swiss guy. we went and got some food then i went on my tour, which was really cool. you get a guide that tells you about the cultural history of madrid and takes you to important places and along the way you get actors put on a show for you about don quixote and its writer right there in the middle of the street. of course the plays were in spanish but for us monolingual people we had a translation sheet. that lasted 2 hours and after that it was some more walking and eventually bed time.
the flight back to a'dam was with out drama and i spent friday night with family in a city close by to catch up with them before i go.

saturday night.....saturday night was by far the most entertaining night i've had on my trip and this will not be a complete retelling of it as this is a family orientated blog. AJ, Casper, Kim and an american guy i've met here Tim all met up in Bergen op Zoom to make my last weekend in holland a memorable one. First we got some beers in the town centre then decided we wanted ribs for dinner so we went to a restaurant that had a beary unusual theme. and if you didn't get it there it was a restaurant that had a bear theme. we had decided that we were going to antwerp for the real drinking and after organising a taxi to pick us we we headed down by train.
so from here we hit a few pubs, had some beers and eventually went to the same karaoke bar i went to on marcel's bucks night cause i remember there being girls of our age there. oh before that, we were looking for a good pub and someone came up and gave us a free bottle of red and white wine so we sat somewhere and drunk them. anyway, i managed to convince a girl at the karaoke bar to get on stage with me at a song of my choice. unfortunately she left early cause she said her friend was feeling ill, a likely story. so i found another one to take her place and while i was struggling to find 50 cents to go to the toilet (i tried haggling to 10 cents but no dice) AJ came up and dragged me out of the toilet to tell me that my song was on. i then proceeded to blast out a rendition of My Sharona, really giving it to the Whoos. good times. we were also approached by a girl on her Hen's night and for a small donation you could get a lollypop from here that had a task to complete writting and stuck to it. mine was i had to write the worst thing about her. thanks to some quick thinking by kim i wrote the worst thing about her was that she was wearing pants.
after that we went to a club and again more beers, more talking to girls, some dancing, and of course tequilla. bloody shots were so big you just about to had to do it in 2 mouthfuls and if anyone knows me, tequilla and me are not a good mix but i managed to save face and keep it down. it was getting to 3 at this stage and we needed to get to our cab so we left but on the way back we took a detour through the red light district of antwerp to have a look at the girls. not as good as the ones in amsterdam but there were some alright ones there. on the way back from there i picked up a street sign and was convinced that i was taking it as a souviner however the stupid cops there had other ideas. we were already running late for the cab at this stage so i had to run back to the place "i got it from" ie nearest suitable location i had to run back to make sure we got the cab. in hindsight i should have just gotten arrested as that would have been the icing on the cake for my holiday. the guys were staying at tims place and i had to ride home and after narrowly avoid a few parked cars trying to fix my light mid-ride i got home at 530.
the next day i had to say goodbye to AJ and Casper, which totally sucked but i'm sure its not the last time i'll be seeing those boys. Kim and i watched the f1s and moto gps during the afternoon, which was the perfect way to recover from a big night and once they had finished it was also time to say goodbye to him but at least i'll be seeing him in december when he comes home from christmas.

today, monday, i'm packing and its becoming quickly apparent that i'm not going to have enough room in my bag and some stuff will have to be sacrificed. tonight there is a family dinner and tomorrow i'll be on my way home.

so there it is, my trip. i'm glad i kept this (somewhat) up to date as i'll always have it here to look back on for my own records.

i'll be seeing most of you all soon!

Until then