Lucy's European Adventure

On the 24/11/09 I flew to Poland to visit Jono Powell. I arrived about 8pm and he picked me up from the airport. It was a 15 minute bus ride into the town centre and only cost about 60 cents, the cheapest and easiest trip from an airport I have found! We decided to go to a restaurant and get something to eat. It was a Polish place we went to and we had perogi (i think that's how you spell it) and duck, a whole duck, with cabbage and beetroot salad. It was very yummy and relatively cheap-welcome to eastern Europe! Jono then dropped me off at my hostel, Nathen's villa hostel, which was in a very central location.

The next day Jono was at work so I explored the city by myself. I walked to the old town to explore. It was amazing, the whole town was destroyed in WWII along with half the population of Warsaw, and it was all rebuilt in the years following the war. It is now a world heritage site. I didn't know much about the city's history so I went to the museum. It was very sad and I learnt alot about what happened to Poland during the wars. The poor country doesn't have the best history, being under the control of other country's since 1795. That afternoon I decided to sit in a cafe for a while and escape the cold, actually it wasn't that cold-about 7 degrees and i was extremely rugged up. But it was a good coffee, better than any i've had in the UK. I met Jono at 7:30pm and we went for dinner. We met 4 of his friends, who were all from Australia and on a gap year like him. We went to a restaurant that served lots of western food and I had a steak and fries.

On the Thursday morning I decided to do some uni work (that was the reason I was in Europe) and sat in a cafe for an hour and a half. It was the best coffe i'd had in a while, on par with the Italian coffee, quite surprising. I then walked around the big park along the river and met Jono at 2pm. He took me to the department store in town and then it was time to head back to his host family's house. He was making dinner for all of us that night, sun dried tomato risotto. His family got home, about an hour later, Ida is his host mum and her three sons, who are 8, 11 and 14. They were all very lovely and spoke great English. The area that they live in was only two metro stops from the central station but has only just been developed. It is quite nice but apparently it was built on a swamp and after only 2 years the basement levels are already leaking and there are cracks in the apartment walls.

I met Jono earlier today along with his friend Hannah, who looks like Miley Cyrus. We went to the old town and decided to go on a tour of the royal castle (also rebuilt after the war). It was very interesting. The castle had lots of original furnishings, which had been smuggled out before Germany took control of the city. There were also many pieces that were of similar origin as the originals and had been donated to Poland by other countries. After the tour we decided to have lunch in the old town and got a meat platter between the three of us. It was huge! But we got through most of it. After our late lunch, we met two more of Jono's friends and explored the Christmas market with them. We then walked back to the station and i went shopping and the others went home.
Jono arrived back at my hostel about 7:30pm and we walked to a bar where we met some of his friends, we were here for a couple of drinks before heading to a Polish club, which was very fun.

Saturday was my last day in Poland. I caught the train to Jono's place about 12 and Jono, Ida and I headed to a dry slope in the middle of Warsaw to go skiing. I had to borrow lots of Ida's ski clothes. Skiing was quite weird. It was on rubber matts, which had sprinklers on to keep it wet so you could ski. It was something you should experience. It got dark abit before 4 so we were skiing at sunset and then in the dark for quite a while. After getting back to his house and drying off we walked to get some dinner and then it was off to the airport. I said bye to Jono, but I will see him again soon for Christmas. Unfortunately my flight was delayed by an hour. Luckily I managed to catch the last train to London from Gatwick and then the train to Reading but didn't get home until 2:30am, what a day!

My first meal in Poland, perogi and duck

Old Town Wall, me trying to be in the photo instead of just having photos of buildings

The most amazing coffee

The Park

Interior of the Royal Castle

Jono and Hannah in Old Town

the massive meat platter

The royal castle in Old Town

The dry slope in the centre of Warsaw

Jono skiing

After San Sebastian, it was on to Valencia. On our first night it was 40 degrees, so we booked our first hotel room, which had a/c and wifi. We spent the day looking around Valencia at its sites including the Cathedral, which is described of being made up of Baroque, Gothic, Renaissance and Romanesque architecture!
The next day it was off to La Tomatina. We were camping in green two man tents about 10 minute drive out of Valencia. We spent the next 3 days and nights dinking, swimming (not together, don't worry) and hanging out with 400 other Australians. La Tomatina was on the 26th August in a small village called Benol, which would be unknown except for this festival, which is held once a year! At 11am the race for the ham began-people would try to climb a pole covered in pig fat to get the ham off the top-it has not been done for 5 years, but very entertaining to watch! The fight began at 12 noon-about 15,000 people throwing over ripe tomatoes at each other-gross but so much fun! We were right in the middle and the trucks would come past, squishing through the crowds somehow, and dump their load. We were also under a platform, which held people with massive, high pressure hoses so not only was I covered in ripe tomatoe, but I was soaking for the whole hour, despite the hot weather! So fun and something everyone should do at least once in their lifetime! We were back at the campsite by 3 and after a quick nap, the drinking festivities of the night began!
The next day, Finchy, a friend from uni, picked up Ez, Pat and I and we were off to Granada. This trip in Wilba, the van he had bought in the UK for his road trip around Europe, took all day. The next day we visited the Alhambra, an Islamic fortress and palace built between 11-15th centuries. It was amazing! Most of the palace was still intact but the Alcazaba, the surrounding fortress, was not as well preserved. The gardens were also lovely. It was so interesting but it was about 40 degrees again and we were inland and on top of a hill so it was incredibly hot, after 4 hours, we had had enough and we drove to Cordobo, our next destination. That night we went to a small Spainish restaurant for paella, our last spanish meal as we were entering Portugal the next day.
The next morning we checked out the Mezquita, a mosque. We had studied this building at uni but in real life it was breathtaking. It was a huge mosque, which the Christians, when they had taken over the area, had decided to build their Cathedral in the middle of!