Get your gherk on

Barcelona has a giant erection. Towering amongst Barcelona´s skyscrapers and old buildings is La Torre Agbar, a cucumber or gherkin shaped tower. It piqued Dave´s interest, so off we went in search of this interesting architectural work. The building, designed by Jean Nouvel, is now home to water company headquarters. Finding the metro route to the place was difficult. We didn´t know what it was called. After much frustration, Dave put his drawing skills to the test. Drawing a bunch of buildings with the gherkin structure amongst them resulted in laughs but understanding from the information people at the station. We arrived in the evening at the metro stop Glories before dark. From afar and close up we to took lots of great snaps. We headed to a nearby shopping complex for dinner. Dave also came out with a suave hat and dress shirt. When we emerged the place was lit up with brilliant reds, greens and blues. We got honks and laughs from passerbys as Dave and I went mad with silly snaps.

´My dad has a big one´ began one of the french guys. I mentioned we are rooming with some young french lads in the last post. This double entendre, which was really referring to his father´s high-tech camera, resulted in laughs and a discussion about double entendres.

Turns out, the French don´t ´really use the term double entendre´anymore. Dave got talking to the French boys and we ended up joining them for a cheap eat they´d read about in the Lonely Planet. They are really cool and suprisingly proficient English speakers. One of the boys, Guillame, has a mother who teaches English. He lives in Paris, and has offered us accommodation if we ever visit his gorgeous city. Tempting offer indeed!

Where to next?, you ask. We arrived in Girona yesterday and will be staying until the end of our trip. This fortified city is stunning, and not half as smelly as Barcelona. We fly back to Australia on August 22nd. My trip is shorter due to reasons too long to ennumerate here. On the plus side, I´m looking forward to home sweet home and catching up with you all. Yayness!

Bustle of Barcelona

Dave and I have been going to market, to market. The Mercat de St Josef on Las Ramblas is a fresh produce market. If you can abide the crowds and smells, it is worth a visit. We discovered a fresh pasta place within the market, Pazzta to Go, which makes its own pasta and fresh meals. You just select a pasta, say almond and ricotta, sausage or spinach, and a sauce like pesto or tomato and they´ll make you a bowl of piping hot pasta. Yummmo! There are heaps of restaurants with the same reheated drudge in Barcelona, so this place is a fresh bite. For one euro, I down a fresh Banana and Strawberry juice from the market and I´m laughing.

Barcelona is pretty overwhelming. Today, our first quite rainy day this trip, we went out to the fantastical imaginative brainchild Park Guell, designed by Gaudi. It features lots of greenery, stone religious monuments and darkly fun mosaic monuments. Dave was impressed with the Hansel and Gretel houses which look like picture book gingerbread abodes, but wasn´t phased on the whole. Perhaps it was the altitude change as the park is high up, but we felt exhausted after this venture out. We had gotten up late this morning, at 11.15, but yet we were still lacklustre. Barcelona is a party girl, and the place is crazy busy all the time. Thus, we´ve decided to spend tomorrow chilling out in order to revive our spirits and sanity.

Yesterday, we learnt of a festival which was occuring in a nearby streets near Le Catedral. We listened to an excellent accordion player with a limited repertoire until his equipment failed and he began to fiddle and exclaim ´Scheitzer!´. Luckily, we found our way around the corner to an uber talented opera singer who entranced us with her sopranic notes.

Meandering back to the hostel, we were almost scammed by two kids claiming to be from the deaf foundation. They thrust a sheet in front of us, and in response to our inquiry as to the cause, pointed simply to something stating a need for a National Deaf foundation. Just sign here, they demanded. We did this, following along the other boxes like postcode etc until we got to donation. They weren´t impressed by a 5euro donation insisting on 20. We walked away, realising that their melodramatic kisses and exclamation of ´Gracias, Gracias´were a well'designed trap.

You can shop till ya drop in Barcelona. Well-behaved we´ve been, with the exception of some small slippages. I got a pretty purple and white checked dress, with a purple tafetta bottom. Dave got a suave black hat, and a long-sleeved black dress shirt from H & M.

Our new hostel, Center Ramblas on Hospital St, is pretty dodge. Ridiculous prices have forced us to leave double rooms behind, and this is our first shared experience. The place is pretty filthy as they don´t seem to regularly clean rooms or change sheets. I am the only girl in a six-bed dorm. We are sharing with a bunch of lovely French boys who are spending time in Barcelona as part of their ´ínternational journey of the holidays.´¨ I slept through all the comings and goings last night, so for me sleep has been pretty good. Dave is shattered though, so as I type, he´s having a nap in the top bunk down the road.

B.b.b.barcelona!

We were sad to leave behind Dave´s extended family and cute Maisie who, it turns out, wouldn´t fit in our packs. Luckily, Barcelona, Spain is happening enough to make up for it. The city is full of architectual eye candy, from the gothic Barri area, Gaudi´s gorgeous buildings, to inventive landscape gardening which has produced many scenic parks.

The busy square, Plaça Catalunya

Barcelona is abuzz with activity, boasting an effervescent street culture and a string of sexy sights. For our first few nights, we stayed in a shoebox room at the Hostal Las Ramblas which is just off the main street. It was a good access point to the craziness that is Las Ramblas, which hosts buskers, dancers, skilful folk. And yes this street 'with all its human stains' as one artist describes harbours and a few odd people with half-baked money making schemes.

Buskers include a lady dressed as a fruit stand, a green man pictured next to Dave the grim reaper, a teenage mutant ninja turtle and much more. Las Ramblas also has a fresh produce market, many a restaurant and artists who have turned to caricatures and portrait painting to make a dime.

Initially we were at a loss of how to map the city, mentally and physically. So, we jumped on a bus service called Bus Turista. For 22euro for two days, you can catch a few different routes around the city which pass the main attractions. These double decker buses make for gorgeous sightseeing and snapping from the top view. Dave was tickled when we glanced across to spot a man streaking along on his bicycle, a la naturel. Yes you read right, he was starkers, nuddy, exposed, utterly nude. How rude!

Speaking of rude things, Dave and I got down and dirty at the Erotic Museum on the main street of Barcelona, Las Ramblas. Interesting pieces include artwork blending photography of pink bits, the S & M room and a pleasure seat with inbuilt dildos and a pleasure (?) control to be operated by someone other than the user. The ancient Greek erotica was pretty cool. For those who find the place abit too overwhelming or dare I say it, naughty, there is a outdoor chillax area with bamboo sun chairs.

Shocked at the erotic museum!

We are cerebral creatures too, so we were ecstatic to learn of a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition on at the maritime museum. ´Knowledge is the daughter of experience´ was a mantra of da Vinci, and this philosophy was tested in the various inventions which were showcased in the exhibition. These technical-scientific studies only showed a glint of Da Vinci´s genius as his abilities spread across many disciplines. Frenetic, a word from a plaque at the exhibition, captures the frenzy of activity that produced these inventions. The music, intense and fast classical tunes, highlighted the prodigious productive capacity of da Vinci.

I´m going to section off these posts into little Barcelonic portions, because the city is really a feast of architectural and cultural delights that can´t be dealt with easily.

A real corker

Family Dinner - is bolognaise eating Finley?

Today has been a day of recuperation. Last night I got merry, and Dave got absolutely trashed. He adopted a bottle of vodka, combining it with red bull. Keen to take advantage of cheap Spanish alcohol he had dashed down to the supermarket to procure the red bull before close time. Admittedly, I downed some red bulls and vodkas, got merry and danced repeatedly to my own rendition of 'Black Betty.' Dave was a laugh last night though. Particularly amusing were his attempts to help a friendly Spanish neighbour who had come along to repair our broken outside light. He was drunk but tried to tinker with the tools, repeating his extensive Spanish vocabulary of 'si' and 'uno'.

The English family got plotting early on to make Dave a cork hat. Our participation in this scheme required copious consumption of champagne to yield the required corks. Last night, Dave was presented with the grand hat, made from corks attached to his Burberry bucket hat. We both took turns wearing it and posing for pics to be posted soon. We talked for ages as Lisa and Rick amused us with funny tales and ringtones. Dave banned me from going to bed, drank himself silly and then after a few hours, announced he was off to bed and marched away. Actually getting him to bed was a difficult affair but was eventually achieved. In the morning, he asked earnestly if he'd fallen asleep outside.

Sadly, Sam and her kids left us this morning. I got up and gave Sam a huge hug and proceeded to fall back to sleep. Dave got up and kept Sam entertained whilst she had breakfast. He released some of last night's festivities in a breakfast barf. Maisie was uber cute this morning, declaring that Finley has the brain of a monkey, Alix the brain of a doctor and likening her own brain to that of a dragon.

Dave got a ribbing today. He slept most of the day but went fishing with the kids this arvo. Alix caught a crab, and Dave managed a small fish. I read and pottered around. Earlier on Rick, Lisa, Finley and I went to a hardware store which was unfortunately located next to a smelly sewerage area. Lisa and I held our noses and sprinted back to the car. Tonight is both exciting but upsetting as it's our last night in Alicante. Boooo! We are off to a chinese restaurant to have the meal of day. Apparently it is a requirement by law that all restaurants offer a 'Meal of the Day' which is cheap and affordable so everyone could eat out.

Yesterday morning was fab. We went to the Sam Miguel markets aka shoppers heaven. This local Spanish market is located in an old housing area. Fruit, clothes and cute little Senorita dresses can be picked up at market stalls. I may have accidentally acquired shoes, souvenirs and yet another pretty dress. Sam and Lisa also got pairs of pretty flower thongs. Dave bought the kids lasers which produce patterns. Endless entertainment! He is one cool cousin/nephew/boyfriend.

Yahreepah: family fun in Spain

Pulling up at the Alicante train station, Spain, just before midnight we puzzled over how to find Dave's uncle Alan. 'We'll call him when we get outside' Dave fretted. Two moments later, Dave starts chuckling. The first thing we notice about Dave's uncle is his sense of humour. There he stood ahead of us, holding a wonderfully designed sign reading 'David P Smelly'.

The adults, or Alan and Betty's big kids, waited up for us at home in Orihuela, Alicante. We met briefly Betty, Sam, Lisa and Rick and knew we were in for some laughs. 'Fireman' Rick is full of tricks and fun and makes a mean morning coffee. Sam and Lisa have a truckload of stories, also love reading and are absolute riots. Sam becomes even more amusing with some vodka concoction in her. This was to be the quietest we'd hear the house before it filled up with kiddiewinks. We are staying in the apartment next door with the big kids, and things run smoothly and efficiently between the two Spanish houses.

The big girls remember Dave's mum fondly, so Dave is filled in on tales of his mum and his big sister Bev as a youngster. On our third night in Alicante, Sam, Rick and Lisa took us out for drinks. We headed out to a strip of bars but never made it past the first Irish pub. We had an early one but it was awesome fun just chatting and enjoying the rapier English humour of our hosts.

Must make a random tangent, but we attended a carboot sale on our first morning in Alicante. We came out with a plethora of colourful, comfy crocs for the kids. I found a copy of my beloved book, Pnin by Nabokov. Embarassingly, I jumped with the ecstasy of a bibliomaniac. this book is crazy hard to find! Now Dave's extended family realise I'm a bit loopy but have decided to accept me anyway. Yahreepah!

We found out that we were destined to join in days of drinking and frolicking at the pool. The amounts of water we empty out of the pool each day with an assortment of bombies and shoves is gargantuan. The kids are just gorgeous. They adore Dave and enjoy mucking about in the pool with him. Sam's kids - Josh, Bradley and Ben are well-mannered, adorable and addicted to their nintendos. Rick and Lisa's lot - Finley, Maisie and Alix are always brimming with energy. Alix keeps up with the boys, Finley provides household entertainment and Maisie is a little bundle of cuteness who runs around catching pondskaters at the pool. The little girl Maisie even has two serves of cereal so she can have enough energy to throw Dave in the pool. Poor little Maisie doesn't realise, but we've been plotting ways to transport her back to Oz in our packs. She is uber cute!

Alan and Betty are wonderful hosts - anxious to give their nephew Dave a good time and even his tag-along girlfriend gets the hospitality. They've taken us out to a Spanish bakery and an English pub. We each got coffee and a decadent cake and it was gorgeous.

Last night though was pretty amazing - we went to Las Villas, a Spanish restaurant which had first class service that you'd pay a fortune for in Perth. The efficient waiters worked the tables, which although empty when we were arrived, filled up quickly. The food was amazing, Dave had a seafood soup and I had a seafood crepe - and that was just the appetiser. For mains, Dave and I shared a Fisherman's Paella - a Spanish seafood rice dish.

I've been trying heaps of different foods while I've been here, even though I may have accidentally thought that the date wrapped in bacon was a sausage when I downed two. This prepared me for trying Alan's goat/kid last night at the restaurant. Couldn't eat a meal of it, but the taste was good. We finished off with dessert and drunken Dave had two Belmonte's (condensed milk, brandy and coffee) to chase his massive dessert plate. So much more to post but like our meal, delivery should be slow to allow for lots of enjoyment and banter in between courses.

Welcome Back to Athens

When we got back to Athens late on a Wednesday afternoon, we headed to the dodgy red-light, drug-dealing area of Omonia to check up on our streetcorner standing girls. Although we'd tried to get in early to some inexpensive places in nice touristic Plaka we'd had no success. So we returned to this grubby bit of Athens in search of a place to kip. Although more than we'd usually pay, Hotel Parnon was awesome for the price. A functional shower is the most blessed thing for travellers like Dirty Dave and I. Since we were flying out the next morning, we never expected that we'd stay there another night.

We got to the airport at 9.05am, expecting to be two hours early for our 11am flight. When Dave got out the piece of paper to check where to go for the tickets he was taken aback. 'Our plane's leaving right now! We've missed it' he announced defeatedly. We rushed to find the counter in case of a delay, but alas we'd misread the arrival time as the departure. A right fix indeed - the plane had left without us. We went to the airline desk, and for a fee of 40€ each changed our details to exactly the same flight, same time next day. We knew we were in for a ribbing but all that mattered is that we were both O to the K.

We checked out some other sleeping options in Syntagma - ridiculously expensive. We looked around Omonia and discovered seriously skanky rooms, with towels draped over the floor to absorb recent sticky messes. We returned to Parnon hotel to be met by a bewildered reception attendant. He offered as a glass half-full solution, saying at least we had another day to explore Athens. All we explored was alcohol and food, but it was quality stuff.

We found a funky bar called Bretto's which professes to only stock hand-selected specialties. Dave had this rose liquer which tastes like rose turkish delight - sweet and drinkable. His second drink was potent though - a honey liquer (Rakimelo) which didn't go down well. Despite the 'don't like it, we'll get you another' mantra of Bretto's, the guy just kind of balked and said Dave had chosen it himself. I had some nice wines though.

I'll cut this short to share lots about our Spanish adventure. Good news is we got out second flight arriving in Madrid the next day. Bad news is our run in with Greek metro tranport people and the big fines they slapped us with. Ouch!

Got Milo?

Milos was not what we'd expected based on the rave reviews we'd had from many parties - Greeks who had been there and Greeks who hadn't. Big and unwieldy, we were at a loss at how to begin exploring this island. Ferrying from Sikinos to Milos was only a hop, skip and a jump. Time dragged it's feet though, because our evening ferry was a few hours late. Dave and I hung out at the funky Rock Cafe in Sikinos which overlooks the bay and serves icecream frappes which go off. Our ferry rocked up just past midnight and in my sleepiness I left my camera there. On Milos I called around and eventually got through to them - it's on its way back to Perth.

Milos was pretty buzzy at Adamas port when we pulled in at four in the morning. A few bars were pumping funky Greek tunes. Exhausted and apprehensive about a roof over our heads, we wandered over to the slim room pickings offered by touts out early to fill rooms. We went home with a little old lady who Dave regarded with suspicion. She let us have a 3-bed room for 40euro which we later learnt was bargainous. The 'nanna suite' came complete with an elderly aroma, plastic covered furniture, cabineted knick-knacks and floral patterns of course. The little old lady fussed about the place and kept trying to up the price - 5 euro extra for aircon etc etc. We refused so she took the remote. Dave didn't trust her, and asked in jest if the flash Mercedes parked out front was hers. She almost fell over, replying with 'I go with the foot - no car!'. Dave still thinks it's hers. He tried to work out how many nights of extra aircon it took to buy that baby.

Our first day in Milos was pretty stagnant. We hired a scooter, keen to kick around but we kept getting lost. Milos is hard to navigate, roads aren't that well-connected and peter out into dirt tracks. We made our way on scooter all the way up to Pollonia, a touristic beach town. We stopped at the bakery and quickly became regulars. We went in three times in the next hour. We are diehard fans of their cheap pastries. They even gave us free chocolate cake with our first purchase. On the way home, we found the gorgeous natural caves of Phylakopi and did some exploration. We did a spot of out-of-bounds rock climbing and I vomited much owing to the pre-exertion treats.

We stumbled across a cluster of windmills on the way back - new ones you can hire out as rooms and older, dilapidated ones. Dave wants to make one. The child-like wonder in his eyes brimmed over as he went snap-happy. In the distance, we also spotted a trio of wind turbines on the other side of the island that Dave was desperate to explore. Alas, we never found out how to reach them.

To share a few hilarious horrors, I'll start with our trip to the beach Plathiena to watch a sunset. We saw an old lady waddling down a long road on the way down to the beach Firopotamos. She was too large to offer a scooter lift, so we hoped she didn't have far and went on our way. Returning to Plathiena later we passed her again, trudging down to the beach. She didn't seem wealthy and obviously had spent ages walking for a swimming outing. Wandering around taking pics pre-sunset, Dave had the misfortune to catch her starkers though and remains evermore scarred. In a little accident, we smashed up a front light on our hire scooter. Good news is Dave returned it with a poker face and they didn't even notice. Oh yeah, and we were both ok, pretty good huh? Alot of things in Greece are designed shoddily or left in a haphazard way. Dave cut himself on the dodgy broken glass at our next hotel in Adamas, Milos.

Milos is an island rich in minerals, featuring sulphur mines, catacombs and dotted with caves which people once, crazily enough, inhabited. Although Milo, pronounced with a soft 'o' in Greek means Milo, to Dave's Australian ear, he heard Milo and it got him lusting after that stuff in a green tin. He searched the island in vain for a Milo factory.

To better get a handle on the varied island that is Milos, and to do something special on our last Greek island, we took a boat tour the day before we left for Piraeus. The tour of Milos and Kimolos took us around the perimeter of the island and afforded some amazing photographic and explorative opportunities. We swam at the gorgeous beaches Firopotamus, Kleftiko and Tsikrado. Kleftiko was the splendiferous favourite. The shore itself was pebbly and uncomfortable, definitely hard to walk on. That was irrelevant, as we explored some little caves, swimming into them. We went into a huge one off to the sight, and almost swam through to the next one. The blue water was amazing - dark blue but still transparent. The 25euro boat tour was worth it - the boat, Cpatain Yiaykos was driven by daredevils who got surprisingly close to prismatic Volcano rock structures. The only downside was the stop at Kimolos. Dave and I waited for everyone to get off and unfortunately couldn't get a table at the restaurants as people on tours packed the few restaurants. It's stressful to see a boy almost in tears with hunger pains. After an hour or so we finally got a table, and had awesome calamari and eggplant salad.