The Bus Story - the ultimate tale!

Before I give you my account of my time in Barcelona I must give you the Bus Story that I've been promising for so long. On my way back from Barca to Madrid we stopped off at a random town where something happened (I won't say what as it will ruin the story) to remind me of my own first Bus trip.

What follows is an account that I first impressed my theatre comrades in the belly of what was 'Fuel' quiz night in Plymouth. Now re-named 'Mouse Trap' by the unscrupulous Cuba/Air/Mouse Trap Bar group (unscrupulous because of it's gratifying women's toplessness in Cuba - another campaign for another time). What I tell you probably isn't really about what happened and how I developed a slight fear of travelling alone on busses but how I manage to turn a mundane 2 minute tale into a near novel.

Let me take you back to a time much nearer the turn of the millenium when I was a hapless school girl in Cambridge. One Weekend my parents decided to go celeb spotting near St Tropez with a friend of mine's parents who had a chalet down there. The plan was for me to go to this girl's house for the weekend where we would be looked after by her older brother and his then girlfriend (now wife). But how to get from Cambs to Dunmow where she lived? I was instructed to take the bus from the centre of town.

Off I trundled down Cambs picturesque streets - suitcase behind me (I weekly boarded at the time), School uniform on. First problem - finding the ticket office and purchasing right ticket. 5 mins was spent trying to find this, tucked away behind where all the busses stand. Finally found and ticket bought, checked to right destination. Next task - waiting at right stand for bus. Hmmmmmmmmm, waiting, waiting, waiting. OK - it's definitely late now. Am I at the right stand? Ok I am, it's all ok. Oh thank god - as the bus rolls up. A few people climb aboard. To the driver I present my ticket and double check "This does stop at Dunmow?" To which the driver says yes and then asks me this "Are you one of those Stansted Airport hostesses?"

This is more than slightly concerning as let me describe to you my school uniform I was wearing; My blue V-neck jumper might have had the green school crest on the left corner, might not have but looked very schooly anyhow. My skirt which was regulatory knee-length balckwatch pleated tartan. I think it was summer so I probably would have had horrid blue socks on completing the look with boring black flats. Also this was pre-eyeliner era so I probably looked about three years younger than I actually was anyway. Now the only thing I can think of that might have made him say that was the fact that I was wielding a wheelie suitcase - but it was bright purple for God sake! This worried me together with the glazed look in his eyes that made me decide he was definitely on drugs.

Journey begins. As I didn't really know what stop Dunmow was after I checked and it was the one after the Airport. Trouble is with busses is that you don't know what your stop looks like if you haven't stopped there before. Of course with long distance they announce it or are supposed to. But I knew what the airport looked like so was resolved in just getting off at the stop after that. So the airport we pass. Ah yes mine's the next then. Time passes. I notice a sign to Dunmow pointing one way - bus goes opposite direction. Try not to panic. Maybe low bridges or something I think. More time passes. Friend rings me on my Nokia 5110 asking where I am. I say should be there any moment now. More time passes. Friend rings me again and tells me to go up to driver and ask him - I reply that I do not trust his multitasking skills to do such a thing. More time and then - we stop.

Bus driver announces "Last Stop Chelmsford. Everyone off!" WHAT! OMG. I have it out with the driver asking him why he didn't stop. He says he did and that someone got off. And I'm like 'well no, obviously not coz that would have been me wouldn't it?' You nummbskull. Obviously I didn't say that to him but I did start crying. I was in deepest darkest Essex and no idea how to get to where I needed to be. Back on the changeable cover Nokia phone and friend had solution. Luckily big bro's girlfreind's mum lived in Chelmsford and so it was arranged for her to pick me up. So I wait in a desolate bus station nearing dark not surprised at yet another stranger coming to collect me from somewhere.

A woman turns up and introduces herself and takes me back to her house. Not too long later my friend, her brother and the girlfriend arrive also. I apologise for causing such havoc but all's well that ends well as we settled down to a nice tea together. Apparently the girlfriend hadn't seen her mum for a while so it was a nice excuse to get together. Which was good. Ah but what a journey it was that formed much of my inexplicable fears of travelling to scary places on my own.

So, ehum, around the world without a plane completely on my toddle should be fine then shouldn't it. Tune in next time when you'll get to hear about Barcelona.

Granada - the Final day

Sunday I woke up after a delightful sleep, still in Mochi Guesthouse thankgod. Breakfast was lovely, talking with different travellers - a plus. My American friend decided to go on a hike with some other girls around the countryside close by. Buses are available to take you into the hills which supposedly have the best views of the city. Unfortunately they missed their bus so never got there. Buses were only once an hour I think.

I was too worn out from the day before to go trekking. Have I mentioned Granada is hilly? So I took a turn about the town in the morning, taking a rest at Paseo de Los Tristes. Despite the name (Walkway of the Sad, literally translated) it has a delightful view of the River Valley and the Alhambra above. I stopped there to write and eat a little before meeting my friend and another we had bumped into who we knew from Madrid in a Moroccan Tea House near the Albacin.

One of my lasting memories of Granada is that it is more like a little taste of Morocco than one of Spain. I was always planning on visiting Morocco before I left southern Europe but I have never been able to do so. Now I'm a little less sad about never making it over to the African continent because of my visit to Granada. The place we were sitting in was tiny, crammed with tiny stools around Metalic round plates set as tables. The menu listed or course many blends of teas and a Crepe selection. I ruddy love crepes! So a Rose Tea and Bannana, Cream and Chocolate Crepe later I was settled. And on leaving, we all spotted a little sheesha action too.

After the Moroccan place we set off once again into the Sacremento to check out the cave museum. After a slight camp out on their steps (it was closed for siesta) we looked around some ancient caves set in the hills. People have been living in these caves since prehistoric times and lately have enjoyed a revival with hippies reinhabiting some abandonned ones. Another beautiful trait of Granada was it's free and artistic atmosphere. As soon as you hit the Albacin, there's street trade, random little shops. Admittedly some sell the same kind of thing but it's all interesting stuff. It's Uni has a rep. for being best at Drama so that's where all that lot go. And that really comes out when you walk around the town.

I have to go back one day to do some more exploration. Apparently there are some Turkish Baths somewhere.

Granada Part 2

Ok so it's been a long time now since Granada but here's the rest of my experience in the fair city.

Granada is geographicaly a hard city to get around on foot. It's hilly, it get's hot easily. Even in Feb - by the middle of the day we were pretty hot. However there are plenty of bus routes you can take that makes visiting the various different places of interest easier. Our first stop in Granada was the the main square where we were told at the hostel that an American guy runs walking tours of the city starting at the fountain at 11.00am. We got there a few minutes before and the fountain wasn't running. Soon there was a young looking guy standing around with a leaflet held up in the air. We walked over and gradually a few others joined. We waited and talked a little - there were 3 other Americans and an Australian. The tour guide had been one of those never ending travellers who had come to Granada to study a little and decided he liked it so much he stayed. He'd discovered there were no walking tours offered to tourists so had decided to start one himself. The fountain was turned on and he takes this as his sign that no one else is going to show so we the small band of tourists set off.

Luckily for us our guide was not an average Joe. He had majored in Theatre and had literary and artistic tendencies. This, I'm pleased to say, was all incoorated in our tour. Whilst relaying certain interesting historical facts about Granada we were all invited to 'step back in time' in a certain impro, drama type way. As in we were invited to make funny noises and wave our arms around. If you're into something a little bit different (as I am) then this walking tour is definitely reccomended. We spent about 2 hours walking all over Granada, entertained and informed whilst also orientating ourselves.

The guy worked for tips and he took us to the best place with a view to get us to give. Believe me - no problem paying the guy. Completely reasonable rates and an excellent tour. Afterwards he invited everyone to go and have lunch together at some places he knew. Unfortunately, my American friend and I had a date with the Alhambra.

The Palace and grounds are weirdly marketed. They are separate areas to visit with different prices from free to expensive. Inside is what you have to book tickets for to gurantee your visit. On these tickets they give you specific times to go. Either a morning time or afternoon. However when we arrived at our aloted time, the wardens kept on asking for another time that was supposed to be our appointment. To this day I do not know what they were on about. It didn't seem to matter anyway. There was a long line to get into the Palace and once inside I was actually quite disapointed. The rooms we were directed through were fabulously old but there was no information anywhere about the rooms. All these questions kept on popping into my head like 'when was this built?' 'What was this room used for?' 'What King used this?' After a while I got so annoyed that I just started making up the answers myself.

I suggest you spend the extra money on an audio guide. As a British tourist I expect information on the place I'm visiting included in the price of visiting. And whilst the architecutre was fabulous and the gardens amazing to walk round, I just felt disapointed at not actually learning anything about what I had just been seeing. My American friend didn't seem to mind though.

We had also been tipped off at the hostel of a fabulous Flamenco and Dinner show up in the Sacremento hills. Apparently the stage had a backdrop of a window that looked out onto the Alhambra lit up at night. After a freshen up and quick nap, a group of us from the hostel decided to trek up there to it. However we were advised to arrive at a certain time to get tickets, we didn't. We got slightly lost and once we had arived after a long and arduous walk up a never ending hill, we were told that it had allready started and there were no tickets left. Well, eventually were told that by an unfriendly hilltop barman. There were alot of small groups of people hanging around, attempting to open slightly invisible locked doors. No one really knew what was going on and all seemed a bit lost even at the supposed destination.

We slunk back down to Granada central in two different taxis and miraculously met up again in a famed tapas bar just off the highstreet. There we had lots of lovely wine from a generous selection and of course, tapas. The place was packed with fabulously looking people. I was, in my backpacking I don't give **** how I look gear, slightly underdressed. But I didn't care. The high density of people just proved the brilliant atmosphere in the place and I was lapping it up. After the tapas, a girl in group decided that her boyfriend was at a much better place so dragged us all off there. Only she didn't know exactly where it was and again, we all got a bit lost. We eventually settled on a retro looking bar to sit down at. But by this time all the walking had taken it's toll and I was titbit tired.

I headed off to Hostel (proud of myself for finding it all by myself in the dark) and fell into bed to slumber well. The beds at the hostel were extremely comfortable even though the matresses were from Ikea.

Sunday coming up in Part 3

Granada Part 1

On a temporate Friday evening, after a sing song at Spanish University choir, my American friend and I set off for Madrid's Estacion del Sur to catch an overnight bus to Granada. The journey took 5 hours and my thrifty travel companion came up with the ingenious idea of travelling in darkness to arrive at our destination at 6:30am to give us more time visiting and less money spent on accomodation. We are both EFL Teachers and had commitments Friday and classes early Monday morning. Now, for reasons only 'The Bus Story' can explain (check for later blog entitiled thus and it will give relevant background) I am not overly fond of bus travel. It's almost always too cold, chairs are either unable to recline or refuse to keep position, passengers encorach on personal space and it's boring. But in the exploratative mode I am in here in Spain I was excited of seeing somewhere new and also was accompanied by a freind to make the boring bits pass more easily.


Estacion del Sur is a large, fairly sterile building in the south of Madrid. Reached by Metro, Cercanias or local bus it is fairly accessable, with informative big arrivals and departures screens. There are places to get cash out without being charged (if you have a Spanish account) which is important as the two places to eat do not accept cards. We arrived in good time at a little before 12am and after checking bus details with Alsa (the Spanish equivalent to the British bus company National Express) we headed straight for the only Cafe open and grabbed a stool, for it was unsually busy, to enjoy food before sleepy time on bus.


Once installed on bus we noted how awake we felt for eventual napping but really it was a good time to climb aboard. I don't think it would have worked in England because of the different attitude to night life the country has compared to Spain. 12am Friday night is about the time the youngens think about going to a club in this country. 12am London, let's say, is about the time Karl and Chantelle are feeling the effects of their Carling and Vodka/Redbull hits before getting kicked out of Chicago's in 2hrs time. So the night's pretty much over at 12am back home, but here, you feel comfortably normal; you could go out, you've just eaten, you could stay on a bus and think about sleeping in a couple of hours.


I have no problem sleeping in moving vehicles. I think this is due to my parents using the car as a moving cot when I was first born because we travelled up and down the country every weekend until I was 3. I've learnt to prepare myself for the cold of the bus by always bringing more layers than you think you need. However this particular journey was quite irregular. The heaters were on so high, and I was sitting right next to them on the window side, that I kept on waking up out of thirst! Luckily I have also learn't never to travel without a handy bottle of water.


We pulled into Granada at dawn, a little sleepy but suitably pumped for the long day ahead. We nicked a tourist map from behind a closed information booth (one has to be nifty in these situations) as we had no idea how to get to our first point of call - the youth hostel. The one we had booked was our third choice. The first was one I had got information of from my Official International Youth Hostels Guide 2007 (www.hihostelss.com is the offical global website). Unfortunately this was not avialble for our weekend. The next was one highly reccomended on www.hostelworld.com, Oasis Backpackers Hostel. With an attractive write-up on the site left by backpackers who have stayed there we were dis-heartened when they had no rooms available either. Third time lucky?- we managed to book a little known hostel named Mochi Guesthouse from the same site with just as good recommendations. However we were both had no idea what to expect.


And how greatful I was of no expectations when we finally reached the hostel. As the ancient front door creaked open, and my friend and I stepped up over the historical threshold, tired from being lost for 20 mins in the interesting but narrow lanes of the Albaicin in first light - what a delight it was to be welcomed by a traditional courtyard layout. There were two sunloungers seemingly waiting for summer in the middle, looked down upon by moorish slatted wooden window shutters and timber roofed walkways. In the common room where we were lead by the mother of the lady who owned the hostel, there were traditional foot cushions strewn about the place, a battered guitar propped up against the plain and unpainted walls. The absence of decoration in this ancient room only seemed to add to the purity of the environment and add to our pleasent surprise. A makeshift bar at one end of the room was being prepared for breakfast. Next door to this was a tiny loo. Now bathroom facilities in hostels are always a canctancourous point - but this loo, and I do have to point this out, was cleanly decorated, well fitted and neat. Always a bonus on your travels.

After a short doze on the sofa, and the formalities of booking in, we settled down to a breakfast of fresh fruit, bread and marmalade, teas and coffee. Although the coffee was only filter and went cold really easily - there was a microwave to warm it up. And I was in a lovely new city so I didn't care - I just needed some sort of caffeine hit after being on a bus for 5 hrs, walking for over 1 and about to walk a whole day more.

From Weymouth to Madrid

So its been exactly one year since I embarked on my voyage around the world without a plane and I think I should take a minute to relfect on what a year it has been. In short I have learn't that the Channel Islands do count as being abroad because my UK mobile network charged me foreign rates when making calls from Guernsey. Secondly Paris is much better with people who can speak French. Thirdly night trains from Paris to Madrid are not suitable for backpacks and lastly that Spanish food is much better cooked by a Spanish family mum.

So when I arrived here I was volunteering on the Spanish version of 'The Good Life' and what fun and games that was (refer back to April blogs). And the plan was to contiue doing this in other areas of Spain until the Summer when I went to Bennicasim festival. However one of the fist things I had to take into consideration when travelling was sudden unexpected changes to plans as my second WWOOF farm fell through. Desperate to get out of solitude I got the whole teaching English thing going in Madrid and moved here at the end of last May. Since then I have lived in three different flats and have learn't the art of the bin liner moving technique and living with only the bare necessities. I am still wearing the same clothes as I did on the Channel Islands with only three added items to my wardrobe since being in Madrd and coming from a room I had in Plymouth with two overflowing wardrobes - this is something to be commended.

Looking ahead quickly my plans have once again changed and I've cancelled Africa Overland for now due to lack of boats going to Oz. However I've found a thing called OzBus which is something of much the same formula as the African thing (converted bus for overland travel with specific group all mucking in on daily activites) and for less time speant on the road (Africa was 6 months, route to Oz about 3). We'll hopefully be travelling through several EU countries before hitting Pakistan and onto Thailand before reaching Darwin to continue down to Sydney.

I am hoping to explore the south of Spain from the end of May to end of August where I shall have decamped from this country ready to embark on a journey to the most southerly continent in the world by the end of August. And yes, hopefully I shall get back to London by any means other than plane (give or take a few sneaky trips inbetween for important social engagements and given I'm not going to be able to make such events for a couple of years after August, I think I deserve that).

So far away - still, remembering Vicky J

Last week I found out a friend of mine from Sixth Form had been killed whilst crossing a London road at a pedestrian crossing. She was hit by a car. Shortly after being admitted to hospital she was pronounced dead. Today her friends and family are gathering in her home of Stradbroke, Sufolk to remember what a bright, bubbly and incredibly talented young woman she was. The following is my contribute to her Celebration of Life.



You're not gone.
You're only hiding.
You must be.
You're my friend I'm having trouble finding.

You're still that bubbly thing.
I remember your awsome make-up tips.
You've still got great plans for the world.
How else can I explain this?

It must be that you're hiding.
Remember we sat together at Leavers Dinner?
I think there were 9 other tables.
Ours was the one reserved for winners.

I should ring you up today.
No, you're not answering.
It still feels like you're hiding.
To come to terms with that; I have to, is what I'm figuring.

And I don't know why the world still spins.
Because If I feel like crying.
I know you'd say something witty -
to cheer me up. See you're only hiding.

I'm grateful that I met you.
I'm not grateful that you're gone.
If you weren't hiding - think what the world would have seen,
How you could have helped, the things you could have done.

But I can't sit and wonder now.
If I do, reality will start sliding.
I'll chuckle at your cheeky ways.
Because it's as if as though you're hiding.

Of course you're in a hidden place.
I'm carrying pieces of you with me.
You're still a friend, sister, daughter.
I knew you as Ve.


Stuck in Madrid when all I want to be is somewhere else. For all those that loved her, to try and understand this is life and what has happened.

When it snows, it flurrys.

Well after the fun and games of the Christmas and New Year season, the January blues have well and truly kicked in. Everyone's back to work, well everyone except me who came back to Madrid to find my teaching hours have been cut by 80%. Oh the joys of living in an unchecked, dog eat dog industry such as English as a Foreign Language. Its rubbish. Im scraping toegether what I can find to pay the rent and cutting all social activities such as my beloved Curry nights with the girls. Oh and guess what - that financial storm that America made is just starting to blow over to Spain and the country's starting to take a battering. So job availability could go one of two ways; whilst the buisness world realises now more than ever that having Enlgish under their belt will help secure their jobs, if a company needs to make set backs - contracts with academies are going to be the first things that go.

So I find myself trauling through the back pages of 'In Madrid' magazine looking for academies to send my C.V. to with the same amount of hope and vague possiblity I clung to whilst looking for flats last September/July and May. It's all getting a tad boring now and having spent most of my time off back in London, living it up with my horrifically settled friends I can't help but wonder maybe I should try my luck there. Maybe this whole 'round the world without a plane challenge' thing just isn't worth it. I have spent the best part of a year trying to find details of freight liners that would take me from Cape Town to Australia after my African Overland experience. I thought I was a step away from getting it nailed when I made contact with a specialist agent called 'Strand' in London. Only they replied telling me Cape Town have stopped taking passengers in that direction. Again with the sarcastic oh joy, back to square one.

Friends though as supportive as they are, keep telling me how amazing it is doing what I am doing. Which I try not to fully believe because if I do I just get completely overwhelmed by the enormity of my task. The best thing to do I suppose is find more ways of getting through the immidiate problems that I face and hope the other logistical ones eek out in time.

Ps, word from a friend of a friend in London who works for a publicity team that has sometimes delt with Ewan McGreggor says that actually he puts on that whole family man image (the one I talked about in my last blogg) for the cameras. Apparently he took a stylist with him on 'Long Way Down' for the photo shoots and socially is a complete arse who sleeps with every female co-star he has. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this tit-bit of information but I think I prefer to believe his nice 'actor turned real' image. And lets face it - I can. Hell, I don't know the guy.