Spanish Beauty

So I know my trip ended a long time ago, but I wanted to finish up the rest of my trip just so it wasn't left half done. Here are some pictures from our whirlwind adventure through Spain.Arc de Triomph - Barcelona
Along the boardwalk in Barcelona
Granada (previous post) across from Alhambra
Ronda - this was a really small town that we ended up visiting by chance. We booked into a hostel in Malaga for 3 nights, hoping to use the hostel as a storage area for our bags when we went to Morocco. However, our plans to go to Morocco fell through, so we were stuck in Malaga without a whole lot to do. We decided to take advantage of our bus passes, and randomly chose a city to visit. It turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous town that is surrounded by cliffs and the different regions of the town are all connected via bridges.
Torturous weather in Cordoba..it felt as though someone was blowing a blow dryer at your face..all day!

Needless to say we didn't linger too long in central Spain.

At the beaches of Alicante
St John's night in Sitges
Hiking around Montserrat
Montserrat - a town on top of a mountain
Parc Guell - Barcelona

Gaudi's masterpieces

"Hey, it´s the hottest time of the day...¿why don´t we go climb something big?"

Since we got our bus passes working (although every time we buy a ticket there still seems to be a lot of problems..) we were able to hop on a bus to Valencia. We picked Valencia as a place to break up our trip between Barcelona and Granada and were surprised to find how much we enojyed it. We walked from the bus station to the old town through a beautiful park that wraps around part of the old town. We entered the old town through old city gates, which for some reason we decided to climb in the blazing heat. Luckily the view was worth the effort! Our 11 hours in Valencia were spent wandering around the old town and checking out the market..oh, we also ventured into the new part of the city looking for a phone card or computer where Tiina could pay her tuition deposit. Of course this was during siesta when EVERYTHING is closed (for at least 3 hours). We then treated ourselves to a glass of horchata (a cold drink made from tiger nuts) and sat back to watch a huge pillow fight in one of the main squares and prepare for our overnight bus to Granada.
After a very long, uncomfortable night (where Tiina slept for 8 hours, and Maarika...well, a little less...) we finally made it to Granada. While waiting for our room we lounged on a cafe patio. Maarika couldn´t really muster up the energy for anything until she had a siesta, not to mention everything was closed because it was a Sunday. However, we still managed to pass the day away by exploring the pretty city. This included hiking up some very steep streets during the hottest part of the day to check out the old Moorish quarter, Albaicin. We were rewarded with a magnificent view of the Alhambra - the Moorish palaces and fortresses overlooking Granada.
The next day, we found ourselves on the other side of the valley, looking back at where we had walked the day before. We toured the Alhmabra, with it´s beautifully detailed tile- and woodwork. The buildings were really impressive, especially considering a lot of it was built before Canada was discovered by Europeans.

Barcelona: Where mullets are more common than stree signs

Spain Spain Spain!! So very last minute, but while finishing my trip in New Zealand and finding out that yes, I would indeed be going to Estonia this summer, I quickly contacted Maarika (sister) and asked if I could join her on her adventures through Spain. To my excitement she said yes!!

Now to the present...
We have been travelling in Spain for about 4 days now, but it already seems like we´ve been here for so much longer! We have probably walked enough to make it to Joekaaru..(or at least it feels that way) and have seen some spectacular sights and some not so fantastic...(like when I saw an elderly man casually riding his bicycle towards us in the nude on the boardwalks of Barcelona).
Maarika and I both have blog sights (http://maarikastravels.blogspot.com/), so we will be co-writing out blog entries. As of now, they will be more or less the same.

Arriving in Barcelona, I (Maarika) wandered around the Gothic quarter (old town)
by our hostel for a while. I spent an hour looking for a supermarket,
before I found one in the basement of the department store in front of which the airport bus had dropped me off originally.
Why was Maarika lost? Because streets are really poorly marked in Barcelona (and so far the rest of Spain too, but we´re getting used toit). Also, in the Gothic Quarter, there is no grid system, at all.. soyou think you´re going one direction but you´re going in totally theopposite. Anyway, we eventually made our way to the bus station where we spent an hour trying to get bus passes. This was very hard because the forms were in Spanish, which we do not speak, and no one spoke English. Of course, we had forgotten our dictionary (and map). Anyway,it eventually worked out (although we had to return the next morningto fix our passes).
On Friday, we saw the Arc Triomph and Eixample, the area with lots of modernista architecture, such as the famous Gaudi buildings. There were so many tourists! Also, a lot of things were under construction, for example, the Sagrada Familia cathedral. But it was still neat! We also wandered around the Gothic Quarter and Las Ramblas, then down tothe port where we walked along the boardwalk. Tiina told Maarika she saw a man riding a bike naked, which Maarika did not believe until she turned around and saw him herself (but only the back). Tiina often sees unusual things that Maarika has a hard time believing. (We also saw tons of mullets.Apparently, they´re really cool...?) Tiina was in charge of navigating on Friday, and we didn´t get nearly as lost. Ironically, Maarika is usually the navigator while, for the most part, Tiina lacks all sense of direction (no worries, Maarika wrote this..but I totally agree!!).

(Pictures will be added soon, when we have a more reliable internet connection.)

There's been a slight change of plans..

So I've spent the last couple of weeks moving from Queenstown, to Christchurch (being stopped by countless sheep traffic jams), to Kaikoura, to Wellington.  In Wellington I stayed with some relatives, and we all hid from the extreme wind - I made it across the Cook Strait with 5m swells (the Strait between the North and South Islands) - the day before the ferry was cancelled due to large swells, and the three days after I made it to Wellington the swells grew from 5m to 14m!!  Luckily I didn't get stuck in Picton (the town on the South Island where you catch the ferry) waiting for the waves to settle because there is absolutely nothing to do there.  Instead, I got to relax in Wellington.  We did manage to make it out to go see Te Papa museum, do a little driving tour, and go by Geoff's old house to see how the whole front fence had been blown over by the wind.  Ana and I went up to Mount Victoria to try to get a good overview of the city.  We were out of the car for maybe 3 minutes - the fastest Mount Vic tour she's ever given - before being blown back into the car.

I am now back in Piha (west of Auckland on the coast) at Susan's beach house, preparing my bags and getting ready to leave New Zealand on Tuesday.

Here is the change though - instead of going to Australia, I am coming HOME!!  Just for one week, but it will be an amazing week.

At the end of that week I will be jetting off to SPAIN with Maarika for a sisterly trip, before heading over to Estonia for a couple of weeks (where Maarika will stay for most of the summer) and then London for a few days on my way home.  The first half of my gap year traveling adventure is coming to an end, but there will be loads more to see and do once I hit Europe, including enjoying the heat of the Spanish sunshine!

Cruising down to New Zealand's Third Island

(Pictures are up for 'Northern Adventures' and 'Dressing Up in the South')

On our way to Queenstown from Makarora, we stopped at the Kawarau Gorge - the original A.J. Hackett Bungy site! This bungy jump off the bridge is only 43m. Only one guy however, decided to do it. Everyone else was saving their money for the Nevis Bungy Jump..143m!!
Once in Queenstown we had a few days to relax. I did not do the bungy jump, but instead splurged and did my laundry - how nice it is to have clean laundry when living out of a bag! Most of the people I was travelling with were leaving QUeenstown to go to Christchurch, but since I was not worried about time, I decided to head down south to do the bottom southern loop of New Zealand.

We started off our few days in the very south by driving along "one of the most scenically amazing drives in the world" from Queenstown to Milford Sound. In the afternoon we took a boat cruise in Milford Sound. It was spectacular! That evening was spent in Tuatpere - "Sausage capital of NZ." There was absolutely nothing to do there, so everyone from the bus brought out their skydive, bungy jump and canyon swing DVDs so we could watch them and laugh about how scared we were.

Our next stop was Stewart Island - New Zealand's 3rd Island. It seems to be known for it's rainy weather, but somehow we were lucky enough to have a beautiful afternoon there. The boat ride over however, was not so smooth. It felt like we were on a mini rollercoaster for the whole hour across to the island! After arriving and dropping off our stuff we decided to rent scooters and go explore the 26km of road that there was there. We found many beautiful beaches and cool look-out points. It would definitely be a very nice place to be in the summer. We spent quite a while on one beach climbing rocks and watching a seal play and 'surf' in the waves. We spent the evening playing cards, comparing different games from different countries. We had Canadian, Dutch, and British rules to learn.

After Stewart Island, I jumped off the bus and spent some time exploring Dunedin on my own. Well, at least for the beginning.. I ended u running into many people I'd met on my journey south and ended up hanging out with them. I went to the Baldwin Street (the world's steepest residential street) and walked up it, the museum, and took part in a royal albatross/penguin/sea lion/seal tour which turned out to be really fun.

I ended up taking an Intercity bus back to Queenstown, where I spent the next few days. I ended up spending most of my time there with two other Canadians. I have barely met anyone from Canada while travelling (although everyone else seems to meet them everywhere!), until I reached my hostel in Queenstown. I was surrounded. I even met two people who live less than 5 minutes from home!

Dressing Up in the South

Next stop - Barrytown!! Poulation: 40
Barrytown is a place that seems to exist mainly to host (for one night) Stray buses that are heading south. Pretty much, there is nothing to do there. We walked along the beach for a bit to look for greenstone, but then headed back to the hostel to prepare for our costume party! Since we only stop here because it is a midpoint between our Abel Tasman and Franz Josef, Stray tours decided that it would be the perfect place to have everyone on the bus bond by dressing up and looking silly. Our theme was 'weird and wonderful.' It seemed to be much easier for guys to come up with fun costumes - they could borrow girls clothes (as one guy did - a bra, dress, makeup, even heels!). There was a costume box, but looking through it, we realized there wasn't really anything fun for a girl to dress up as. Following someone's suggestion, Meryl and I blindly grabbed about 4 items of clothing each, took them back to our room, and came up with outfits out of what we'd grabbed..I have never looked so manly in my life!
We threw on plaid, lumberjack-looking button up vests with jean shorts, drew on black uni-brows, side burns, and funny looking moustaches, and threw our hair up into messy buns. It was quite hideous, but great fun! We then gave ourselves names - Frank and Tyler - and spoke with southern lumberjack-type accents for the whole evening. Although there doesn't seem to be much to do in the small village of Barrytown, we managed to have a great time altogether. It helped people on the bus get to know one another because everyone was acting so silly that there was no possible way to embarrass yourself, seeing as we were all doing it.
After a fun night of dancing around in funny costumes, we woke the next morning and headed over to Franz Josef. In Franz Josef, I took part in the full day Franz Josef glacier hike - it was really cool, but involved a lot of standing around waiting for our guide to chop away ice every 10m (his chopping didn't seem to make much of a difference, but he said he was slowly making new paths so I guess we'll see). During the hike we were walking through small crevices and climbing up and out of them. (Thank you Maarika for the quick-dry pants!) We got soaked in certain areas where the ice was melting against us, but it was really cool - you just had to ignore the freezing cold ice all around you. When doing the tour you are provided with cramp-ons, a huge, red fanny pack (or should I say bum pack in this part of the world!), a big blue waterproof jacket, and if you want, waterproof trousers...it is quite the look! Especially when the guide asked you to tuck your socks into your pants so they don't get caught in the cramp-ons...Franz Josef was fun because we also got to stay there for two nights, meaning we didn't have to re-pack our bags right away. From there we headed to Makarora, again, another small town with not much to do (especially in the rain), but sing karaoke with the other buses that are also stopped there. So that is exactly what we did. Emma and I sang 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' by Abba. Don't worry, you didn't miss much!

Can you say 'kreizii?!'

Here is where I went a little crazy. Somehow, I was convinced to jump out of a plane. In Abel Tasman, we had to option to go skydiving again. Meryl and Matt, who didn't go in Taupo were planning on going, and somehow I ended up in the car with them as well, heading down the twisty road to the Abel Tasman skydive site. Needless to say I was scared beyond belief! I still do not know how I did it - it was like someone else was controlling my body and I was just frozen watching from the sidelines.
(Pretending to be happy..)

Unfortunately we arrived at a bad time so the three of us could not go up in the plane altogether. I was the lucky - or should I say unlucky - one who got to go first. They said that since I was so terrified it would be better to get it over with rather than sit around thinking about it..so within 5 minutes of arriving, I was geared up in my jump suit with a hat, gloves, goggles, and a stomach full of nerves. (They also said not to worry about freaking out once I was up there because everyone ends up jumping and that I'd be fine - the only reason everyone ends up jumping is because you have no choice being hooked up to someone else who is pulling you out of the plane!)

We climbed into the little plane where I got to sit right beside the jump-door, where I read and re-read the signs - 'door may open in flight,' 'emergency exit,' 'slide door to open...' These did not make me feel any better. However, singing in loud screaming voices "lalalalala" with my cameraman and the other man I'd be jumping with (who was connected to me for the jump) did help a little bit.
(Trying not to leave the comfort of the plane)


I thought I'd be fine by the time we had reached 13,000 feet, until I watched a girl who was jumping on her own pop out of the plane and fall away. At that point, I grabbed onto the bar that you hold onto during take-off, and would not let go. They had to pry my hands off of that, but then I immediately grabbed onto the edges of the door. My feet were hanging out of the plane, I was trying to lean back in screaming "No, I don't want to!! Nooo.." A second later I was falling towards the ground. After 9,000 feet of freefall at 200km/h (about 57seconds) the parachute was opened. We then had 4,000 left to fall, but we floated down peacefully with the parachute. I even got to control it so we went in a couple of circles on the way down.

(When my camera man was making faces at me I thought it was only fair to do the same to him)

Overall, it was a really cool experience, but I don't plan on ever doing it again. I survived the one jump..I don't want to push my luck!