Thursday, 13 October 2011

Road Trip - London to Valencia (La Tomatina)

Last year I lived in London for the 3rd time since 2007.... I love it soooo much! It is such an amazing city and I miss it every day.
It was Summer time and a few of us were sitting outside in a friends back garden and we all thought 'yeah, let's go to La Tomatina!'. I was the research guru so i looked at flights and because we left it a bit late they were too expensive for our little pockets and catching the train was just as much so we thought why don't we drive!

We hired a huge mammoth car that could fit 7 people...unfortunately I was going with 5 big guys so that limited our space even more! On the day we were leaving we left quite late in the afternoon as we wanted to drive through the night and set off to Dover where we were getting on the Ferry to take us across to Calais. This drive from London to Valencia was going to take us 18 hrs which we thought was pretty good! As most of us were from Australia 18 hrs isn't too long - It's not like we drive 18hrs often but to go from London to Valencia is pretty good!

These are the big idiots I had to be stuck in a car with! All in all it was very funny but being in a car for hours and hours with so many guys...jesus....smells, language, beer burps.


We arrived at dover to get the Ferry accross to Calais, It was so exciting! The Ferry was huge!

Driving through the night in France was so funny! As it is on the other side of the road and none of us had driven on the other side of the road before we made so many wrong turns and mistakes! We drove the whole night and watching the sun rise was so nice - the countryside in France is so beautiful and there are so many little places you can stop off at and check out. We saw a sign for a lake so we took the turn off and it was a huge lake that looked like a holiday destination for people and it was just so nice!




We never had too much time in one place as we had to get to the South of France for a night so all of us could sleep! We got down to the south and looked on the map to decide where to stay and we chose this place called Port La Nouvelle - We drove in to the town and we fell in love with it instantly! It was so pretty but so busy! There were quiet a few people on the beach front and we new it was going to be so hard to find a nice play to stay...and we were right...we stayed in a shit hole. All in all it doesn't matter where you sleep tho..we were hardly in our rooms, we hit the beach straight away then went out for an amazing all you can eat buffet for 21 euro and we seriously ate all we could!


After we said our goodbye's to Port La Nouvelle we were on our way to Valencia to meet up with my friends and go to La Tomatina! woo woo woo woo!! We only had 6 hrs to go until Valencia so we were all getting excited! A few of the boys fell asleep in the car so we decided to put make-up on them which was fun!
We arrived in Valencia and had to drive through the city.....omg, NEVER again! Spanish people are crazy drivers! Got to our hotel...sooo beautiful, I found it on the net for half price and it was a 4 star hotel so it was just gorgeous! I met up with my two girlfriends who had been travelling around Europe and I hadn't seen them in ages, It was so great to catch up with them!


Tomato throwing time! unfortunately we do not have any photo's of us covered in mushy, smelly tomatoes as we didn't want to ruin our cameras and a couple of the boys bought water proof cameras but they didn't turn out! But this is exactly what we looked like
The taste was so disgusting...it was like eating off napolitana sauce and because it was such a hot day the tomato would stick to you like glue...I even found a piece of tomato in my hair a week later....ya, gross. I highly recommend going to this festival, It was great fun and make sure after the fight has finished that you get to one of the locals who has a hose and just stand there infront of them!


Peace xx

Thursday, 6 October 2011

Byron Bay

Last weekend (Grand Final weekend) I was up in Byron Bay with some of my girls. Best. Fun. Ever! omg we laughed so much, it was the best 4 days I have had in a while!

We arrived quite late Thursday night so didn't get up to much just chilled at the house, we wanted to get up early to get as much beach time possible! We were all up quite early and we hit the beach straight away, it was so delicious, 24 degrees with no clouds in sight!

Byron Bay beach is so amazeballs, I love lying there for hours just listening to the sea and squeaky sand. We all went into the water after heating up a bit on the sand....it was so frikkin cold!!! it was like Melbourne cold! but we just did it...ran in without thinking and it was divine once your private parts are used to the cold! haha!

As we all hadn't been in the sun for a few months we were pretty keen to stay there for a while, we had a break to go get on of the amazing Bay Kebabs...ohh I could eat one right now. We were on the beach for a good 5 hrs before we realised some of us were getting pretty burnt...very burnt, red raw skin so we decided to go start drinking! yeah! drinking!

We didn't have a big one that night as the Grand Final day was the next day and we knew that we would be drinking allllll day and night so we made lasagna and watched a movie.

We thought getting to the Beach Hotel at 12 would mean great table and enough seats for us all to sit on.....no way were we correct, it look like people had been there for hours and they had the best spots, it was so annoying! We found a little round table and moved it into the big tv area and searched for chairs..we finally all squeezed around and started on our first cider.

When the game started we all got so into it! My one friend Maddy is the biggest Geelong fan (you can tell by her outfit!) and it was so much fun being in that atmosphere, surrounded by drunken fools and being one yourself!



After the game finished we went out for a quick dinner as we all needed to eat. We had Thai and it was delicious, it was BYO too which was dangerous...we basically got a bottle of wine each!! After dinner we went to a club called La La Land, we got there at like 8.30 and it had just opened so we were the first ones there...i've never been first in a club but it is sooo much fun! you have to d floor to yourself and you don't have to wait for drinks!! The Best!!
In our crazy state we decided we were not allowed a drink without a shot, haha! so that is what we did all night, a vodka drink with either tequila or agwa!
Myself and some of the girls were out that night until 4.30am....jesus it was a long day of drinking! We woke up feeling so gross, our heads were hurting and our mouths tasted like a rat had died inside them but we were in that delusional state were everything was the funniest thing we had ever heard! ah so funny! That night we had a really nice restaurant booked for dinner so after lazing around all day we all dressed up and went out for dinner, some of us got our going out feeling back and we were ready for round 2 baby! We had a delicious dinner with delicious wine and amazing cocktails and after we had finished with dinner we moved on to La La Land again......YEAH!



Round 2 we were out very late as well..oh my it was a big one..same went down, 1 drink, 1 shot...why do we do it to ourselves!

Byron Bay was so much fun, each time I go it just gets better and better and there is nothing like a good little holiday here and there!

Going on a Holiday is the best! woo!

Peace xx