The morning of the 8th was our last day in Europe and we spent it in Paris. We only had the one day, so we headed straight for Notre Dame. After viewing it, we made our way over to the Louvre and spent about two hours roaming it. From there we headed on over to the Eiffel Tower. Miles didn't want to go up because he doesn't like hights, so Aaron and I made our venture to the top. I had to close my eyes on the way up because I felt panic kicking in...lol! I don't handle hights very well either, but just went for it. The views from the top were just great. When we finished we decided to have one last going home meal, so we could spend the rest of our euros. I would loved to have spent more time in Paris, but after that we called it a day. And that concludes our Tour La Europe. Thanks for reading!

few more pics

On the morning of the 5th, we were off and running by 6:30am to catch the early train to Pamplona. When we finaly did arrive, we set out in search of the towns center so that we could get our bearings down and have an idea of where the festivities would be taking place. (the thing you got to realize in europe is that in almost every country you can communicate with ease, because the majority of people seemingly have some understanding of english. However, we found out quickly that Spain was the exception to the rule. The spanish people didn't even attempt to understand us, and that made it somewhat difficult for us to get around.) Fortunitly for us, we located somone in Pamplona as soon as we got there who knew enough broken english to point us in the right direction. In fact, he explained to another man what we were wanting, and the other fellow willingly walked us all over town showing us where the run would take place. Even though neither of us could understand what the other was saying, we found our common ground through hand gestures and nods. After we parted ways, we grabbed a bit for lunch and discussed where we would sleep for the next two nights. (Durring the week of San Fermin it is impossible to find an empty bed unless you book one way in advance, and if you were lucky enough to actually find one the rates are five times what they would normaly be.) My suggestion was to do what the rest of the the bedless people were doing and just throw our bed rolls out in the center of the town park, but for safty reasons no one else was on board...lol! So we jumped on a bus and headed to a campground outside of town. Every Australian on a walkabout must have known about that campground because we shared it with about two thousand of them. On the morning of the 6th Aaron and I woke early, so that we could have enough time to clean up and catch the transit into town before the San Fermin opening cerimonies began. Miles wanted to spend the day relaxing, so he stayed behind at the campground. When we arrived down town the streets were filling up quickly with people dressed in white with red sashes. We started to work our way into the crowed, pressing our way to the center. We had to pass through several check points where police officers were going through bags and pating people down. They were taking things from poeple to keep them from throwing them onto the crowds, such as: Sangriea, mustard, ketchup, eggs, etc. Once I figured out what was going on, Aaron and I quickly worked our way back out of the center in hopes of not getting plastered with anything nasty. We found a nice area off to the side and watched as the gun fired off. It was quite a spectacle of white and red garments, sprays of liquids into the air, mustard and katchup everywhere, people dumping water from balconies, Ambulances and police officers speraticly hauling people away, and poeple doing stupid and crazy things. Once it was over, Aaron and I worked our way through the nasty sticky crowed of people and did one last walk through on The Way Of The Bulls. We walked it so that I could get one last look at the route, before I got after it in the morning. After we were finished in town, we went back to the campgrounds for a nice swim, and spent the rest of the day relaxing with Miles. On the morning of the 7th, we woke at 4:00am so that we could catch the earliest bus to town. Our friend Liz whom we met up with in Granada took an overnight bus up to Pamplona to watch the run. At the bus station Miles stayed and waited for her while Aaron and I went on since I had to be thier by 7:00. At the running course Aaron and I found a nice place for him to view the run, so we dropped our packs where he could keep an eye on them and still watch the run. From there I worked my way past the barricades onto the course. It didn't take long before hordes of people packed into the course area. I talked for a while with other runners and watched as anticipation was building up. Before the gun went off the police did one last sweep through the mass of people trying to remove all the drunks from the course. BOOM! Off went the first gun! You could see and feel the emotions and adrenaline come pouring in over the runners and spectators. Some of the runners already started running at this point, but I kept my ground and waited. BOOM! Off went the second gun! Now people really started moving, and me as well. I ran for a distance and watched over my shoulder as the bulls quickly approched. The next thing I knew, the man in front of me took a nose dive into the pavement, causing me to trip up landing on top of him, driving my knee into the pavement as well (Rule number #1 in the bull run, if you go down stay down or risk getting gored). As I layed there, I turned to my left and watched the bulls running franticly by while the participants were jumping and leaping out of the way. It was over and my first thought was "Wow, send some more"! From there I limped my way up to Aaron, where we grabbed our packs and set off in search of Miles and Liz. Regretfully we didn't have much time to spend with Liz, but we did manage to squeeze in lunch. After that we hoped on the train, and were off to Paris.

By the time we got to Madrid we had all agreed to cut Lisbon out of the equation, we were clearly just too worn out. From the Madrid station we set out in search of a hostel so that we could drop our packs and set out on the town. For some reason we were having no luck at all finding a place to stay, so after a couple hours of searching, an overnight train ride to Lisbon wasn't sounding to bad. After we had almost convinced ourselves to jump back on the train, Aaron some how was able to locate a hotel that still had a room left. Once we got in and booked our room we inquired as to why all the hotels were full. The attendent told us that it was gay pride day, and that the festivities were about to start. Also, there would be a parade later followed by a concert. By the time we did leave the hotel and head out, the srteets were already starting to fill up. In fact, the main roads were already closed off to traffic. Besides that, there were so many spectators out watching that it would have been impossible for anyone to get through even if they wanted. We didn't hang around for the parade, but what we did see was interesting enough...lol! From there we toured around town, did a little shopping, and grabbed a bite to eat. That night back in the hotel we discussed what our plans would be for the next day. Since we had cut out Libon, and felt it was still to early to head to Pampalona (I was off on my days, the bull run doesn't start until the 7th not the forth), we decided to spend one more day in Mardid. On the 4th we all celebrated by sleeping in...lol! we did however make it in time before the hotel quit serving breakfast. Continental breakfast at the hotel included eggs and bacon, and it was just what the doctor ordered. After that we set off for the train station to make reservations for the next day to Pampalona. Once we made our reservations we combed the city for about three hours trying to find a laundry mat. We only found one because we ran into a couple from Arkansas who had a guide book with one in it, it's funny that none of the locals even knew they had one. All I knew is that we were down to our last thread of anything resembling clean clothes and we wern't about to give up until we found one. the rest of that evening we just took it easy and relaxed in Madrid.

just a few pics!

When we got to Malaga we noticed a hostel right across the street from the train station, so we headed over to get a room for the night. I'm not sure what sparked the intensity between Miles and the hostel attendent, but for some reason they were firing off about each others ability to speak english. when we finally did get to our room, I heard Aaron blurt out "Thats two for Mat and three for Miles". I didn't realize he had been keeping count of how many times we had been in some type of confrontation...LOL! When we did settle in I had huge doubts as to wheather or not it was even a hostel, you see up to this point all the hostels had been filled with the costant flow of young people comming and going, but this one apparently was some type of retierment home. Trust me when I say that there wasn't much flow of comming and going, and I was quite confident that Miles wasnt going to get turned away for not meeting the age requirements...LOL! The next morning of the 2nd we hit the first train to Granada. Miles had a friend living in Granada that he wanted to see, a young lady by the name of Liz. Liz had recently taken a job there as a nanny for an eight month duration, and was one month into her contract. Before heading over to spain Liz was working as the youth minister at the chuch Miles was attending, so thats how he knew her. Liz was a delightful young lady just full of energy and since it was her day off, she became our own personal tour guide. We spend most of the day exploring around in an old palace right at the edge of town. The palace was built hundreds of years ago by the Muslims, and the details that went into it were just astonishing. That evening we were just plain beat, infact the moment i hit that pillow back at the hostel I was out. The next monring of the 3rd it was raining on our the way to the train station which was actually quite peaceful. When we cought the early train to Madrid, we wern't really sure at that point where we wanted to go. We had had talked about heading on over to Lisbon, but because of time restraints it requires to take a few over night train rides and at this point none of us were really up for that.

After our stroll along the Mediterranean we stopped and did a liitle shopping, then headed back to the hostel and cooked up big pasta dinner (man did that hit the spot!). truth is we hadn't really had a lot of sit down meals, just grabbing a little of this and that on the go (the result of which I was starting to see and feel around the waist line. I had probably dropped about ten to twelve lbs). On the morning of the 30th we decided to head on over to Barcelona. In the major metropolitan areas the trains are in and out constantly, which made it easy to catch one anywhere, and at any time. However, in the smaller areas it doesn't work quite like that, and we found out the hard way. Nice only had two trains to Barcelona that day, and since we never really plan ahead we missed the first, and the second one was already full. As a result we spent the day train hopping trying to get as close to the Spanish border as possible. That evening we decided to call it a day in the town of Montbellier. Since it was a little after eleven when we got there, we went ahead and found a little corner in the station to bed down. The moment we set our packs down, two backpackers from Austria came over and invited us to travel with them down a few towns to a smaller station. They had planned on sleeping there as well, but they were worried about the armed officials that had been pattroling it. since we really didn't feel like being hasseled either, we went ahead and joined them and jumped back on the next train out (They seemed a bit excited that we were joining them. I think maybe because of the safety in numbers). We finally exited at the small town of Narbonni were Aaron found us an empty waiting room in the station, so we all piled in, lowered the blinds, pulled out our bed rolls, and "Wa La" instant suite for the night. A couple other stragglers were in and out trying to get a little shut eye, but other than that it was a nice peaceful nights rest. We woke up about 6:30 on the 1st because travelers were moving about in the station. Once we got our stuff packed we walked a little ways into town and pick up a big bag of day old croissants for next to nothing, then went back to the station and talked one of the attendances out of a couple cups of hot water for instant coffee and breakfast was served. When we arrived in Barcelona we set out to see the sights. Its main attraction was a cathedral whos construction started 120 years ago and they estemated another 50 before its completion. It was quite a sight! Barcelona reminded me of NYC, a lot hussle and bussle of everyday life, and yet not so overwelmed with tourism to make uncomfortable to get around. From Barcelona we headed out to Malaga hoping to catch a train from there to Granada in the morning.