Day 1:
Arriving in Madrid
Day 2: Madrid to Toledo to Cordoba
Day 3: Cordoba to Granada
Day 4: Granada to Costa del Sol
Day 5: Costa del Sol
Day 6: Costa del Sol to Gibraltar to Seville
Day 7: Seville
Day 8: Seville to Lisbon
Day 9: Lisbon
Day 10: Lisbon to Salamanca
Day 11: Salamanca to Madrid
Day 12: Madrid
Day 13: Madrid (extra day after tour ends)
The Toronto Reunion (plus additional links)
Sign my Guestbook
View my Guestbook
The cathedral in Salamanca
Me, Naureen and Federico on the stone-covered streets of Salamanca
(Behind the camera: Audrey)
The walled city of Avila
Cooling down in the shade in Avila
Either we're really drunk...or the flash didn't go off...
Thursday, September 7, 2000
Today we were allowed to sleep in late, as the morning was completely free for us. We were to have a wake up call at 8:30AM, but nobody got one (this happened a few times during the trip, in which some people would end up scrambling to meet up with everyone for departure). I had set an alarm clock I had brought with me for 8:30AM, just in case, however, I had failed to set the clock ahead an hour for the time zone change. So instead, I was up at 9:30AM, when we were told to be checked out of our rooms by 10:00AM and have all of our bags put in a specified room for pick up in the afternoon. I rushed out just at 10:00AM, checked out and dropped my luggage in a packed room full of everybody else's luggage. I headed downstairs, hoping to still be able to catch breakfast. There were actually some Contiki people there who had also woken up late. We were pretty much the only ones there in the whole room. It was really the first time, aside from our second day at the Costa del Sol, where we could take our time eating breakfast, with no half-hour time limit until boarding a bus or leaving on a guided tour.
We had free time up until around 1:00PM when we would have to come back to the hotel, extract our luggage from the room we put them in and board the bus for the drive back to where we started, Madrid. I went off on my own to explore the university city. Salamanca is mainly inhabited by students studying at the nearby university. It was a very charming city, with the main streets very wide and covered in stone. There were many quaint little shops all over, cafes, little restaurants and many stores selling souvenirs. Many were surprised with how charming and nice Salamanca was, considering that it isn't a big tourist destination in Spain. After picking up some more drugs at a nearby pharmacy (my supply of Sudafed was just about out and I was still fighting my cold), I continued wandering the streets, eventually bumping into Audrey, Naureen and Fernando--I mean, Federico :-). We all picked up a souvenir frog statue, what was probably the mascot of the university in Salamanca. Audrey and I both picked up a palm-sized statue of a pair of drunk frogs holding mugs of beer. We thought it quite accurately described what we did much of during our trip. I went off on my own again, bumping into various Contiki people (see, it really was a small little city!), tagging along for a while then heading off on my own again. It was nearing 1:00PM, and so I headed back to the hotel to grab my luggage. There was a bit of chaos as everyone else was climbing over other people's luggage to get to theirs stored at the back of the room. Then was the fight to get into the elevator. We ended up just piling as much of people's luggage into the elevator as we could and sending it down to the ground floor with one person inside, much as what we did when we checked in. I ended up being the one person again, to be squeezed by baggage all the way down to the ground floor.
When we boarded the bus, it was absolutely sweltering inside. Instead of cold air conditioning, the vents were spewing out hot air. It took a while for all the bags to be loaded underneath the bus, until we finally got going. After about 20 minutes into the bus ride, cool air was finally coming out of the vents. It was sad leaving Salamanca, partly because it was such a nice little city, and also that we we heading back into Madrid, signalling that the end of the trip was near.
We made a short stop at Avila, a completely walled city, because "it's in the brochure", Jacquie said. Most of us would just wander around the small and quiet city, grabbing a quick bite to eat or a drink, and using the WC.
Me, Delia, Mary Cris, Kevin, Mandy, Audrey, Naureen and Niko, with the
walled city of Avila in the background
We boarded our bus again for the drive back to Madrid. Jacquie passed out photocopies of the list of snail-mail/e-mail addresses we had all filled out a couple of days earlier, so we could keep in touch with anybody and everybody after the trip ended. More people were awake for the final bus ride into Madrid than on any other drive since the second day of our trip. Everybody knew the end was near. People were talking about visiting each other in their home cities ("If you guys are ever in my neck of the woods..."). The largest representation from any one city was from where I was, Toronto. With a total of eight people, we were all planning a reunion to take place soon after the trip was to end, to see each other's photos, reminisce and relive these two weeks we had spent together, across the ocean and six time zones away.
It was a bittersweet feeling as we arrived back at the Hotel Praga. The past 10 days were some of the best many of us had experienced, and here we were, back where we started, which was also exactly where it would end. The weather was no different than when we left. It was hot; some signs we saw along the drive back into Madrid indicated the temperature was as high as 40ºC. After checking into our rooms, of which all of us but one room, was on the 1st floor above ground. Mary Cris, Delia and I met in the lobby to walk up the street our hotel was on, Calle Antonio Lopez. Mary Cris and Delia were out to pick up some figs at a local market (apparently they are excellent in Spain). I was just tagging along and picked up a big bottle of mineral water that would last me until the final day before departure. Surprisingly, the large bottle cost only 59 pesetas, as opposed to the over 200 pesetas it would cost in the city centre. We headed back to our hotel, with still a couple of hours until our included dinner.
While lying back in bed, watching the BBC World Service (the only English-speaking channel I could find on the television), I begun to hear a ruckus from outside of my hotel room. I could tell from the voices that it was Contiki people. I opened the door to find the door to the room directly across from mine, wide open and a whole bunch of bodies lying back across the beds, all with drinks in their hands. Someone yelled out, "Hey, here's one more!" So I went across the hall and joined what was a pre-dinner and pre-farewell gathering for Brenda, who was leaving us early tomorrow morning. The room we were gathering in was hers and her assigned roommate, Ashley. Everyone had a glass of wine in their hands as we all toasted the trip and Brenda's final night with the group. We then headed down to the dining room for dinner. It was actually a decent meal, which for once did not include fries, but unfortunately no ice cream for dessert, as we had in nearly all of our included dinners. Instead, we each got a whole unpeeled pear (it was a very tasty pear, though :-). Our table also order a bottle of wine, and for the first time on the whole trip, the taste didn't agree with me. Could it be that I was getting sick of the taste of wine..?
Not willing to let our last two full days together go to waste, a large number of us met a couple of hours later to take the local bus into the centre of Madrid. It was also Brenda's and Lynda's last night with our group, so what better reason for us to go out for a big night? We hopped onboard the #23 bus that took us to Plaza Mayor. From there, we walked through Puerto del Sol and into Plaza Santa Ana, where the main nightlife of Madrid was. We walked around a while and found a club that was fairly large, but empty (after all, it was still early at 11:00PM). Two other factors that lead to our decision of going in was there was no cover charge and we each got a coupon for two drinks for the price of one. This had to be one of our stranger nights out. The place, soon after we entered, began to fill up rapidly, and mostly by men (this I didn't really notice until someone pointed it out to me). Drinks were being passed out like there was going to be a shortage of alcohol. I suppose the two-for-one coupons contributed to that! It didn't take very long for everyone to start dancing either, despite the place was very crowded. There were toasts and hugs all around for Lynda and Brenda. I swear I actually saw tears in their eyes too. The night continued to get weird as we heard some songs get repeated playing, but with a different remix. The music was a mix of all types of dance and popular music. Not having had a whole lot to drink anyway, nothing knocked me back to complete sobriety than when two Bon Jovi songs were played back to back, "It's My Life" and "Living on a Prayer". I couldn't believe that here I was listening to two Bon Jovi songs being played back to back in a dance club in Spain! It reminded me of the whole "Friends" TV Theme incident from Granada. Also, I did notice quite a lot of guys hitting on many of the ladies in our group. In most cases, the guys from our group would just step back away when this would happen and observe from a distance. Also, the big attention-grabber from that night in Torremolinos was getting friendly with someone new here as well, but this time, not as explicit. Empty glasses and empty bottles of Coca-Cola, from the many rum and Cokes ordered, were littered all over the tables. By 1:30AM, more Contiki people showed up in the very same club and promptly got into the drinks and dancing. Some had then begun to leave, saving their energy for the next night, our last big hurrah. It was around 3:30AM when I left with several others, hailing taxis to take us back to our hotel.
