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Hey guys, me again, and still no adventure type stuff I'm afraid, although the weather has been beautiful the past couple of days, so if it stays like this I may have some stuff up this weekend, fingers crossed! (Also, I'm sorry I seem to keep making this same promise over and over, I hate being one of those people...)

In the meantime I decided to try and find something else somewhat interesting to do... And if you find plants and growing plants interesting, I did! If you don't, I didn't, probably best you don't bother reading this. So, after reading this amazingly simple article (does it qualify as an article when it's as short as this?) here. I decided to give it a go, however, instead of cups I used a couple of leftover jars that I hadn't gotten around to getting rid of yet.

I apologise for how crappy these pictures are as well.

I've never been too good at removing the labels.

This is an onion. On a chopping board.

I decided to arrange it in a pretty way to take the picture.

Not the same onion as in the previous pictures, but I was amazed by this; this is a days growth!

My intention is to just snip the stalks (is that the right word, stalks?) with a pair of scissors whenever I want some spring onions for something and keep changing the water and basically try and keep them alive for as long as possible. If nothing else, it's a nice cheap way to have some fresh veg.

Well that's all I'm afraid, goodbye for now.

X

Labels: plants

Still no adventures yet; the weather's been rather disastrous recently (in Spain?? I know right!) and as a result I haven't been feeling up to having a wander, sorry guys!

I bought this thinking of going to Corporation (rock/metal nightclub) back home, and because I'll probably like it with knee high socks and my black Dr Martens. From Ark - Hearts and Bows.

I probably won't use this until summer, but I loved the cartoon look of it and I want to see how it is actually a bag. From Jump From Paper.

Not quite sure how I'm going to wear this yet, but I've been wanting a black leather/leather-looking skirt for a while and I really like the detail at the hem. From Ark - Hearts and Bows.

I've had my eye on these since before heading to Spain, I love the colours and I think the birds are adorable. From Dr Martens.

Yes yes I'm aware that it's the wrong time of the year, but I love it so much, I doubt I'd wear it under another skirt though, just make sure I have a white skirt underneath to keep my underwear well hidden. From Etsy - jenniferlillydesigns.

I just think this cardigan looks all warm and snuggly. I'm also digging the pattern. Also from Etsy - jenniferlillydesigns.

Shiny brogues! I don't actually own any brogues, and would like some and I'm like a magpie; shiny stuff draws me in. So this ticks two boxes for me. From ASOS.

I like over the knee socks, and I like how the fabric looks here. My favourite colours are Blue Glass and  Hunter. From Sockdreams.

I have an outfit in mind that needs some vertically striped tights to finish it, but most of the compartments are in the UK anyway. Also from Sockdreams.

Labels: shopping

Off I go again!

I know I said I'd update this more often once I got here, and I know that I haven't, and also that I've been here for over a month now, so I figure I should apologise for that. Sorry about that.

So in case you didn't realise from the title, I now live in Valladolid. Valladolid is in Castilla y León (Castille and Leon), which is north of Madrid.

There. (Map data copyright goes to Google, 2012)

Now, I'm going to be here for the most part until summer 2013, so I'll give an explanation of what I'm actually doing here. People who know me are probably fully aware that I'm studying Spanish with Tourism at uni, and as part of a Spanish course you have to do a year abroad. Some people find a job, others go into language assistant stuff (working in schools teaching English basically) and I'm an Erasmus student, studying tourism at a uni here for the year. It's a small private uni, called "Universidad Europea Miguel de Cervantes", and by small I mean seriously small. It's 1 campus with 2 buildings, and I believe that it may even be smaller than my school was.

Main uni building.

Soooo settling in. Well when I first arrived I didn't actually have anywhere to live, just a hotel room booked for 3 days. So I had to try and sort accommodation out in those three days, thankfully though I'd already booked a viewing.

My base for a couple of days.

During those three days I had a few wanders around the city to try and get my bearings, met up with somebody here that I already knew and went to the uni for a welcome meet. After going to the viewing for the apartment I decided that I liked the place and it was a good place so I signed for it there and then! Now that internet is sorted I'm incredibly happy with the place (happier than I ever was with my accommodation at Chester) and it's nice to have a sort of home and base sorted.

My home for the year.

So yes, hopefully I will post some more interesting stuff soon and hopefully get to go on adventures, it's taken longer to get into the swing of things than I had hoped to be honest.

Oh well, until next time! (and in the meantime I'll post a couple pictures around Valladolid and do a proper post about the place sometime in the following week... hopefully!)

Plaza Mayor, sorry for the annoying orb.

Plaza de Zorilla, I always have an urge to run in the fountain and play in it like a small child.

Fountain in Campo Grande, I thought it looked quite nice but for some reason I couldn't get the picture straight.

Labels: adventure, spain, Valladolid

As the title suggests, and as you can all probably gather from the dates of the posts, it's been a while since I've posted on here, which is a shame all round. There are a few reasons for this, ranging from not going on particularly interesting adventures to personal stuff that stopped me posting about the one or two that I did go on, and for that I can only apologise to anybody who has been reading and following. I was also intending on making this blog to be about more than just adventures, but now I don't think that will happen, simply because apart from adventures, I have little else of interest to write about.

Anyway, this post isn't only an apology, it's also a promise; In two weeks time I intend to start regularly blogging on here again, which is exciting for me. Why? Because in 10 days time, I will be moving back to Spain! This time I will be going to Valladolid, which is north of Madrid. I should be there until Christmas, them after Christmas I will be returning to finish the academic year there.

Right now, I'm feeling a mixture of emotions; I'm nervous, I'm excited, I'm happy, I'm sad and this will probably get more and more intense as the days go by. Right now I need to focus on all of my preparations: Revising Spanish, packing my clothes, making sure I have all the correct documentation etc. Sadly this is the boring tedious part, but I'll get through it.

My boarding pass, appropriately censored.

So, I'll post again soon!

However, I don't believe that there is such thing as a town called "Round".

So, today I went to Ronda after being recommended to go there by a friend and I'm glad I did, I had a wonderful day and it was quite possibly one of my favourite days out yet. The journey there was annoying, two buses and a long wait in between them, but the journey on the second bus was pretty good. It was a clear day and as the bus went up the mountain I could see Gibraltar off in the distance. Unfortunately my camera couldn't catch it, which was all kinds of crap. (if you're my dad or somebody with a phobia of heights, maybe you should just skip over this blog)




Arriving was a little awkward to, because the bus station is just outside the city centre, so my first thoughts were along the lines of: Oh God where am I have I just wasted a bunch of money to go here there's nothing here ughhh this sucks. Thankfully after walking for a while things began to improve dramatically.

While looking for the centre I managed to wonder into a park which had some bizarre outdoor exercise bike thing going on which I quickly walked past because there were men with microphones trying to rope people in and then at the back of the park there was a couple sitting in a bandstand playing music. They were actually quite good if you're into relaxing new age street performer stuff (electric violin man of Chester is still my favourite though) so I decided to hang around and listen for a while in the shade before giving them some money and going on my way.

Here's a link to them covering Scarborough Fair.

I decided to go visit the bullring, not because I'm for bullfighting in any way, because I'm not, but at the end of the day, it has been a part of Spanish culture for centuries, and apparently the one in Ronda is one of the oldest in Spain, so it seemed a bit of a crime to go to Ronda and not visit the bullring. Thankfully there were no bullfights on that day, so I just had a wander around the place. There was also a museum area, which featured weapons, matador outfits and different paintings representing bullfights etc. For 6 euros I don't think it was too bad. I tried to view the whole thing as more of a historical place than to be bothered by animal rights, but I have to admit some guilt at giving the place money. Still, I'm here to learn some of Spanish culture, and this is most definitely part of it, whether I like it or not.

There is a special place in hell reserved for those who graffiti on historical sites...

Duelling pistols!

The bandstand you can see is the same one that those two people were performing in.

Labels: adventure, Ronda, spain

So a few days ago I decided to go on a mini adventure and take myself out of Marbella and into Benalmádena. Getting there was kind of chaotic, filled with worrying about getting to the bus station on time and not knowing when to get off the bus, but thankfully eventually I got there.

Saw this through the bus window on the way there.

My first impression of the place was that it is incredibly touristy, and that impression stuck too, so I decided to go and be a very typical tourist. Wandering around I saw lots of souvineer shops, snack shops, bars, people trying to sell whatever it was they had with them that day (I've found this is incredibly common in at least this part of Spain, and it can be anything from sunglasses, to fake designers bags, to bootleg films, to toys) and after taking a few pictures of the area and eating a desert waffle, I decided to visit one or two of the attractions.

Tour in a train shaped car, anyone?

Many of these boats were offering "dolphin tours" but some of them looked rather dodgy to me so I didn't bother.

My first attraction was the Sea Life centre, which was a little pricey, but as the money goes to a good cause I didn't mind paying too much. The place seemed to have a slight pirate theme going on but I was more interested in all the awesome fishies and sea creatures to pay much attention to it, and there was certainly a lot of variety. It was nice and cool inside too, which with the heat was definitely a nice bonus.

"Hello!"

Jelly fish! ... and my reflection.

This was taken in a tunnel where the fish would be swimming all around you, there were sharks too but they were too quick for my camera.

I nicknamed this frog "trollfrog" because he stayed incredibly stiff until I tried to take a photo, then he started moving and twitching and making it incredibly hard.

After looking at the sea creatures (and frogs) I went into an otter area which was on the roof to find that the otters were having some sort of mass fight! They were scratching and biting and chasing and I found it horrible, then a mother and her kid came along, the mother started laughing and picked her kid up so that they could have a better view. Erm... what?? Anyway, after I had a look at what else was on the roof (a mini golf course and a café) and returned they had stopped fighting, so I got to take some photos.

Looking at this you'd never know that they were literally at each other's throats moments before.

 Afterwards I decided to go to the butterfly house that I've half mentioned in a previous post, however, it wasn't located in the costa area where I was, it was located on the other side of the pueblo, which was a little too far to walk, so I had to get another bus (joy of joys). However it was easy to know when to get off, as I was told that it was near the "Big Buddha Temple" which confused me at the time but it became pretty obvious as I got closer...

Apparently the biggest Buddist "stupa" in Europe. Ooo err!

And just as I was told, the butterfly place was very nearby, and it looked rather pretty from the outside too, it was in the style of a traditional Thai (I believe, sorry if I'm wrong) building.

Is it weird to want one of these as a pet?

Partially clear wings! I had to chase this little guy around for AAAAGES to take a picture.

Shame about the roadworks spoiling the photo, but I really like these purple trees.

Just a motorbike themed bar I saw from one of the buses.

Labels: adventure, Benalmádena, spain