We got into Madrid early in the morning after one of the worst transportation experiences of my life. The bus over night from Oporto was terrible. It was a new  bus decked out with cool looking faux-leather seats, the problem with these seats is that they had zero traction. Couple that with a crazy bus driver who flew around corners and was always accelerating or decelerating and you have the makings of a super shit bus ride. The whole night i was stretched out planting my feet on the foot rest pressing my back hard against the chair while holding onto both of the armrests so i wouldn't slide all over the place. If i dosed off and relaxed for even a few seconds i would wake scrambling to stay on the seat. Needless to say zero sleep was had and as soon as we could check in we just slept all day.

Our 1st night we just cooked a frozen lasagna in the oven but we had to wait over an hour for the oven. By the time we got to eat we were well onto our 2nd bottle of wine and as i hadn't eaten in over a day i was pretty tipsy. We wandered down to the lounge room and just plonked ourselves in the middle of the 1st group we met and started chatting. One of the guys was a online donkament pro from New York so it was good to chat some poker shit for a while. They convinced us to head out with them on the bar crawl that had already left but they were going to catch up to. Just before getting to the 1st pub, which had free beer and sangria for the 1st hour, Humberto, the Chilean dude we met, handed me a box of orange juice that was about quarter full. I was super thirsty and was like "dude, cheers i heaps feel like OJ right now" and sculled the rest. As i was pretty drunk already i didn't really sink in that the reason it tasted pretty shit was because it was about 50% vodka, lol, start of a good night.

We met up with the rest of the bar crawl and there were about 20 of us in total. Everyone was super friendly and determined to get their moneys worth out of the free alcohol. We moved onto the next bar got our free shot and everyone started to get a bit messy. I was bouncing around between groups having heaps of fun just meeting everyone and chatting shit, we moved onto the next bar and then the vodka kicked in real hard. I found myself repeating the same sentence to this Aussie chick for the 3rd time while struggling to keep myself standing and realised it was time to get myself home. I got directions from the dude organising the crawl (down the street, 1st right 2nd left and your in the square) and started walking myself back.

I think i passed out while walking, got super lost, had no idea where i was, i wandered around for ages with no idea where i was going. Walked into an underground car park thinking (hoping) it was a metro station and that i could catch a train, kept walking for like an hour in what i later found out was the completely wrong direction. Contemplated just passing out on a shop porch cause i realised i was way to drunk to do anything. Went to lay down on the porch and found a map, which i couldn't read even with one eye closed cause i was so drunk. Walked for a while longer, found a cab, pointed where on the map i wanted to go (i gave him a circle which i realised the next day was 2-3 square kilometres). He drove me to where i said, which wasn't anywhere id seen before so i just sat in the cab trying to get out the words "i want to go to tiramisu, like the metro that's called something like that, i dunno its a metro its somewhere near hear and it has a t and an m in it" (metro was called Tirso de Molina so i dont think Tiramisu was that bad) he didn't speak English and i barely did either. He finally got me back, i chucked up reddy purple all over my shoes, walked inside the hostel, realised i didn't have a key, banged on my dorm door for like 30 min with no answer, walked out the front and sat with a super pissed Sydney chick and just chatted shit for ages. She randomly kissed me/passed out on my face i pushed her off, went and found everyone else who had just got back. Talked more shit which mainly involved them laughing at me and how drunk i was and how lost i got and then went to bed and passed out. lol, probs the drunkest I've been in 6 months.

The next night after sleeping all day we played drinking games with free sangria at the hostel and went on the bar crawl again. It was pretty lame this time cause there was only 3 girls and the atmosphere just never really got going.

We saw most of the sights of Madrid, wandering around the Museums seeing some pretty comprehensive collections of Dali and Picasso, along with some other major works. We walked up and down the main monument drag and went over to see the palace at night and walked back to the hostel along the main night strip.

I went on a day trip to Toledo which was fun, Trees didn't make it as she was too hungover. Toledo is placed at the top of a hill so all day was just walking up and down the hill going around the town seeing the different sights, churches, cathedrals, synagogues etc. The main cathedral is amazing and definitely worth seeing even though it has a 7euro price tag. It has lots of rooms, super ornate carvings in the choir, and even a mini museum with a bunch of paintings by El Greco. Probably the best cathedral I've been to besides St Peter's Basilica in Rome. Toledo itsself is very pretty, surrounded by its medieval wall which is still almost 100% intact and all the roofs are still tiled in the same style as they were when the city was founded.

On Australia Day we went by train to Barcelona and got in at around midday. After dropping off our bags I headed straight to the Aussie Pub on La Ramblas, found a group of 4 Aussies and had a few beers and chatted some shit with them. They had been drinking/getting high since 8:30am and were well on their way, We arranged to meed up later that night as they had to head back to their hostel to cook dinner needless to say they got back and passed out and didn't manage to make it out. I went back to our hostel and picked up Trees who was eating some Hungry Jacks (Burger King) still recovering from the last night in Madrid on which she managed to get so drunk she threw up in her bed twice. We headed back to the Aussie Bar and met and awesome couple from Adelaide  and had a few drinks with them. We hung out with them for the rest of the night wandering around town trying to find the other Aussie bar they had been told about which we never did find but we had some drinks at a few bars on the search. Ultimately a pretty subdued Australia day but fun anyway.

Barcelona was pretty chilled for us, we didn't really do any partying after the hecticness of Madrid and just took it really easy taking our time to see everything around the city. Meandering around and seeing all the Gaudi buildings was defiantly the highlight of Barcelona for me.

 HOT CHICK