Maybe I need some rehab, or maybe just need some sleep.

I’m on the train. Galicia’s scenery is green and mountainous, there are cute villages with often-crumbling houses. It’s a big difference to Andalucia’s red, orange and yellow vastness, with the occasional imposing mountain or rock formation. Enough about the landscape. I spent yesterday in Vigo ;Except for the little over-friendly Moroccan hostel worker (who kept hinting that he wanted us to get married and live in Australia!) it was a perfect day by myself. I wandered down by the dock and then explored the park, which was beautiful. It seemed almost empty, odd for a Saturday;I felt a little apprehensive walking around, expecting to come across a group of violent winos . My curiosity got the better of me and I kept wandering down shady paths -cringing every time a lizard moved in the grass, expecting a highwayman to jump out- only to come across cute fountains, boys on a skate-ramp, people having car sex (that’s with each other in a car, not with a car), gorgeous viewing points, and a childrens' bicycle training area – complete with traffic lights. It made me feel like an explorer thinking they've come across a new land and finding it colonised...annnnywayyy.

I didn’t expect to like Vigo so much, I didn’t know anything about it before I arrived, it was just a stopover between destinations. At first it looks grand, and I’m sure it once was, but when you look at buildings and monuments more closely they’re often empty and uncared for. I’m not used to seeing beautiful buildings overgrown with weeds and falling apart, there’s something sad but a little romantic about it. They were once impressive but they’ve been let go, is that more natural than old buildings that are patched up so many times that they merely look old? Because things weren’t shiny and perfect I found them more endearing, and more interesting to photograph.

I didn’t say much about Porto. It is very rundown, or it seemed so after all the large Spanish historical cities I have visited. The buildings down by the port/river are collectively stunning, but a lot of the area looked like slums. On my second day there I went to the beach, it was windy and cooling down fast, but it had been such a bus drama-o-rama to get there that I forced myself to lie on the beach for an hour. I almost have a tan, or at the very least a whole lot of new freckles which may join together and form a real tan? That’s a joke.

Oh!Porto! On my last morning there I had to get up at 6.45, to be at the train station by 7.55 (there were only 2 a day). Taking ready took longer that I thought and in my rush to get out of the hostel I fell down the stairs. Anyway, I arrived at the train station at 7.56, but I couldn’t find the platform and when I asked in the train station the man yelled at me in Portuguese. Almost in tears I asked a security guy, who looked at his watch and pointed to a platform with no train. It was 8am, so I assumed I had missed it, but it was still showing up on the screen so I had hope it was late. I sat down…and waited… and looked at the train station clock – it said 7.05AM! WHAT? I had forgotten to change my phone alarm clock to Portuguese time and was an hour early. I had gotten up at 5.45 and RUSHED to the station. Fail. Being an hour early is much better than missing it though.

Now I am listening to Ke$ha (classy lady) on an eleven-hour train journey. Where to? Stay turned.

Highwaymen?