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?

But when I'm in doubt I open my mouth, and words come out

I was in Madrid last week. I think it was last week, it might have been this week. I have started forgetting what day it is, because it makes little difference - except to bus and train timetables. It's just one big long travelling day it seems. Anyhow, I was in Madrid. I met up with a friend who was telling me about Yes Man, the book by Danny Wallace (you probably know the Jim Carrey movie?). Danny Wallace said 'Yes' to everything for a year, my friend has been trying the 'yes' thing and he said it is working out well. I usually say 'no' before a question has even been formed. 'No' is safe, unless the question is- 'do you have travel insurance?' or 'do I really have to wear a condom?'.

So, I decided to try saying 'yes' more, and had my first opportunity to put it into practise when some guys staying at my hostel asked me to go for a drink with them 'in 5 minutes'. Normally I would have just said 'maybe'...and then not gone. They looked surprised when I said 'yes'. Then they stood outside my bedroom door while I got ready, counting down the five minutes and talking loudly -for my benefit- about how girls usually need a bit more persuasion to say yes to a date with two boys. Apparently there were some interesting results for Danny Wallace - but I doubt he ended up being massaged by two Dutch boys at 3am. So this 'yes' thing is working out fine. Just fine. Fine and dandy. Hey! It was totally innocent, they were pilgrams!


So, Santiago de Compostela was nice...although I did get tired of hearing the people who had done the camino going on and on about how far they had walked each day. It is impressive, but when you've heard 20 people say the same thing, well. It seems that the camino has become quite commercialised, especially seeing as it is a holy year. I saw some tourists (not pilgrams) buying the walking sticks the pilgrams use, it made the guys I was with very annoyed to see that after having walked every day for a month to get there. I spent a couple of days there, and also did a day trip to another town in Galicia called Pontevedra. It was pretty, but I walked around for two hours looking for a tourist information centre to get a map. When I decided to return to Santiago I went to the bus station and waited for my bus...and waited...and waited...and asked when the next bus to Santiago would be...and waited...and waited...and asked why the bus was so late...and waited. Turns out I made the idiot mistake of assuming that what it said on my ticket would be what it would say on the bus - duh! What a novice mistake. I was looking for the company who I had bought my ticket through. Wrong. So my bus had come and gone right in front of me and I had missed it three times. I hate buses.

Now I'm in Porto, Portugal. It's very pretty. Oh, and Portuguese men are more polite than the Spanish, I was wearing a dress today and was only meowed at twice. Perhaps they were Spanish.

Erm, is anyone still reading? It got a bit word-y there, here are some pretty pictures.

The Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, the crowds are pilgrams and bus loads of old German tourists. The Cathedral is important because it is the final destination of the pilgramage..and St...James? is buried inside. I could google it, but honestly I don't care. I went there for the pretty, not the religious experience. I went into the Cathedral out of interest during a service, apparently they do something cool with incense, missed that. I did see people working themselves into religious fervor, crying and prostrating themselves on the floor. It was all a bit creepy for me, and so I left and had a hamburger, with egg in it. The egg makes the hamburger in my opinion. Oh shit, I'm getting word-y again.

Pontevedra