Travel Stories of Mr Crusher

So, over my life things happen. I’m not sure how, I’m not sure why, but I just seem to get myself into situations, some ridiculous, some normal – but It leaves me with a lot of good stories. I am going to try and write this book/blog/memoirs(maybe a bit young for memoirs)/whatever so that I can share some of these stories with you. I don’t yet know what format this will take, but I am going to try and do it as a series of short stories. Some of what you read will be the absolute truth, some will be completely made up. I don’t set out to offend anyone, but I want to write openly – and unfortunately sometimes I can be a dick, and do dickish things. That said, I think I’m quite a nice guy.

So the tales are likely to focus on my 18 month Trip around the world – Fighting a puma in Bolivia, stumbling blind drunk through a favela in Rio de Janeiro, Getting robbed in Fiji, getting lost on The Great Ocean Road in Australia. I might dip into some experiences from my past as well, like playing music in Sweden, or the more recent, like becoming the Scottish National Champion of Super Smash Bros.

Some of the stories are going to be shite, hopefully some will convey my love of going to a new place and getting absolutely lost speaking to people in a language I don’t understand.

Either way, its just really good for memories. Don’t take anything I say too seriously, a lot of the time I’m joking.

 

Lets Blog! Royal Weekend Part 1

Let’s blog.
Ok, so I’ve not written a blog in almost 2 years – but I figure I want to use this lonely Friday night to get back into it. Things have changed a bit in the past 2 years – I have a real job and a girlfriend. Thats not what my blogs about(because that would be shit boring....) Usual crack – I’m Crusher and I’m a bit mad. I’m playing with The Marvels and Waverley at the moment and I do other entertaining things from time to time. I don’t know how this blog is going to pan out, maybe old age has got to me – i don’t care.
This weeks edition will focus on the royal weekend – Rather than do a weekly account of my boring life, i figure I should just try and pick out the bits which are a little bit interesting!

Thursday – Woke up at 7am for work – I was totally pumped for this weekend, and I already knew i was getting no sleep for at least the next 24 hours. I Double checked I had packed everything – then jumped into my car(I HAVE MY CAR BACK POOM!). work bla bla bla. Waverley were playing at the very first edition of Cav Live that night – zoomed across to cav, and discovered just how difficult it is to get to cav from the direction I was coming. Ended up parking on a fire emergency lane so I could go drop my gear(and weekend travel sack) in cav. Years since I’ve been in there. I stopped going because of the young girls. Went back to the car and luckily there had been no fires so my car was ok. Dropped it off at Jo’s and headed back to Cav.

Got in just in time for a soundcheck – I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the bass was THUMPING. Sloppy soundcheck, but thats what its for! Snowflake had promised us some food, but it wasn’t appearing, so I plugged in my ipod and went in search of some sustenance. A shan tescos ploughman did the job. Got back and after a while Snowflake made the best use of the R&B room at cav – brought in 20 pizzas for us to share. Boom. People started arriving for cav live – its a free gig on the last Thursday of every month – get involved. Sidelock went on first – I like them. It was pretty quiet for them and i think they were a bit sad. I have seen them play 20 times better than that! Loads of people started to arrive – people I’ve not seen in ages. Played the gig which was cool – I’m enjoying what we do with Waverley, but I cant help but feel we’re still looking to find our sound – as well as the confidence together on stage. Good fun anyway. Hashy had a baby on stage.

Now, just to put everyone in the picture – I had a megabus booked for 5am the next morning, going to London, which I had to get. Cavlive was on till 3am and vodka redbulls were £1.If I went home atall, I would fall asleep, so i had already decided to party all night long and walk to the bus station. This was the longest night of my life. No doubles, so I could stay on top of things. I basically spent the next 5 hours slowly drinking vodka, and dancing like there was no tomorrow. Most people left, and if i didn’t have my prior commitments I would have left around 130am. I danced until 3am. Picked up my guitar and walked to the bus station. So many fights. Some guy was trapped under a bus and the driver was just rolling backwards and forwards over him – then the police came. Raj. I ended up going to meet Mick at Ghillie Dhu – sat with him for a while then we got a taxi to bus station. Which wasn’t open. People were starting to que. Highlight being some Jakie rolling up in a taxi – gets out and asks “wheres the ticket boy?” i answer “its closed, we’re waiting” – he goes “fuck – i need tae get on that bus” and runs onto the road.

Friday - I guess this is what we class as Friday – although I must stress I had been up since 7am Thursday. Megabus is shite. We got some sustenance for the journey – but really it was a bottle of juice and a small box of Pringles. The driver didn’t stop for a break until the outskirts of London – 8 hours later. I was fucking hungry. I also discovered I cant sleep on buses, while Mick managed to sleep for about 98.7% of the journey. I was also still a bit drunk like. 2 black guys got on at Manchester and instead of listening to music through headphones like generally people do, they decided to play music through some portable speakers. They had a bit of a battle for a while, but the guy with the louder speakers won. So funny. My personal fave was Total Eclipse of the Heart, oh and also this raj saxophone/synth instrumental tune. I was tempted to whap out a bit of Death Magnetic.

So, into London and its pretty much pandemonium because of the royal wedding. My iphone was on its last legs, and it had our hostel reservations in it. Got a taxi across, it would normally have cost £6, but due to royal wedding it cost £30 – because all the roads were closed. Fuck it. Got in to the hostel. Went up to tescos and the first thing Mick bought was a Gillette sensor excel power fusion deluxe. We also bought some beer, cider, sandwiches and 7up. It was a glorious day so we went in sat in the park and caught some rays. Caught up with Jakil boys via cellular devices and decided we should go out with them in Camden. Went back to the Hostel – bought some towels and had some showers. Shower starts off cold but then gets nice. I’m never completely sure of hostel etiquette, but I like to think the more nakedness the better. We got ready and went up to the common room, expecting a youth hostel on a Friday night to be full of some people ready for a good time. Not 1 person was drinking! Young people on a Friday night drinking tea and shit...what the fuck.

Off to Camden. Got the subway along. So many steps. There was a pure domestic going on the whole way across. Boy just being a cunt. We got out of the subway and there was a guy giving out flyers arguing with this dreadlocked junkie guy with a dog who had knocked all the boys flyers out of his hands. Funniest bit was when the junkie slipped on all the flyers and fell on his ass. He went on arguing for a while, telling him he would ‘bury him’ and ‘fuck him up’. But he didn’t. We went along to the blues kitchen, where we were meeting Jakil to watch a blues band Vintage Trouble(and have serious discussions about Usher Hall...lol). It was at this point I realised how expensive London is - £5.90 for a shite pint of fosters. We also had plans to go see Amoriste at Barfly, but that didn’t come to fruition. At this point can I remind you I have not been to bed since Wednesday night – I have been awake at this point for about 39 hours with no sleep. Great seeing the Jakil boys – not seen them in so long. We went to get some Chinese – the woman fills this box with various foods for £3. Bargain like.

Got a couple of cans in and headed back to watch Vintage Trouble. All I can say is James Brown reincarnate. They were a very good blues band, but the singer – had so much presence, so much soul. They were unstoppable. They played for an hour, then said “this is our last song”. They then continued for the next 2 hours. I had had enough by that point. Blues bores me... The first hour was magic, but after that i couldn’t be arsed. Me and Mick wandered about for a while then went to Koko – about £9 to get in, and it was basically picturehouse but shit, and it was £10 for a double vodka lemonade. I wanted to drink double vodka so thats what I drunk. We got chatting to some girls from Goteburg – I pulled out some of my best Swedish lines(ie singing ‘Henrik Larsson’ at them), surprisingly they stopped talking to me and just started pulling each other. Shows the power I have on women. We decided to leave. Mick somehow faceplanted at the entrance right in front of the bouncers. Brilliant. He didn’t trip on anything, he just briefly forgot how to walk. We needed some sustenance so we went to a kebab shop and got a kebab. Literally the worst kebab ever-shite meat, shite sauce, shite salad, shite pitta. My score of 2/10 is being very generous. We walked back to Russell Square and went to bed. I SLEPT.

Thats where I’m going to wrap up this blog – I will aim to finish the rest of the weekend soon – It will include my gig with The Marvels supporting Johnny Foreigner and me and Micks night out in SOHO. Hope you guys enjoyed – keep watching the stars.

Hive on Tour: No Pablo Espaniol!!

Quick note – Yes I realise this is now over two months late, and I’m not even halfway through the holiday yet... but fuck it.. How am I meant to do anything other than drink or work in august? Go fuck yourselves (na don’t, but cut me some slack eh!) I am going to try and pull up my breeches and get some serious blogging done throughout the month of September

Day 6 – Wednesday – Again, up very early for the bus. The rules at this ‘hostel’ meant that we were unable to shower since it was before 10am. If we had showered the fucking circuit would have exploded (delicate is a word I have heard used to describe foreign circuits). The bus ride was fairly smooth, although I was sick of ham and cheese sandwiches. We reached Granada around 9am. Granada being the place that I had heard nothing of, yet anyone who I asked about Andalucía always mentioned Granada very high on the list. Before we even got off the bus, the view of the mountains was breathtaking. How can there be snow when it’s over 40 degrees? I was quite keen to climb one (I reckon they would have towered above a number of Munroe’s...- maybe I should confirm that, but I just can’t be fucked! - ), in the end I didn’t climb one, I was just too fucked. But sorry I digress (and predict a riot (fuck)). So we got off the bus. The bus station was miles out of town (who does that?) We were all fucking starving, and parched as well, it was 9am and 40 fucking degrees! (Note that I’m not complaining) so we went in search of a coca light and a bocadillo. Directly across the road was a cafe which we promptly sat down at.
Now I can’t explain how this happened... at the time we all had our heads down feeling really sorry for him and just wanting him to leave, it was shit. I would now be prepared to say it was one of the best things that happened on our trip.

Everyone has been eating a meal, or sitting on a train or whatever, when someone with a clarinet or violin or some kind of ‘talent’(although whoever would call playing a musical instrument a ‘talent’ is clearly an idiot, it’s a piece of piss to play one) plays a song, and will walk up to each table asking for money. That morning in Granada, an ancient man with a massive lump on his forehead - which made him look like a vampire from Buffy – played us possibly the most discordant, dissonant and incongruous(like how I used my thesaurus there?) piece of music known to man(infact, it wasn’t quite as bad as DMH..burn!). I don’t know how he played it... It was like he spent 7 minutes (yeah it lasted 7 minutes) picking 4 notes at complete random and playing them all at once for 4 bars, then changing the notes. – That description does not do it justice. Please ask me in person for a demonstration. Now that was pretty bad yeah, but the thing about it was, at the end of every 4 bar “phrase” he would(now I don’t want to turn this into a technical music thing with terminology that no one understands, if you don’t understand – please ask me!) at the end of every 4 bar phrase, over beats 3 and 4 he would play a little run using the notes C-B-A-B-A with the rhythm ‘3 e and a 4(staccato on the 4). Whenever he came out of that little phrase, and got settled into the next section, he would look up and grin maniacally. I spent the whole 7 minutes trying not to piss myself. My biggest regret of the holiday was not giving him as much money as possible, taking him into a studio and recording an album.

As I said, I can’t describe how funny that actually was. Fucking brilliant. We got a sandwich and two cokes whatever, We almost passed out from the heat before we decided to get a taxi into town. That guy was just so fucking funny. We spent ages looking for the hostel we had decided to stay at(it was rated as sociable on the hostelbookers website). After we had been lost for ages, I decided it would be a good idea to follow two young Chinese girls because they were probably going to a hostel too(and they were hot and I was kindof bored). Aidan still had a reluctance to ask directions, so I tried asking a barman.. I, pronounced the street name completely wrong, and couldn’t understand his answer.. good one. Somehow, we eventually found the place. It turned out our difficulties weren’t unfounded. Mactub was the name of the place, but it was not spelt ‘MACTUB’, it was actually just a random Arab symbol. So we went in without reservations, Aidan had a conversation with the man in Spanish for a couple of minutes in which he sorted out our rooms. He then told us about the cost/deposit etc... The boy then turns to us and says ‘I’m from Brighton mate, always good to practise the Spanish though’. We booked the hostel for the night, and said we would let him know later if we wanted it another night. We got ourselves settled in good and proper, had showers...Craig and Aidan did some Laundry!!

Now the thing to see in Granada, is the Alhambra Palace – Apparently one of the 7 wonders of the world (although on checking Wikipedia that is not true, and the page has been protected so I can’t change it). – So, considering we weren’t sure how long we were staying in Granada, the best thing to do seemed to check out the Palace. We spent three hours looking for it. Instead of asking for even the vaguest directions... we picked a direction that we thought it was likely to be in, and started walking. We found what was evidently a school tour, and they were probably going to the Palace, so we followed them. We came to a viewing platform, and we even said to each other ‘wow look at those buildings, they look great’. I got a photo of them on my phone. It didn’t really click that those buildings were the palace. I was still fucked from the heat, and couldn’t really be fucked speaking to anyone... We were still pretty sick of each other and I needed some time alone. Instead of saying to them I was gonna go for a wander on my own, I just kindof trudged along about 20 metres behind them. I didn’t stress, they were getting stressed about being lost etc, I was fed up of being stressed. We were in a beautiful part of the world, and I was content to absorb it, without seeing sights etc. At some point I did mention that I thought we were actually looking at the Alhambra, but I wasn’t that bothered. We wandered along a dusty road for over an hour, we thought it might lead us around the mountains and to the palace (clutching at fucking straws haha??). How long were we planning on walking for??
We eventually reached a small ‘town’(it looked like the stone huts on Tatooine!) There was a man stopped on a scooter, we asked him ‘Alhambra?’ He looked at us like we were a bunch of idiots. He pointed back the way we had came. It was about 40 degrees, and we were all very thirsty. We stopped at the local shop for some juice. Again, another of Spains redeeming features is the fact that it has places like this – The shop was called ‘Chicken and Bread’ (In Spanish). There was no door to the shop. There was a window. With Bars. The shopkeeper was an 80 year man, and he stood behind the window. He took your order, then went through the back to get what you were after, took your money, and providing that the dimensions of your product were less than 2ftx0.5ft, he handed the product to you through the bars. What the fuck?? Why does a grocery have to have jailbars?? Of course if you want to buy a fudge cake or massive tub of ice cream then you’re fucked.

So we got a couple drinks from the weird man in the shop, and headed back along the road. When we got back to Granada we found a path that seemed to lead round the side of a mountain(and you wonder why we get lost all the fucking time?) so we followed it – Lo and Behold, half an hour later – We found the Alhambra – 10 minutes before last admissions. We decided it was too expensive to go and do the tour, so we walked about for a while trying to find a way to sneak in (not that easy since it’s a palace!’), and after a while gave up and walked home.
No joke, it took us 5 minutes to walk home. If we had stepped out our hostel earlier that day, and turned left instead of right, we would have been there in 5 minutes. Unbelievable.

Got home showered etc. We went to the supermarket and bought ourselves a lot of food and beer. Ridiculously cheap. Got back and started cooking. It was my turn to cook (because last time I just sat trying to write my blog!) so I took charge. Spanish kitchens are so stupid. They don’t have kettles, and they are very dangerous. I almost gassed us to death when I was switching on the hob. I can’t remember what we cooked. Pasta of some variety...I think it had chorizo (yuck) and various other things to make it awesome. It was a social place. People kept coming in and being well impressed by what we had cooked. Creating a good name for Scottish cooks on the road. We started drinking some (very dodgy) beer. I can’t remember whether this guy was working or just lived there, or what his name was – But let’s call him Maurice. He was a sound guy, but a total chancer. He asked us for a beer. Fair enough, not a big ask... but we had only bought enough to see US the night, and they were litres of beer...that’s basically 2 cans!! We gave him one, we didn’t wanna seem like dicks on our first night (plenty of time for that). A Luxembourgian couple sat down with us, they were eating ‘Pasta, Luxemburg style’ – I.e. pasta covered in soup. Legends, I am going to have that soon. After we had finished our food, we headed upstairs to the sun terrace. I would have to say that night we met some fantastic people. John – Raised in the Bavarian Ghettos. I had no idea whether to believe a word this guy said. He was so funny. He reminded me strongly of a chef I knew at the time, I found him fucking hilarious. He was a hardcore traveller, 30 years old and obviously hadn’t been home since he was about 20(obviously never showered either). He would occasionally tell me that my accent was so sexy that it made him quiver. He was going to take us out to a reggae club later where he could touch girls.

There was two French Canadian girls (more fucking Canadians...ah they’re pretty cool), three English girls (2 were hot and almost twins, 1 was kindof fat and had the WORST accent in the world), they were cool... very blonde. There was an American guy who was travelling on his own and didn’t stay at the hostel. An Austrian and I can’t remember who else. The Luxembourgian were quiet and stayed downstairs talking to Dom about Hearts players. I’m not really sure what happened, but we made our way through a lot of beer, and a lot of vodka. Maurice, or Moroccan (since he refused to call us anything other than ‘Scottish!’) was starting to get on my nerves. We were having good banter. He asked for some vodka... We gave him a small measure...he then said that was a pussy measure, and asked for some more. Personally I would have said no, but Dom was in charge. I was drinking stupid measures of vodka. Like almost pure vodka... why... I don’t know. We had a great conversation with the English birds, telling them about the violin man from earlier. We somehow got onto the subject that there was a man who wandered up and down the stairs in the hostel playing a flute, had they not met him yet?? I love telling stories to blondes, they are so gullible, you can literally tell them anything. (Make a mental note to start telling blonde girls ridiculous stories... maybe I can do a study to try and discover what percentage of blonde girls are actually thick as shit – no offense to anyone who is blonde, I’m just jealous)

After a while, things degenerated into a shouting match. I gave Moroccan a lesson in Scottish, teaching him ‘Och Aye the Noo’... He then asked me what it meant... I have no idea, so I made something up like ‘Everything is fine at the moment’. I was speaking rapid French to the Chinese French Canadian girl. The Moroccan kept telling us Scottish to be silent, because when we talk we shout. What a dick...everyone was shouting. I think John started to feel sad once we all got drunk and stopped listening to his strange ramblings. He needs the attention on him. He was funny though. He seemed to hate anywhere we had been, saying it was too ‘touristy’. Moroccan had an argument with the American about buying drugs in Tangier. He made a good point that when they realise you are American or ‘minted’, they try and rip you off. Maurice can’t speak to travelling friends in morocco or he’ll get arrested.

At some stage we headed out to a pub. I really am not sure what happened at this stage. We were all fucked. I somehow made friends with a Spanish guy, and told him I would get him a job in the Kings Manor in August. He gave me his mobile, email and MySpace. I made no effort to get him a job (why should I?). I am not sure if we went to another pub or what... I really don’t know. I seem to remember running along a beach away from everyone... There’s no beach in Granada. Everyone but John, Maurice and Austrian were going home. I didn’t want to go home, I wanted to go clubbing so I stayed out with them. Moroccan knows everyone in Granada and so managed to get me in for free to the club (although I’m sure at some stage I was almost getting sent home. So I went out clubbing with these three strange men. The club was totally dead when we went in, but it was one of these things where it fills up pretty quickly. I would like to say that I chatted up some really hot Spanish birds, and I would like to say I got somewhere with them... I may have done... but I have no memory, for I made a grave grave mistake.

Whenever I drink vodka lemonades, I will generally drink doubles. I got Austrian (his name may have been Gustav...or maybe I’m just making that up) to order me a double. He looked at me in shock. I was like mate, just do it. He asked the barman, and everyone around the bar looked round in shock. I was like look you Spanish fucking weirdoes, goan just give me a fucking double vodka lemonade. ‘Ok Ok, Si Senor’. The barman got a tall glass, filled it ¾ of the way up with vodka. He then opened a bottle of lemonade, and topped the glass up. He then filled the remainder of the lemonade bottle up with vodka. Fuck. Not what I had expected. Next thing I remember I’m out the club and I have no fucking clue where I am. I knew the street name I was staying on, but it was a little side street that not everyone knew about. I was completely out of money so I couldn’t get a taxi. I walked around asking people for directions. My Spanish is very limited (and what I do know is wrong) and I went up to various people saying ‘No Pablo Espaniol’. I though it meant I don’t speak Spanish. Apparently it means ‘No Paul, Spain’. I walked for fucking hours. I walked through a fucking ghetto where I thought I was gonna be killed. At one stage I thought I was close, then I seemed to end up in Venice. I think I was actually parallel to our hostel but I missed the turning and walked on for another 2 miles. It was so scary. I did make friends with 6 cats who helped me onto the right path (did they fuck they were useless), I forget their names, but I’m sure one was called tom. After walking for what seemed like days I came across a familiar site. It was an Arab palace from the 14th Century. I had somehow walked into the grounds of the Alhambra Palace. We had spent over 3 hours looking for it during the day, and the one time I don’t want to be there I have no difficulty in getting there. It was one of the strangest places I’ve ended on a walk home. Despite knowing that I was now 5 minutes from being home, I still had no idea which direction to go in... I found a nearby 5 star hotel... I staggered in and asked the woman on the desk ‘do you speak English?’ yes. How do I get home? Thankyou! I made it outside the hostel just as it was getting light, but unfortunately the adventure was not over... We only had one key, and the guys had it, and they were asleep. Fuck.

Spent 5 minutes shouting on them at the window, no answer. I slept on the door step for a while. When I woke up I was desperately needing a shit. I walked around the square, where the shops were just opening... I needed someone to let me in to do the toilet... no one would let me without buying a drink, and they wouldn’t except my loose scrap of change either. I went back to the hostel and shouted some more. No one would answer their phones either useless bastards. It was pretty chilly somehow as well. Eventually the Chinese French Canadian answered the door. She looked shocked to see me. I simply said ‘Thank you’. I Walked to the toilet, then I went to bed.

Hive On Tour: Celtic City

Day 5 – Tuesday – Woke up very early. Like it was still dark – It never gets dark in Spain! Yet here we are. I think we had to get our bus at 7. We brought loads of bread, ham and cheese with us. I think the bus took like 5 hours or something. At some stage, we got stopped at a tollbooth - Armed police came on and started shouting at Aidan. He had no idea what the guy was on about. Some Spanish man came up and translated for us. He was asking if we had drugs haha. Coming from Gibraltar which is near Morocco...i.e. drug capital of the world (apparently). We told him no, and he went away. Crazy bastards. We made it to Seville early in the morning, and set about finding somewhere to stay. We found this place. Very strange place. Fuck it tho, we were tired and hungry, and we just wanted to relax. You needed to ring a buzzer to get in. We then got our keys, me and Craig got single beds each... Dom and Aidan had to share a double. We went for showers – While Dom was in the shower, Aidan switched on the light- This caused the circuit to trip – We asked the girl about it, and she was shocked that we didn’t know that having switching on a light while the shower was on trips the circuit. Fucking ridiculous. Once we were all ready, Aidan and Craig needed to find a Laundrette (obviously). The first challenge was getting out. The door wouldn’t open, and our key didn’t work in the door. Apparently, if you want to leave this place you have to ring the bell, and someone comes down to let you out. They then take your key from you. When you come back you have to ring the bell to get in, and they give you your key back. Very strange. Also a potential fire hazard no? So we set out. No luck finding a laundrette...

We then went to have a tour of Seville. What is there to see? We don’t know. We wandered about for ages, through orange gardens, past cathedrals, etc etc. Why is no one speaking to us! This was probably one of the worst days on the holiday, for me anyway. We had spent the past 3 days or something like that speaking to no one, and we were all hating each other. Seville was lovely, but it was so hot – 44 degrees! We were going to go into the cathedral, but Craig hadn’t brought his student ID so we didn’t bother... No big loss really, but it was something to do. We did a tour of the bull ring. Worst tour I’ve ever been on. Basically some woman who sounded like a gay Spanish mouse rattled off the script in Spanish, and then In English. She had evidently learnt the script and nothing else. No punctuation or anything. It was shit. Aswell as that, I had some Spanish people next to me, and once she had finished the Spanish section, they started talking about it, which meant I couldn’t hear the English section. Bull fighting is pretty brutal – All the odds are stacked against the bull, and on the off chance that the bull kills anyone – They then kill the bull and its entire family.

After that, we went for some lunch. I had some Gazpacho. Cold Soup. It was strange, but pretty cool. I can’t remember what I had for main course – I think it was decent though. Lots of zumo de naranca. We found the (big) river, and decided to hire a pedalo. I love it how we try and pretend we’re doing a sightseeing tour, but we always spend most of the time looking for a beach, or some form of water. We went out on the pedalo. Just about got destroyed under a ferry, but it was all good. Decided to moor the boat and jump into the river. Some teenage hoodlums told us the water was covered in glass, and we should go further up. We did. Did some jumping in. It was awesome. The water was manky, but it didn’t matter. So refreshing. Dom somehow managed to cut his leg up. Great fun though. We headed back in, the Olympic gondola team were practising for the Venice Olympics... slightly strange but funny. We got in the way of some canoe training. As we came into port, we went to moor the boat to the side of the cafe we had rented it from. We were a couple foot away from where we should be, so the cafe owner stuck his hand out to me to help pull us in. Now I assumed he had a good hold of something onshore, so I just pulled. He very nearly fell in. To the point where he was balancing on one foot. It was so funny, but I bet if he had fallen in he would not have found it too funny (Imagine coming home to your wife after a day at work... ‘how was work honey?’ ‘I fell in the river!’. Unless you work as a diver, I think that would be pretty unusual. I would never expect to fall in a river at work). Second attempt, this time I let him pull me. That worked better. We headed along the river a bit and had a bit of a snooze on some grass(mingin grass – covered in shit). There were some hot Americans there, but they didn’t speak to us. Why is no one speaking to us! We headed along the road, I started to feel Sun stroke coming on. I told the guys I needed some water, but they just ignored me, babbling on about a laundrette. I got some juice, sat down and just felt totally fucked. These fucking nippy girls were chanting a really annoying song in Spanish. Eventually I started to recover. Close call. Doctor Aidan to the rescue again...ha. Back to the hostel and refreshed ourselves, using the immensely complex process of entering the hostel. I hate these hostels where there’s no one to speak to! We decided we have to make a concentrated effort to just stay in actual youth hostels from now on.

We went out for a drink/trying to find an internet cafe. Aidan was too scared to ask for directions so we just aimlessly wandered about for a while. Turned out there was no internet cafes, but we found a square which had free wifi. It didn’t work, but fuck it. We came across this square where hundreds of people just stood there drinking very small beers. Almost pointless drinking it. Just give me a pint! Still no one spoke to us, but you could see us getting strange looks. I guess that’s a start. A couple beers later and we headed back to the flat (hostel flat). This place had air conditioning, which was at least good. Although woke up in the middle of the night and it was absolutely fucking Baltic. Better than being hot...i guess. We were in bed so early.

So to sum up, Seville was fairly dull... A beautiful place, but we didn’t know anyone to speak to and it was pretty boring...since we all hated each other all day.

Tomorrow – Onto Granada, home of the Alhambra palace and mountains – I loved Granada. We may actually speak to people....

Hive On Tour: Monkey Loving Fun

Day 4 – Monday – Got up, it was pretty cracking to have an en-suite bathroom and no queue for a shower. Just like being at home(almost). Dumped our stuff with the man downstairs and headed in search for some food. The heat was mental, almost unbearable. We found a café in a square… they told us all they could make was ham and cheese sandwiches, or French omelette's. Strange. It turned out to be fucking expensive too. We were off to Gibraltar today. I’m not sure how much anyone knows about Gibraltar, so I shall briefly explain(wrongly). It was in the hands of the Arabs until 1314 When 1000 Spaniards led by a shepherd attacked and claimed it. At some stage, it was awarded to Britain in some form of treaty. It is currently British.

We went through passport control, walked for a minute or so then came across a sign saying ‘Danger, Live Runway. Please Cross Quickly’. There is a set of traffic lights, and a barrier. Just after we had crossed, the barrier came down and a plane landed. Its pretty mental like. Not the best place to be an amber gambler. We found a petrol station and it sold Irn Bru!! Fucking awesome because we had been craving it. (oh I forgot to mention, we had been trying to describe Irn Bru to the Australians a couple days before…It’s impossible.. Anyone have a good word? Phenomenal) Got into the town, and it is essentially like Disneyland, if Disneyland had a Britain themed area. It feels like were in Spain..but theres english pubs, Marks and Spencers, The money is Pounds. Its so weird. There is also no tax, so you can get like a litre bottle of vodka for like £5. Pretty cool. It’s a twisted place tho. It has a very strange feel to it. The main reason we were going was for the rock. You get a cable car up. There was a few people offering us Bus tours for like 20 euros. They would drive us up and show us all the sights. They told us the cable car was 20 euros in itself. Fuck it, we wanna get a cable car. Turns out they had been trying to scam us, the cable car was only about 6 euros. Or sorry. £6. I forgot they use pounds. It wasn’t that high up, no higher than the pentland hills(which I cant actually see as I look out the window right now..its so misty! Why am I not in spain), but it was a lot steeper. Like very steep. And it just sits on its own. Aidan and Craig shat themselves in the cable car. It was awesome. As soon as the car reached the top there was a monkey hanging off the edge. Absolutely mental, I have never seen a monkey before. They are awesome.
A primatologist gave us some information about the monkeys - They are not tame, they tolerate humans. Do not touch. They were so cool! We set off for a walk. We walked past the bus tour -the guide of which was asking everyone if they wanted a photo with the monkey sitting on them(obviously not a primatologist). We just about got killed by the monkeys when we walked past. A couple of them had baby monkeys hanging round their necks(they were about the size of a wii remote). Brilliant.
We climbed up some steps to what we thought was the highest point(not quite, but it was still pretty high), from there we could see Africa. There were lions and elephants and stuff roaming about the shores. We found a wall, directly over the wall was a sheer drop down to the beach. Apparently a Spanish shepherd led 500 Soldiers up it to attack the Arabs. Mental. It's hard to describe, but it was pretty close to being a vertical wall. There was this huge black guy walking about with a baby house on his back. In that heat it was ridiculous. We asked them where the caves were or something. The daughter was not in a good mood.

We found the Caves, but to get to them we had to run past a wasps nest. Not easy.
The caves were breathtaking. 7ooft deep apparently. Absolutely brilliant. They have a stage for gigs and stuff. We are gonna do a gig there one day. It will be billed as 'The Hardest Gig to get to ever!'. People having to get a cable car up haha. It would be epic though. We got some lunch in the cave cafe. I think I had like pasta salad or something. We headed back along and I cant remember what else we did. Time wasnt on our side, so we got the cable car down. Aidans ticket blew away in the wind. Fuck. I convinced the guy to let us on. Just as the cable car pulled up, a monkey pushed his friend in front of the cable car. Slightly risky. Its only a joke if both people are laughing. Cheeky monkeys! Trying to kill their friends. Monkeys are fucking awesome!

We headed back across the runway. Back to La Linea de la Conception. We did look into getting a ferry to Africa, but it was just going to complicate things so we decided against it.
Craig and Aidan got it stuck in their head that they had to do some Laundry. So we spent ages walking about looking for a Laundrette. Got some bread, Ham and Cheese for our tea. Like fucking hundreds of it. Made them, and ate them in the Hotel. We attempted to play cards, but realised we didn't know how to play any card games. We played a very strange version of shithead. We had half of the rules, but we just didn't play it right. Went to bed pretty shortly after that. I switched the fan off, i think at some stage Craig switched it on again(to be fair it was fucking hot). I couldn't sleep cos of the noise of the fan, so after a while I was like fuck it and switched it off. So fucking hot though. at some stage throughout the night some guy was in the street screaming 'YO! YO MAN!' for fucking ages. It was funny though. My one regret of the day...We didn't swim with any dolphins.

Tomorrow - Up early doors for a bus to Sevilla. Day in Sevilla - We have no idea what there is to do in Sevilla! Game on.

Hive On Tour: I Love Water

Day 3 – Sunday –

Crazy thought just before going to bed at 7am.. I’ll set my alarm for 8.30. Stupid and of course I never heard it. Woke up at like 10.30 in my nappy. We all started showering. I went in and was like what the fuck. The strangest shower I have ever seen. It had your typical shower head, another bigger head that pointed down, and 6 nozzles that pointed out. There was a knob that you could use to pick which of the nozzles you used, but it made no sense. That could have made for the ultimate shower bath, but it was in a tiny cubicle. So strange. I came out and asked the room if anyone found the shower completely confusing ‘na mate(in an aussie accent), it was just a shower’. They then pointed out that on the door to the one I used, there was a sign saying ‘DO NOT USE’ oops. As I came out of the shower the girl shouted something Spanish and pointed at the sign that said check out was 11. Oops. Aidan still had to shower, so It was almost 12 by the time we left. Just dropped our keys and ran. Good effort.
We were off to Aqua Land!
Made our way to the bus station and spent ages trying to figure out which bus we had to get, and where we had to get it to. Etc. Some spanish man helped us. Got on the bus, which was jam packed and so we had to stand in the aisle with all our bags. It meant that a lot of jumping and squishing and just general maneuvering had to be done whenever anyone wanted to get off the bus. This hot bird just laughed at us. We got off the bus and got some pizza. La Quenta. Good pizza. After that we asked a taxi driver to take us to Aqua Land.. he just laughed. A bad sign..haha. We got there, and it turns out we had read our flyer wrong(it had 9euros plastered all over the front of it), it wasnt 9 euros each..it was actually 20. Made no sense, but whatever, we were there. We asked the woman if there was somewhere we could store our bags(and we clearly pointed to our bag(quite big), she said yes of course. We found the lockers and they were fucking tiny. Like they could barely hold a football. We spoke with someone else, who told us to wait, and we spoke to the manager who kindly let us keep our bags in his office.
This place was exactly what we needed. Massive slides, loadsof girls in bikinis - excellent. The first slide we went on was pretty standard - 4 slides that go down together. Pretty good fun. A wee boy before me did a complete spin. It was awesome. I tried it and hit my head. Next me and Aidan did this half pipe thing where we sat in a dingy. It was so fucking scary, I thought I was gonna go over the edge, or fall out of the dingy. It was pretty cool tho. All the life guards here are super hot. The one for that ride was dressed like tomb raider. (Womb raider haha..so immature). I think next we went on this one called the black hole which was pretty awesome. Next was Kamikaze... The name says it all. You spend like 30mins climbing the stairs, and you can see africa from the top. They call it a slide, but you essentially freefall with your arse lightly touching some plastic. Its fucking awesome, I'm pretty confident That is the fastest I've ever travelled(this is the biggest I've ever been). I just about took off. In complete contrast to that, the next one had a massive que, and was utterly shit. I literally had to push myself along for three quarters of it. Near the end there was a big dip and I managed to get enough momentum to go the rest of the way. I have never laughed so hard as when Aidan came round the final corner and into view of me, still pushing himself along. He actually stopped dead just before the end and just jumped off into the water. So shit, but so funny. The last one we went on was so funny but awesome. You basically sat in a rubber ring and went down all these poofy slides. Kindof like what water rafting(what water rafting? WHITE WATER RAFTING!) except less intense. We acted like Idiots so the hot life guards could save us. I splashed one with water. They were not up for banter! Went into a cold jacuzzi which sprayed water on my face. It was so confusing. We decided to call it a day after one more shot on the Kamikaze. Went to pick up our bags, the manager was not impressed with us dripping water all over his office(but to be fair, what the fuck did he expect!) Walked to the bus station, picked up an Ice Cream(I SCREAM!) which was fucking cracking. Got the bus to La Linea De La Contraception. Craig had the worst bus Journey ever because some bitch had leant her seat back meaning craig had no room whatsoever. I, on the other hand, had a fucking awesome journey, because this Girl was fucking stunning, and her leaning back gave me an absolutely cracking view. At some stage she turned round and smiled at me, before stretching her arms and breathing heavily. I was tempted to ask her to marry me. So hot. We got off the bus at like 1130pm, having not even looked at hostels. Thats what happens when you're hungover. We made our way into town, trying to ask random people where to find a hostel. The first 3 people we asked ignored us completely. Quite strange. Eventually someone helped us, and we found A hostal. Interesting fact, the word 'Hostal' in spain, is equivalent to a bed and breakfast here. So we had private twin rooms(it worked out about 20 euros each), with ensuite bathrooms. This was exactly what we needed. Fucking great. There was a restaurant next door with a menu of the day. I had some Paella(not bad, although there was no way I was eating that shrimp..it had eyes!), followed by a Steak(slightly bland, no sauce..but it was decent). After that we went straight to bed. Pretty good to get a good nights sleep, Even if it was slightly hot(or roasting!)

Tomorrow - We visit Gibraltar, Monkeys, Caves and Britain.

Hive on Tour:For I Am The Lady of Louisiana!

Day two – Saturday – We decided to stay another night in Malaga.. cos it was pretty cool. Unfortunately Maximo Park could not give us a room. Fuck. This is where the stress of our holiday started – we never booked anywhere more than 12 hours ahead. Bad thinking really, but that was the way it worked. Maximo looked after our bags.. we surfed the net, found a decent looking hostel – then headed out in search for it. It was so hot. Unbelievable. On the way across some weird woman tried to give me a fern, I refused but aidan used his master translation skills to tell me it was a gift. She then read my fortune and made me give her 5 euros. She wanted 10 so I think im cursed forever. Stupid cunt, I was ready to fight her. Got to the address of the hostel, and found that it was just an office block.. what the fuck. I’m not quite sure how it worked out, but basically we walked back to our hostel, picked up our bags and got to this ‘office block’.. stood outside for a while.. This was still pretty early, cant have been much past 1pm. We eventually saw a ‘youth’ go in, so we followed them up to the 6th floor where it turned out the hostel was...weird. Game on though. Beach time. Apparently the beach was a 900m walk. 900m my arse. It took us about 1hr to walk there. We were hungry by this time, so went to burger king and got a long chicken. We ate outside.. could barely see anything it was so bright, and the tables were metal. Hit the beach. It was pretty awesome, although the water was absolutely freezing.. I cant believe I expected it to be hot haha. Still brilliant. I got sunburnt to fuck. It was awesome. We stayed there till like 8 at night. I have no idea where all the time goes. Got back, had a quick snooze.

There was 2 aussies in our room who were like ‘a couple beers tonight mate?’ game on. We went to the supermarket and got shed loads of food. This hostel provided free pasta. Beer was cheap as fuck in the supermarket. 4 cooks would definitely spoil the broth, so I cracked open a beer and started to write my blog. 3 times the fucking power cut out, each time it was because Aidan switched the kettle on. I gave up, I was like fuck this – I will do it when I get back. The Aussies were bemused as to how i got away with sitting on a computer while the others slaved over a hot stove. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and I do not want any form of broth spoiled. Anyway, I cut up the bread. We had fuck loads of carbonara. Seriously, everyone was so impressed. There was this American girl there too. Potentially the only girl in the hostel(until a French Canadian appeared). The aussie boys were up for partying so we decided to act like Scottish twats. Drank some cheap beer, some cheap vodka, mixed vodka, beer and wine in a pan that had recently contained carbonara(and still a mushroom) aidan won the challenge(whatever that challenge may have been). The power went off again, the guy at the hostel said it was the air conditioning, even tho it always tripped whenever someone switched the kettle on... Eventually we left. There was also a couple from Guadalahara(I think...) We thought the Hostel worked(Australian) was getting rid of us because of the noise – it turns out he just wanted to come out and get fucked with us. We ran down the 6 flights of stairs in the pitch black with the Australians, Andy managed to hide a corner and scare the shit out of aidan..brillaint. We met like 20 people from another hostel at our door. A Columbian, 2 canadians(hot), Some Spanish American irish from Louisiana(ask aidan for their accent, it was fucking brilliant – Sounded American, except random words would come out thick irish...awesome), a couple from Birmingham and a Weegie. I think that was it. We decided to be proper Scottish bastards all night. Went into an offie for a bottle of vodka, the Columbian said he wanted a bottle of whisky too. We come out with a litre of vodka...he came out with a 50ml miniature Jack Daniels. I have never laughed so much. Good lad tho, I believe he was called Maurice, or quite possibly something else like Horacio. He was sound. He told me about his mushroom trips he had had in the past. Oh I forgot to mention, the green man in spain actually runs. And theres a countdown timer. It’s the best thing in the world. Except it doesent mean anything, the drivers go through red lights all the time. Its very strange. We went to the same place as we had been the night before, except this time we were speaking to people!(we would occasionally smile at each other and exclaim excitedly ‘we’re speaking to people!’) haha. The Louisiana folk asked me to sing them a Scottish song, I sang them Loch Lomond(the Glaswegian said that wasn’t a real Scottish song..whatever, go fuck yourself mate). He then recited a rabbie burns poem...that may be Scottish, but your a fucking geek mate. In return, I made the girl sing me ‘The Lady From Louisiana’, which she didn’t know. After I while I realised it wasn’t a song, but the name of a train in a book I read. So I got her to pretend to be a train. Good effort. We sang lots of Scottish songs. ‘HERE WE, HERE WE, HERE WE FUCKING Go!’. We also made a lot of exaggerations about Scotland. Such as when the sun comes out people stop working and go and lie in the sun(kindof true i guess... I do it...). Talking to the Candians about Ice Hockey, and their use of Ehye(whatever, I don’t know how they spell it). I basically spent the rest of the night talking in a Canadian accent. I told them about our Ice Hockey team called the HIVE HITMEN, and they said they could hook us up with a tour if we came to Canada. I made my vodka a touch too strong, prompting me to put the puke in the post. It got lost at the post office, luckily. There was a big pirate ship in the water(somalian pirates with their Skull and Crossbones-is that what its called?), we tried to commandeer the ship but to no avail.

We headed for a club, on the way I played a Columbian at invisible basketball, he kicked my cunt in. It started properly raining, but the rain was so hot. The American guy was running and sliding for miles, Aidan Tried it 3 times and fell on the floor 3 times. Brilliant. It seems Malagans are particularly fond of Prince, and they have a massive monument to him in their town centre. We sang Purple Rain to him. I got chatting to the French Canadian, I may have in there, but she was a bit weird so I was unsure. She told me 3 phrases to say when I met a French girl, slightly forward(and they don’t really work) 1-Hello, you are beautiful. 2 – cant remember..oops. 3-would you like to sleep with me? She told me it would result in me getting touched...but she never said whether it would be in a good way. Dom occasionally came up and added ‘je suis tres fatigue aujourdui’. We made it to the club, but it was too expensive so we went to COOL – where we had been the night before – It was not bad, a bit too expensive so I got a litre of beer and milked it forever. In the whole place(maybe the size of opium’s downstairs-but very busy) they only had 1 toilet. As in 1 cubicle. My house has more than that. Me and Craig did some sword fighting in the toilet to combat the queues. Bit messy, and the Spanish in the queue behind us were a bit like what the fuck. SCOTTISH BASTARDS. Aidan used his Spanish to speak to some guy, who gave him 2 90% shots. Aidan became pretty fucked(or was already pretty fucked). That place was pretty shit, so we left. I met some welsh guy outside who was trying to convince me to double team someone with him. Slightly strange. The Columbian took us all back to his hostel(he worked there, and most people lived there). It took us ages, I sang ‘take it easy’ with the Canadian girl, pretty much the whole way back. She was a bit of banter, but went to her bed once we got back to the hostel. We took the bus back, I stood on the hinge of the bus, fucking weird and slightly tricky when your pished. Got back to the hostel and had a beer. Canadian went to bed...poor show! Spent most of the time in there chatting with the French Canadian. I didn’t really have much of a clue what she was talking about to be honest. She was a vet and had to save a tiger with two heads.. she was pretty cool, but I have no idea what she was on about. We listened to some rage. Aidan jumped on a stool and went right through it, I have never seen anything so funny. He eventually fell asleep. Irish American made some Chorizo and scrambled egg. Pretty tasty. Except I am not a fan of Chorizo. Still chatting away absolute shite. Started speaking to our hostel man about transformers and other nostalgic childhood stuff, he was a bit older than me...so I wasn’t really sure what he was on about half the time. Eventually it was time to go home. Woke Aidan up... kind of. He got up and started walking like a robot. He walked like he knew where he was going, but he had no idea. He wouldn’t look at any of us. He just kept walking. I had to get him to wait for our guide, the only way I could do this was by standing in front of him and saying random Spanish sounding words and making gestures for him to slow down. It worked. Still he kept walking, with me just behind him to make sure he didn’t walk infront of a car or anything. He pissed against a wall and just kept walking. After about 30 mins he turned to me and said ‘I’m sorry’. And that was him back awake, still totally fucked, but we could talk to him now. Our Australian guide jumped on a traffic come which just caved in on him, so he started complaining that they should be made much stronger than that – oh yeah...im sure that the ability to support the weight of a fully grown man is high in their list of priorities when designing traffic cones. Made it back to the hostel and went to bed. Craig was their too. Me and Dom went to the toilet when we got in. Apparently Craig asked Aidan where we were and he said ‘I have no fucking idea’. I got in and I was afraid I would expose myself to someone so I made a nappy out of my bed sheet. Fell asleep. Pretty good. So fucked.

Tomorrow – Water park! Can’t wait!(i know it has already happened!)