Spanish F1 trip to Barcelona

Well, Chris (ex-housemate) and I travelled after work on Thursday to Barcelona to check out the city and go to the F1 on the weekend. While London had showed some promising weather for 2 weeks, the few days before we left was back in the low teens and rainy.

We got off the plane at 10:30 to 25 degrees.......mmmmm bring on the warm weather. So we found a place to stay on La Rumbla, which is the main street in the middle of the old section of the city which has lots of markets, clubs, cafes etc. Once we got somewhere to stay, we went out for a couple of drinks and a snack before heading to bed.


View from our room

Someone took my boat without asking!!!!
On the Friday, we did a bike tour of Barcelona which was a really good way to see the city. Also it was a lovely day, so it was a lot of fun. It consisted of a 4 hour guided ride throught the city, dodging some busses and cars on the road and seeing some really cool stuff. Met some fun people, had a few drinks on the beach which of course led to the other Chris wandering off in a crowd (while I had his wallet, passport and phone) so there was a few worrying hours, but it all worked out.






The next day, we headed to the track which was about 1/2 hour out of Barcelona. We sat in the sun for around 4-5 hours, got a good tan and watched a bit of the GP2, Porsche cup and then the F1 qualitying. Massa 1, Alonso 2, Raikkonen 3, Hamilton 4.










Saturday night we took it fairly easy, since we were sunburnt and worn out, so we went out for a nice BBQ Seafood dinner and a drink on the La Rumbla again.



Sunday morning, we thought we would try and beat the crowd to the track, which opened at 7:30. We got there at 8:30 and I think there must have already been about 80,000 there. Found a few square feet of dirt/grass and sat there from 9am - 3:30....a long day. Headed back into the city after the race, had some dinner and flew home.

ANZAC Day 2007 - Day 3

Well, after the much needed sleep, we spent most of the day walking around Istanbul prior to going to the airport late afternoon. Firstly, here is a picture of the Istanbul skyline from our hotel....

Hows the serenity?????

Then, after breakfast, a quick walk around what I can only assume is the tourist district. It was very clean and had the museums, the Blue Mosque and really nice resteraunts.

Off to the Grand Bazar, which is a massive covered market place. Lots of leather and hand mades goods, along with fake Prada/Shoes/perfume.

We then ran out of time and had to head to the airport, but there were also some cool ruins of walls which used to run all around the city.

ANZAC Day 2007 - Day 2

Well, after a freezing night with very little sleep, it was time for the dawn service to start at 5:30am. The service took about 1 hour which took place as the sun rose and illuminated the sea and surrounding area.

After the service, Laura and Justine caught the bus with their tour to Lone Pine, while Bern and I had to walk.....about 1 - 1.5km of up hill dirt track......we got there finally. We were very tired by this stage and had about an hour to wait for the next service to start....so I fell asleep and I was woken when they were starting.

After there service at Lone Pine, we managed to find our bus amongst the other 8000 people trying to do the same thing and wound up back in Istanbul around 8pm.

ANZAC Day 2007 - Day 1

Well, after leaving work and heading straight to the airport on Monday night, we (Bern and myself) finally arrived in Istanbul at our hotel at 4am. After 2 hours sleep we got on the bus bound for Gallipoli. The countryside as we neared Gallipoli was very nice, large plains of fields with cute little villlages leading down to the blue sea. There were also still WW1 bunkers scattered through the crop fields.

When we got there, we did a quick bus ride around the national park, with our fluent German/broken english tour guide...very funny!

Statue in memory of a Turkish soldier carrying an injured Australian soldier back to his lines. Then we headed to Lone Pine, which is the site of the Australian War Cemertery and also was the sight of the bloodiest battle of the campaign for the aussies.

Then we headed on the bus past up the windy steap road to the New Zealand memorial, passing an old bunker on the way. There are also still original trenches near the New Zealand memorial.

We then made our way through to ANZAC cove for the night. The sunset was nice, then it was very cold over night. There was entertainment in the form of documentaries and the like. While there was almost no sleep, it was an unforgettable night.