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Last night me and the Canadian fella went to some Irish bar round the corner, it was okay and quite lively. I experimented a bit and went with Beamish and Guiness, I’m getting the taste for proper ales and stouts now. At €5.50 for a pint of anything though it didn’t do my budget too much good. I’ll be swimming to New Zealand at this rate.

When I awoke this morning it transpired that my drinking buddy had barfed in the bidet during the night. His story was that he woke up in the early hours and was that dying for a waz that it made him physically sick, an unlikely tale if you ask me and the hostel staff weren’t buying it either.

I was going to go to Lake Como today but the weather is pretty grim and to be honest I’m quite happy to just have a really lazy day in the hostel for once. I know I’m going to have a pretty hectic week coming up so it will be nice to relax.

I plan to nip out for some supplies later and I’ll do the hour round trip walk to the station to get my ticket to Nice so I don’t have to rush in the morning, but that’ll be it I think.

I’ll finally have a proper opportunity to figure out my ruddy route to Madrid and back to France from there too, that will be a relief.

Ryland (the Canadian barfer) gave me ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy (who wrote ‘No Country For Old Men’) earlier. I’d already heard of it as it’s had a lot of press and I think there is a film adaptation to be released shortly. I like the post apocalypse survival sort of stuff and it looks an easy and short read so I’ll give it a go along side the mammoth ‘Don Quixote’. It will be nice to read a book in the traditional way for a change.

I’ve just booked a flight from Paris to Manchester on December 1st with FlyBe, not too bad at about 60 quid. I can’t wait to see The Citizens in action properly again. Oh yes, it will be alright to see family and friends aswell.

What is making it really difficult to work out my route is lack of hostels, or at least ones with dorms. I keep coming up with a path that works time and transport wise but then have to start again because of lack of suitable budget accommodation. It would be okay if I wasn’t by myself as there is usually somewhere with cheap private rooms for 2-4 people, but obviously I’d have to pay the lot myself as it stands which brings the cost up to hotel prices. Grrr.

I’ve had to cut Andorra out altogether (man, that was a whole new country!) and Marseille, Montpellier, Carcassone, Perpignan, Toulouse, Valencia, Seville, Biarritz were all being considered as destinations but are not feasible for one reason or another.

Anyway, after a full day and evening’s toil, here is my latest route:

Sat 7 – Nice
Sun 8 – Nice (Monaco)
Mon 9 – Overnight bus
Tues 10 – Zaragoza
Wed 11 – Zaragoza
Thurs 12 – Zaragosa
Fri 13 – Madrid
Sat 14 – Madrid
Sun 15 – Madrid
Mon 16 – Bilbao
Tues 17 – Bilbao
Wed 18 – Bilbao
Thurs 19 – San Sebastian
Fri 20 – San Sebastian
Sat 21 – Bordeaux
Sun 22 – St. Jean D’Angely
Mon 23 – St. Jean D’Angely
Tues 24 – St. Jean D’Angely
Wed 25 – St. Jean D’Angely
Thurs 26 – St. Jean D’Angely
Fri 27 – Paris
Sat 28 – Paris
Sun 29 – Paris
Mon 30 – Paris

I will hopefully be able to have less days in St. Jean D’Angely and Paris and fit Normandy inbetween, it just depends if I can find somewhere cheap to stay really.

Me and Craig (the Aussie bloke who works here) had a pizza for tea. I’ve had quite a few diavolas on this trip but this was my first super diavola. I’m not really sure what the difference is though, the only thing I noticed on the ingredients list that was extra was some mysterious element known as ‘zola’.

We then got some beers in at the hostel again and there was also a load of different shots and vodkas on the go as previous guests had left various stuff in the freezer. These shots (such as this one) would prove to be a mistake as when we went to the pub for a last couple of pints I felt completely ill during the 2nd one and had to leave it and do a bunk. Larry lightweight eh.

Another tie on the search front today; ‘New England buggering’ and ‘David Ginola bulge’. Oho err missus eh.