24 hours in France

The best advantage about unplanned travelling is that you are not locked down and can be flexible with where you want to go and how long you want to stay at a place. For us, we have a general idea and only a few flights booked so when we were in San Sebastian and met up with my brother, Semo and Pete they convinced us to hire a car and come to France for a day/night with them. Between four of us the cost of a car hire pretty much matched the prices for us all to get public transport and we were pretty excited for a 'road trip'. France is not on our agenda as it is easily accessible from London  but we were so close to Biarrtiz that we couldn't help but stop off along the way.  

It felt strange to only drive an hour or so before we were in a completely different country and for those of you who have been to France you know that they are (at times) arrogant and only really speak French, therefore we knew exactly when we had crossed the border. This small town has a such a nice and slightly hidden beach. We hadn't had the best weather in San Sebastian so were finally glad that we could actually go to the beach with the beautiful weather...and get a tad burnt after 1.5hr (which is rare for us). Before our parking was up we took a quick walk to the bridge and checked out the view. I felt like such a tourist as all I did was photograph the exact same things that I have seen in every other person's Europe album but nevertheless it was still very picturesque. 

On to Seignoose were we stayed at a 'surfers house' which had been transformed into a 'hostel'. Having 7 of us we got the whole top floor to ourselves and met three other guys. Off to the supermarket where we stocked up on all things BBQ; sausages (only chorizo these days), steaks (biggest cravings) and all the ingredients for a 'mega salad'. This had to have been one of the best meals so far and held true to my Grandad's saying "the best meals you have are the ones cooked at home" something which is a rarity for us these days. We headed off to explore the town and drove to the local skate park where we watched the boys unintentionally take on the French at skating. As night came and the colours of the sky turned to beautiful pinks, blues, purples and yellows I couldn't help but be reminded of our childhood days when we used to hang in massive groups, swapping between the beach and the skate park and staying down the beach until the sun went down. Pete pulled out his guitar and played us what has become our favourite song "Temporary Eurotrash" and everyone soon joined in (yes Pete we have possibly named or changed the name of your song haha).

Reading this it may seem like any old day but having a mini trip like this and doing something as simple as a BBQ and beach made us all begin to miss home just a little bit and realise how great we have it at home; living next to a beach, having big groups of friends, delicious foods and the BBQ tradition which requires a sociable environment. Many people say we don't have much of an Aussie tradition, except for getting drunk but what I just described is exactly what an Australian tradition is today and we managed to create it to an extent in France.  

Lagos Booze Cruise

I don't even know where to begin and nor do I even know what to include in this type of post but  the events that unfolded that day must be shared in one way or another! For anyone going to Lagos, DO NOT leave until you have at least done the booze cruise. To begin it is a battle trying to work out which company has the best cruise. We booked through our hostel, that one was fully booked so they moved us to the Rising Cock Hostel's cruise then we met these guys from back home who were there for the summer and working at F n L, they managed to convince us that their cruise was the best as it had more alcohol, better games and less restrictions SOLD!!!

We went for a swim in the morning and had a hearty breakfast to line the stomach and by 1:30pm we had met the group for the day and headed to the boat. As expected it was 80% girls and 20% guys (yet 99% Australian) but before we had to even worry about whether this was to become a sleaze fest the 1% proved that there was nothing to worry about for us. There were 6 British girls onboard and within 20 minutes (thats pretty much as soon as we left the dock) they had their tops off, tits out and skulling as much booze and shots as possible. We had never seen anything like it and even the guys who were running it admitted that it was a little bit too hectic for their liking, even quoting "its fun to watch but not something you'd take home". So for the next hour we pretty much sat and became an audience for them to get completely shit faced and make fools of themselves. Their dignity was pretty much thrown overboard and if we thought they had any doubt about what they were doing we were soon reassured once in the toilet line. As the small talk goes in a line it usually consists of where your from, where you've/will travel and if you have time left a small discussion about the place your at now. For these girls it went:

"So where are you from?"
"London"
"Oh yeah, are you with the girls upstairs?"
"Yeah were the mad ones doing body shots for the boys"

Right. If only we were both using mad in the same context. But good for them, young wild and ummm...free? It is their holiday after all and they can do what they want, it certainly made our day a hell of a lot more entertaining. The best part was yet to come though. For those reading who do know us back home I'm sure you would all agree that Toma very rarely drinks to get drunk. Not on this day. Whilst in Lagos we discovered strawberry vodka, caramel vodka and black current vodka. All of which taste like cordial and were being poured into our mouths until we gave the signal. Next was the jagermister, then the sangria, the beer and then by that point whatever was in your hand as favourite choice. For Toma, it was like she had never seen alcohol before and went that extra (and possibly later the regrettable) step further and took a mouthful of absinthe. OUCH! As expected it wasn't long until she needed to lay down to 'stop the spinning'. Good thing Nat come to her rescue, laid down with her and started pretending to attack her in a photo shoot.

Natalie. She is the next one to explain. This girl was ON FIRE! Whilst these Brit's are busy doing body shots on top deck Nat was break dancing and running in circles like Homer Simpson screaming whooop woop woop! "Who's seen that episode?" hahaha absolute classic! We all docked jumped off the boat and the guys didn't even need to ask the Brits for their clothes as they did a gender bender jump because they were already nude. The octo-beer-bong got brought out and the old drinking rules (mine and right hand drinking) were played throughout the day.

By the time we got back to land EVERYONE was a mess including myself. We somehow managed to scramble all our belongings (including our camera yes!) and slowly make our way back to the bar. For Toma though, she could hardly walk and lucky we had Justin's big muscles and Rhiannon to help carry her home and with the help of the four of us roll her into bed. Somehow I ended up in bed too and by 11pm Rhiannon, Nat and Justin came back to get us. I couldn't believe I fell asleep too but up we got and ventured out for the rest of the night 'feeling refreshed'.

Definately a headache the next day so for the final time we extended our stay in Lagos but only for a recovery session as we wanted to leave it by going out on a bang.

Unfortunately I couldn't risk taking my camera on  board so was lucky enough to capture these shots on Nat's camera...enjoy!