So I’m now here in Toulouse, Managed to do a stonking 170km from Andorra felt fantastic to finally get some real downhill after all that climb. I will upload photos when things are little less turbulent here. In fact I’ll probably write more about all of it when I get the chance at present things are going… Well I have a place to stay, I have arranged accommodation and schooling from the language school. Met some nice people, it all seems quite hopeful right now.

My only real worry is French, or rather my ability to learn it. I know it doesn’t help to worry about such things I just need to do my best consistently and time will sort it all out. Well I’m going to upload photos over the weekend and try and find somewhere to couchsurf instead of staying in the auberge I’m at until the 5th.

I’m also looking at books to buy, lists of words and verbs to learn, I have a suggested book by the course which I’m buying today, I’ve also found stores stocking English language books but I guess I should pick up French versions. I feel like this is a baptism of fire, but little by little I’ll get there, it’s a lot like cycling I guess .

Well I got to Gibraltar 2 days ago. Strangely on the day I just crossed over 3000km on my bike. What good timing . I feel great about doing it, the fact that I’m here feels like some kind of massive achievement. I know it took me ages compared to other cycle tourists. But who cares I’m not in a race. I don’t need approval, I’m just satisfied. So now I’m hanging around for a few days (not in Gibraltar I did that in a few hours, expect pics soon). I’m just hanging around the local area and then shifting to Portugal, no doubt stopping in Cadiz en route.

After Portugal I’ll have to go back across Spain again. This is.. Irritating. It’s the biggest loop I have to do on my tour. I don’t mind but the 40°C + Is really punishing. I’m almost tempted to work in Spain for a month or two before heading on. Spanish is such a useful language to know. It’s spoken across Central America and South America, Spain, it has similar language structure and or vocab to Italian, Romanian, French and Portugese. So all in all as a traveller I can see huge pluses there. Of course I want to study French as well in the future. I’m still undecided about how this is going to all work out. Hell I should have done this travelling thing Loooong ago :S.

I have started meditating but I want to wait awhile before I write about that. As interesting as I find it there’s much to be thought about before I feel I can talk about it coherently.Suffice to say it does give you a great sense of peace and tranquillity when you do it. Things gel together and you feel that you can connect the dots.

Expect uploads of more images including the monkeys on gibraltar (yes they are tail-less monkeys not apes, it’s a common misconception). Roll on Portugal.

Well Sans Sebastian is going well, life is good and I’m feeling pretty relaxed right now in life. I have also decided as I have the time, to try and work on my awful memory. For one thing I hope that’ll help me improve learning languages as I travel, people I meet and the people I’ve left behind. So I hit the best reference I could.. Google.

There are LOTS of memory improvement techniques, all of which can have a profound affect on your ability to retain information and words. So I’ve been studying during the rainy days we’ve been having with mixed effects. I’m still new at all this and already I’ve learned from my mistakes, but already I think I’m beginning to improve.

One great method that seems to suit me is the memory palace, you create an imaginary building in your head (usually based on reality) in my case Keynes College and the campus at UKC. Then you populate it with the information you are trying to retain, each room can contain a person, a route can be used to remember a list, a wardrobe in a room for a telephone number of the resident etc.

Then you just mentally go to the correct room when you need to gather information on something. Where you use other methods like the peg, link or Dominic system to remember details. Obviously I’m a complete novice so far and I’m not sure how to go about organising languages and new words into the mix but I’m starting by memorizing all the information I can on all my friends, birthdays, phone numbers. I know a lot of these already so it seems the best angle to start everything. Then I’ll work on maybe adding the Templeman library for my language area. Who knows, I’m just picking places I know fairly well and I’m still ironing out the creases.

On another note I think it is helping my number of Spanish words has shot up this week, so perhaps all the memory work is helping my ailing brain . Still back to relaxing and memorizing.

So I arrived on the 30th and it’s been pretty much Fiesta, Fiesta, Fiesta all the time since then, BBQ’s, beer great people and fun. I’m couchsurfing with Tobias, Alec at the house on the hill (expect pictures soon). The beer is cheap the weather fantastic (mostly) and it’s so chilled out I feel like a new person.

The most difficult thing about travelling like this is the fleeting nature of finding places like this, in a few days I’ll move on, never sure if I’ll meet my new friends again. In this case I’m almost certain I will though at somepoint catch up with these guys later after (or even during) my journey.

The one thing couchsurfing and travel does offer me though is seeing how other people live, the paths that others follow and whole new ways of thinking about things. It’s enlightening and also interesting. Foreign views of other places, peoples ideas of what’s important.

Spanish is a real trouble for me, the words slowly stick in my head, I find even the simplest things difficult, just practising numbers, directions and simple greetings at the moment. Doesn’t help I’m in the Basque area of Spain (a region with another language and culture in Spain similar I guess to Wales in the UK).

Either way Tobias and Alec offered me the spare room to rent for a month. It’s actually tempting but I can’t see myself accepting, maybe I’ll offer them a week or two and see what they say. It’s nice to be in a place where I feel I can be anyone I choose to be without judgement.

Still I’ll make my decision later today. Certainly staying here for a week or so I’ll at least get SOME spanish under my belt .