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Bump for 1st Post Update

Okay, so there's 2 weeks to go.

People who are still unconfirmed are:

MattGoble

I was looking at coming for the Friday / Saturday, but it could well be I end up missing the whole thing as I might me moving in my house that weekend.

AGA, what's the best way to get to yours via train? (nearest station etc etc)

I think you better put me down from 'definite' to 'maybe'. 

Still trying to buy a house, and everything is taking so long I can just see it all kicking off around Brittens time...

There was a time where Magintz and I were planning to take the Euromed to Alicante, (before we knew there would be an additional AGS unit in Barcelona) and this seemed to top the other options. Remember we will require a return ticket, so we will need nearly â,¬76 each apparently.

Yeah, I was just quoting the price based on the ticket for the 16th August - 76 Euros return works out at £52 at current exchange rates.  Expensive, and means it will probably cost more than it would if we flew 'direct' to Alicante, but hey!  it's all part of the adventure right?

How to buses compare pricewise?

That's a shame.

Doing a bit of googling I came across this page, don't know if it is of use:

http://www.spanish-rail.co.uk/trains/long.html#Euromed

It appears this Euromed service goes from Barcelona to Alicante via the cost (Which is the same as the road route), and takes about 4h40m.

http://horarios.renfe.es/hir/ingles.html

Doing a search on this site seems to suggest a good number of trains on the 16th August, for about 48 Euros.

Sorry I'm not able to offer my driving / age skills to the table to get us out of this situation, but I haven't driven a car since 1998 and I'd rather not kill you all...

Personally I'd rather rent or buy a tent there, and I can keep the rest down in size... I think we can manage.

Well some of us carry a little more weight then you do Scotch, although I keep telling myself it's puppy fat 

I think the AGS Annual might be supplied in plastic wallets this year!

I think the mittens van is the best bet. We need to make sure that all the barcelona crew are definitely coming, so we don't waste money on a 9 seater if only 7 show up.  The two that haven't booked are Spleen and Layabout... are you guys certain you're going to?

Good question ... calling Layabout and Spleen, are you two definites?

Looking back at Scotch's quote - what kind of luggage space will 'The Van' have?  I'm assuming at least some of us will be lugging some kind of tent technology with us - how do bags fit in to Van capacity?

Just dropping in to say, still alive, still have my flight booked and still good for the Mittens Van!!

Have been given a Spanish guide book for my birthday so we should be ok     

Will try and keep an eye on things here, but in the middle of buying a house at present, and I still need to work out the AGS Annual.

Laters!

Ooooo, a flight booking.

How exciting!

LOL.  Now, see, THATs what I'm afraid of....

So it's one night at Barcelona airport then! 

Just no-one draw a chalk line around me in the night!

...we still won't be surprised if you're then taken away by security.

Well this is it, it's one thing to sleep at the airport cos your flights delayed and whatnot, but do they normally frown on people sleeping at the airport cos they don't want to spend the cash on a room?  That's called being homeless isnt it??

Plus, sleeping rough the first night of the trip doesn't put us in great shakes for the rest of the week does it?

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, or just old...

The Centric hostel does a four bedroom room for £23 / person if CJ, AGA & Scotch want to crash somewhere other than an airport on the 15th?

Well, officially I do have a license, although I haven't driven since 1998 and it took be a good few attempts to pass!

I'm not sure if I'm confident enough to drive a vehicle with you lot in it - navigation is more my cup of tea...

I've dropped CJ a message with regards to the flights you guys have booked - it's easier for me to come via heathrow / gatwick and there are some Iberia flights on Lastminute which are pretty close to your flight times.

I'm certainly in on the barcelona run - will book flights tomorrow.

Luton Airport eh?

:

Well I'm gutted to see this happen, although I somehow knew it was on the cards.

What most of you won't be aware of is that, while some of us were down in Brighton a few weeks back, Chris actually went missing for 8 hours...

Now, I don't won't to be the one to point any fingers, but I'm pretty certain that Andail's housemates were big Wintermute users (Some may even say fanatics), and I strongly believe that they somehow 'got' to Chris, and forced him down this route.  Whether they had some dirt on him, such as his 'relationship' with the SCRAMM team, I don't know.

This is quite a sinister turn of events, and I think we should all be very careful as to what we say around Chris.  Personally, I think there should be a vote to see if we even want him at this year's Mittens - It would be like inviting the wolf into the chicken hut.

If anyone wishes to discuss anymore 'affirmative' action, I suggest we organise a secret meeting place with codes phrases and handshakes.

Who's with me?

Also, who's likely to be flying to Barcelona and then taking a leisurely trip down to Benidorm? If anyone else is interested in doing this it'd be handy to know so that we can work out whether getting a hire car/van would be good value for money or not. At my last count we seemed to have: me, scotch, AGA, Disco, Magintz, Layabout.

m0ds, what are your plans?

That sounds like a great plan!  Room for one more?

Have you guys booked flights yet?

And this is why we don't let CJ near teh technology...

If he didn't come, then ... who on earth did I lend all that money to?

Spleen - It would explain why he was standing outside Andail's house wondering where he got £90 from...

I thought he had robbed the off license 

I don't want to go against what others have said here, but companies I've worked for have had very bad experience with LaCie drives, and so I personally don't hold them in high regard.

Used to have an internal samsung drive -  really quiet, until it started making a continuous clicking sound, and then died a horrible death...

Since then, I've used nothing but Seagate drives - just ordered a 300GB drive from Savastore.com, along with an external case and it came to £100-ish.  And the Seagates have a 5 year warranty, which is nice...

Just my 2p worth

"I just realised I'm taking photos with the off button" - Matt

: I'm putting that one down to old age (and the red wine).  Took me a couple of attempts to work it out as well!! 

- EDIT -

Oh yes, I am also back!

Chris - cheers again for the lift, glad to see you didn't fall asleep and kill yourself on the way home...

A great weekend, great to see everyone again.  Good booze, good food, good company.

Now, listen up people, I want you to name a philospher beginning with "C", and no, you can't use a pro-lasped, possessed infinity or anything else remotely clever!