Many thanks to all of you who sent in your entries for the Worst things about Spain. Not surprisingly, we had Benidorm, Spanish buses, cities ravaged by obras, Spanish driving, dodgy Spanish food, crap hostels, and poor old Lleida, a small town half way between Madrid and Barcelona!

But that’s enought about the worst of Spain, this blog is famously criticised for being far too nice about Spain, and I think we should get back to doing that as soon as possible… all this negativity is no good for any of us! But… having said that, I think it’s time I weighed in with my own entries for the very worst of my 9 years in Spain - some are obviously more significant and serious that others, but all were bad:

The not so serious

• 4 hangovers in particular (out of many), each which left me clinging to the cool stone tiles of bathroom floors, wondering how close I was to being dead, and generally swearing never to drink again. In each case I initially blamed the fact that I had chosen the night before to try seafood again, until Marina pointed out that I only tried seafood when I was very very drunk. Moral of the story: it’s very very easy to drink too much in Spain (or, don’t eat seafood, it’s dangerous).
• 24 hours of sensory deprivation in Trevelez, a small village in the Alpujarras famed for curing an awful lot of ham. Mist covered the supposedly stunning surrounding mountains, it didn’t stop raining, and the bars were anything but lively. 2 friends and I regressed mentally to an age where we happily spent hours making up jokes with ‘ham’ in: Q: Who’s the first on the scene of an accident in Trevelez? A: A HAMbulance. Q: Who fell off the wall in Trevelez? A: HAMty Dumpty….. you get the picture, it was pretty desperate stuff.

The very serious

• Nearly being beaten up by right-wing, hooligan-thug Ultra Sur Real Madrid football supporters while drinking in their favorite Plaza near the stadium before a game. We were with a black friend from the Dominican Republic, and they took exception to that. Clichés like “Scum or the earth” and “depths of human depravity” begin to express how I felt about them afterwards. And how I also felt about Real Madrid Football Club for a long time, seeing as they extend all possible hospitalities to these idiots - free tickets to away games, room in the basement for their giant flags etc, photo calls with star players… More on this in our forum…
• Being half-asleep in bed on the morning of March 11th 2004, in a flat not 150 metres from Atocha station, and hearing/feeling the resounding iron thud of two of the train bombs go off, one inside, and one just outside the station. The hours and days that followed. Horrendous, and deserving of a longer piece of writing one day.

That’s it! You probably won’t find any more negativity around here for a while. Spain is, on balance, a vastly more wonderful country than many of it’s European counterparts, and we shall continue to point out why! Many thanks to all who sent in entries over the last week, you gave me invaluable breathing space and I no longer feel quite so burnt out! Any more entries for the worst of Spain should be posted in our Spain forum, where you’re free to be as rude about Spain as you like