In Spain, people don't eat dinner until about 9:30 at night and nothing opens until about 10:30 in the morning. It's expected that people will be 15-20 minutes late to everything, and the fountains don't turn on until about noon. Conclusion: I want to live here.
We had no idea when we woke up at 7am that the city would be dead when we set out to discover what Barcelona had to offer. The night before, we mapped out everything we wanted to see. We had to be selective because we only had about 4-5 hours to see it all (we wanted to leave optimal time to get our tans on in the afternoon). However, 7 days of traveling before was wearing on my fellow travelers, and our reliance on public transportation made us even lazier about sight-seeing. Recognizing that I would probably only see Barcelona once, I wanted to soak up as much as I could. This included the olympic stadium, the Barcelona arena, the city center, one of the large cathedrals, the famous arc, the main park, and the beach. Yes, we missed the never-ending construction cathedral, but to me, that's not the biggest deal. I've embraced the life of Barcelonians as much as humanly possible.
Why the rush? Well, we had beaches to see, tan lines to get! What girl goes on Spring Break without attempting to tan? We laid out on the best beaches in Barcelona-- this time they were legit "American style" beaches (AKA they had sand, not pebbles). The water was still freezing, but unlike all the other water we came across, this was actually the Med. Sea so I had to get in it. As we got our tans on, we were approached by various locals attempting to sell us beer and massages. Annoyed by their persistence, we decided we had to come up with a better strategy than just saying "No," over and over again. Then it hit us: they speak English. They won't understand Dutch though. So, thank you, Anna, for teaching us how to say "no" in Dutch. Finally, Survival Dutch comes in handy!
For dinner, we met up with a few other SPICE girls and enjoyed an elegant 3 course meal, complete with wine, private dining, and an ocean-front view. After dinner, we returned to our apartment for a little while and then decided we better check out Barcelona's nightlife. This is when everything about their culture started to make sense. They don't go out until 1am, and small children are running and skating around until then as well. These people are psychos. Lovely, but insane.
The next morning we "slept in" (still only about 6 1/2 hours for me), and dedicated the rest of the day to the beaches of Sitges. We enjoyed a Spanish beer on a Spanish beach in the Spanish sunshine. What a great way to spend our final day! We returned to our apartment and got ready for dinner-- second round of our fine dining. Unfortunately for the other girls, it wasn't quite as good as the first time. My dinner, however, was excellent: mussels, almond crusted tuna, brownie, and white wine. DELICIOUS! We topped off the night with gelato and one last visit to the beautiful fountains, all lit up by the city lights.
We woke up early on Sunday to catch a bus to the airport and head back home. Worn out from our travels, we all agreed it was about time to head back to our rainy homeland. Realizing how very fortunate we were with our successful travels, we counted ourselves blessed. We made it through spring break without any travel hindrances (minus being one man down in Barcelona). We really should have knocked on wood at that point.
RynAir attendants were on the prowl for oversized bags. We all began stuffing our clothes, make up, umbrellas, and anything else we could think of into our coat pockets as we were approached to check our bags in the very small bins. After practically body-slamming my bag into the crammed space, the attendant let me go back in the line with the other girls. Thinking we were in the clear, we shoved our belongings back in our backpacks. However, as we continued the boarding process, we realized the attendants were STILL searching for oversized bags. We tried to hide ourselves, and finally began to board the flight, a few minutes late. Usually a few minutes late wouldn't be a big deal, but with the head wind and a delayed taxi, this was putting us quite a ways behind schedule-- ultimately making me believe we would miss our shuttle to the train.
This was Sarah's chance to shine. As soon as our flight landed, we sent Sarah sprinting through the very small airport to catch the shuttle and stop them from leaving without us. Turns out she didn't need to run because we were in plenty of time. Perfect. Everything was back on track.
Should have knocked on wood then, too. We got on a train in Nijmegen that ended in Zwolle, or so we thought. We stopped in Arnem and were informed this was the last stop. We weren't expecting that at all, but we had no choice. So, we got off the train and tried to figure out why all trains to Zwolle were not lit up on the screen. Instinct told us that meant no trains were running to Zwolle, but we didn't want to believe it. So we asked around. Our instincts were right, and luckily the information guys were kind enough to direct us to the bus that would take us to a train station that would get us on a train to Zwolle... an hour and a half later on a bus driven by a tour guide who had no idea where he was going, we hopped on our final leg of the journey and arrived in Zwolle around 5:30pm. We biked home, just in time for dinner.
And thus ends the journey of 9 days, 5 girls, 2 countries, 36 forms of transportation, and countless memories.
You have a talent for writing. Love to read your travel stories.
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