Ahh Barthelona!

I am sunburnt.

Yes, in this October season of overcast skies and changing leaves, I am sunburnt. Never in my life would I have imagined getting sunburned well into Autumn. I'm still sunburnt. Get the point? ok good. I'm sure you have already figured out that I did not catch those skin-damaging rays on this little island called the UK that is roughly the size of Montana. As you probably guessed from the post title, I was in Spain this past weekend.

It was quite an eventful trip let me tell you. We started off on the wrong foot to begin with by not actually looking up where the Reus airport - which ryanair misleadingly labels as "Barcelona" - is. It turns out Reus is a solid 60 or so miles away from Barcelona, in travellers terms, an approximately 155euro taxi ride. I'll take the heat for this one. I booked the flight and advertised it to the rest of the group who followed my lead. In my defense, I confess it was a rookie mistake before I became the experienced travel-booker that I am now. Luckily, I Alyssa, Mike, and Lauren decided to go the economic route and booked the cheapest lodging we could find. The catch was we were placed in the town of Villanova - halfway between the airport and Barcelona.


Anyway, we arrived on time to the very tiny town of Reus. After some confusion, a Spanish phrase book, a busride, train ride, and taxi ride later, we arrived at...our BUNGALOW!
This place was something else. For 12euro a night, I was expecting nothing more than a hut with straw roofing and a couple hammocks inside to sleep in. It turns out that this place normally books for over 100euro a night and was basically a resort with 3 beautiful swimming pools, a restaurant, a grocery store, and gift shop. It also had a "discoteca" which sounded interesting but was quite anticlimatic when we got there, I thought I was back in daycare because the average age must have been around 5 - except for this guy who looked, dressed, and danced, like a cross between captain jack sparrow and obi wan kenobi.

So Friday night we went out to Barcelona and ate a deliciously spanish dinner. I ate this spanish panini looking thing with pepperoni-looking meat and mozzerella cheese. Sadly, the last train to Villanova left at midnight. Not liking the sound of an 80euro taxiride back home, we left Barcelona, or BarTHelona as the natives say, and returned to our bungalow.

Saturday was beach day and we couldn't have asked for nicer weather. It was around 80degrees and hardly a cloud in the sky. The Villanova beach was very uncrowded, yet the sand was nice, clean, and the mediterranean water was warm once you stayed in it long enough. We pretty much spent all day laying out under the sun, attempting to body surf 6inch waves, and just relaxing at a day on the beach.

Our main excitement of the day hit caught us by surprise. There was this spanish guy roaming the beaches with this little box-tray of sunglasses. He was trying to sell them to everyone on the beach. You can see him in the backround triumphantly marching off after he somehow conned Mike, Lauren, and I into buy his shades. He didn't speak english and we couldn't understand his spanish so you can imagine how negotiations went with the sand drawing and foreign language counting to establish a price. I was more of a pushover and got my shades for 6 euro (his starting price was 15) whereas mike and lauren got theirs for 5 euro. Although I look like I traffik women and deal drugs when I wear those awful aviators, I must say it was rather hilarious to haggle with a salesman over sunglasses on the beach in 2 different languages. I think Alyssa caught some of it on video so if you want to actually see it, let me know and I'll hook you up.

After the beach we returned to our bungalow where we cooked our own meal of thick bacon, fried tomatoes, and mozerella cheese served on baguettes. It was delicious and more cost efficient. It would have been nice to visit Barcelona again but as it was already dark and we would have had limited time again, we decided to stick around and explore our bungalow resort.

Sunday came and our plane ticket left Reus at 10:30am which was a bummer because that was the only fligh to London all day. After a hectic morning and a little bit of jogging to get to our terminal, we made it.

I'm almost glad I didn't go into Barcelona again because I found out that of our other group of friends who actually stayed in Barcelona, two got pick-pocketed, one lost a credit card to an over-ambitious ATM, and another got conned into losing 100euro over a betting game in the streets.

Overall a satisfying trip. I don't know if I would bother returning to Barcelona for anything more than the beach but I did have a positive experience not doubt. Now I have two unplanned weekends before my 10day fall break in Italy. I'm looking at day trips but for now I'm just playing it by ear.
'til next time!