A love letter from Spain
This week has been almost nine months in the making. As I’m typing this, I’m on my flight home from Spain! But, it took a longer road to get to this moment.
The events of this week started at the end of the trip I took last November. I had fallen so in love with Spain that I was looking for a reason to go back. And I had one, in the form of the open loop aka Barcelona. I didn’t take the ten day trip and I was kicking myself for not extending it. So, I went back to Gate 1 Travel to find a trip that’d included Barcelona and found the nine days of art and wine of Spain. But I hesitated as two other contenders emerged, Ireland and Morocco. I hadn’t made a final decision yet.
That moment would come during the new year’s eve party I went to at the bookstore cafe. I brought it up to a party goer and she asked me what my heart was feeling. I still wanted to head to Spain as I felt so comfortable speaking Spanish and felt a sense of peace to be able to recapture it. The morning of January 30, the reservation was confirmed. Within six months, it was paid off. The waiting was the hardest part.
But alas, the week would finally arrive. I needed the week to clear my head of all the negativity from work and the madness of juggling the rest of the family’s vacations before mine. I felt a long missed sense of joy return after clocking out on 10/21. For the next week, nothing else mattered but joy. The trip would begin the next afternoon flying into Barcelona after an overnight flight.
With my bags in tow, the long road back to Spain began. I made my flight from JFK, but there was a hitch. Due to the weather, the flight was delayed two hours and we didn’t arrived until 8:30am, 75 minutes later than scheduled. The domino effect would begin as my transfer to the hotel hadn’t arrived. I met the company’s drivers at the exit with my confirmation in hand. It turned out I wasn’t the only one in this situation. There were ten other people, a group of five from Minnesota and another group of five from the Philippines. A few calls later, I was on the way to the hotel. As the rooms weren’t ready, I had some time to kill. I met up with this couple from Orange County and we went walking from the hotel to the placa Catalyuna and back seeing Casa Batllo and La Pedrera by Mr Antoni Gaudi along the way. After more sightseeing, the orientation was that night. And based on the characters and experiences travelling of the group, this was going to be an interesting week. Enough to forget that I was the only single traveller.
Monday began with a tour of Barcelona. By bus, we would travel the city and end up at Parc Guell, a community Mr. Gaudi designed for his patron, Eusebio Guell. The view from the overlook spans the entire city. It was during the walk through the cobblestones that I would run into Sandi, an oldeR woman from St. Augustine, Florida and our paths would cross during the week. The next stop would be to the unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia. We didn’t go in but the exterior was with the visit by itself. After lunch, we would spend the rest of the day in Penedes, the cava producing region of the country. We visited the winery, Pares Balta and saw how the winemaking process worked and it ended with a wine tasting before returning to the city. I would join a couple from Toronto and a mother/daughter duo for dinner that night.
The next day, began with the first optional tour, the monastery of Montserrat. I was on the fence about this, until we starred to see it during the bus ride yesterday. It was enough to sway me into adding it. And so the bus headed out of town and the views were dramatic through the clouds and rain. I’m not as much of a religious person but I couldn’t help but feel humbled at this solemn site. The rest of the day was at leisure. The next place I went was at the top of my list, the Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona. I’m not a fan of theirs but the only thing stronger in the defiant sense of being Catalan is the love of their team. I took the stadium tour and lets say that TV and the FIFA video games don’t compare to being there in person. With the beaming smile, I had enough room for one last activity, the national art museum of Catalyuna. It’s located on Montjuic hill and looks so imposing. It’s also a LONG way up and down but I did it, soaked through my Design on a Dime shirt. The Estrella Damn at dinner tasted all the sweeter after accomplishing that task.
Wednesday morning, it was time to move to our next stop, Bilbao. But we made a brief stop in Zaragoza for lunch and left as a protest regarding religion being taught in schools was taking place. We had one more stop at a winery in La Rioja before ending up in town for dinner together in the hotel. Thursday morning would include a city tour of Bilbao, the Guggenheim museum and a visit to the seaside hamlet of San Sebastian. It was warm that day and didn’t think to bring a sweater. That decision bit me in the ass as the weather turned chillier when we overlooked the beach at the top of the mountain. The other reason we were there was a tapas bar crawl. In the Basque country, tapas are called pinxtos as they are on a toothpick. We went to two bars and a desert shop before returning to the hotel later that night.
With the week almost at its end, there was one last stop, Madrid. But we stopped in Segovia on the way. The tour guide was a familar face from last November, Amor. She was my guide through the Prado museum and she would lead the tour here. From the aqueduct, we walked uphill to the alcazar and with the sunny skies, you can see forever. By night fall, we arrived in Madrid for dinner Friday night to find out that the group would get bigger as another tour was only beginning.
The two groups on two buses would head out to see the city together. It gave me a great sense of relief that there’s five single travellers part of the group. The last stop was a throwback as we visited the Prado museum on the same route. To the point that Amor joked to me, next time your in town, I’m giving you the microphone. Our afternoon consisted of a visit to the monastery, El Escorial. This place is also where royalty are buried. On the road back to Madrid, the reality hit that the trip was ending. I thought to myself, I wanted to see a flamenco show, like I did in Seville last November. With our tour manager Ivan’s help, I was able to book the early show at Las Carboneras. In light of the traffic in town due to the second vote and subsequent protests for acting president of the government Mariano Rajoy , I was able to make it there barely. I needed that last jolt of joy and I got it watching the dancer’s, singers and guitarist perform flawlessly.
This morning at breakfast, I said my goodbyes as the majority of our group continued the tour heading to Toledo and Cordoba. Some of our tour mates will end in Seville on Wednesday while others are going on the full 15 day trip returning to Barcelona before leaving next weekend. I wish all of them a happy and safe rest of the tour.
I can’t thank enough our tour manager, Ivan. The combination of his passion for his job, extensive knowledge of Spanish history and his love of solo artists, particularly Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen made the tour a good one. The same can be said for all of our guides and our driver, José Luis. And finally, I want to thank the group I travelled with as our personalities made for a fun trip and one where I could break out of my shell of isolation to become a social butterfly and at the same time, feel more comfortable in speaking Spanish. Hopefully, this side of me will stick around this time.
Sure, there will be a comedown to reality and I’ll revert back to my meek and quiet dormouse self. But right now, I feel like I’m on top of the world. I had the best week I’ll have all year and I’ll always have a place in my heart for Spain. With this trip gone into the good night, it’s time to think of the next one, San Francisco at the end of January. George Orwell was so right as he wrote in “Homage To Catalonia”:” I rather be a foreigner in Spain than anywhere else, how easy it is to make friends”.
