Spring Break Europe - Part 2

Continuing on…

Wednesday
We woke up early to pack up and catch our flight to Alicante, Spain. We ate our last free breakfast at the hotel, and took a train to the airport. We waited for a long time amongst the hoards of old people waiting to board our flight, (apparently Alicante is the Florida of Manchester) and then we were on our way! On the flight we had some sort of rowdy birthday party happening behind us, but otherwise things went smoothly. Jeremy and I were both taken aback by how many people ordered food from the little concession cart thing. It cost about 8 lbs for a dinky little sandwich and people had full out picnics of food in front of them. The lady next to me alone ordered four beers for her and her “mate.” Jeremy and I sufficed with our crumbly package of Czech caramelized biscuits (which by the way are my replacement cookies for the semester.)

We landed in Alicante around 2pm, I got bouncingly excited about the palm trees at the airport, then we took the c-6 bus from the airport to Plaza del Mar. Que bella Alicante! We checked into our hostel - Penzion la Milagrosa, and began wandering the sunny streets. We ate a late lunch/dinner at an outside place called Ceylon, where we each had a glass of Estrella Damm, (big Spanish beer) and shared the paella valenciana (saucy rice dish with chicken) veryyy tasty. We stopped for some gelato after that and then headed back to the hotel to change into some fresh evening wear. We prowled the streets for something to do for a while, and it slowly became more obvious that Alicante is more of a seasonal destination and has less to offer in the winter months. .. A little disappointed but none the less thirsty, we eventually found a fairly busy place called Havana offering sangria and cerveza for 1 euro each and shots for 2 euro. Jeremy took full advantage of the beer and shots deals, but only had the stamina for one glass of sangria (it was about this point that I was beginning to develop the angriest sore throat of my life.) After drinks we walked along the beach in the gale force winds for a little while before heading back to the hostel.

Thursday
We decided to sleep in for a little bit on Thursday , still recovering from all the travel earlier in the week, so around 11:30 or so we made are way up to see the Castillo de Santa Barbara, which is a stone fortress way up on a huge hill about a block form our hostel, (visible from most anywhere in Alicante.) We took the lift up, mostly because we could figure out how to walk up, and a big long tunnel lead us to it. It was also free because the ticket machine wasn’t working, which was a sweet bonus. We stepped out of the elevator at the top, took about 10 steps into the brilliant sun, and found ourselves quickly being forced back into the elevator. I’m sure you’re think hmm who or what could have pushed them back into the elevator? Was it a pushy security guard? Or aggressive Spanish youths? Perhaps a rogue Spanish mountain lion? But alas we were not that lucky. It was violent assaulting winds that threw us back, and continued to do so for the next hour and half. (My bag became airborne on more than one occasion and I seriously considered shaving my head afterwards over dealing with the massive beehive of knots… yes I said beehive, be afraid. But I would have to say that the paralyzing winds were worth it for the gorgeous view we saw of the city and the shiny sea below…and there was sun, and that’s all I really asked for. We also snapped a lot of very nice pictures.



After a treacherous journey down the mountain, we wandered through the city a bit, walked though a market with a ridiculous amount of fresh meat, ate some pizza and ice tea at a restaurant called Wong’s , and strolled through the Explanada de Palmas, browsing through the little trinkets and gifts in the vender stands. Our stroll ended at the entrance to the beach so we decided to play there for a while. (spoiler alert: the pleasantness ends soon) I sat down and attempted to catch some rays while also shielding myself from the wind, which resulted in a babushka fashioned scarf around my head. Eventually I gave up and Jeremy and I decided to go stick our toes in the Mediterranean. We took off our shoes and sock and placed them next to my bag about 15 ft away from the water. We hoped around in the cold water for a minute or two, snapped some evidentiary photos and retreated back to the warm sand…only to find our shoes minus my bag. So long story short, I had idiotically forgotten where I was, made the unbelievable (I still can’t imagine how my overcautious brain let that one slide) mistake of neglecting my belongings , made the second unbelievable mistake of including my passport in those belongings, and after some intense panic, frantic running and searching, crying in the police station, talking to visa for half an hour and more frantic searching . Jeremy (to whom I owe serious metal therapy fees) and I decided to pack up all of our things and catch the 1:40 am bus to Barcelona to get to the U.S. Embassy before the weekend. (exasperated sigh) It was hard to abandon the hope that my bag would be recovered, but it wasn’t really something we could risk since we planned on leaving the country on Saturday. We ate some dinner at 11pm at a restaurant called Pizza de Pietro. (awesome tomato soup) and began our 8 hour bus ride to Barcelona. We slept most of the way so it wasn’t a bad ride, but by this time the sore throat that had started brewing on Wednesday was in a full blaze of glory, so I was a little uncomfortable. I woke up around 7 am to the warmth of a bright orange sun rising over the Mediterranean…the first beautiful sign of light a the end of the tunnel, and distracting for a little while.

Friday
We arrived in Barcelona around 9:40 and wasted no time figuring out where we had to go and how to get there. A nice lady helped us buy tickets in the metro station (to avoid a recurrence of the ape-like poking in Manchester) and we were on our way to Reina Eislenda (street name) another nice lady here pointed us in the direction of the embassy and - cue choruses of hallelujah - we were there. I filled out all the paperwork, took a photo in the little photo machine and like some kind of crazy miracle magic, I had a new passport within the hour. (cue more choruses) so Jeremy and I found ourselves standing outside of the U.S. embassy on the sunny streets of Barcelona, at 11:30am, starving, exhausted, relieved and not exactly sure what to do next…We discussed our travel options for quite a while, debated whether it would be worth taking another train back to Alicante immediately to catch our original flights to Manchester and then home to Prague. And after a long discussion, throughout which we were both a little grouchy and mostly just tired of thinking, we decided to relax in Barcelona for the rest of the day (call it mental, and in the case of my throat, physical health) and catch a direct flight home to Prague in the morning. It was by far the pricier decision, but also by far the best one I’ve ever made. Barcelona was wonderful, even just one afternoon’s worth made me feel like the whole passport thing was just fate kicking me (pretty painfully) in the direction I was meant to go. (I was fantasizing about visiting Barcelona for spring break before I even left for Prague, but the travel options just weren't working out)
Anyways Jeremy and I had a lovely afternoon there. We found a random inexpensive hostel called Hostel Flores along the main drag (Rambla Street) of very busy Catalunya, so we dumped our stuff there scrambled into the nearest restaurant for the menu del dia (6.50 Euro), were shocked when the bill came to find that our sangria and beer cost more that our entire meal, then proceeded to explore the sunny streets of Barcelona! We saw the Arc de Triomph, strolled down the Pg. Luis Companys (walkway) admiring the palms lining either side, watched a cute group of old Spanish men playing bocce ball, and continued wondering past the museum of natural science, on to Paseo de Colon. We moseyed along the pier here had a pretty view of the ocean/bay? , some cool ring sculptures in the distance, the world trade center (Spanish version??), the Moll de Espana and of course the statue of Cristobal Colon sitting high in the sky. We also we enticed by a tasty smelling little vendor cart and bought a waffle with chocolate goo on it. We had a pretty view from the pier of the sun setting on the water. Ahhhh…. Our last stop was a metro ride over to Barcoloneta to see the Sagrada Familia, this crazy old stone cathedral that I remember learning about in 8th grade Spanish class. Unfortunately it was being renovated while we were there, which took away some of the glory, but it was still magnificent to see. So much intricacy, and splendor at first sight you can’t do anything but stand there for 5 minutes muttering whoaa…….eventually we regained our senses enough to take some photos and then drag our tired bodies back to the hostel for refreshing. I bough some halls for my cactus throat and a postcard+keychain on the way there. We had a quick pizza/pasta dinner down the street and drinks at the cerveceria with some papas fritas. Then zombied back to the hostel to pass out. Long but successful and enjoyable day.

Saturday
We woke up early to catch a shuttle to the airport, and on our way I saw a sign that I had also seen right after my Alicante incident. It was an advertisement for coca cola with two smiling people on it and it said “Estas aqui para ser feliz” which translates to “You are here to be happy” I remembered how seeing that sign had comforted me after walking back from the police station feeling hopeless. I guess I just liked the simplistic, positive view on life it offered, and it reminded me not to let bad things get you down too much or for too long; you’ll get through it the best you can and things will be sunny again. And they were :)

At the airport we bought some delicious fresh orange juice, and ran into the group from our program who went intentionally to Barcelona for spring break. We ended up on the same flight as them and it turns out they had experienced some theft as well. Our flight took off without any hitches and we were back in Prague around 12:45. Jeremy and I bought some supplies for sandwiches at Billa, had a small feast then relished in doing nothing for the rest of the day. It was good to be home!

Lauren