I arrived in Barcelona really needing a break from Poland. It had been five weeks of so much discovery. I yearned for a return to more simple travel. Most importantly, I would be visiting my former co-worker and friend Maria from Schoology. She was visiting family in Catalonia and invited me to spend the afternoon with her! I was very excited to make Barcelona and Catalonia feel more personal to me. Barcelona is quite an interesting city but I never had a personal connection to it.
When we landed, it was raining and steamy hot. I took a flight with a discount airline, so I got a good price, but we landed at 1am. I know that public transport in Europe typically shuts down at midnight but I figured there would be at least one bus that would be running from the airport to the city. I was right, there was exactly one bus. All of the discount airlines landed around the same time and there had to be a couple hundred people trying to squeeze onto one bus. Many ended up just taking taxis. I made it onto the bus because I travel lightly and I don’t have gigantic rolley-cart luggage. My backpack and duffel bag are squishy and can fit into tight spaces. The bus was moving along incredibly slowly and it sounded like something was wrong. About a mile outside of the center of town, the bus completely broke down. We would have to get off. At this point it was almost 2am and I don’t think anyone was going to be waiting around for a replacement bus. The rain had stopped but the humidity did not dissipate. I walked the rest of the way to the hostel drenched in sweat. It was really bad. Check-in at the hostel was easy-breezy. I took a shower and went directly to bed. The air conditioning in the room was strong.
My first full day, I needed to start with important things: getting to an affordable swimming pool with a view. They don’t really have this in Poland! I did some quick research and discovered the public pool at Montjuic. It was easy to access and looked like it would be an easy place to relax. Luckily, I had the pool almost entirely to myself for a few hours. I had to kill some time before I could check into my Airbnb. There was something off with the energy in the air. My Airbnb host was being incredibly inflexible with the checkin time and insisted that I checkin at 4pm, not before, not after. By 1pm, groups of teenagers and families started arriving at the pool bringing along with them an incredible amount of noise: families yell-talking at each other, screaming children and battling stereos with overlapping music. The Pool Gods had given me the sign that, alas, it was time to go.
The Airbnb checkin was terribly awkward, with the host asking me repeatedly if I can speak Spanish and rushing through the experience. I could swear the posting said there would be some sort of fan or ventilation in the room… oh no, there’s nothing: no air conditioning, no fan. Oh boy, this is going to be rough. I probably should have cut my losses and ponied up for a swanky hotel room at this point. It would have helped me feel more comfortable in Barcelona. Unfortunately, I was stubborn and forced myself to stay in this uncomfortable space. I was concerned about the budget too.
I figured maybe I should check out the famed beach in Barcelona. When I last visited Spain in 2008, I did not have the time to go to the beach in Barcelona, instead I went to Sitges. For so many years people have told me about the amazing scene on the beach. Maybe I went at the wrong time? I suppose on hot weekend days it’s best? I went after work on a Thursday and the place was totally dead. My friends told me there’s no bad time to go and there’s always energy on the beach. This was not the case. I went to a rooftop hotel bar instead and met another traveler where we had a lovely conversation about travel and life. I attempted to go out alone to a few bars but like the rest of Spain, bars are not really places to socialize alone with strangers and clubs are even less so. The club scene does not start until 2am. I was really hoping I’d be able to stay awake long enough to enjoy some of this award-winning nightlife, but I really just didn’t have it in me.
The next day I went to the main bus station (located in former rail terminal) to go to Sant Antoni de Calonge to meet Maria. Maria and I had such a lovely afternoon. Her uncle prepared an amazing Catalonian seafood lunch for us. She took me around the neighborhood. We walked around the cliff-side of the beaches. The water was so blue. At the end of the day, I met her grandmother too. It was really nice to feel a connection to the town, to feel welcomed. I dreaded having to go back to Barcelona and wondered why I did not do more research to find a place to stay in the Catalonian countryside instead.
I did not spend too much time in Barcelona. I was too excited to see the rest of Spain. My next stop would be the architecturally stunning Valencia.