and the journey continues…

August 19^th, 2012 6:32 pm

I am currently sitting on my balcony of my latest home away from home, a cute little apartment located in the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. I feel more at home and comfortable here than Italy, probably due to the better understanding of the language (but this area is predominantly Catalonian where they speak a sort of French/Spanish fusion). It is extremely beautiful here, and I feel my time here of 4 days is short and leaving a great possibility of coming back to stay for a longer period of time. We arrived here a few days ago via an overnight ferry, which was SUCH an experience in itself!

After taking a train out of Rome to the coastal beach town of Cevitaveccia, we checked in to the port a few hours early as requested and made a friend along the way who is an American, traveling by himself and very eager to make friends. We chatted with him about our adventures and moved along to board our incredibly large boat, and noticed we both had “deck passage” seating which we were leaving up to our interpretation of what that would entail. Corey, our new comrade, believed we would be seated open air on the deck for the 20 hour travel experience and I was shocked at this idea, already freezing just at the thought of the wind. Noah felt we would at least be under a cover but probably in open air seating, and I really had no idea what to expect. As we waited, we saw many young Italians in their very best party gear, several groups with their perfect tans, neon clothes, loud music already blaring from various electronics, and TONS of luggage. We were beginning to feel this ferry was more than just a type of commuter transport, but were excited to see what it would be like.

After our passports were checked and luggage sent through security (we were still crossing a border even if it didn’t feel like it), we stepped on to the ultimate party “ferry”, which was probably much larger than the Titanic. We asked the three-piece suited gentleman who greeted us at the door where we would be staying for the night and he responded with, “ah, deck passage, you stay anywhere you like, 10^th floor and up”. Not quite understanding what he meant, we climbed the many flights of stairs to see what awaited us. We began to slowly understand, as well as the other random backpackers and not rich party-goers, that we were nomads for the night, going to be wandering the neon-lit decks for the next respectable day, leaving at 10 pm and arriving in Barcelona at 6 pm the following day. With a whopping 11 floors, this  ferry was filled with many restaurants, casinos, 2 discos, a children’s playroom, six-foot deep swimming pool, bars, and many other random rooms, it was nothing like I’ve ever seen before!

We began to laugh at the absurdity of our situation for the night and that we stepped onto basically a cruise ship as poor backpackers, shuffled in amongst rich and bougie partiers! I found a big red couch that I decided I would claim for the night, to see if I could catch any sort of sleep, or at least have somewhere comfortable to sit, and a young French traveler joined us as well. After expressing his extreme distaste for the situation, he decided to go off and find a better place to hunker down. As tired as I was, I was excited for our journey and that we should take full advantage of our opportunities here, but would still like to eventually put my head down somewhere quiet and comfortable. Noah and Corey scouted out the area while I held our questionable spot, which was located right next to the constantly blaring arcade, and came back with news of an area with basically rows of airplane seats that was completely dark at quiet, score!

We went to the main deck and watched people drink and swim and party, while we watched the vast ocean and felt the still warm air blow around us, and got tired extremely quick and went down to our new found sleeping spot, which actually worked out perfectly.

After a day of hanging on the deck and various floors of the boat and a quick stop in Sardinia at 6 am, we landed in the port of Barcelona, we made it!

Noah and I had simple directions and made a few wrong turns but finally made it to our new destination, the current apartment I’m staying in. We have walked and subway-ed our way all around this city, seeing Gaudi’s architecture, old gothic plazas, the extremely creative and collective “Gracias” festival, daily markets full of the freshest produce (aka pig’s legs), beautiful beaches and coastline, the Arc de Triomf, and been having a wonderful time. We were told to eat paella, the traditional dish of risotto and seafood which was delicious, as well as tapas which I love the gazpacho (cold tomato soup) and patatas bravas (fried potataoes with aioli and spicy sauce). I did have one setback however, which is something every traveler must be wary of, and got pickpocketed on the subway. Yeah, I know. It was only two stops and the only time I let my guard down. I had my wallet in my tiny purse with it zipped shut and when we got off the train, Noah noticed my zipper was open. I immediately realized my whole wallet, AND an apple were missing! Who DOES that?? Luckily there was no money in my wallet, but my debit and credit card, driver’s license, health insurance card (sorry Dad!), and a really terrible black and white copy of my passport were in there. I immediately came back to the apartment and cancelled all my cards before any charges we made fortunately. Now I am even more incessantly careful about my things, this stealing stuff is no joke. It was extremely frustrating and disheartening but Noah helped me realize it was the best case scenario because nothing was too important and no money was lost. Thank goodness I spent that last 50 euro on our only meal out to dinner Noah and I have had the night before, phew!

So, this is our last night here, taking it easy, and tomorrow we take an overnight bus and arrive in Astorga, Spain, where we will begin the Camino de Santiago. We found out we can ship some unnecessary luggage to the end of the camino, which relieves our minds and our backs. It would be totally crazy to carry everything with us along the camino and knowing some things will just be waiting for us when we arrive is great! Tomorrow we are getting our last provisions together and don’t expect to have internet for the next two weeks so hopefully all goes well! I am very excited but definitely nervous. I know my body will be able to endure the strain but I hope my spirits will do the same for the entire length of our journey, I know I won’t be having the luxuries of comfortable beds and naps etc, but I am up for the challenge. I’ll write again when we get to our next stop in Porto, Portugal!

Wish me luck and adios for now!