Barcelona- Shenanigans up the wazoo

My trip to Malta and the subsequent time in Girona was exactly what I was looking for in a vacation: low-key, stress-free living with fabulous weather :)  However, I was really looking forward to seeing Wenlu, Mike, and Andrew in Barcelona and I’d heard lots of interesting things about the city, so I was anxious to see what kind of shenanigans would go down once I arrived in town.  First indication that Barcelona was different/more lively than where I’d been previously?  I was catcalled three times, honked at twice, and propositioned by a man on a motorcycle within my first hour of arriving.  And let me assure you that I didn’t even look good at this point, so I can’t imagine what women who’ve taken the time to pull themselves together go through! 

Mirador de Colom

This is not a joke.

Anyway, I took advantage of yet another beautiful day to walk around town and do some exploring to get the lay of the land.  Barcelona’s an interesting mix of past and present, as they have some amazing monuments and buildings but also a very young and vibrant population, from what I saw.  I of course headed down to the harbor, where the sailboats were packed in like sardines.  Honestly, I have no idea how they maneuver out of port!  There’s a mall along the gangway that I walked through to get to the other side of the port, and I was surprised to see a giant statue… of a man that had pulled down his pants and taken a dump.  I wish I were kidding about this one, but apparently, the “Caganer,” which literally means the “Shitter” or the “Crapper” is a typical figure of Catalan Christmas cribs and his stool is fertilizer that portends abundant crops for the New Year.  That means that the semi-inappropriate statue is a symbol of “happiness, good luck, and above all, growth.”  … Yeah, I thought it was pretty strange too. 

Parc de la Ciutadella

I stayed up late (aka 3:30am) to chat with my family in Chicago, celebrating Christmas Eve together.  It was tough, but good to hear all of their voices.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to miss Christmas again- we’ll see!  Andrew and I walked pretty much all over town on Christmas Day while waiting for Wenlu and Mike to arrive.  One of the coolest things we found was an enormous fountain in a park that we didn’t even know existed!  That’s the fun part of doing some random exploring.  We also played around with some photos- you’ll see what I mean below. 

I'm pretty much a giant.

Pretty close, right?

We had an interesting evening, to say the least.  We met up with some cool guys from North Carolina and a brother/sister pair from Arizona and drank a respectable amount of wine in the hostel before deciding to go out to a club that had been recommended to the NC guys.  It probably would have been best to take a taxi, but since there weren’t any minivan taxis available, which meant that the 9 of us would have had to split up into 3 different vehicles, we decided to go it on foot.  I’ll spare you the sordid details, but suffice it to say that the walk included beers bought from Spanish street vendors (which we later learned is illegal), getting lost and attempting to ask for directions without a real map or more than “un pocito” of Español, various levels of wading/swimming in the Mediterranean which led to several members leaving early to avoid hypothermia, and only three of us (Andrew, Will, and me) successfully making it to the club by, oh, I don’t know… two thirty in the morning maybe?  The club was absolutely ridiculous- hundreds of young (remember- they only have to be 18, not 21) Spanish clubgoers grinding to the beat of American songs blasting through the loudspeakers.  The guy to girl ratio was probably 7:1, so the two boys didn’t have much luck finding any Spanish sugar mommas ;)  The walk back was much less eventful, although we did have the chance to sing along to some Katy Perry with a group of three girls on their way home from a different club.  Biggest downside?  Reeking like smoke… it never fails to make me more glad that smoking in bars and restaurants is banned in Wisconsin!  I ended up showering at 5:30am, when we made it home, before hitting the sheets at 6am. 

Wenlu and me with Flora 

Our last full day in Barcelona was no let-down, that’s for sure!  We dragged ourselves out of bed to get to the Go-Car- yes, the Go-Car, place by 10am.  These vehicles are street-legal in Barcelona, so once we put down our deposits and put on our helmets, we were able to tear all through the city, following instructions given to us by a computerized GPS tour guide.  Well… some of us did, anyway.  Wenlu and I were the only ones who successfully went on a tour with “Flora” (we had to name her, of course), because we split up and the boys ended up in a different section of the city.  One of the cars didn’t realize that you had to push the ON button to get the lady to start talking/helping you out, so that may have been the cause of their difficulty ;)  Wenlu and I especially enjoyed when Flora decided to have a little fun on La Rambla, one of the busiest streets in the city.  She told us to turn our volume as high as it could go and then proceeded to wolf whistle and told us to wink at the cutest person we saw.  We weren’t really expecting that, and were both looking at a fat old man in a wheelchair haha :) 

Love it.

We headed to a really sweet Spanish food market for lunch, where we found delicious bread and killer fruit boxes, which even included coconut!  Mmm :)  Most of the crew took the opportunity to do some resting and relaxing in the afternoon, but I took the opportunity to talk to the best little brother in the world (love you, hon!) and then to do some souvenir shopping.  I pretended that I was French, which was both good practice and good entertainment for me.  Most of the vendors speak English reasonably well since there are so many English-speaking tourists, but their French is limited or nonexistent, so I didn’t get hassled as much as I would have otherwise.  The Christmas lights were gorgeous!  I came back, expecting a quiet night since I was tired and starting to feel a little under the weather, but was talked aka guilt tripped into coming on an all-included pub crawl, which took us to three bars (with a free shot at each one of the bars) and then into a club.  The “flaming asshole” shots at the second bar, which were literally lit on fire, was quite the crowd pleaser.  Four Moroccan guys and three Tunisian guys discovered that I spoke French and thought that was pretty much the coolest thing ever, since none of the other girls there did, which made my night all the more entertaining.  I ended up pulling an all-nighter, getting back to the hostel around 4:30am and showering before catching a 5:30am bus to the airport!  Moral of the story?  If you’re looking for some extreme shenanigans, Barcelona, and specifically the hostel we stayed at (which was full of young travelers who wanted to have a good time) is definitely the place to be.  I said Hasta Luego, Spain and headed to Venice next!

Girona- Quiet Class

I arrived in Girona without any problems and caught a bus to the center of the city.  After briefly consulting my map, I took off to find my hostel and accidentally ended up right outside.  Quelle chance!  I dropped off my backpack and set off to do some exploring.  First impressions:  wow.  In Malta, everything was old, but felt like it was just in disrepair and was starting to fall apart.  Girona, in contrast, has that beautiful “aged” look of a place where you can practically feel the history coming out of the walls to greet you.  If you were comparing cities to celebrities, Malta could be Farah Fawcett, while Girona’s more like Meryl Streep. 

Some of Girona’s highlights: 

1.        The commercial part of the city.  The names of streets and places are named after the activities that happened (and in some cases, still happen) there- ie the placa del Vi (wine), placa de l’Oli (olive oil), and carrer de l’Argenteria (silversmiths), which I thought was pretty cool.  It was an all-around sweet place to wander.

2.       El call.  This is the old Jewish quarter: not a place to visit while wearing stilettos, as I’m sure you’d catch your heel on the cobblestones and break your ankle unless you’re a French woman born and raised in sky-high shoes :)  This area is a bit of a maze, but it’s one of the places I was talking about where you can feel the history if you just close your eyes and imagine a bit!

3.       The bridges over the River Onyar, which let you see riverside houses up and down the water. 

View from La Catedral

4.       La Catedral- I didn’t go in, but the view from the outside was spectacular.  It’s also one of those places that is kind of hiding until you just turn the corner and, boom!  There it is :)

5.       El parc de la Devesa.  This is apparently one of the largest city parks in Catalonia and I would love to see the riverbank market that happens on Tuesday and Saturday mornings !

6.       The Christmas market.  The merchant stands had some really cute handmade jewelry and actually things that I’d consider buying, rather than stand after stand of tourist-trappy things :)

I was so proud of myself because I went to a boulangerie and pointed at the bread that I wanted and the lady told me that it was one fifty (in Spanish) and I both understood her and was able to give her the correct amount!  My crowning moment was at the market, when a woman asked if I had another 2 euros so she could give me a 10 instead of 8 in coins.  She kept talking to me the whole time in Spanish and I’m hoping that she thought I spoke Spanish and was just mute ;)  I was actually really impressed with how well I was able to both understand things and get around.  Because Girona is part of Catalonia, most of the signs are both in Spanish and Catalan and one or the other invariably has a strong resemblance to either French or English or both, so with the help of cognates, I was able to manage pretty well with my primitive Spanish level.  This was in stunning contrast to Malta, where even though technically they spoke my language, I felt lost looking at any number of signs!  Funny how those things work out. 

Me on the walls of Girona

Possibly my favorite part of Girona was the torres del passig de la Muralla, the wall walkway’s towers.  It was really cool to be able to walk all along the old walls of the city, and it was a fabulous way to look out onto the city and the surrounding area.  I was even able to snap a few pictures of myself on the walls due to the ‘delay’ setting and some stable rocks.  I’m sure that I could have spent much more time in Girona, but I actually felt like I saw a lot of things that I wanted to in the short time that I was there.  I was really excited to get to Barcelona to meet up with my UW friends!

Barcelona stories on the way :) xoxo

Malta continued and Gozo: Sketchy buses, toy boats, and beautiful sunrises/sunsets

Palace Guard

Wednesday I headed out and caught a ferry to Valletta, which is the capital city of Malta.  It was pretty neat and definitely has a different vibe than the areas I’d been in the day before.  The center of the city was buzzing- one of the streets (“market street”- appropriately named) had a big market all the way up and down it and there were people EVERYWHERE!  However, when I walked around the perimeter, it was like the dead zone… not scary, but just strange because the sound is trapped inside the city too so it was like there was no one anywhere, and then I turned a corner and boom!  There’s the crew.  There was a Buckingham Palace and guards outside that aren’t allowed to smile at you or anything, as well as red photo booths.  Definitely some British influence that remains! 

One extremely obvious way you can see it is that the people drive on the left side of the street.  This messes with my head for two reasons:
1.  I always look the wrong way when going to cross the street.  I can’t tell you how many times I looked right, looked left, started to cross, and- whoops!- almost get run over by a car coming from the right.
2.  I have the (false) impression that everyone in the country is carpooling.  I was so impressed with the dedication to decrease excess driving!  And then I realized that it wasn’t a passenger in every one of those cars, but the driver that is on the other side.  I just assume that there’s someone in the ‘driver’s’ seat (the passenger seat here) because I’m so used to looking for the driver there.

Malta bus

Valletta is also the main hub of the bus system in Malta.  The buses are extremely old-school and were really intimidating to me at first- hence one of the reasons I walked everywhere!  There aren’t doors, so you just hop on when it comes to the bus stop and hand your money to the driver and then when you want to get off, you pull a cord or push a button (depending on how new your bus is…) and then cross your fingers that the driver’s feeling nice enough to come to a full stop for you.  I saw multiple situations where this wasn’t the case and people literally hit the ground running ;)

Anyway, my one regret of my Malta trip is that if I would have known what the tour/cruise packages were ahead of time, I probably would have gone straight to Gozo rather than hitting up Valletta.  There is a package that is only 15 euros and includes one of those ridiculous get on/get off the bus tours in Gozo (which would have been nice just to transport around and to hit up all of the major areas) and it includes a free harbor cruise, which goes in and out of all the harbors across from Valletta.  The cruise itself is normally 16 euros (but they’ll go down to 10 in trying to get you to come)  and the ferry out to Gozo is 5 euros and the buses there are ~2 roundtrip, so it’s a pretty good deal.  I didn’t have time to take advantage of the special- maybe another time!  It was interesting to ride the bus because we really went in and out of a lot of the towns in the country, so I got a good view of the countryside.  The more rural areas are so extremely different from the cities that it feels like a whole different country.  The ferry I took out to Gozo was nothing like the ferry to Valletta- this one was really large and fit cars and trucks in too.

Crazy colorful boats

Sunset- wow

The Mgarr harbor in Gozo is full of these boats that to me look like toys.  It must be a Malta thing… I’ve seen them in lots of different harbors.  They’re painted so many different bright colors that they look too pretty to actually be functional!  Gozo has a different feel than the other main island… both places have a lot of large, old churches and small, winding streets, but Gozo seems like it’s more laid-back and low-key and less developed.  I mainly stayed in the 3 or 4 "cities" closest to the harbor, but I think I’d enjoy exploring the rest of the island.  It was like I had the place to myself- so quiet!  I tried Kinnie, the Maltese soft drink… yuch.  It’s kind of like Fanta but less sweet with a strong bitter aftertaste.  On the bright side, it’s probably better that I didn’t like it- now I don’t have to worry about finding it outside of Malta!  The sun was setting as I took the ferry back- absolutely gorgeous. One more incidence of friendly people… I met a Czech guy who was on the same ferry back and then took the same bus back to get us back to where we were staying on the main island, and he talked me ear off about everything from traveling to foreign countries to learning English and why we had come to Malta.  By the end of the 30+ minute bus ride, he asked me to dinner, but I didn’t think that it would be an especially good idea to go out by myself with a stranger late at night (I am capable of making rational decisions sometimes!) so I politely declined and told him to enjoy the rest of his trip. 

Me, Lynnette, and Cathy

I came back and Cathy, Lynnette, Michael, and Lynnette’s sister (Katrina) and I went out to the clubs.  I realized that it was one of those days where I’d forgotten to eat an actual meal, so I kept an eye on how much alcohol I was taking in.  But I can never turn down tequila shots! ;)  We didn’t end up going to the strip club (ladies night at Stiletto) but did end up visiting the Aussie girls’ cousin at a pub where we got a pitcher that was kind of like Wando’s fishbowls, a club where we were given 2-for-1 tickets, and a club where the guy outside (not really a bouncer since they obviously aren’t checking IDs and things… more like PR?) gave us free cocktail coupons and 2-for-1 vodka redbull pitchers.  It was an interesting evening, and involved pole-dancing, shots, girls that couldn’t figure out how to flush toilets, and metro Maltese boys.  All in all, a great way to go out, even if it meant that I had less than 3 hours of sleep before heading to the airport!  I was up to see sunrise, which was a definite plus. 

Malta sunrise

When trying to sum up Malta, the best way that I can describe things is that I feel like the whole country is playing a joke on me.  I already described my confusion with the cars, but the language is another key trick.  The majority of the signs are in English but then every now and then, they just mix things up and throw one in that’s only in Maltese.  And no one speaks in English, so I can’t understand anything they’re saying, but then when I ask them a question or order something in English, they respond in English, with a very strange accent that somewhat resembles British English, but at the same time sounds like they’re not native speakers.  Maltese sounds kind of like Arabic, but borrows words from Sicilian, Italian, French, and English, which makes it all them more frustrating because I pick up words here and there and I kind of have the impression that if I listened really really closely, I would understand… but when I listen really really closely, I have the impression that I’m not listening closely enough and I still don’t get it!  It’s a very difficult language to learn.  All that I picked up on my brief stay was the word for street (Triq) and the word for hill (Telgha) because I was trying to find Birkirkara Hill, but ended up at Triq Birkirkara instead of Telgha Birkirkara.  The one other word I learned was xita, which is prounced “shitta” (shitter in an Aussie accent ;) haha) which means rain.  So when you’re in Malta next, you can look up at the sky and say, shitta! 

Hoping for no xita near you  J  xoxo Allison