Adios, Spain

We tried to give Spain a chance. We really did. I was warming to Barcelona--it´s vibrant and lively and has fantastic food. Loved Gaudi´s Parque Guell--it is like Dr. Suess land (will post pictures soon!). We went out dancing with our Aussie friend Sal until 4:30am (although that night I cut my foot and bled all over my shoe. We were dancing to Walking on Sunshine, but turns out I was actually Walking on Broken Glass....hahahah...sorry). We finally got some typical Spanish weather and spent some QT on the beach...

Despite all the cautionary tales (we´ve already met scores of people who have had their stuff stolen, especially in Barcelona) we were completely unprepared for what happened yesterday. Kristine had her bag stolen from the beach with everything in it. Everything. Passport, camera, 300€, journal, books, credit cards, etc. These people are obviously really good at what they do, as they seized a 30 second window of opportunity, after Kris had just flipped over and I had my face in the opposite direction with my iPod on. There were these annoying, very loud loudspeaker messages about jellyfish and I think it provided a distraction. It was an awful, awful day but Kaje is hangin´in.

We were actually working on the following lists before this happened, only now we aren´t joking.

Top 5 Things We Hate About Spain
1) Thieves--they´re everywhere. Pretty much everyone in the police station had
been robbed, including a person who had a broken Coke bottle held to
his throat and one who had her bag physically removed from across her
body by two men while her husband watched on helplessly.
2) Rude, rude people who won´t let us on the metro with our packs on.
3) All service people everywhere--I really think that Spain should introduce
SuperHost into the high school curriculum.
4) Madrid food. Worst meals I´ve eaten in my life. Restaurants with cigarette butts and trash all over the floor. Maybe FoodSafe should also be compulsory.
5) Disgusting hostel washrooms.

This list goes hand in hand with these lists...

Top 10 Things We Miss About Lagos
1) The beaches. Absolutely amazing. And people don´t steal your stuff there.
2) The Aussie boys (you know who you are)
3) Nana Portugal--despite her violent streak, she ran a tight ship.
4) Our own private bagno cleaned twice daily by #3
5) Arthur the crazy hostel guy.
6) The Chicken Man.
7) Fishbowls.
8) 5pm cheese snack.
9) The terrace.
10) 11pm ¨piano"

Top 5 Things We Miss About Home (Not including people)

1) Our own beds.
2) Sushi (Ebizo for me, Momo for Kaje)
3) Tim Horton´s
4) Baths in clean, Maria-cleaned bathtub
5) We can´t think of a fifth thing. That´s a pretty good sign, I think, since we have 2+ months to go.

We leave for Sardinia later today, and I am stoked about that. I´ve wanted to go there for ages and I am looking forward to a mellow week on beautiful beaches. The weather is beautiful again, so it should be just what we need. Between partying, bad mattresses, and partying, I honestly feel like I haven´t really slept in 2 weeks. But I´m not here to sleep, am I?

Love,
Chels