2016-2017 Gap Year: Day ___: Spain Day 1 & 2

September 6 and 7

The flight from Raleigh to Toronto left at 4:20 pm. The flight itself was no problem, though I was not happy with the 8th Harry Potter book very much, and this threatened to derail my entire sense of belonging with Harry Potter and my mental well-being. The flight was also pushing us to get to our 7:10 flight fast.

The trip overseas was good--I finished The Cursed Child within 2 hours, and found that all of the characters had redeemed themselves into the characters that I had envisioned before, minus the whole Ginny-being-anti-sugar-for-at-least-a-phase-of-time. But I loved it.

I slept on and off with Vanessa for a few hours, then awoke to the nice (aka hot) flight attendant giving me a cold breakfast package (aka a blueberry muffin, a plastic fork and knife, and butter). The rest of the ride was spent reading the second of the Millennium series, The Girl Who Played With Fire. We landed in Spain at 7:45am Spain-time.

Car Rental
By 10 or so we were at the Solmar rental car place right outside of the airport. And the wait was so looooong. It was pretty ridiculous, the way every customer had to be given a 15 minute spiel/debate ads to what expensive insurance they should get instead of the cheaper basic insurance. Finally, thou, we got our car and drove it into Barcelona. We were starving.

Jamón Serrano, here we come
We parked in a public deck and walked thirty seconds to a place Vanessa had spotted: La Pata Negra. Our dad was left at the table whole the ladies went to wash their hands, and the waiter came right as my sister and I left the table. We hurried to the rescue as our dad tried to speak to him and ordered water to drink. Then we ate like Spaniard kings: the cured ham (jamón serrano) sandwiches were freaking amazing. Crunchy crust, soft inside Spanish bread with tomato rubbed on the inside; in the center layers of flavorful, smooth jamón. And as my mom said, as Spaniards we don't need more than a simple, perfect sandwich.

Premia. . .oops jk, Pineda de Mar
So, my dad did an awesome job getting us to a town, but we didn't realize until driving around for a while that it was the wrong town. We wanted the further north Pineda de Mar, not Premia de Mar. After calling our Airbnb hostess a few times, we got there and saw her at the town's train station that juts right up to the sea.
The apartment rocks. Enough said :)

Eating
We chilled a tiny bit, then walked for literally an hour, trying to find a place to eat. We hadn't eaten anything since the delicious jamon sandwiches, so at 5:55 we started scouting out restaurant. In Spain, people eat dinner from 7-11 or so, so almost nothing was open. We ended up back at the street our apartment is at, at a place that promised bocadillos and tapas. Well, for us, it promised an open area full of men playing cards and betting, a ton of cigarette smoke, some really good salted peanuts (I was that hungry), water, and a waiter who spoke Catalán, the language of the Spanish region Cataluña, and not Spanish very well, He informed me that they had 3 types of sandwiches and no tapas.
We ended up at The Buccaneers, an Irish restaurant that had patatas bravas and croquetas as their Spanish part of the menu. The bravas were hot and delicious, the sauce tasting of the Spanish sausage chorizo, and the croquetas good except breaded in corn meal. The owner and our waitress were really nice too. I hadn't expected the first dinner I ate in Spain this trip would be at a non-Spanish restaurant, but The Buccaneers was a fine alternative if it HAD to happen.

"Home"
We stopped by a small supermarket to buy essentials: anchovy-stuffed olives, cheese, bread and Nocilla (the best creation known to man), beer (don't worry guys, not for me), María cookies, peaches, salchichón, and chocolate. We proceeded to feast when we got home, and then I went straight to bed at 9:05.

Day 2
I woke up at 10:20 after an okay-night's sleep. I unpacked my bulging suitcase and Mama went for a run. I journaled on the sunny balcony overlooking the smattering of gardens, the buildings, and the hint of sea.
Breakfast was a gorgeous, unpasteurized (YES, America, that's a thing, and no one here is dying of bacterial infection), delicious fried egg, a hunk of bread, a few slices of peach, and a María cookie.

Lunch
After a bit, we drove to Girona, stopping at a restaurant on the side of the highway near a town called Quart. Of course, as a Spanish custom, olives with pits and bread to begin. I got buñuelos de bacalao (fried cod) as my first plate, and sardines for the second. The buñuelos were good--small, fried, only slightly fishy. The sardines were delicious, though the buttery sauce wasn't needed. For my dessert I got a panacota de chocolate, a luscious chocolate cream mousse.

Girona
We got to Girona and parked in a deck. We came up to the ground and looked at an old Girona hospital exhibit, then walked aimlessly to a centro-looking areas. It was all shops--we bought paraguayos, the best fruits ever that can't be found in North Carolina, a Costa Brava map and a Girona map for free by the nice store owner, and my mom and Vanessa got some cute shoes at a shoe store called Mary Paz. Then we all realized that we were in Girona's commercial district, not the historic one. We walked back near our deck and found the beautiful river and historic cathedral, buildings, and fortress on the other side. The views were incredible, and as were the people. All sorts of people walked around the old, yet hip cobblestone street with shops, benches, and trees lining them. Vanessa and I each bought a pastry: V a sugar and cream sheet, me a reixcha: a criss-crossed wedge of chocolate and pastry.
Then we found steps going upward via alleyways, and followed them until we saw the fortress, cathedral above and the city of Girona below. The fortress was inter-connected by 2 long, high walls with narrow passages and the top and slits cut in the wall for low-and-arrow shooting at intruders. We walked along this, listening to the almost-constant chapel bell from 6:30 to 7:15.

Tapas and Music
We walked back to the busy old street and sat outside at a tapas bar, listening to an awesome musician singing on the side of the road by the river and bridge. We listened to him singing popular American songs while eating chorizo, bread with tomato, and cheese.

We drove home in the night, and stopped by the supermarket as we walked through Pineda to get to the apartment. Vanessa finished the eight Harry Potter book, so we talked until 2 about it :)

Day 1 Pictures