Every time I need a break before (or after) some stressing work session, I go to Barcelona. Twice in 3 years. In few weeks I will shoot my western. Better relax now.

Day 1. Sweaty Friday.

I travelled quite a lot in last years. The flight are getting cheaper and cheaper and the connections from London are quite good. Sometimes I pay more to go to Stansted than for my air ticket...
Usually, I travel on purpose (excluding the 2-3 times a year when I go back to see my family), to run some marathon in the most of the cases, so I have a nice excuse to motivate my expenses. So far I travelled without any real motivation apart for the general "let's go on holiday somewhere nice" only 2 times. And in both the cases I found myself in Barcelona, Spain.
The first time was in 2002, to visit some friends who were staying there. I enjoyed the city, so I decided to come back, this time with my dear Lindsey.
We left London in a torrid (by London standards) Friday morning to land in a even more torrid place few hours later. Now, I like the sun, and I like a nice, warm weather, but my body wasn't ready at all to such hot and humid enviroment that, as soon as I left the airport, I was already sweating like a (big) pig.
2 years ago I flew to the main airport, while this time we arrived in Girona, probably a cheaper choice for ryanair. On their big and blue ads in the aiport, Girona (Barcelona) seems to be just few miles away. Well, it took us more than an hour to finally get in the city.
As usually, I didn't even look for a place to stay, cause I like to find something nice directly at the destination. I don't think Lindsey agreed with my brilliant and brave choice, cause after an hour dragging our baggage around streets in Barcelona, we still didn't found a place to stay. I didn't care much which kind of hotel/motel/hostel we needed, so, once close to the famous Ramblas, the first cheap was the one.
We found the Sun & Moon hostel. 20 meters from the Ramblas, 12 quid a night for a room to share with 6 more random people. Adios privacy, but anyway we were there to enjoy the city, not the hostel.
One hour after the checkin, we were already on the super touristic ramba. The rambla is a very long street with all the stuff that tourist are looking for when they come to spain: restuarant with paella, jamon and sangria, street artists and more restaurant with sangria, jamon and paella, plus some shops with made in taiwan spanish shirts, guns, clothes, postcards etc... Not very different from London, actually. Excluding the food, sorry but Barcelona is much better.
After a pealla and some sangria, we spent the rest of the day walking around Barceloneta, the free beach with topless girls. I wasn't watching them too much, I promise. Especially if the youngest topless girl was 60. I have standards, you know?
After some hours on the beach, tired and a bit drunk (too much sangria? or too much vodka with a hint of orange juice on the beach ?) we headed to the hostel, to discover what our next nights were going to be: hot and humid with 35 degress till one in the morning, and then eskimo-like after 1.00, when the powerful air conditioning started to work. I went to bed alone moaning about the sweat and the hotness an some other guy stinky feet, and I woke up fully clothed with Lindsey trying to steal some of my warmness hugging me like a koala on her favourite tree, and half frozen. The temperature probably dropped 50 degrees, cause I could see snow inside the room. But maybe I was dreaming. Sangria probably helped...

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