What can possibly happen in two days???!!!

Las Ramblas, remember it,
recognised it,
forgotten how long it was.

Today, I find myself writing from Barcelona, well couldn't finish it down there, so here we are three days later. This is the first time I travelled alone down there.  I've been to England on my own various times, this last year but somehow I was still a bit afraid of travelling alone.  I've been here twice before but, I was still young and I actually managed to recognize a few landmarks here and there, although sometimes these were a bit different in my mind.  But as I said, I still had my fears.  

For a change, although I hate it with all my heart, I travelled at night.  Somehow, I always end up having flights late at night lately, always when I'm travelling alone actually.  Don't know if this is some sort of trial to see how strong I am, if I'll manage to succeed.  I mean it's not as if I have never travelled before.  I've been travelling as long as I can remember.  I've been 6 the first time I went outside my beautiful island, and since then I've hardly stopped.  But still, every time I travel I get a little bit anxious, I have this little fear of the unknown.  I can make the same journey a thousand times without beating my eyelashes, BUT the first time, well it's the first time.

You start with the airport.  Familiarizing yourself with the airport.  Landing and feeling safe.  It usually doesn't help so much when you land and the airport is deserted, but well, once more that was exactly the thing.  I went out of the airport, 4 in the morning, pitch black.  I couldn't take a bus or the metro, because at 4 in the morning none of these work, so, for a change I had to do something else I hate, take a cab.  I mean I could have slept at the airport, something I had actually done before, but since the ride to the city centre took around 20 minutes I decided to pluck up the courage and do it.  So out I went, found a cab parked and went in, gave him the address and off we went.  In less than 15 minutes we were actually outside the hotel, paid the fee, 27 euros and in we went.  The hotel was full, the room I had booked was occupied, and since the normal check in was at 2 in the afternoon, well, needless to say, I couldn't go to sleep.  

The receptionist was gentle enough to let me sit on the sofa, and wait.  Well I say, gently enough because it wasn't the first time that it was suggested that we go out in the streets, in the middle of the night, because of room problems.  But that's for an other time.  So there I stayed, slept a bit, I must say the sofa was quite comfortable, woke up a lot, kept hearing voices and thinking, what will people say if they saw me sleeping there. And then, at 7 o'clock I had this brilliant idea that I had to go for a walk outside.  I figured, more and more people will be coming down and they will see me sleeping there.  And anyway, my time was very limited so, I couldn't afford to waste any.  Make sense right??

I don't know many of you have ever been to Spain but they are not exactly the early risers kind of people.  So the only people seen in the streets were either vagabonds or drunks who were heading off after a night out.  Not exactly the kind of people you want to see in the streets 3 hours after landing in a different city, while you're alone and you don't exactly emit energy.  But still, I walked, I walked and straight on I walked.  Since I didn't really know where I was I decided to follow a pattern, walking straight on the right hand side of the road. I saw the University, ohh yes, I was really close, 2 minutes away, it's a pity that the faculty where I wanted to go was on the other side of town, but, well I found that out after I had booked and paid my hotel, hardly anything I could do at that point.

University of Barcelona

At one point I saw a Starbucks.  Was still closed but it got me thinking of England, of London time with Valentina, so I started craving it.  I thought, well a tea is a must at this hour of the morning so why not taking it from here. I checked the time, 10 minutes to opening time.  So I decided to keep walking and come back 10 minutes later.  Closed shops, closed shops and more closed shops.  10 minutes later I was back.  Surprisingly enough I wasn't the only customer.  I bought my tea and sat there waiting for the time to pass, for eight o'clock to come.  I figured, 8 o'clock i.e. more people on the streets, more shops open.

Discovered when taking a wrong turn

Needless to say, I was wrong.  What I didn't know at the time, and what I actually found out later on that day, was that it was a bank holiday.  With all the shops closed I saw that day I was actually worried for the economic downfall Barcelona was experiencing.  Anyway, from that point on the day was spent walking, walking, and more walking.  I didn't walk that much because Barcelona's city centre is huge, but mainly because I kept getting lost.  I minute I stopped following my precious pattern, I was doomed.  Well, to be honest I think I was doomed much before that, I was doomed the minute I was born with a nonexistent sense of direction.  So I walked, I walked and I walked some more.  I walked in circles, kept getting myself in the wrong streets and kept walking into weird people.  After an hour walking lost, I was really getting edgy.  I kept asking people to direct me to the place I recognized but even that seemed to be hard.  At long last I managed, I promised myself, no more wrong turns, but that proved more difficult than expected.  I got lost, I found my way, I got lost and asked around, I got lost and lost some more.

Barcelona Harbour

Thanks to all this losing I actually got myself to have a very good look around Barcelona.  Ha see one should always look on the bright side.  And the morning passed on slowly.  Seriously slowly.  I was happy because that meant more time to do what I had to do, some shopping, some photos.  Well as the shopping goes, I was quite disappointed.  Most of the shops I saw where indeed closed and the ones I did see didn't really offer much I liked.  Considering the fact that it was my only free day, I was quite disappointed.  At half one I went back to the hotel.  My room was still not finished so I waited some more.  Got the room, awesome room, beautiful bathroom, and decided to relax a bit.  Use the laptop, download somethings and take it easy.  But as always, things are never as you expect.  In fact, one thing I wasn't expecting was that these bloody Spanish people use a different electric connection than we do...damn it right. 

After that I decided to give up.  It was time to sleep a bit, get some of my energy back. I slept and in the end I wasn't really in the mood to wake up.  But in the end I did.  I couldn't waste my time sleeping.  I went down at the reception hoping that they had the power supply equipment I needed.  Got one, went up, came down.  It didn't work.  Went down again and got another one.  Thank God, this time round it worked.  The internet supply was unfortunately tooooo slow so I couldn't do much on it.  Damn, I actually carried a 3.5 kilograms with me for nothing.  Sigh.... But the day goes on.  I actually managed to get myself a map and started looking at the places I had to go to.  

Needless to say, after that I was much easier to find my way.  I got to the restaurant, early for a change.  I waited.  8 (the time of the meeting) came and went and no one was in site.  So I waited some more.  I started getting anxious though, and angry.  I really hate waiting.  I feel stupid.  I went inside to ask, to see if people were already inside.  So, I went back outside, AND WAITED.  At half eight, I started seeing people coming, looking confused and searching.  It was my cue.  I introduced myself and waited.  This time, at least, I wasn't alone.  Started talking, more people started coming, and went inside to eat.  It was very interesting.  I had my moments of silence, but I was pushed enough times to break the silence.  I soon realized that the people were actually really nice.  When we left, at 11, I was really calm.  I knew I would get back without much problems,  and I didn't.

Public demonstrations: Governments need to hear what
the people want, what they have to say.
From all my heart GOOD LUCK!!!

The following day I had to experiment with the metro station.  Easiest thing to do in the world.  Got there in no time, was early and waited, FOR A CHANGE.  It was a very nice experience, a full day packed, but the company was nice.  I didn't mind one bit.  At 5, I turned down the possibility of going out for a beer, in a place where you could see all Barcelona beneath you, and opted for some more shopping.  I thought, it was now or never.  Needless to say, Barcelona is a much different place when all the shops are open.  Managed to find what I was looking for and after watching a bit of the demonstrations (something currently happening in all the big cities in Spain) I went back to my hotel.  Had to pack and try get some sleep.  Kept waking up all the time, until at 3 I was actually forced to wake up.  

The first thing I did, as usual, was grabbing  my glasses.  Ha but why should I have a moment of pure tranquility??? My glasses' leg came off.  The pin had somehow come unwind.  Nice right.  I didn't have my contacts because I threw them away the day before and I hardly had any nails left (I spend the previous day biting off what I had left), but thank God after swearing some, and praying some more I managed to fix it.  I still wasn't much relaxed after that.  Grabbed everything and went down.  Asked for a cab, it came, and I heard them whispering about the commission.  Nice ey...what people say when they think that others don't understand them.  It is unnecessary at this point, I guess, to point out that my fare this time was much more than the first time.  I actually asked him about it, forcing him to admit that he was paying commission to the receptionist.  Nice, whatever, I was at the airport, safe and sound.  That's all that mattered at the end.

I tried getting in. The doors were locked.  Things just kept getting easier and easier for me.  I found a door open at one point with security asking me for my ticket.  The airport was almost empty.  Looked for my check in gate, and waited.  Thankfully I didn't have to wait too long.  I was asked to weigh my luggage.  It was overweight.  I asked to talk out my laptop and it was suddenly more than 3 kilos lighter.  I was allowed to keep it.  I was actually surprised because I was given the ticket for my second flight as well.  Didn't really understand what it meant, but when I did I was grateful.  It basically meant doing away with all the security checks once I was in Rome.

After that the day was basically long.  Just long hours of waiting. On the flight back home I actually got a glimpse of the nice people (NOT) coming to Malta this week and than I finally landed and got back home.  Tired and warn out.  It was three days but I still managed to learn a lot, to learn a lot about myself, my capabilities and I also got the possibility of some new perspectives for my life.  For one thing, I know that travelling alone is not the ideal thing for me.  It is not exactly the way to have fun.  It may be the way to be more adventurous, to discover new things, to actually memorize things, but it is not the best way if you want to have fun.  I can do, of that I think I am sure, such opportunities at least help me realize that.  But, it is not the way to have the most fun, to enjoy all the experience.  You will eventually end up making friends on the way, hopefully, but that doesn't let you forget of how difficult it was in the beginning.  Not sure how this will affect my future life, but it is something I will always thing about before I decide to do anything of that I'm sure.

Malta from above: it always leaves me breathless