Best & Worst, Spain

Sangria!

Ellie showing us how to pour Cidre

Flower dog outside of the Guggenheim

Marisa & Denton, in front of flower dog

El Camino de Santiago symbol

Cindy, Denton, and Russ Warnock

Christmas in June!

We FINALLY made it to Spain!

Plaza in Barcelona

Plaza in Barcelona

Goat at the market

Candy in the market

 

Nuts and dried fruits at the market



BEST

• Denton’s parents, Cindy & Russ, visit & travel with us. They were so fun, relaxed, and easy going. We had a great time with them and were so sad to see them go.
• Christmas in June! We were able to bring in reinforcements! We had ordered several things online and had them shipped to Denton’s parents, who hand delivered them to us. Marisa went a little crazy shopping online. She got new Teva sandals, a new backpack, medication refill (after hers spoiled from the heat), a new digital camera (link for camera) and 2 dresses from her closet.  Together, we got sunscreen, a sink basin plug, razors, and a new tube of Neosporin. Finally, Denton got a new salmon colored shirt, a hair trimmer, and his iPod from home. 
• CHEAP wine! Seriously, less than 1 euro. How can they even afford the bottle it’s in?!
• Food/Pintxos tour in San Sebastian with Ellie from San Sebastian Food. Russ found an amazing tour that was recommended on TripAdvisor. We went to 6 different bars (we lost track after having 1-2 glasses of wine or cidre at each stop) and tried several snacks in each bar. The Basque region has “Pintxos” the equivalent of the Spanish “Tapas.”
• ALSA. The Spanish bus company was cheap, clean, and efficient.
• Menu del Dia. The large meal of the day is served at lunch and includes bread, 1^st course, 2^nd course, and wine for 10-20Euros per person. We were always stuffed afterward and took to the Spanish tradition of taking a Siesta in the middle of the day.
• Euro 2012 games. The Euro 2012 games are soccer (futbol) games that are currently being held and taking place in Ukraine and Poland. All of the European countries compete for the futbol title of the best in Europe. We enjoyed watching a few games and cheering on with the locals.
• The tap water is potable. Yay!
• Marisa’s improvement of her Spanish language skills. Marisa was the lead translator of the group and greatly improved her Spanish speaking skills.

WORST

• Marisa got a cough from being exhausted from couchsurfing and 22 hours of travel from Singapore to Spain.
• We almost missed our flight from Singapore to Spain… that was a headache and talk about an adrenaline rush! Basically we learned our lesson but forgot it again… we couldn’t board the plane because we didn’t have evidence of onward travel to show the airline. AND! Our flight departure time had been changed and we were never notified L. So… we only had 20-30 minutes to ‘call our travel agent to make other arrangements.’ Meaning… we opened up our little netbook and created a fake booking confirmation showing that we will fly from Barcelona to Paris. Turned it into a PDF, put it on our thumb-drive and told them our travel agent emailed it to us. They didn’t even look at it, just let us continue our check-in. Then we had to (literally) run for the gate, so we could get through security in time. Yikes! After that, the flight was great and the service incredible. We flew on Qatar Airways (which we highly recommend to other travelers), and had a quick layover in Doha, Qatar before continuing to Barcelona.
• Difficult driving situations. Russ, our trusty driver, had to navigate a foreign country in our little rental car. He did a great job, but there were definitely some tricky spots and stressful times to be driving.
• $$$ - We are used to Asian prices (did you see we paid $1.50 per person for dinner in Indonesia?), so Spain was a little disheartening. Fortunately, the USD is gaining strength against the Euro and is the strongest it’s been in years. GO USA!