Ahora existimos solo por la gracia de Dios y la suerte tonta
Monday morning arrived and we were confident in our abilities to navigate by train and bus to the Road Surfer location for a third time. The third time's a charm, right? We got up reasonably early, trying to get into the rhythm of the siesta lifestyle - get up early, do some stuff in the morning before it gets too hot, eat a good meal and relax in the shade/cool in the middle of the day and have some energy left to have some fun at night and go to bed reasonably early and do it again. We walked the 20 minutes to the train station. Not too hot, early enough, making good time. I stepped confidently to the ticket machine, knowing that I can understand written Catalán enough and having bought tickets with a machine like this several times now (I went to Barcelona in 2018 for a couple of weeks so I'm a pro by now). Then a moment of horror: "donde está mi tarjeta?" - "where is my credit card?" I had given my credit card to Azhr to buy breakfast and he left it on the table and I never put it back in my wallet! Ay Caramba! We jogged the couple of kilometers back to the hotel on the verge of tears, imagining a day of horrifying logistics and customer service, canceling the card and missing the Road Surfer again. But, thank G-d again. The gentle people at the hotel were waiting there with the misplaced credit card and a smile. The universe was teaching us many lessons already. We learned a few new key Spanish phrases. "Ahora existimos solo por la gracia de Dios y la suerte tonta." - "Dejó mi tarjeta! Tuvimos que volver corriendo de la estación de tren!"
If we thought we were lucky before, we now felt it in our bones. I was giving Azhr a hard time because he is constantly misplacing things and just dropping them wherever without taking care to put them where they are supposed to be. But, G-d gave us an extra lesson when I left my credit card "OTRA VEZ" at the same counter. The girl running the register handed it over for a second time, knowing she was looking at perhaps the biggest idiot she had ever encountered in all her days. Now Azhr and I were even. Let's be more careful going forward.
After that brush with disaster, we decided to not turn 5 kilometers of walking and running into 20 and we just asked the hotel attendant for a taxi (everyone in Barcelona hates Uber and Uber sucks there - if you get a ride at all you will just get a taxi driver who will look at you like you are a dummy tourist for doing it that way).
Road Surfer take 3
Road surfer was awesome in person and everything finally went smoothly. I have some ideas about how to improve their service. But, when we got there during normal business hours it was delightful and easy. More on that in a future post.
We had obtained a vehicle! We were on the open road!
I was worried about my ability to pick up driving in Spain. But, at least outside Barcelona in Catalunya, I was absolutely delighted by the quality of the infrastructure and how people drive there! They drive just like me! Everyone uses a turn signal. Everyone drives defensively and moves out of the way to let people in. The don't seem to mind people going slow or going fast. There are no tweaker meth-heads eveident. Trucks stay in the right lane, only moving over to allow people to merge onto the highway. Some things they do even better than me. When there is the slightest slow down, everyone turns on their emergency blinkers to send the message of the slowdown back to drivers behind them. The roads are well designed and the signage is perfect. The roads are extremely well maintained. Boom! Nice!
We headed back towards the hotel just to get some practice with the van and get warmed up and touch base. Google Maps is not perfect in Spain, however. Not terrible but not perfect. Because the driving was going so smoothly, we decided to turn off the navigator and just follow our noses to nowhere in particular. This lead us to an absolutely beautiful town called Martorell. We tooled around for a bit and took in the sights, sounds and smells of real Catalunya. What a delightful village! But, we were coming up on siesta again. However, this time we weren't desperately hunting an operable bus stop. We were playing with the electronics in our van in the AC and listening to Pau Casals hair-raising cello playing. Perfecto! We were so absorbed by the lovely town and surroundings that we didn't even use our phone to take pictures. We'll start taking more pictures soon. Cool sights are everywhere.
If there was any drawback in Martorell, parking was extremely limited and the sun outside was very strong. We didn't have any business or needs in Martorell. So, instead of trying to park, we decided to go to the beach.
Platja de l'hom mort
Looking for something a little south of Barcelona, still not wanting to engage in real traffic without more practice, we browsed Google Maps for a beach and saw some beautiful pictures of "Platja de l'hom mort". Vale! Vamos!
The drive was great. I loved how the people were patient and didn't have mucha prisa. Everything was gorgeous and smooth.
Our first sight of the Meditaranean was breathtaking. Google thought we could drive closer but the gravel road to the beach was blocked so we parked in the lovely, fancy, clean deadend and decided to hike down the couple of kilometers to the beach.
Platja del muerte
A bit closer than our original beach destination was another beach with a very similar name - beach of the dead. We were headed to the beach of the dead man which was another few hundred meters beyond but we decided to see what this closer one was about. When we got there it was decorated with tons of pride flags and in huge 8 foot tall letters was written "GAY ZONE." Well, I'm an open minded person. So, whatever. A delante! But, when they decided to put up 100 pride flags and write GAY ZONE on the rock, they really weren't playing around. We got to the beach and there must have been 100 naked men on a 1.5 acre beach with not a single woman or child amongst them and 100% nudity. Hrm. Okay, maybe we'll see what the next beach looks like.
So, on to Platja de l'hom mort. Oh, okay, families, kids, women. Makes sense. Here tops are optional for men and women but people tend to keep their pants on (unless sort of out of the way you can take your pants off but I think the expectation is that you will not strut around completely naked in front of the children :D). Okay, good to know. GAY ZONE doesn't just mean we're cool with people and welcome everybody. GAY ZONE is GAY ZONE haha.
The beach was absolutely beautiful and comfortable and there was some shade in the cliffs and caves. We swam and really enjoyed ourselves. This was the best beach we had ever been to in our lives. And, it wasn't crowded and most people were locals. There was even a little concession at both beaches. But, not expecting such rich accomodations, we had not brought any money with us. So, eventually we ran out of water and started back to the car.
Vilanova i la Geltrú
Feeling good about this idea to meander south, we decided to head further. Vilanova i la Geltrú. We walked around and had a nice time. Azhr ate what he described as the best chocolate ice cream he had ever had. A guy told me that he was from Argentina and I told him about the really hilarious and scary movie (Finde) I had watched on the plane and we discussed in Espangléis how different Argentine Spanish is.
Well, this is going to be the last night in the hotel. And, oh wait, Free2Z Live is going to be at 02:30 in the morning! Well, let's go back and get some rest and pack up the hotel!