Espangne 2023

 “You’re late,” the displaced Ukrainian ticket agent at Europa car said.  

“We put your car back, and you can’t have it.”

“But our flight was delayed an hour!” I replied.

“When you use a third party carrier like Booking dot com, I’m not obliged to keep your reservation.  I f you had booked through our website, I would have kept the car for you for 24 hours.  You need to read the fine print.”

I was not the only person who discovered that they had bought two car rentals, but only had one car at the end of it.  Booking a car from Canada was at least half the price, and now, for a third more, I have a car for the week.  I’m glad to have it, but not happy with paying about a hundred dollars a day. I joked that I could possibly just sleep in the car as it was cheaper than getting a hotel room.  But I just sucked it up to an unfortunate travel experience.  They happen.  I’m moving on.

“Education costs money,” my mother has always said.  I got my first education on day 1, and then we drove from Barcelona to Sitges, where we’ll all be at the Villa for pre-wedding events and the wedding ceremony itself. 

I couldn’t get my eSIM card working at the airport wifi, so we proceeded out of the airport and headed on C32 south west.  Shouldn’t be hard to find the hotel.  Didn’t expect a toll gate.  It wouldn’t take my credit card either by inserting or tapping.  It took my first 5 Euro bill, but the second bill wasn’t feeding into the machine.  I put my hazard lights on and got out of the car and approached the car behind us.’

“Hables Engles?” I asked the passenger in the car behind us wondering if they spoke English and hoping they could help.  I dreaded finding out I had paid to have the toll arm lift, but due to my ignorance the arm may drop and I’d be sitting in a vicious cycle of paying and not getting back into the car in time and having the arm drop and repeat. 

A young boy got out of the van with two, 2-euro coins.  He popped them in the machine for me, and the arm lifted.  I offered him the invalid 5-euro note, but he refused with a wave of his hand.  I got in the car, and we drove towards the beach.  Success and everything went smoothly from there.

We checked Google reviews for nice restaurants near us and settled on a typical Shwarma plate which included fries and a beer each.  Twenty euros for dinner.  Nice to be on the good side of the cash in my travel pouch.  Good way to end the day.

Day 2

After an extensive and included buffet at our hotel, we walked over to the Sitges Bike Rental company, and for 100 Euros we got two hard-tail mountain bikes, a new pair of gloves for me (25), and a recommendation to go up to the Plana X, a 15-Km uphill climb to a beautiful look out.  However, at the top, the battery on my phone died, and we navigated back to the seaside — another easy route — just use your eyes, and the device was put away.

Back in time for tapas in Barcelona to meet my son’s in laws in person for the first time.  Using the newly charged phone and the working eSIM, our 55-minute trip took an hour an a half!  The traffic was horrendous, the drivers on mopeds were aggressively manoeuvring in and out, behind and in front squeezing between busses and taxis and nearly knocking off my side mirror.  When it was time to turn right, I was supposed to cross two designated taxi and bus lanes, but I chicken out.  The map app rerouted me and I had to give Julien a quick call to tell him I was late again.  A heads up put Nofar into the queue for the restaurant where everyone was meeting.

“No worries,” he said.  We missed that turn as well.  Everyone does it.  

I’m learning that everything I’m learning has already been learned by others.  At least this education didn’t cost me money this time; well, we set the app to avoid the toll, but somehow it averted that setting, and we went through the toll booth again.  Much more successfully this time, and we easily went through vowing to try to find the alternate route heading back later that evening.

Everyone assembled and Julien and Nofar ordered and ordered and ordered Tapas for the nine of us: five Lapidots, Unkie Al, and Julien, me, and Graham.  We gorged for the second time that day.  Luckily we rode 31 kilometres that afternoon, but we definitely went to bed full.  The seafood inspired tapas dishes were phenomenal, the sangria delicious, and the sparkling Cava from the Catalonia region in which we were staying was amazing.  Dessert was churros dipped into little cups of hot dipping chocolate. 

The drive was much shorter on the windy road back to Sitges.  The car lights were automatically turning on and off from regular lights to beams on the ranging speed limits of 120 on the freeway down to 30, 40, and 50 km/h on the highway road back to Sitges.  We parked in a residential neighborhood for free, and walked to our Hotel happy to not have had such a big education today, but an enjoyable day with family, new family, and delicious meals and exercise in a mountain-view seaside down famous for its Gay getaways for men, some hotels booking “men only” in their entirety.  Lots of Europeans at the buffet, and very friendly Irish ladies we shared early-morning mimosas with.  Definitely a happy day.