Travels > Spain > Leaving Spain

Mon 30.11.2009 by Liz

Yawn. We're in the plane on the way to Buenos Aires. I just woke up from a sleep that thankfully lasted most of the flight. Jack and I got stuck in the middle seats with a lady and her baby next to me. This airline has no in-flight entertainment, and it's a 15 hour flight.

Jack pulled out the little laptop to watch some stuff, and since he had my headphones, listening to my mp3 player with the airline headphones just didn't work. They were too crappy. So, I thought's I'd update about the last few days in Spain.

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In the morning, after our bitterly cold car-camp, we decided we may as well spend two nights in Barcelona before we flew out instead of the planned one, as we could make the distance easily enough from where we were. We entered the busy city on a Saturday night and wound our way again to the hotel we previously stayed, and a part of town we were already familiar with. As Jack parked Spaniard style (a.k.a illegally) I ran into the hotel to see if they had a room for the night. Due to a big soccer match, most of the places in the city had no vacancy, contrary to what was told to me on the phone before we entered Barcelona. Oh well. Another night in the car for us.

We drove down the coast a little bit to find somewhere to park for the night. After searching and consulting maps, we concluded a national park up n the hills overlooking the coast would be our best bet, and it was. The road up the hill had many little car park lookouts which made for a good stopping spot, not only for us. Other people were doing the same thing... although they may not have intended on staying the whole night.

From

At least on the coast the night wasn't as bitterly cold this time and we got to wake to a nice sunrise over the beach. After a lazy start to the day, we wound our way down the road and into Barcelona again and back to the hotel where we successfully got a room this time. We hauled all our stinky camping clothes to the nearby coin laundry for a much needed clean! Pew!

While our clothes washed, Jack and I enjoyed a coffee and a game of Uno at a nearby café, sitting outside in the sun - it had less smokers outside than in! Clothes all washed and clean, we sat down in our hotel room to do some internet research on our missions for the next day, which included finding a place to get the US Dollars out we needed to pay for our Argentine apartment.

After our research was complete, we strolled around Barcelona looking for a restaurant for dinner and encountered a crowd of football fans parading the streets, celebrating the obvious win by their team. Some were had even climbed the lamp posts of the plaza to wave their teams flag while singing. After many football fans and winding streets we finally found a nice little restaurant to tuck ourselves away into and enjoy a nice meal - and by that time I was getting very grungry (grumpy because I'm hungry). Oo, my food was tasty, a stew with chorizo and potatoes and other yummy things, but later I would find my stomach didn't agree so much with the chorizo.

The next day was our money mission. Find a bank and get out USD. Easy enough, you would think. Considering we were in Europe, our stock pile of USD was not to the amount we needed. We ended up going to 3 banks, clearing them out of all their US currency. The final exchange counter we went to had enough to make the balance of USD we needed, and as a bonus, carried Argentine pesos allowing us to exchange our last euros.

Then, off to the airport!

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