Seville–Last stop in Spain

The following takes place on days 170-171, May 16-17, 2011.

Having a really lazy, late start to the day isn’t always a bad thing. That is, if you’re in a regular temperature city. I am not. I am in Palma del Rio, a good three kilometers walk from the train station. By being lazy, I just condemned myself to walking to the train station with my backpack in the hottest part of the day. Not the brightest move on my part I must say.

Lucky for me, there was shade on at least one side of the road for most of the way until I got to the old Roman bridge right by Kelsi’s family’s home. I was a bit sad that I couldn’t say a proper goodbye to Kelsi but her family was home and she was busy working with the kids. It was still fun to spend a couple nights with someone from back home. Certainly killed a little of the homesickness I was feeling.

Travelodge Christmas Party . . . In Spain

The Following takes place on Days 168-169, May 14-15, 2011

I still can’t believe that I managed to pack up my bag the night before considering how drunk I was. The whole group from the Lagos Escape Hostel had gone out for a mini pub crawl(except for Alberta as evidenced from the picture in the last post). I knew I had a 6:30am bus. I knew. So why did I allow myself to keep taking shots or drinks?

At least I had the mind to think about packing halfway through the crawl. I literally got up from one bar, walked back to the hostel, packed, then walked back to the pub crawl. I barely slept that night. It made for a very interesting bus ride.

Chance Encounters

The following takes place on Days 150-151, April 26-28, 2011.

I had met Jordi, admittedly, online. I’ve become increasingly aware of how easy it is to meet locals who are eager to meet travelers and show them around, through the use of websites. At first I was a bit hesitant to admit that I had met him online, but I couldn’t quite come up with any plausible other reason on how I met him.

Regardless as to where I met him, that doesn’t negate the fact that we clicked immediately. I had actually met him on the day after Sant Jordi’s Day, where we went for coffee, lunch, and he took me around the city including where he used to grow up. Coincidentally, as I found out later, where his baby brother went to kindergarten is the same tiny square that The Amazing Race visited at the end of one of the Detour options in Season 10 < /geek >.

At the end of that day, as he drove me back to Badalona, he surprised me by saying that his partner of 11 years and he had already discussed offering me a place to stay for a few nights, provided I turned out to be a normal person(ie// not a serial killer). I was dumbfounded. And I said yes. As a backpacker, I’m not going to pass up a free place to stay.

And that’s how I ended up being in Sabadell, Spain.

Aye Aye Captain!

The following takes place between Days 146-149, April 22-25, 2011

I’m not sure what was going through my head. Honestly, most times I don’t. I’m a bit of a kook. And yet, here I was in Europe and I was honest to goodness surprised that Spain, and in the same breath Europe, had a significant bus system. Maybe it’s all those stories and movies and books of people backpacking around Europe and taking trains only that gave me that highly misconstrued idea.

Either way, Europe does indeed have a bus route system. It’s cheaper than taking the train and in some cases, however odd it may seem, it can be faster than taking the train. Cheaper is the important word here as I opted to go from Madrid to Barcelona via bus instead of the more popular option of the train.

Real Madrid

The following takes place on Days 136 – 145, April 12-21, 2011

Part Two of Corey’s Round the World Spectacular began in what turned out to be an amazing way. I arrived at the airport in Toronto with plenty of time, having spent the last of my Canadian money on one last Tim Horton’s coffee and donut and the fare for the metro/bus. It’s a good thing I did arrive so early too. Turns out that my first flight on this Round-the-World ticket with Continental Airlines was delayed to the point that I would miss my connection to Madrid. But thanks to the airline alliance, they quickly put me on an earlier flight with Air Canada.

In business class. Free booze for the win!