Got Gas?

Up early after a very good nights rest, we headed across the street to the train station to grab a bit of breakfast. Apparently Jody and I both seem to like people watching since we sat on a bench for about an hour eating yogurt, an italian chicken wrap….jody had the fortunate forsight of getting what looked like a normal smoothie….i on the other hand decided to try and decipher bottles of what appeared to be water…it was, but in europe sparkeling water is more popular than normal distilled so I ended up with a bottle of plain sparkling water. Not a fan. We made our way to the bus to get shuttled to the Hahn Airport which was about an 1 ½ hours away allowing us to see part of the countryside. At the airport, I made sure I got a bottle of water but at the counter I tried to explain that I didn’t want carbination without using such a long word…so I chose to say fizz…Jody thinks this is a ridiculous word to use but the lady understood and proceeded to give me a bottle of water without, I kid you not, gas…it makes sense when you think about it, I just didn’t think about calling it that.

Throughout this trip, we are flying on an airline called Ryan Air…it is extremely cheap (about $40 one way to just about anywhere in Europe) but with one catch…it’s a cattle call when they open the door to head out to the tarmac. Once you’re on the tarmac, its up to you to get on the plane and find a seat. Since the line was shorter at the rear ramp, we chose to go to that one and sat in the very last row (we knew that the seats wouldn’t lean back but didn’t want to fight our way any further, we’re typical lazy americans…ahha yea right). So there we were, on a plane heading to Barcelona hearing the various languages being spoken, watching the mountains pass by underneath us through the clouds…and then it happened. Remember that bottle of water I spent so long trying to get? Well…being in the back row there really isnt anywhere to put things so I put it on the arm rest (I sat in the window seat) using the wall to hold it there…well my elbows cant bend in more than one place so they inadvertently struck my delicious bottle of refreshing water behind my seat and now since my bulky and extremely buff arms cant fit very far behind me, it lays there laughing at me, tempting me as the light reflects off its shiny contents. Stupid aqua. On landing, Miss Heitman reached down to get it for me in exchange for getting her luggage from the overhead bin.

We arrived in Girona, a small city about an hour north east of Barcelona, safe and made our way to the car rental. The woman helping us got everything ready and told us that our car is located on the 1st floor in stall #7. Simple enough. Well, we head to the parking ramp and walk 

around looking at the different signs saying “Hertz #2” or “Alamo #8” but nothing for our car rental agency…so after walking around what we thought was the 1st level (street level), we decided to take it one floor up…and what do you know, there was our rental agency’s name and stall #7…a brand new, out of the box azul Fiat Panda! Sweet! As much crap as people in the States give for small cars, they are awesome! Our hotel was about an hour away from the airport and again, we resorted to Tom-Tom to get us there…but for some reason, it wasn’t finding a satellite so we just drove in the direction we thought was right…eventually Tom came online, I think he was a little confused at being in Germany this morning and suddenly in Spain. I know it would screw with me if I woke up in a new country. In plugging in our destination, I pushed “Yes” to the question “Do you want to aviod tolls?”…bad idea at first as it took us through small roads and rotaries (round-a-bouts) but in the end, it was really nice to see part of Spain that most people fly by on the highway. I wont lie, at times I was nervous that I didn’t 

put the address in Tom correct but we got to Hotel Arrahona in one piece!

We checked into our hotel and took a walk around the small town about an hour north of Barcelona, Sabadell we were staying in. We asked the receptionist where a good place to eat would be and she recommended a Tapa bar just down the street. We found it and after having a seat, checked out the menu…my spanish was a little rusty so I wasn’t much help. We chose two things we thought seemed to be good choices and our server confirmed that. She asked us if we wanted anything else and when I asked in Spanish if they had any wine her eyes lite up with excitement that I spoke Spanish. She rattled off choices and variations of what they had to me grasping only bits and pieces of what she was saying…it took a little but eventually Jody and I settled on a nice white wine. Our first dish was lightly battered shrimp while our second was much more diverse consisting of clams, full shrimp, a wide assortment of mussels, bread with tomato sauce and crawfish. But that wasn’t enough so we ordered some calamari and mushrooms. Phenomenal! We, well actually I, ended up finishing the bottle of wine (im not an alcoholic but it was really good…and I probably had 2/3 of the bottle) and eating a decent size tab. Such good food. Jody and I both agreed that we would both move to Germany or Spain for their food alone!