By Daniella D.
A few weeks ago, I took a break from school stress for an adventure in Spain with a few friends. As usual, it was a spontaneous trip which originally did not involve me in the planning process. I literally ‘photobombed’ a friend’s trip…if that even makes sense linguistically.
The plan was to fly to Valencia, where we were going to crash at a friend’s family place for two overnight stay before concluding the trip in the beautiful city of Barcelona.
On the day of the trip, I did something I would not recommend anyone doing. Though in my case, I’d like to think that due to circumstances, I had no choice.
As my flight was prior to the sun rising, and I feared the transportation system ‘during the holiday season’ would fail me, I decided to spontaneously hitch a ride from a gentleman who was on his last pizza delivery trip that evening.
It certainly wasn’t the wisest thing I have done, but certainly not as dumb and spontaneous as sleeping at two strangers’ house during my stay in China. They turned out to be good Samaritans but you can’t help asking the question ‘what if …?’
Anyways, I have to admit my thinking cap was off that evening, as I feared more about missing my flight than being possibly kidnapped – [I know it sounds awful … – ‘I think I need a moment of sympathy for my impulsivity].
Long story short, I hopped in the gentleman’s car after a quick prayer on behalf of my safety. It was mostly a quiet ride with a few moments of casual ice-breaker conversations – after all it would have been even weirder if we didn’t attempt to strike a conversation – don’t you think? – at least we did put an effort to know who the other was during this lonely car ride. Now that I think about it, he also took a risk taking me. After all, what if I had a hidden psycho agenda???
After a few awkward attempts at prolonging our conversation, we arrived at the bus station that will be my final ride to the airport. As he dropped me off, I felt bad for the good Samaritan and tried to offer him some money and a chocolate bar as it was the Easter weekend…if I remember correctly. However, he declined before wishing me well on my trip with friends.
Thanks to him, I arrived at the airport on time, and took my flight as meant to be. After two hours of flying, I arrived at the Alicante airport in Spain ‘saine et sauve’. For the next seven hours before my friend’s arrival, I indulged in two cups of coffee, a sandwich while scamming through a few papers. When she did arrive, we proceeded to take a bus from Alicante to Valencia; a small modern yet traditional beautiful city as you can see in the pictures throughout this blog post.
The following morning, we had breakfast with our host family (friend’s family) and we were on our way with bikes to explore the city. I have to say, riding bikes around a city with a local of that city is the best way to truly explore a small city, but you better mind your butt if you are one that haven’t ridden a bike in a while.
To be honest, the whole trip involved (riding bikes from location to location, playing like kids even though we were grown university students and having the most delish paya and sangriya. That was my first time having paya – I have to admit, I haven’t had one like that since then.
After visiting a few more places, and riding till our bums were numb as a side effect, we were on our way ‘home’ from a long day to rest for our next day trip to Barcelona.
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