Long overdue vacation post

Hello dear readers, my apologies (especially to Rachel F-thanks for the reminders) for not writing since December. I haven't been much in a writing mood (plus my space bar is not fully functional which makes this frustrating at times-never know how much you use a key until its broken). Also, things have been busy here lately (as evident that I started writing this post on February 14 and I'm just now getting it posted online March 10. This post was written in several parts!)

I last left you with tales of my Christmas. And I know some of you have been waiting to hear about my New Year's (or more specifically my trip to Spain!!) so here you go.

December 29: Moldova to Bucharest, Romania

I left Moldova on December 29 with 3 of my friends - Erika, Dan and Casey. Dan and Casey were spending their NYs in Romania, but we were all heading to Romania on the same day so we decided to take the overnight bus to Bucharest together. It was actually a good trip and surprisingly comfortable considering most bus experiences in the States and here in Moldova. The only downside of the trip was getting through passport control at the Moldova border, then again at the Romanian border. A few hours later and we were back on the road and in Romania.

December 30: Bucharest, Romania to Barcelona, Spain

The boys jumped off the bus before us since they were staying. Unfortunately, we were not entirely sure where we needed to get off but met an incredibly nice and helpful woman who told us which stop to take. Our dumb luck we missed the stop not realizing it was so close. The nice woman I mentioned earlier was kind enough to help us at the next stop (which happen to be her stop). She was being picked up by her boyfriend and they offered us a ride to the nearest local bus stop so we could get a ride to the airport. After a few twists and turns and wrong ways as we walked around Bucharest (and getting to meet one of I'm sure few Canadians) we finally found our way to the airport. In hindsight we were both very glad that we had so much time in between when we arrived in Bucharest and when we had to check in at the airport. Bucharest was great and we were excited that at the end of our trip we would have a full day to do more exploring.

When we landed in Spain the weather was FABULOUS!! By the time we got out of the airport, it was already getting dark,but we were able to walk around the city in just a t-shirt and light sweater! I could have cried I was so happy. We finally found the hostel (with some help from a gentleman who watched us walk up and down the street with our luggage). The staff was great and I highly recommend this hostel if you are in Barcelona (Yellow Nest Hostel). I have found the beauty of staying a hostel versus a hotel (other than saving a ton of money) is the chance to make new friends. We made 3 new friends while staying at the hostel! Two guys are from India but are getting their PhDs in Ireland. The third is an American woman who is living and working in Poland as an English teacher. The guys joined us for our New Year's celebrating after we picked Matt up at the airport (but I am jumping ahead of myself).

Back to our first night in Barcelona. The beauty of Spain is that people don't begin eating dinner until close to 10pm (by the way-I LOVE this about Spain. Those who know I am a night owl will understand this). This late night eating actually worked great for Erika and I because we were exhausted by the time we checked into the hostel and it gave us a couple of hours to rest before we went out in search of sustenance. Finally about 930pm we went for a walk around the city looking at cafes and pastry shops for the morning as well as a restaurant for dinner. We ended up at a little cafe where we sucked down 2 coca colas and had sandwiches (which were absolutely delicious). Then we strolled back to the hostel and promptly passed out from exhaustion.

December 31: Barcelona

The next day Erika and I agreed to just hop on and off the metro. We had no real plan other than seeing whatever we could. I liked traveling with her because she is so laid back and mellow. Neither of us wanted to structure the days trying to cram in all the touristy stuff. We simply wanted to go exploring and drink lots of good and yummy coffee!! So we filled our morning with a nice walk (and ride on the metro) around Barcelona. Along the way we some really amazing graffiti, cool store front doors, lots of blue skies and sun, and a fun park where kids played soccer. It was definitely a great start to our vacation. Alas, the time came for us to make our way back to the airport, but this time it was to meet Matt. When we got there we decided it would be fun to make signs for him. It was great fun since her sign was in English and said "Handsome Pants" which really threw departing guests off.

Then they would look at my sign in Romanian which said "Băiat cu faţa magice" (The boy with the magical face) its an inside joke. My sign really threw people off because I don't think anyone could understand what it said. Matt saw us and simply shook his head at our silliness, but did enjoy the signs.

We all headed back to the hostel, relaxed a bit and came up with a plan for that night. We decided that none of us wanted anything rowdy so we settled for some restaurant/bar hopping to kick start the New Year's celebration with some drinks and a little food. At the second restaurant our two new friends from Ireland joined us. After a few more drinks, from there we set out for La Rambla.

It was perfect-lots of happy festive people, but not so crowded you can't walk down the street and lots of cafes, bars and restaurants!

This is where we rang in the New Year with big lovely glasses of sangria, yummy tapas and paella! As a side note, I spent the whole New Year evening in a tank top and t-shirt! It did get breezy and eventually I started getting a little cold, but totally worth it! The only thing that was missing for me on this New Year was seeing my friends back home. But overall a very very good way to ring in the new year. I highly suggest Spain for your next New Years. Eventually we made our way back to the hostel and caught the tail end of the party that was happening in the lounge and game room. I hooked up with Emily (our third new friends we made). She and I made plans for her to join us for a little city exploration the next day then we all headed to bed.

January 1 (a new year and decade): Barcelona

It was nice to sleep in but we had exploring to do! We grabbed a little breakfast and of course some more yummy coffee (coffee will be a theme throughout this whole vacation because there is sadly a lack of really good coffee here in Moldova. To be fair, there are one or two decent places in Chisinau). After breakfast, we set off for La Sagrada Familia Cathedral. This was designed by Antoni Gaudi and is still being built today using his original specs. It was amazing. We wanted to go in, but when we saw the line to get into the cathedral wrapped around 3 blocks we decided to take pictures from the outside and make a mental note to come back in the future (preferably not on New Years day when everything touristy in the city is closed for the holiday!) we walked around a little more and made our way back to La Rambla to see it in the day light. Similar to our first day in Barcelona, we just meandered from place to place. At one point Emily and I decided to head out on our own. But as I mentioned before, EVERYTHING was closed, so our exploration was mostly limited to just walking around and getting lost a few times. But I have found that is the best way to see a city. Just get lost!

We later met back up with Erika and Matt, had a little dinner back at La Rambla (we just really like it on that street!!) and called it a night since we had to head to the airport at 5am the next day.

January 2-8: Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca (remember in Spanish 'll' sounds like 'y')

And that 5am came REALLY early. But we were on our way to the Metro and the airport despite little sleep. We were just excited about getting to the island plus we could catch a cat nap on the 30 minutes plane ride. Once we landed we were picked up by the taxi service I had booked before we left for vacation. It was kinda nice having a car service already set up. We got to the apartment/resort, checked in and quickly turned to children in a toy store. It was so great to be back in something that was more similar to being home. The apartment had two bedrooms, two bathrooms (with WONDERFUL showers) and a full kitchen and washing machine (yes-clothes were washed). We spent the week resting, reading, watching movies, drinking, eating lots of yummy food that we prepared ourselves, walking around exploring the island and shopping. It did rain a few times, but it never really hindered us and was actually nice at times. It was a wonderful way to end a fabulous vacation.

January 8: Palma de Mallorca to Barcelona to Bucharest

Sadly, our wonderful trip had to come to an end. Our end began at 5am when the taxi picked us up to take us back to the airport. We hopped our flight to Barcelona with just a small window to make our connection back to Bucharest. Matt however head back to Austria then to Moldova so once again it was just me and Erika. We arrived in Bucharest around 3:30pm then hung out at the airport for another volunteer Tom until about 530 when his flight arrived. It was great, we made a sign for him (similar to what we did for Matt) and surprised him outside of baggage claim. he thought he was meeting us at the hostel. The three of us took a bus to the hostel, relaxed for a bit from a long day of travelling then headed out on the town in search of food and beverages. We found a cute little Irish Pub...which ended up being out of all their Irish beers and food. But we were not discouraged, we stuck it out for some decently good food and a couple rounds of beers. Afterwards, we walked around a bit then hopped on the metro back towards to hostel where we promptly passed out for the night.

January 9: Bucharest to Moldova

Tom left us early the next morning to head back to his village in the south of Moldova. Erika and I slept in late, then explored Bucharest since our train did not leave until 7pm that night. We had no clear plan or itinerary, we just walked around or metro hopped throughout Bucharest stopping at small cafes throughout the day whenever we got too cold and wanted to warm up with a coffee. It was a great way to relax and see where the day and the city would take us. Later we checked out of the hostel (which had a wonderfully nice staff) and headed to the train station to meet up with Erin again. The three of us loaded onto a train bound for Chisinau at 7pm. We found our sleeper car which would normally sleep 4 people, but luck was on our side and it was just the three of us. The train was a really great Soviet era sleeper train and the three of us had a good time (lack of sleep can make everything funnier and more interesting!). I was surprised at how comfortable the beds were and the slow rocking of the train made it easy for me to sleep and sleep well! Around 1am we reached the Romanian border and were woken for the passport check. This experience was much nicer than our bus experience and I will always pay the extra money to take the train whenever possible (it only runs from Bucharest to Chisinau on odd numbered days and Chisinau to Bucharest on even numbered days). The longest part of the trip was changing the tracks as the train moved into Moldova. The train tracks in Moldova are leftover from the Soviet rule and are a different gauge than those in western Europe and Romania. The change took about 2 hours. But by 9am on January 10th, we were back in Chisinau and Moldova.
That about sums up my trip. Apologies again for taking so long to post this. This year has been a busy one already-without much effort to make it so on my part. I will try to be better and in fact, already have a new post lined up. I will have that up in a few days.

Wanna see photos? Check out my Photographic Essay about Spain I also have pictures from Bucharest that we took during our one full day and our train trip, but haven't posted those online yet. But here are a few videos I took.

A brief glimpse of La Rambla after New Years

The ocean and a sunny day makes Becca a happy girl!

What Matt thought of us Northern Californians after getting into the so called "cold"ocean water. I had to explain that it was just like the ocean in NorCal!