A Lolli Holi-Day

After following a friend's tip and getting an unbelievably good deal (really... If I told you how much we paid for it you might not believe me), my friend Anna and I spent a week in Spain. The best part about teaching in London is the week-long school breaks, which happen much more often than they do in Canada. This is also a little irritating, since there are 9 possible working (and thus paid) days in April for supply teachers. But since we had the time off, we decided to take advantage of it and head to Spain.

I really think the awesomeness of Spain started the moment we touched down. And I mean that literally. As soon as we'd made our safe landing, a bugle call sounded over the intercom. Um...what? Yep, a bugle call. Is that supposed to be some kind of "Hooray! We got here alive!" thing? Or a "You're on vacation! It's time to celebrate!" thing? I don't really know. I just know it was awesome.

From the plane we were ushered into waiting buses that we were told would take us to the airport terminal. I've flown a lot, and this isn't unusual when the plane stops far away from the building, so no worries. After waiting about 5min for everyone to squeeze into the buses, we were off.

And then we were there.

Just like that. We honestly traveled for about 45sec on the bus. MUCH less time than it took for us to load and about the same amount of time it would have taken us to walk. Awesome. The best part about it was that NO ONE else seemed phased by this! Anna and I were in hysterics about how ridiculous it was, but everyone else just filed off like this happens every day!

The area we explored is called the Costa Brava and we stayed in a little resort town called Lloret de Mar. We were in a prime location, just a few blocks up from 2 different beaches and near the main strip.

The primary clientele base for our hotel? Well... They were a little PAST their prime. We're talking purple hair and dancing the two-step. The party's breaking up at 9 because half the audience is ready to take their teeth out and hit the sack.

But that's okay... We got a skookum deal, so we're not complaining about the oldies crampin' our style. And speaking of the deal we got, somebody somewhere down the translation line got mixed up, and they were expecting 4 people to be in our room. Nope, just the two of us. Which means our own beds in our own rooms and extra towels galore. Score!

We settled into our room quite nicely, and also into the Spanish tradition of taking siestas. The first couple of days of our trip were filled with lazy sleep-ins, ambling walks through the city and then mid-afternoon naps. It was lovely :)

One thing we had a harder time adjusting to was the number of times we received a firm NO to our requests. Honestly, it got a little ridiculous! We were at a restaurant on our second night and asked our waiter to take our picture. Without even taking a pause he said "no" and walked away! We thought he must have been kidding, but he didn't turn back around! It wasn't until the next time he came to our table that he (sort of) explained he was waiting for us to have food for the photo. Okay, that's fine and thoughtful...but carried out in a really awkward way! Another night Anna asked for mushrooms on her sausage, and the waiter told her she couldn't. He then explained that mine had mushrooms because they were INSIDE the sausage, not on top of it, but he said NO so emphatically and paused long enough that we were a little taken aback. Machines even said No to us! Our hostel in Barcelona had a drink-ordering machine, and next to a few of the choices were stickers with NO written in capital letters. All right, all right, we get the hint... We'll stop asking for things!! Sheesh!

Hands down, though, the best question of the trip was one not asked of us. As we headed back to our hotel one night, a Spanish dude tried to pick us up, using the absolute BEST pick-up line on the planet. Are you ready for this? Because it's epic:

"Hey sexy ladies... Wanna burn some calories?"

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I wonder if that's ever actually WORKED for him!!

And last but not least: the best random moment of the trip:

We came home one night and found this on our deck. The basic reaction from us: What the hell IS this and what is it doing on our deck? Of course, we immediately grabbed a camera and photo-documented all of the possible uses we could come up with. Unfortunately for you, a small minority of them are appropriate for public viewing... Plus, Anna would kill me if I made her photo ideas public :)

After exploring the options for a few minutes, we heard a little voice calling us from the deck. At this point we started wondering WHO the hell was on our deck! Turned out the kid with the adjoining one was out there, and he was looking for his lost...object. Before handing it back to him, we made him tell us what it was. We then had this conversation (and picture this with a child's English accent):

Me: "What is it?"

Kid:"It's a giant Lolli."

Me: "I don't get it..."

Kid: "Well it's a large container. And it looks like a giant lolli and it's filled with stuff."

Me: "Okay, how did it get on our deck?"
Anna: "Are you hiding it from someone?"

Kid: "Well, I hit someone with it and the top just flew off!"

 ... Can I just point out that this description does NOT account for how the BOTTOM of it ended up on our deck?

Anyway, lollis became a bit of a theme during the trip, as you'll see in the subsequent posts... There will be one for our trip down to Barcelona and another for our rad road trip... Check back in a couple of days to read them!

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And, because I think it's awesome that Anna's Mom reads this blog...and because I know she'll read THIS post because her daughter features so prominently, a little SHOUT OUT to Shelley!!