Days 47 to 73 — Barcelona & Menorca, Spain, and Zurich & Flims, Switzerland
Gosh, how did almost a month go by so quickly?
If I’m honest, at least 50% of our time has been spent relaxing and enjoying, having nowhere to be and nothing to do. Most days we don’t set an alarm and wake up only when our bodies tell us to… some days this isn’t until 10am. Once we’re up, we generally follow our morning routine of: circles (a 10 minute movement exercise involving moving all our joints in circular motions), a 10 minute guided meditation using the headspace app, a 10 minute bike ride or 25 minute walk to the beach, a quick dip in the fresh water, walking/riding back and then climbing the 110 stairs back to our apartment, finally turning off airplane mode, while sipping on coffee, to catch up on messages or podcasts.
The rest of the day is usually filled with a bit of work on Ben’s next online course, some exercise, maybe another walk, cooking and more relaxing.
Aside from this, there have been some stand-out days where we have done something entirely different.
Wednesday, 15 August — A friend of a friend’s friend, Krista, came to Barcelona
Ben’s friends, Oli and Elena, who we visited in Playa d’Aro had a friend from Germany get in touch to say he had a friend from the USA coming to Barcelona and would they mind showing her around for a day. It turned out they wouldn’t be in town, so they asked if we’d be happy to. Being the awesome people we are (modest, I know), we agreed.
Up until this point, every time we skyped my family, my dad had asked if we had been to see the Sagrada Familia yet. Finally, we made the trip up there… but as we only had one day with Krista and the line to view the inside was at least a few hours long, we just had a look at the outside. Next, we walked through the busy streets up to Park Güell where we enjoyed a picnic lunch of Jamón, Olives and Salad. That evening, we took Krista to the beachside restaurant from our first evening for a Paella and some sangria.
Monday, 20 August to Friday, 24 August — Decided to design a board game
Back in Brisbane I used to spend my Thursday lunch times playing boardgames with some people at work. I was lucky enough to receive a board game called Avalon, a deception/strategy game, as a departing gift. I found myself wishing I had brought it with me from London to play the following week in Menorca. In a way, it was a blessing I hadn’t because it gave me a reason to create my own board game, inspired by Avalon and Ultimate Werewolf. After an evening of dreaming about the game mechanics, I decided to try to pull the game together to play in Menorca. I think I’ll leave the details about this for another blog post sometime…
Friday, 24 August to Saturday, 1 September — Menorca with 11 of Ben’s friends from his 2014/15 exchange in Maastricht, Netherlands.
Soon enough Friday came around and we caught a short flight to the beautiful island, Menorca. We arrived in Cales Fonts 6 hours before everyone else, so we spent the time eating crepes and listening to podcasts while looking out over the small port. Jokingly, Ben said “I wonder which of those houses on the cliff, looking over the port, we’ll be staying in”… incredibly, however, it turned out that we were lucky enough to be spending the week in one of them.
The week in Menorca was an incredible experience. I have never met a large group of friends so tightly knit and high functioning. The moment we all arrived at the house, the place was humming with activity. Everyone in the group seemed to have their role, it was fascinating to watch it all unfold in front of me. I feel incredibly grateful to have been included in the festivities throughout the week and to have met the friends Ben would so often call “my people”. We spent our days feasting, beaching and exploring and the evenings socialising, drinking and more feasting. We played my board game on three occasions and I am pleased to say it was a hit each time. I’m excited to iterate on it further and play it again when we get to London.
Sunday, 2 September to Thursday, 7 September — Solitary confinement & a 3am flash flood
Unfortunately, the late nights, lack of sleep, and indulgent eating and drinking all caught up with me when we returned home to Barcelona. I spent the following 5 days doing my best to remain upbeat and good company for Ben while nursing a cold. I am so lucky to have such a caring, compassionate and loving partner to look after me in my weak state. I’m was practically glued to the couch while Ben worked on his course, cooked for us both and kept the apartment clean. Mr Ben, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Two evenings before we were due to leave for our next adventure, we woke up at 3am to find a thunderstorm had caused flash flooding in our apartment. Turns out someone didn’t clear their drain properly and our windows don’t seal properly… so suddenly we had ankle deep water all through the apartment. After an anxious call to my dear father and being assured the building wouldn’t collapse, we decided to go back to bed. I feel sorry for the poor tenants in the apartment below us who must have had water dripping through the ceiling. Thanks Airbnb!
Friday, 8 September to Monday, 10 September — Zurich & Flims, Switzerland
My biased highlight of the last month was our long weekend trip to Switzerland. We were greeted at the airport by a teary Trish, the wife of Martin, my exchange coordinator from 2011. It was so nice to see a familiar face, and one that was so overwhelmed with happiness to see me. We spent the morning at Helvetiaplatz fresh food market snacking on Swiss baked goods and sipping on coffee while catching up with Trish. Hearing Swiss German again was like music to my ears. “I’m home”, I said to Ben with excitement. We made our way back to Weiningen where Trish made a delicious lunch which we were joined for by Martin. In the late afternoon, we made our way back to Zurich where we wandered down the streets of the old town to the lake. Once at the lake, we sat down for an Aperol Spritz and more chats. By 6pm, Martin had joined us again and we made our way to a traditional Swiss restaurant for dinner.
The next day, we were lucky enough to take Cookie (the family dog) truffle hunting in the woods out the back of Weiningen. I think Ben must have scored some brownie points as a result of a good ear scratch, because Cookie found a solid 5 or 6 truffles. After lunch, we were picked up by Betty and Daniel, my first host-parents from 2011. The 1.5 hour drive to Flims in the Kanton of Graubünden flew by, we had so much to catch up on. Before settling down for the evening to a glass of rosé and raclette for dinner, we accompanied Betty, Daniel and Tiara (the dog) on a 1 hour walk around the beautiful lake. Ben was crazy enough to go for a dip in the ice cold water.
On Sunday, we enjoyed our second breakfast of Zopf and jam (I’m not complaining, I love Zopf!) before heading out for a fairly easy hike through the forrest, along a small stream to a look out over the Rein. We returned to the apartment by 4pm and relaxed for a couple of hours. For dinner we went to a cute little restaurant on the side of the alp, overlooking the valley and enjoyed some more traditional Swiss food for dinner.
The following day, not wanting to leave the beautiful scenery, we took our time to pack up before heading back to Weiningen. On our way back to Betty and Daniel’s we stopped at a Bakery, which was heaven for Ben. We sat and drank some tea and coffee while nibbling on our baked goods and reminiscing about some key moments during my exchange year. Soon enough, it was time to shed some more tears as we said good bye at the train station. Before heading to the airport we caught up with an old friend from Weiningen, Dennis, over a shandy.
Tuesday, 11 September onwards — Back into our routine
After spending a lovely few weeks in true holiday mode, we have now returned to Barcelona and are back into our routine. We have two more weeks in Barcelona until our next adventure. I’ll try to write another post before we move onto Morocco so that it’s not another essay like this one :P
Hope you’re enjoying the posts! Thanks for reading. Instead of embedding the video to youtube, this time I’ve added it to my Google Drive. Click the link below to view it.
