Thursday, May 24, 2007

Griswold Family Vacation: Part 1


“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” -Susan Heller


Packing for Barcelona and Greece, I got one of these mandates right. I removed 2 pairs of unnecessary pants, and took less tank tops that I originally wanted to. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the far less useful piece of advice.

Arriving in Barcelona at 2am, me and my traveling companions Nicole and Jessica were ready to crash. We checked into Kabul hostel, in beautiful Plaça Reial, got our rented 2 euro sheets and went to find our room. Opening the door, the stench of beer and body odor steamed out, permeating the air and wafting into our nostrils at full force. Creeping into the room so as not to disturb anyone (although I doubt we would have…everyone in there was so drunk/stoned an earthquake wouldn’t have woken them) we strained our eyes to search for our beds. We had to navigate the maze of beer glasses, mattresses on the floor, and limp appendages hanging from them to finally reach our spots. Of course there were already half-naked, defunct revelers in them. Too tired to care, we each found an empty bed, and called it a night.

An hour later, the lights flip on. I hear rustling and think, “ What assholes are turning on the lights at 3 am?!?!” I half open my eyes and see Jessica standing there with all her sheets, with the ferocious looking Spanish hostel security and a bitchy looking girl. The hostel-bouncer starts giving the 20+ people in there an impromptu lecture. “People please,” he says in a thick Spanish accent, “if there are RANDOMS in your bed you come get me. You pay for your bed! You do not let anyone sleep in it!!”

He walks over to Jessica’s bed burglar and taps him on the shoulder. No response. Taps him a little harder. Still no response. Finally he just starts smacking him on the shoulder, then the back, then the cheek, with the entire room bursting into laugher, before the kids finally wakes from his drunken stupor. When the hostel-bouncer finally rouses him, he just stutters, “UM, uhh, yeah, but there were two girls in my bed, so I just slept here.” Exasperated, hostel-bouncer throws his hands up and walks out…..but at least now we are able to sleep.

The next morning I woke up early because of the incredible stuffy heat. I lay in bed, resting my eyes, until I hear noises coming from my right. I turn over, and see movements under the blanket of the bed directly across from me. Then there are the slurping noises. What the f…… AHHHHHHHHH! Oh my god. Hooking up in a 20 person dorm room!!! Probably the most disgusting thing I’ve seen on any of my travels so far….and I’ve stayed in a 40 person room. I scrunched my eyes closed tight, fumbled for my pants, and bolted downstairs for the free breakfast (although the thought of what was going on in that bed kinda killed my appetite).

Sexual escapades and musical beds aside, we had a lovely time in Barcelona. The main attractions were the works of the architect Gaudi, whose modern buildings are whimsical and based off flowing shapes found in nature. His unfinished cathedral, La Sagrada Familia, has sky reaching towers carved with intricate, wavy patterns, and is decorated with colorful shapes and statues, unlike absolutely anything I’ve seen in Europe so far. Only 7 or 8 of the towers were finished before he died, and they estimate that it won’t be completed until 2030. He also built this crazy park, Parc Guell, which is high up on the fringes of Barcelona. It has bright colors, whimsical statues of animals and abstract shapes, and the largest park bench in the world. My best description would be that is a real life incarnation of a Dr. Seuss book, tripping on magic mushrooms.

Besides the main tourist sights, we also enjoyed the great Paella and of COURSE the sangria. We went to the beach one day, ate ice cream almost everyday, and partied until the wee hours of the morning (hey, we just wanted to follow the local traditions!). But by Monday night we were ready to head to Greece. We packed up our backpacks, bid good riddance to the brothel that we called home for 3 days, and headed to the airport.

Our flight to Greece was at 6am, and we would have had to leave at 3:30am just to get there on time. So we arrived at the airport at 1:30am, and settled in for the rest of the night. I laid down on my towel, rested my feet on my backpack, and tangled the straps of my purse in my arms, hugging it to my chest. The floor was cold and marble, and I never thought I would be able to fall asleep but….

I jolted awake to the unpleasant feeling of a sleeping foot and a cramped calf. I groggily looked at my watch which read 2:30. I sat up, then panicked. My purse was gone. I looked under the chairs, in my back pack, and under my fleece. Nothing. I go to wake up Jessica, starting to freak out. “Jessica, wake up. I was robbed.” She bolts up, looks around, and realizes her purse is gone too. We both had passports, money, cameras and ipods, plus other random personal items. In short, our traveling lives!

We wake up Nicole, who was sleeping behind a column and had her stuff intact, and run to find security. Clearly in distress, no one offers to help and just stares at us like we’ve gone mad. 10 minutes of searching and we finally find a Spanish vigilante, a stereotypical looking, donut eating airport rent-a-cop. He speaks no English at all, and ambles uninterestedly to our aid. He calls the police, and sits around looking bored while we use our limited Spanish and the policemen’s (who look younger than us) even more limited English. We successfully cancel our credit cards, and get left by the police with the American consulate’s telephone number. Obviously without passports we can’t fly to Greece in 3 hours, and at this point we think we’re going to lose the $400 we paid for our Alitalia flights to Greece, and that our trip, not even half over, is finished.

In line to speak with the airline representative (at this point we hadn’t slept in well over 24 hours), a cute young American couple informs us that our flight has been cancelled due to the airline’s strike in Italy. This turns out to be our saving grace; the representative is incredibly understanding about our situation, and transfers our flight to the next day, no questions asked. Now all we needed were little things called passports………

Freaked-out, mad as hell, and indescribably over-tired, we start the trek to the American consulate, situated in a beautiful suburb of the city. It didn’t open until 9, and we arrived at 8:30. We camped out in front of the heavily guarded door, like suburban white-girl hobos, being stared at by the security forces with curiosity and pity. Finally gaining entry into the consulate, we started the proceedings to obtain emergency passports. I had absolutely no identity on me; it had ALL been in my wallet. Walking into the office, nightmare scenarios were flashing through my mind of having to, all alone while my friends went to Greece, take the train to Madrid and wait for days to get my passport, while sleeping on the American embassy’s couch.

Talking to the administration, it turned out to be scarily easy for me to obtain my passport. Literally, all I had to do was write my name on a piece of paper, and that was it. Although I feel that Barcelona’s consulate is well prepared for these kinds of situations….there were 3 other people in the hour and a half we were there who had also gotten their passports stolen!

One hundred dollars, 2 hours, and a lot of tears and frustration later, we both finally had our emergency passports (which will turn into our regular passports in a few months….so I’ll get to remember that wonderful day and my gorgeous photo after not sleeping for 27 hours for the next 10 years. Hooray). We checked into the first hotel we saw, and passed out in a dreamless, dead sleep for the next 6 hours.

The happy news was, I could go to Greece. The bad news… I had no money, was out 500 euro, plus my new ipod nano and my digital camera. I thought about going back to Geneva to get my life back together, but when I ran the idea across my mom, I received emails from every member in my family to the tune of “you can’t go back with your tail between your legs, you can’t quit. In this family, we are NOT quitters.” It was fast turning into the Griswold family trip to Wally World, and I was starting to sympathize with Clark after he pulverized Marty Moose, proclaiming they were going to have the “hap-hap-happiest damn vacation” they would had ever have!

In a somber mood, the three of us moved about like zombies the rest of the day, trying to suppress the horror of the morning. Things went smoothly the rest of the night, the next morning getting to the airport, and finally (it seemed like it would never come) we were on the antiquated 80’s style hunter green Alitalia plane, bound for Athens via Milan.

So much had already gone wrong so far, we were sure the rest of the trip would be as smooth as a baby’s butt…..

Oh how wrong we were.

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