Roadtrip....El Norte!

If you thought we were crazy before, after hearing about our latest adventure your idea of us will not only be cemented but also verified. Ngoc and I have traveled extensively through the south of Spain and pretty much felt like Andalucía natives. We were ready for a change of scenery and had muchas ganas de (aka we really wanted to) see the north of Spain, or commonly referred to as that "other" country in the south. Luckily for us, Spain takes a week off for Easter and since we only work 3 days a week normally, we had a good chunk of time to travel up north. What better way to see it than to rent a car and drive from one side of the country to the other? Sounded like a great idea to us. Of course, we overlooked any problems with renting a car before buying a plane ticket to Barcelona. I would we possible take the time to think of any potential problems that might arise.... such as, how are we going to get access to a rental car? Almost all rental cars in Spain are stick and we don't know how to drive stick, despite the fact my father bought me an old beamer to learn on, I just never got around to it! As if that wasn't a big enough problem. I am sure it would've been easier for us to locate Osama than an automatic car. To make matters more difficult you have to be at least 23 years old. I look 23, right? We all know age is nothing but a number; unfortunately that expression doesn't exactly translate to the woman sitting behind the rental car counter. We decided to take our chances in the Barcelona airport, plead our case and hope they would rent us a car.... and believe it or not, someone was stupid enough to rent us a car. With falsified birthdates and other erroraneous information Ngoc and found ourselves sitting in the front of the car, staring at our rental contract, laughing at the fact that we were about to drive from Barcelona to Santiago (that’s the distance of the ENTIRE country) for those of you less than proficient in world geography. I was a little nervous, not because I doubted our driving skills, but rather those of crazy Spaniards driving. Although we paid a pretty penny for insurance, I don't know if that would’ve help as soon as the insurance company saw we were not of legal age to rent a car...and lied about our birthdates...again, only in Spain would this have worked!



Just so you don't get lost, let me start with a little road map of our travels.... the route was as follows: Barcelona, Zaragoza, National Park, Pamplona, San Sebastian, Bilbao, Santander, Leon, Santiago.... that’s over 1,500 km of driving...surprised Ngoc didn't try and kill me in a car crash after being stuck in the car with me for the that long...she won't admit it but I know she loved every minute of it.... I think I even saw some teardrops when she knew separation was coming on the last leg of our trip. Not before an eight hour bus ride home from Madrid...never again!



Barcelona was just as beautiful this time as our trip there in 2006. We walked up and down "La Rambla" and reminisced about our amazing summer in Spain. Time is flying. Only yesterday I was a sophomore studying abroad and now I'm a college graduate. Still working on that high school diploma. (That’s another story for another time, I was just that good at tennis, still working on that thing people call modesty). I loved wondering through their open-air market, which put Huelva's market to shame...along with everything else in the city. It was a feast for the eyes.... I wanted to buy everything, but then again, I have that sensation every time I walk into any store...guess it comes with the territory of being a shopaholic, blame it on my mom.... wasn’t even six hours old and she had me in out of the hospital bed and in the shopping cart, "buyer in training," sign waving above my little head. Not even joking. Couldn't decide between the name Zipora or Samantha because she was too concerned about if red or pink matched my skin tone better. Now I know why it took them 6 months to come up with a name, my wardrobe clearly had priority. Maybe that’s when my great sense of style was born. (If you're not laughing, clearly you don't know me). While walking down La Rambla it was hard to believe that I was still in Spain. I was reminded that big, cosmopolitan cities do exists in Spain, they just lie outside the borders of pueblo filled Andalucía. Barcelona is such a metropolitan city, kind of like Huelva, the streets are alive with people, shops are full of bustling shoppers and businessman can be seen rushing through downtown. Again, if you failed to see the sarcasm this is a red flag that you have been missing out and not reading our blog, because you would know I live in a city the size of a shoebox with about as much city life as Pullman, Washington. I frequently wonder, what happened to Huelva? It’s like the ugly stepsister that no one wants to claim as his or her own. I swear even the crosswalks our better in Barcelona. Barcelona was our only night we slept in a hostel, thank goodness, because I really didn't fancy sleeping in the car, we weren't about to waste our money on beds every night. Have I ever blogged about how much I love traveling on a budget? Nothing tastes better than bread and cheese for 1 euro, breakfast, lunch and dinner for under 5 euro. If we are in the splurging mood maybe we can buy bottled water for 37 cents rather than searching desperately for a water fountain. Once in a blue moon, maybe stop by a frutereira and pick up some fresh fruit, this of course, only happens when I can't reach the oranges from the trees...let me tell you...5 star hotels and fancy restaurants have nothing on the adventures of Ally and Ngoc. We didn't want to spend too much time in Barcelona since we had already seen the city so we rented our car and off we went....

Have you ever traveled on a whim? By whim, I mean, one day you decide, "Hey, I wana see the North of Spain...lets rent a car and couchsuf..." and that’s the extent of your plan? Well, that’s exactly what Ngoc and I just did. I was literally searching for couches less than 24 hours before the car was calling our name to sleep in. We had no idea how to navigate between cities, much less what there was to see or do, but we had a great time and I spent my best spring break driving along the Spanish coast, admiring the beauty of the ocean and mountains that lined our drive from one end of the country to the other.



Due to the fact that I'm incapable of telling the truth which correlates into gross exaggerations during storytelling, I'm going to give the honors to Ngoc of recounting our travels...you know how our plan came to be and after this latest trip I'm pretty sure we will get hired soon to start writing travel books...Rick Steve’s you better watch out! I have sprinkled some of my favorite photos throughout the blog.

Besos
Ally