AN INTRO TO MY TRIP IN SPAIN
BY: KELLY SHEEHAN
JULY 31, 2017
The first point I want to talk about in this article is not all about my trip and my experiences, but just the realization of how many people travel alone in Europe. I had originally planned this trip for myself, but thought it would be safer and more fun if someone tagged along. Little did I know how hard it would be to one find someone that one is able to drop everything and travel the world, two that has the financial means to do so, and three out of those few people left that you actually want to be traveling with. I am in no way saying that I regret bringing my boyfriend along this journey with me, just saying that now that I have traveled in Europe as an adult (without my parents) I now know how accessible everything is and that I would have been able to do this trip alone.
(Sorry, Kam. Not trying to offend you if you ever read this).
So if you're dying to take that trip to Europe that you have always dreamed of, and kept setting behind saying “one day I'll make it there” because you can't find someone to accompany you, stop. Plan the trip for yourself and go. I will be posting more articles about each one of these places, this post is just a taste of my trip.
My trip started in Barcelona Spain. I was there with one of my international business classes from Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU). We had a few tours and lectures and went to every place there is to see in barcelona. Then we went to Madrid, the capital of Spain. Here we went on a tour and got a taste of the city. While I was with my class we also took a day trip to Toledo. After my class left I stayed in Madrid for a few days with one of my friends from home who has lived in Madrid for a couple years. A few days went by and I picked up my boyfriend at the airport in Madrid. I had this whole trip set up in my head and thankfully did not reserve any busses, trains, or hostels yet knowing that I would want to change all the dates and plans.
The main plan we had was to walk the last one hundred miles of the Camino De Santiago. Which is a very famous christian pilgrimage through spain that ends in the city Compostela de Santiago. I'll be honest, neither of us hiked the path for religious reasons, although there were a lot of people walking in search of religious enlightenment. We really just walked for the sport, to be able to see the country, and culture.
Before the camino, we traveled down south of Spain. For a few days we were in Granada, Seville and Cordoba. My number one advice for these places is to always go on a free tour and tip the guide after. And to stay in a hostel where you can befriend all your roommates, at least for the few days that you are staying there. Kam and I made great friends at almost every hostel we stayed at. Sometimes there might be a language barrier but between the two of us we could communicate with almost anyone. Also because so many people were traveling alone, it seemed people really appreciated when we invited them to join us for a hike, or to go window shopping, to go out for drinks and tapas, and even just to go up to the balcony on top of our hostels, people just liked the company.
From Seville we traveled north to a city called Bilbao. This city was really cool. Surrounded by mountains and a quick ride on the metro and you make it to one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. We spent most of our time here, on a beach called Sopelana. This was also the only place in Spain that I experienced a language barrier. Here people do not speak Spanish, everyone speaks basque. And before you start to think that must also be a romance language and still easy to understand, its not. Basque is comparable to Russian. And every single word has the letter x in it. Your new word of the day is "kiaxo", which means hello in basque.
This is when we started the Camino de Santiago, I will write another article on this trip so I will not be going too far into depth. We walked the last one hundred miles in about 5 days. We averaged about 20 miles a day, without having trained, and I would say that we were some of the youngest people on the trail. For people that want to walk the way, subscribe to my blog to make sure you see my next post. But most importantly get a guide book.
It was really important to me that Kam saw Barcelona, because I know that I will be returning either for grad school, work, or a gap year(or two). We stayed in an airbnb apartment with a woman and her family and they rent out three rooms, so there were a lot of people in this apartment. Because I had already been in Barcelona
for almost two weeks I felt like I knew my way around. I showed Kam all over the city. We went to more museums than you can count, shopping, to the beaches, and to the clubs. We did it all and didn't sleep before our flight to Paris.
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