Pathetic Travels

I have come back from the road trip around the Sothern France which is just some hours away from Barcelona where we are staying. Back to Barcelona, feels like coming back home. I have missed blogging! I packed my mac into the suitcase hoping I would blog from the hotels. Little did I know about blogging when you drive every day and sleep in a new town every night. But here I am – glad to be back!

lavender soaps in Nimes

postcards of Avignon

What do you like to bring from your travels? Some buy postcards, some bring magnets or lavender soaps from Provence. We bring weird stories, big and small.

• To miss the exit on the motorway and drive 7 km one way just to get off and drive 7 km back – done. In Perpignan.
• To hit the low post while reversing the rented car – done. In Nimes.
• To watch the fight in the harbor – done. In Marseille.

This got me thinking that maybe I should start a blog and call it “Pathetic Travels”. Because I have a lot of stories which are not glamorous to make me into the high-fly travel blogger, and which are not funny enough to make us into “those famous wandering clowns” which would make you roll on the floor laughing. They are more like Mr. Bean which starts every act carefully and properly, but it gets only worse and worse (though comparing my stories with Mr. Bean is really ambitious :)). For example, like this one.

We planned a day trip from Barcelona to Tarragona and said we would leave early, at 11 am (this is early for us!)). Finally, we start at 12 am, and we need to tank the car. Driving and thinking where the gas station can be found, then I recollect of one, but we miss the turn to it, and have to drive around the blocks to get back to it. On the gas station my man finds out he doesn’t know how to open the tank, and while he is trying fiercely which looks like causing damage to a car, I am going through the manual (200 pages in Spanish – not my language!). In the end, I see another Seat just like ours and send him to ask the driver for help. The watch is at 1 pm as we are driving out of Barcelona, and then we spend two hours on the countryside roads – “so we can enjoy the scenery” ( © my man). In such moments I think: “Ok, after such start – what can go wrong? Nothing, right?” 🙂

And if this story is way too simple (cuz it is), here are some other stories – just for the sake of advertising:

• Carles, my boyfriend, books our first trip – “Portugal for hedonists”, which turns out to be a group travel for the pensioners and older people (the hedonists!). We were the youngest and most romantic couple on that tour!
• On a road trip in Andalusia we arrived to Cadiz on the Christmas Eve, hungry and tired, just to discover the empty city with all places closed. After wandering through this ghost town we ended up buying sandwiches and water in the automat – our Christmas dinner looked like picnic on the hotel bed.
• In Seville Carles (who is Spanish, or better say Catalan from Spain) didn’t understand the waiter’s accent and ordered a lot of food he didn’t know he was ordering. He said that we were getting some tapas and a salad. But it turned out to be many tapas and two main dishes – upping our little lunch into a major dinner.
• In Kiev we checked into hotel “Ukraine”– a grand building from the Stalin era, and the interior was sending me back to the Soviet times. I got so disappointed that I started crying, which made Carles kicking his luggage in anger.
• On another occasion, in Granada, my whining got him so angry, that as we were arguing on the bus stop, the older lady sitting next to me got up and went away swiftly – fearing some dangerous drama, I guess 🙂

I think that “Pathetic Travels” would fit our travel style and we could go for patenting this brand. Surely, no one has done it before us 🙂 Or if they did, I don’t know about them. Or maybe, you know of some? Share in the comments!

What turns out to be your best travel memories? Beaches at sunset, dinners on the old piazzas and in fancy restaurants, partying, funny stories? What are your favorite souvenirs?