Petrolium Powered Travel of Spain and Italy

The adventure continues...


Dad had his return ticket to Canada booked out of Athens, as we wanted to break up our trip a bit and spend a few weeks in Greece. Dad and I found that it was no less expensive to fly direct to Athens as it was to fly to Athens via Barcelona. Which is odd, I know, but we thought: 'why not'? My good friends Josh and Adrianna were going to be in Barcelona at this time, so we decided to make a detour and see some friends... and a bit more of the world while we were at it.


We got to The Barc just fine and, after a bit of messing around, found the apartment that we had rented with J&A. We had a really nice visit for the days that we were there. We explored the city in search of every Gaudi building ever constructed in Barcelona, and found many of them. We spent our days walking the city and absorbing the sites, sounds and smells. Our apartment was in a very interesting neighborhood, so evenings were primarily spent at home watching the street from the balcony while we enjoyed good conversation. Looking back, I'm surprised we didn't go out for a party or two, since this city is famous for its night life, but I am in no way disappointed.


On our final day before J&A were to head off, the three of us (Dad chose to stay home) took a train out to a beach town and spent the day in the sun. It was at this point that things started to unravel. By the time we had gotten home, Josh was feeling pretty manky for unknown reasons and crashed out hard. The next day the decision was made for them to change their plans to avoid excessive travel and stay another day before heading direct to Paris to catch their flight home. Later that same day Dad and I were schedule to fly to Athens to begin our big fat Greek vacation. Sadly, it was not to be. We left J&A, with Josh still feeling a tad punky, and headed off to the train station to get to the airport. We had plenty of time. We bought our tickets, went to platform 9 and only had to wait a few minutes before a train came. If we were a bit more savvy we would've spent a bit of time checking out the train itinerary. But we didn't. I said 'Lets go!' and we hopped on the train. It trundled off with us aboard. It wasn't until the train past the beach town we had been at the previous day, without having made a single stop, that I got kind of concerned. Something was definitely wrong.


It turns out we had boarded the train prior to the one we should have. We were later informed that this was not the first time that this had happened. You'd think they would have some kind of control in place, but no dice. It turns out we got on a train that was an express right to the end of the line. No stops. Finally, after about an hour of moving away from our destination we jumped off and ran to a train going back the other way. Which was decidedly not an express. I believe we call this kind of train 'the milk run' as it stopped at every little village while Dad and I gnashed our teeth and prayed that our plane would be delayed. It wasn't. We got to the airport 15 minutes after the check in window had closed and 45 minutes before the plane actually took off, which is more frustrating than I can explain here. Adrianna was rather surprised to see us standing at the door again. At least we had somewhere to go.



Trying to make the best of a decidedly trying situation, we booked the cheapest flight we could find leaving from The Barc to somewhere relatively close to Greece. This somewhere was Pescara, in east central Italy. Neither of us had ever heard of it. We were to be pleasantly surprised. Still, we had a few days to kill and neither if us wanted to stay in Barcelona... it was leaving a bad taste in our mouth. So we said our second goodbye to J&A and disappeared ourselves. Up the seaside area of the Costa Brava. We found a campground and set up my tent for the first time. My god it looked funny amidst the hundreds of motorhomes parked all around us! The smallest, lightest two man tent I could find, parked on a huge patch of ground between two mobile castles, complete with satellite dishes and full patio sets. I couldn't help but laugh at our situation, which turned from bad to worse when it started to rain hard.


We went out for dinner in the pouring deluge. Before eating, I went to the grocery store and hid several large beers behind the pizzas in the cooler of the grocery store, since we could find no cold beer for sale and didn't travel with a fridge. We knew we would need the beer to help put us to sleep, crammed as we were going to be in my tent. By the time dinner was done the beer was cold and, even though I got a rather inquisitive look from the cash out lady, I felt proud of myself for my high degree of cleverosity. I repeated this process every day we spent there, hiding beer in the morning and purchasing it later in the day. That night, without a common area in the campground to hang out in and meet people, we ended up hiding from the rain in the TV room, drinking illegally cooled beer and watching Rambo III dubbed over in Spanish. I am laughing out loud as I write this, it was such a ridiculous scene. I'm glad it happened with my Dad, because others may not have seen the humour in it.


But I digress, and you folks probably have better stuff to do than to read about me hiding beers behind the cold pizza (although you might find yourself using that trick someday). We flew out to Pescara after a few days exploring the Costa Brava. We were happy to leave. We had arranged couchsurfing in Pescara, and a friendly looking lad named Max picked us up from the airport, as we were to stay with him and his lovely wife Lisa. The time that followed redeemed our unfortunate situation and pulled our heads out of the pallid clouds that had hung around them since missing our flight. Pescara was full of engaging Italian couchsurfers and their friends, whom they enjoyed introducing us to. We spent a few days there revelling in the local culture, laying on the beach, and even going for a day long bike ride to the neighboring town of Ortona. I will have a difficult time explaining to my loyal bike all of the affairs I have been having while it has been parked in a dark garage.


We were sad to leave Pescara but still needed to get to Greece so Dad could catch his flight. A train and an all night ferry did the trick. We made it safely to Greece, but that will have to wait for another time. It is strange how such a crumby thing as a missed flight can turn into something bigger and better than you could have planned for. For instance, as I write this, I am back in Pescara, staying with my friend Francesco who I never would have met otherwise, and we are going on a road trip to Vienna this very night. Plus, the day that we were supposed to land in Athens, there was a rather large earthquake. For all I know, a rock from a building would've fallen on my head. So who knows why stuff happens. But it does, and all you have control over is how you react to it.