Finalmente, La España!

Feburary 8th, 2005

Working almost six days a week and with only day off from working the graveyard shift, we were wondering how long we were going to maintain our sanity. Our dorm environment was also not as pleasant either. Consent knocks on the door at almost every hour of the day and people coming to our room to only inform us about the latest rumors about everyone and anyone. I was also unsure if the request for Spain would get approved. Nate and I had to wait for almost a month until we received an approval or a denial. At this point, Nate said that he would quit his job if our time leave were to be denied. I somewhat felt the same way, but the thought of going back to the U.S was not a pleasing thought either. Almost every night, we would check and recheck the prices to Spain from Germany on all sites: Expedia.com, Orbtiz.com, German wings, Lufthansa, Iberia, Air Portugal to every site known on the web. Finally, our five-day leave was approved and we immediately purchased our airline tickets online, which would have been cheaper if our boss had given us that approved, leave a few days earlier. We didn’t have time to bring up an argument; we just figured that it was our time to check out Spain.

We flew from Munich to Barcelona with Iberia airlines. Less than a two-hour flight, this was going to a fun trip. Though, I have already traveled around Spain, in any case, seeing Nate enjoying the idea of being in Spain made traveling life all the better. Upon arriving in Barcelona, I immediately got a metro/rail map of the city and to locate the youth hostel, where Simon and I stayed in back in 2002. Barcelona is a lively city, with people walking all over, busy streets, loud chatter, good food on every corner and hearing people speaking either Catalan or Spanish. I found the youth hostel and there were no rooms available, however, the young Dutch receptionist recommended another hostel up the road. That hostel the New Yorker wasn’t the Hampton Inn, but hostels are not supposed to be that way. Just a simple room and a bed or more and a bathroom and shower, that’s it! Nate and I walked around the city for a while, but just finishing a graveyard shift that same day we left for Barcelona already caught up to us. So, we agreed to buy some snacks and check out our hostel and walk around the city.

The following morning, we got up around 11am. I wanted to show him some of the historic sites and the Gaudí museum and the Parc Güell and other sites too. But, we first had to find another hostel to stay in. Luckily, I carried all the information I found online about Barcelona and accommodations. The Sea Point Hostel was highly recommended on most of the hostel sites. Considering that this hostel was right on the beach, it was worth checking it out. The rooms were with bunk beds, lockers, showers and free Internet access and the price was about €12 Euros a night. We sat around the hostel for a bit and met several travelers from Australia, The US, England and one guy we became friends with from Canada, named Liam. After smoking a little bit of the greens, we took a walk around the local markets and bought our cheap-travel man’s dishes: fruit, green olives, exotic fruit drinks, beer and water! While back inside the hostel, everyone started to get acquainted with everyone else, exchanging names, taking pictures of one another, passing e-mail address, as well as home addresses and so on. We asked Liam if he wanted to tag along with us to the city of València, which was about three hours south by train from Barcelona. Like Barcelona, it was also a coastal city.

La Ciutat de València! Spain’s third largest city and getting acquainted with the city became really easy from the moment we arrived. Plus, I have already visited this city back in 2002. Hôme Stay Hostel was the place we were looking for, as we walked around this amazing city of fountains, clean streets, busy streets and small cafés. The map of the city was very simple, especially for Spain. The Hôme Backpackers Hostel was in the old part of the city (La Ciutat Vella.) This hostel was great for its location, as well as the many things it offered, a terrace view of the city, four floors of different rooms, a large kitchen and living room; and with unusual posters and paintings. This was probably the coolest hostel I every stayed in or at least this time around in Spain. We immediately made new friends, a guy from the Wisconsin, a girl from Australia, two guys from Brazil, two brothers from Sardinia and one from Italy, a beautiful frauline from Germany and two guys from Japan. Our dorm room was big, with eight sturdy-steel bunk beds, medium size coded safes and a large shower room. This was Hôme! With such a positive crowd of travelers, Nate and Liam, as well as I decided to spice up the event with some bottles of wine and some beer from a local market down the street. Drink glasses being passed around, yells of cheers, hello, nice to meet you, what’s your name, and oh really?! Was the theme of this hostel soirée. Cameras flashing, music playing, dancing and probably people making out and hooking up in the dorm rooms were also the theme of this night. I think this event went on all night long.

Since time was a factor, we decided to spend more time around this area of Spain. We checked as much of the city of València as much as we could. We also spent a full day in the Costa Blanca town of Gandía. A small beach town with newly constructed high rises, small streets, small markets, hills, open valleys and with a pleasant one hour train ride from València. While at the beach, we did nothing special, no sunbathers, surfers and not even girls. We just ate some sandwiches, drank some cheap wine and took a break from whatever we were individually dealing in our lives. That same night back in the Hôme hostel, we tried relive the experience like the night before. But even with our continuous lively atmosphere, we were greeted with another receptionist and he was not at all friendly. Though, we did not know about the newly established quiet hours, we took the party to a near-by club, full with people, Spanish hip-hop music, Flamenco, Reggetón, Merengue, or what have you. The following day, many of our new friends were packing their things, it seemed that the party was over. We checked out of the Hôme hostel. We found another related Hostel in the city center. Our last days were consumed with beer, tapas, wine, people watching, taking pictures and all the same time knowing that we soon will be returning to Germany to work another graveyard shift.

From this point, this would be our last time we will be able to have this many days off from work and the idea of going to Portugal, France or anywhere else will be impossible. We were conned like many other Americans to come to work in Germany, only to be trapped in a one year contract and not having any say on our living environment, working conditions, wages or being mislead that our average work schedule would be thirty-hours a week. We like many of our American dorm neighbors; we worked about an average of forty plus hours a week. This was not the experience I was looking for! I have traveled for many years and this was probably the worst so-called travel experience I have had. Though, I understand the need to have money in order to take such trips, but with the constant hassle of requesting time leave from work, working the graveyard shift and having our dorm community being a constant reminder that gossip surpass culture, rumors had more weight than hiking the Bavarian alps, American television shows were more interesting than learning German and remaining in the dorms was another way of denying the fact that we were no longer in the United States, but in Germany. This was not what I hoped for my friend and me. Soon a messenger will come to deliver us from this place. . . .