This Week:
- Exploring the famous Costa Brava region of Spain
- Swimming, cliff jumping, and getting stung by a jellyfish
- Eating an incredible breadth of amazing food
August 2023
| Su | M | T | W | Th | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | 31 | 8/1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 9/1 | 2 |
Where In The World Was I?
- Barcelona, Spain
- Costa Brava region
- 🚙 Barcelona, Spain
- 🚅 Madrid, Spain
Being A Tourist In Barcelona
With one last day in Barcelona before leaving, I decided to do a couple touristy things.
I met up with my brother and sister-in-law (who are here in Spain for 3 months this summer) and visited:
La Pedrera-Casa Milà
It was okay. It was essentially just a tour of an old apartment with some cool architecture. But, this is one of those things where the crowds of people also visiting started to detract from the experience, but so be it.
Casa Batlló
Okay this building was cool. It had this under-the-sea theme to everything and Gaudí’s architecture was just so intricate and beautiful.
Tapas for dinner (at Vinitus)! Small but filling – that seems to be the way people eat here.
Driving Up The Coast
The next morning I met up with my brother (Grant), sister-in-law (Sahyli), and a friend from her old work (Christoph).
We grabbed a rental car and drove up the coast to the Costa Brava region of Spain. My sister-in-law had booked an Airbnb for a week in Platja d’Aro, a medium-ish beach town (population: 10,500).
Over the course of the next couple days, we spent a ton of time exploring different restaurants, taking day trips out to small towns, going to the beach, and just exploring the whole region.
📍Platja d’Aro
The beach town we were staying in
📍Tamariu
Gorgeous beach town in this little cove
I Got Stung By A Jellyfish
I was swimming in the water here, a bit far out by the bouys, and it was quite deep and clear (no seaweed).
I had been swimming backwards when all of a sudden I felt this soft jelly-like thing graze up against my back. I thought it was seaweed at first but realized it was so deep that there was no way.
And within seconds, that spot on my back immediately started to tingle.
I wasn’t sure what happened, but I knew the tingle came from whatever I just touched, so I swam directly back to our beach towel and asked Sahyli and Christoph if it looked bad.
That’s when it started to sting a bit more…
I wasn’t sure if this was one of those things where you need to treat it with something within like 3 minutes of the incident (I think some snake bites are like that?), so I went over to the lifeguard and he pointed me to the first aid hut inside the city.
The woman there didn’t speak english, but from what I gathered:
- Jellyfish stings are incredibly common
- You treat them with salt water, not fresh water (or else they’ll itch) and ice
- And that’s about it
It got more red over the next hour or so, then started to fade and the sting went away with a couple hours.
📍Sa Tuna
Tiny town (pop: 23) but a million people there visiting
Cliff Jumping
We walked along this trail around the cove and found this little rocky area that was much less crowded where we went swimming and I did some jumping off the rocks.
This last one was the highest and saw some other kids jumping off. If you look down about halfway, there’s this ledge that you have to clear. It wasn’t hard, but I had to think about it for a minute.
I went in with flat feet and felt a sting on that one.
📍Peratallada
Tiny little castle-like town inland
📍Pals
Another small inland town with this castle on top of a hill
📍Calella de Palafrugell
Beautiful coastal town (decently sized). That afternoon light was so pretty hitting the white buildings.
📍Tossa de Mar
Another beautiful coastal town with this castle on top of a mountain
📍Cadaqués
This one we had to drive about an hour and a half to get to, through the mountains. Worth it though
I Almost Lost My Drone To The Water
For some reason it was incredibly wind here, like 50mph+ winds, like blow-your-hat-off wind.
I put the drone up just fine flying within 100ft.
However, I decided I wanted to fly out again over the water along the coast, further away, since we weren’t going to walk out there.
It flew down-wind just fine 😅 but as I tried to fly back up-wind, half a mile away with 15% battery left, it started to struggle.
I put it on max speed and it went… nowhere… because the wind was blowing at 30mph+, the same speed the drone was flying.
I started to panic, going from “shit I just need to land it on the rock and not in the water” to “wait it’s moving it’s moving I can make it”
Somehow I made it over the water, back over the rock, and flew it within 200ft when it hit critical battery level and just auto-landed right into the bushes.
😅 😮💨
Food From The Week
- DGust – the octopus tentacle
- L’italianini – incredible homemade carbonara
- La Romana – the pizza that did the job it needed to
- Gelati Dino – cherry-flavored gelato! whaaaaat
- Ca l’Adela – lunch in the tiny town of Sa Tuna
- Parilla Catalina – the Argentinian experience
- Fusion World Kitchen – sushi
- Helios Greek – a falafel pita wrap and hummus
- Cadaq’s – amazing Poke bowl from this incredibly friendly French owner
- La Tortilla Tex Mex – the place that didn’t have a line out the door Saturday night
Side-note: my wallet is indeed crying
Other Stories From The Week
My First Hooka Experience
I’m pretty sure this is the very first time I’ve ever smoked anything. I debated back and forth for a while, but ended up deciding to try it. It was interesting and different, kind of felt like a buzz from alcohol.
Luggage Update: I’m Now Down A Sock
Our Airbnb in Platja d’Aro was on the second floor with a balcony over this terrace below. It had a washing machine but no dryer so we had to hang our clothes on this rack on the balcony.
Of course naturally there’s this separation from the floor of the balcony to the wall 🙄. On the last night, my sister-in-law accidentally dropped one of my socks and it fell through the separation to the apartment below.
And of course naturally the next morning we’re leaving and they don’t answer the door.
This was pretty frustrating.
It’s hard for me to tell what kind of image you have of me from just reading these posts, but I’m a very detail-oriented and organized person. Every. single. thing. I took with me backpacking is intentional and everything is documented.
So it’s not just that I lost a sock. It’s that
- I only have 4 pairs of socks and now I have 3
- I have a half a pair of socks, which everyone knows is annoying
- You can’t just go to a store a buy a single sock
- It’s a synthetic/wicking sock, not just any regular sock
It took me a while to cool down.
As we drove away, I started to just accept that there’s nothing I could do anymore and that while it may not have been my fault, it’s my responsibility.
What I should’ve done (which I did every other time we did laundry) was take my socks out before they went on the balcony.
So be it.
Topless At The Beach
Coming from the U.S., it’s been somewhat of a culture shock to see how normal it is for women to be topless at the beach.
Maybe +/- 10% do, but every single beach we’ve gone to there have been women (of all ages) without their tops on. And these are all regular public beaches, nothing special.
Just something I’ve noticed since we’ve been going to so many beaches this week! I mean hey, fine with me 😄
🚅 Próxima Estación: Madrid
I took my first (I think?) high-speed train from Barcelona to Madrid.
It was actually quite cool.
I’ll leave off this week’s Life Update having just arrived in Madrid in the evening, where I grabbed dinner (La Capricciosa Italiana) and walked around.
