September 19, 2010
I’m really grateful for meeting Paul, my kind Australian hostel-mate, back in Barcelona.  My second night there I was out in the social area sitting with my laptop, planning out the pick-up of a rental car and subsequent trip to Andorra the next day.  When Paul learned of my plans, he immediately offered to pay for half of the gas and everything on the trip, were I to let him tag along—at that point we’d known each other for about 5 minutes.  It was a quick offer, but he’d been staying in the hostel for 10 days, was well-liked by the staff ( therefore seemingly trustworthy—he’d actually been offered a part-time cooking position there ) and was getting antsy for a new adventure.  Plus it was going to be raining all weekend in Barcelona.   So the next day—this would have been Friday—we made our way to the pick-up the rental car.  It took forever for us to locate Alamo at the train station, but by the time we’d finally gotten in our little car and started driving, it was clear to me how vital Paul’s companionship and navigation ( a replacement for an expensive GPS ) would be to us getting out of the city.  While I re-familiarized myself with manual transmission and foreign traffic obstacles, he patiently guided us out of the Barcelona with a map that we only half understood.  I can’t tell you how many hours I would have spent driving and fumbling with the map on my own to escape the maze, were Paul not with me. Anyways, long-story-short, we had a great time in Andorra, and decided to loosely plan out a continuation of this trip within a trip up until Wednesday evening, when I’ll need to find myself back in Barcelona.  Our route ( pictured below ) includes stopping in the castled town of Carcassonne, France ( I’d actually visited this town previously on a whirlwind train trip in 2005, so it will be nice to have a second look ), venturing out to Beziers to meet some young winemakers we met in Andorra.  We’ll stay that night in Carcassonne, then leave to the Basque region in norther Spain via Toulouse.  In Basque country we don’t have much planned other than to enjoy this amazing region for two nights ( travel writer Rick Steves sums up the region well in this article: http://www.ricksteves.com/news/tribune/basque.htm ).  On Wednesday morning we’ll head back to Barcelona, slicing through Zaragoza.  I may end up dropping Paul off at the airport on our way back into town.  We’ll see when we get there. Cheers to travel companions.  Sometimes it’s tempting to go at it alone as a testament of one’s courage and solo resourcefulness, but this has worked out well.  I wouldn’t have done it differently.

I’m really grateful for meeting Paul, my kind Australian hostel-mate, back in Barcelona.  My second night there I was out in the social area sitting with my laptop, planning out the pick-up of a rental car and subsequent trip to Andorra the next day.  When Paul learned of my plans, he immediately offered to pay for half of the gas and everything on the trip, were I to let him tag along—at that point we’d known each other for about 5 minutes.  It was a quick offer, but he’d been staying in the hostel for 10 days, was well-liked by the staff ( therefore seemingly trustworthy—he’d actually been offered a part-time cooking position there ) and was getting antsy for a new adventure.  Plus it was going to be raining all weekend in Barcelona.  

So the next day—this would have been Friday—we made our way to the pick-up the rental car.  It took forever for us to locate Alamo at the train station, but by the time we’d finally gotten in our little car and started driving, it was clear to me how vital Paul’s companionship and navigation ( a replacement for an expensive GPS ) would be to us getting out of the city.  While I re-familiarized myself with manual transmission and foreign traffic obstacles, he patiently guided us out of the Barcelona with a map that we only half understood.  I can’t tell you how many hours I would have spent driving and fumbling with the map on my own to escape the maze, were Paul not with me.

Anyways, long-story-short, we had a great time in Andorra, and decided to loosely plan out a continuation of this trip within a trip up until Wednesday evening, when I’ll need to find myself back in Barcelona.  Our route ( pictured below ) includes stopping in the castled town of Carcassonne, France ( I’d actually visited this town previously on a whirlwind train trip in 2005, so it will be nice to have a second look ), venturing out to Beziers to meet some young winemakers we met in Andorra.  We’ll stay that night in Carcassonne, then leave to the Basque region in norther Spain via Toulouse.  In Basque country we don’t have much planned other than to enjoy this amazing region for two nights ( travel writer Rick Steves sums up the region well in this article: http://www.ricksteves.com/news/tribune/basque.htm ).  On Wednesday morning we’ll head back to Barcelona, slicing through Zaragoza.  I may end up dropping Paul off at the airport on our way back into town.  We’ll see when we get there.

Cheers to travel companions.  Sometimes it’s tempting to go at it alone as a testament of one’s courage and solo resourcefulness, but this has worked out well.  I wouldn’t have done it differently.

4:21am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZtWEay14V_AV