No Regrets!

Woke up feeling a bit rough from last night’s partying and went to the kitchen to find some breakfast. Offerings were typical hostel fare: toast, cereal, slices of melon, and tea. I put together a plate and sat down to eat, cradling my pounding head between bites.

The dining room was overrun by German students on some sort of school trip. The typical high school mix: some were friends, some were loners, some were loud and obnoxious, some were quiet and shy. Easy to see who the popular ones were. After they left, an older woman with an accent I couldn’t place sat down next me and asked me if I was OK. Nice of her.

Fredy bounced into the room, grinning from ear to ear about this great Lisbon orientation walk he was going to take us on. I don’t know where he gets the energy. I collected myself, grabbed my camera bag, and headed out.

First was Bairro Alto, the historical center of the city that was first built up in the late 1400’s, right around when Columbus was discovering America. Take away the cars and power lines and tourists, and it’s easy to feel like it’s 500 years ago.

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Lisboa, the Portuguese name for the city, is huge. The bus zipped through the industrial outskirts of the city, crossed the enormous delta of the Tagus River, and dropped us at the bus terminal. A couple of quick subway rides, and we were at our hostel in the heart of Lisbon.

I needed some me time. We’ve been together as a group for over two weeks now, and coordinating things with everyone and constantly maintaining a friendly smile takes a toll. With a few free hours to kill, I decided to wander around for a bit on my own, soaking in the sights and sounds and smells of the neighborhood.

Lisbon, or at least this part of town where we’re staying, has a good rustic feel, with charming little streets, wrought iron railings on balconies, and streetcars. A regular pattern of white stonework, which I think is just called Portuguese pavement, covers the ground pretty much everywhere here and also in Lagos.

I used TripAdvisor to find a little taverna, and feasted on super-spicy chicken wings and a few tiny lamb ribs.

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Our next stop was Lagos (“LAH-gose”, also the name of Nigeria’s biggest city), a small beach town on the Atlantic coast of Portugal. I’m excited about Portugal. For me, it’s the wild card for this trip. I don’t know much about it other than it was a powerhouse during the age of exploration and that it spawned Brazil.

On the bus to Lagos, Fredy and I had a long conversation about his worst trips, his worst travelers, our aspirations, and differences between the Spanish and American way of life. He discussed how Americans value money above all else. He told me a story about a Spanish ticket collector he met at a train station who was appalled that his manager had asked him to work more hours for more money for doing his job so well. The man spent a lot of time with his family and enjoying life. He was happy. How could his manager not understand that more work and more money would take him away from the things that made him happy in life? Any American would have taken that promotion.

Something that I’m reminded of every time I travel abroad is that Americans might be the most unhappy people in the world. Fredy got my wheels turning when we talked about my own life situation, about where I want to be and what I want to be doing for work. Maybe I need a job that gives me a bit more travel or remote work flexibility. Maybe I need to work in the travel industry. Maybe I need to work for a company like G Adventures.

At the Portugal border, the police decided to stop our bus and do a passport check. They spent a few extra seconds scrutinizing Nader’s Egyptian passport.

Our hostel in Lagos is just down the road from the beach. You can see the ocean from the rooftop deck. I don’t think there’s a whole lot to do or photograph here (thank goodness). Definitely thinking that this will be the relaxing couple of days that we all needed.

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As the sun came up, we entered the industrial outskirts of Seville. Again, I’m surprised how these places I’ve never heard of are legit cities.

We made our way to the historical center of Seville, and things started looking a lot like, well, the historical centers of Valencia, Granada, and just about every other Spanish city. This old town is particularly beautiful, with an enormous royal palace and cathedral right in the middle of it. As I took pictures, I almost got run over by a horse.

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Overnight buses suck. I perfectly cantilevered my ass off the edge of the seat to achieve the lowest possible horizontal angle, but I still hardly slept. No amount of cantilevering made me comfortable for long enough to fall asleep. On top of that, the driver announced over the loudspeaker stops at random bus stations every hour or so. Not cool. The only good thing about the trip was the occasional glimpse of a giant, orange full moon hovering over the roadway ahead.

As sun came up, hills have way to mountains, and then we were in Granada. I’d never heard of Granada, but it’s a decent-sized city. Our hostel was in the historic part of town wedged between two mountains. Everyone was dragging pretty hard, but no time for resting. Off we went to do our orientation walk around historic Granada with Fredy.

Granada’s old town is charming, with a definite north African, Arabic influence to the architecture, people, and countless souvenir shops.

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The bus rolled into Valencia, a full-fledged city. I had imagined something smaller because I’d never heard of it.

After dropping our bags, we headed straight to the beach for some much-needed relaxation before dinner. This beach is massive, as wide as a football field and as long as the eye can see. And with sand so fine, it feels like velvet when you walk on it.

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After a quick stop at the pretty train station in Montpellier, France, we were back on the train to Spain.

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At Rome’s Termini station, we got on our Trenitalia (rhymes with “genitalia”) train and chilled out for 4 hours. We all got to know each other a bit, and Nader pulled out his Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey to loosen things up a bit. My iPhone playlist was judged to be weird but good. Except by Maddy, who made some snarky comment about it but later quietly sung along with one of the songs. Outside, we were treated to the Italian countryside with the occasional glimpse of the Mediterranean.

Pisa is a charming little town with the the leaning tower, of course, as the main attraction. After quick pizza lunch, we walked over to the famous tower.

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Got off the train and took to the streets in search of my B&B. It was cloudy and humid, and I was dripping with sweat before even getting to the place. It was a challenge finding it, with no signage on the outside and no address numbers for reference. But when I finally got inside, I was greeted by the flamboyant and friendly Laura. She seemed like a great host, but I didn’t stick around. Jet-lagged but buzzing on the adrenaline of being someplace new, I set off to explore Rome.

Rome is about how I imagined it, hubbub of commercial strips, duotone police sirens, giant billboards, graffiti, gummed up sidewalks, and scooters. One thing there’s a lot of is fountains. I don’t know if it’s something that goes back to the aqueduct days of the ancient Romans, but there seems to be a fountain of fresh, drinkable water every few hundred meters. Romans are never thirsty.

Italians have certain sense of style, with seemingly random combinations of clothes and colors that they wear with confidence. Everyone’s thin (so much for low-carb diets) and good-looking, but a bit part of that is their attitude. Everyone is flamboyant and confident and happy. There are also nuns everywhere.

Some pigeons and I visited the Spanish Steps. Kind of cool, I guess, but not much to it.

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So I’ve been scrimping and saving up my vacation time for a couple of years to go on another big adventure. After a decade of amazing New Year’s trips, I’m starting to run out of good places to go that time of year, so I decided to start looking at suitable trips to take in the fall.

I consulted my bucket list and cross-referenced it with tours offered by my two favorite small group travel companies, G Adventures and Intrepid, and came up with some great options. I briefly considered taking advantage of the economic struggles in Greece or taking a tour around Iceland, but in the end, I decided I could hit Italy, Barcelona, and Lisbon, all ranked quite highly on my bucket list, with the G Adventures Rome to Madrid on a Shoestring small group tour.

But who to go with? My usual travel partner, Doug, didn’t have the vacation time. My other friends are busy having babies and working. I looked into some of the “find a travel buddy” websites like triptogether.com and travel-buddies.com, but they all seemed a bit sketchy to me. Do people really commit to spending several days with strangers? Is it just a global hook-up network? I don’t know if I could ever take a chance like that.

So I decided to go solo. About six weeks ago, I sat at my desk at work and felt that familiar little buzz of adrenalin as I clicked the PURCHASE button on the G Adventures website.

My trip starts in Rome and skips along the Mediterranean coast to Pisa, Genoa, Monaco, Nice, Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, Seville, Algarve, Lisbon, and finally Madrid. That’s 5 countries in 16 days. I haven’t been to any of these places before. Some of them, I’ve never heard of. I haven’t been this excited about a trip in a long time.

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