Lost & Found in Girona

Today is Saturday and in this moment I am drinking an afternoon black coffee, eating "un trozo de pulpo" aka a piece of cooked squid, and slowly waking up for the start of the weekend. I'm seated at the bar of a cafeteria style restaurant called Confiteria which is  a neighborhood eating spot for Murcian locals who live in the area of Vista Alegre. Vista Alegre is where my friend Lola's house is located and this has been my temporary residence since coming back to Murcia. 

Over a week ago I was watching the sunrise in an ALSA bus, writing in this blog, preparing to meet up with a waiting BlaBla driver in Alicante, then share a ride up along the coast. Originally the idea was to head north and spend two nights in Girona, a couple more in Barcelona, and a few days reserved for a flight to Portugal with Lisbon being the destination. Upon returning back to Murcia this past Wednesday I ended up spending an extra day in both Girona and Barcelona, then electing to come back early in order to spend time at the elementary school Vicente Medina instead of visiting Portugal. Vicente Medina was a second school where I worked last year and it was the first time seeing everyone there in over seven months. 

Laura was the main reason for me making the trip to Girona because she is a good friend from Couchsurfing. This was the first time that we had actually "met" each other because we had for the past few years only been long distance language exchange pen-pals. She is currently studying abroad in Girona and this was the only window of free time that she had from studying to meet up. It was great seeing her and she did an awesome job of playing the role of tour guide. 

Girona is a small city that sits about an hour north of Barcelona. The primary language spoken there is Catalan and the only time I heard people speaking Spanish was when they were directly speaking to me or Laura. Catalan is the first language spoken for people of Cataluña, the autonomous region in Spain where Girona is located. It is famous for their heavy desire to gain independence from the rest of the country. Red, yellow and blue banners hung from countless narrow balconies in support of their region and people greeted each other with "Bon Dia" or "Merci."  

Despite bring considerably smaller than Murcia, Girona boasts some spectacular views and offers a great deal of sites for travelers to visit. I stayed at Room in Girona Backpackers which sits along the waterfront of the Oñar River. The historical part of the city is disected by the Oñar and some beautiful pictures can be taken along any of the numerous bridges that serve as walkways for a consistent flow of foot traffic. Two bridges that are really interesting are Stone Bridge (Puente de Piedra) and Eiffel Bridge (Puente de Hierro) which was built by the same company that constructed Paris' Eiffel Tower. Girona also has a very beautiful cathedral, gardens, lion monuments, restaurant scene around Plaza de la Libertad, and a fortified wall passageway along it's Barri Vell also known as historical district. Girona doesn't have as active a nightlife as Murcia, however a few places like Solero or König are good for a evening out in the town. Girona is also nice due to its easy access to small yet very interesting cities such as Figueras or Besalú. 

I didn't expect to have such a good time in Girona, and I also didn't expect to lose my travel journal during the journey north before arriving there. Somewhere between Alicante and Barcelona a thin grey journal is resting in peace, possibly at a gas station or in the beak of a majestic Spanish seagull as it soars through the sky. One month of writing, lists of places, and lists of names from experiences in New York, Barcelona, and Murcia has been lost due to personal clumsiness. Recounting and relogging them in my backup journal has been like retracing phases of life after waking up from a coma. Names of some people or places have now been rewritten based on the details I remember. Waspy guy, New York jazz bar,  tall black French girl, French 75 bar owner, booger girl, BlaBla guy,  language exchange Barcelonan, and Chinese exchange student are some of the titles that have taken the place of actual names. These people and places have all played a role in this trip, so not remembering names makes me feel like a jerk. Hopefully they will pop back up into the leaky balloon of my mind during a spontaneous moment in the future. Luckily pictures have been backed up so not everything has been erased. 

After filling a handful of pages in my new journal about Girona I returned to Barcelona for a second time during this trip. The majority of time spent there was dedicated towards hanging out with friends from Hostel One Backpackers, drinking Nømad coffee, having Chen Ji Chinese food, El Dorado Chicken for a second time, hanging out in a couple plazas, and seeing a few people who were met during the first trip a few weeks ago. A separate blog post about Barcelona will be coming at some point in the future :)

Due to an extended stay in Girona and Barcelona, Portugal for the time being will continue to sit in an internal travel "to-do" list. Inside it feels ok to have not gone there this time around, and it will be simply serve as another excuse to come back to Europe sometime in the not so distant future :)

This blog post is once again very lengthy so I think you deserve to treat yourself to a beer or chilled non alcholihic beverage if you have made it this far! More updates are coming soon and I hope that you are having a wonderful day or evening.

Cheers!