Yeah España!

Buenas Tardes,

We made it to España! We arrived this afternoon after taking an 18-hour ferry from Genova, Italia. The ride was nice. We had a bit of an adventure getting to the port (of course! That's how we roll). After spending about 10 hours "killing" time in Genova, we had to rush back to the hostel, grab our packs, rush back to the bus stop, catch the #40, get off and switch to the #30. While waiting for the #30, I have to admit the 2 cappuccini caught up with me and my nerves. After waiting for what seemed like forever and seeing a sign that I incorrectly assumed meant the bus to the port was delayed, I finally asked someone (in Italian =) ) why the #30 still hadn't shown up. Luckily we found one of the few amazingly sweet Italians. She (in Italian) told some other bus options and what port to go to. We kept talking and her parents picked her up. We said "Grazie" and then she told us to get in the car. Yup, personal escorts to the port! See, everything happens for a reason. Had I not been minorly freaked (actually for those that know me very well, that has become quite infrequent on this trip) thanks to the caffeine, I would never have asked anyone, and we would´ve been left taking a bus crammed with our huge packs (yes they´re getting bigger), day packs, and our bags of food (we all know the large priority that food has become on this trip). I couldn´t help but smile the entire way to the port...we were really meant to get on this ship on time! We did. We then lightened our food packs quite efficiently and enjoyed a 4-person cabin to ourselves (gotta love off-season during a world-wide recession). That meant hot showers and total darkness and quiet (a rarity). We woke up totally refreshed ready to take on Spain. Once we finished our last bottle of Italian wine we were ushered to the deck for port arrival. We spent the rest of our Italian ferry trip speaking only Spanish. I´m hoping my years of Spanish so many years ago some how come back. Thankfully M is very proficient with the language. I´m still dealing with hearing Spanish, thinking in English, then in Italian, and finally trying to respond in Spanish. Whew! At least the mental hamsters are getting a bit of a workout with the last two countries of our trip. We spent the rest of today finding our hostel, walking around our neighborhood, heading to the beach to people watch, then calamari and sangria. We plan on heading out for the Spanish night life a little later. No one eats before 10pm and the bars don´t get started until 1, so we got a bit of Spanish wine to start the party (of course!).

-Justin