This was not an interesting week, although the beach weirdness did keep us entertained (days 357, 358). JC also popped her top like a real local (day 359), and we did a final tourist activity, visiting Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (day 355).

Travel Log: Day 353 (6/15), Spain

Pretty standard day around here. I slept in until after 10am again, and then went to the gym. After that I hung out around the Airbnb, and did some more mockups of the flooring changes in our house.

I called my mom and talked to her for a while. Then JC and I went to the beach and lounged on the sand for over two hours. It was almost just as enjoyable sober as it is when drinking.

JC and I called the flooring company we plan to use and scheduled an appointment for 7/1 to get measurements and estimates.

Rounded out the evening with some Spanish work and looking at cars.

Travel Log: Day 354 (6/16), Spain

JC and I woke up pretty early, around 8:30am. We took a walk to the beach, and instead of walking up and down the beach like we usually do, we sat on it instead. After that I went to the gym.

I felt like walking somewhere far on purpose today, so I spent some time researching what. I landed on the Hospital museum area, and we planned on doing that after lunch. Luckily I did an AI sweep of what to expect and found that it closes at 6pm, and it was already 4pm. They stop allowing entrance at 5pm and it’s an hour walk. We are going to do this tomorrow instead.

JC and I decided to do a walk down to the farther beaches again. We came to the first beach and it was kind of a trashy party scene. Tons of people playing volleyball, many people making out in the sand, and just very packed. Instead of settling in somewhere there, we walked on to the next beach and it was very similar. We just picked a spot though and stayed for about an hour. On the way back we ate dinner at SNOB. the food was good but the service was pretty bad. We didn’t even get everything we ordered, but our server had limited English so we just paid for it all.

Travel Log: Day 355 (6/17), Spain

Today JC and I walked over to Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau. For a hospital, the design of it was amazing. Many of the same elements you can see throughout the fancy architecture of Barcelona. As far as a museum or attraction though, it was pretty boring. We paid 36 euros to get in and many things inside were closed and inaccessible. Not worth the money, but we can at least say we’re trying all the major tourist things we should see while we’re here.

Later in the day we all went over to the park. BC and I played football while JC and AC walked.

Travel Log: Day 356 (6/18), Spain

After the gym and breakfast, I spun my wheels more looking at cars. The problem is I just don’t really want to buy any car, and none of them seem worth the money. This has been a fresh reminder of why everyone is broke in the US. Most people don’t buy an affordable car in the first place, and they don’t pay cash so interest costs even more, and they don’t buy one that is fuel efficient, and they get one they can’t afford to self insure with liability only insurance. If people stopped to do the math on all of this, particularly what those costs compound to over time, they might think twice about their vehicle choices. I know all of these things very well, which makes me hate cars period.

We all went to the beach in the late afternoon, and it was actually pretty nice this time. AC seemed to settle in, and BC dug in the sand some instead of insisting on playing football the entire time. We were there for a couple hours.

Travel Log: Day 357 (6/19), Spain

Gym in the morning, and then more car planning. I think JC and I have settled on getting a Subaru Crosstrek Premium. It’s a weird place to end up given that our original option A was a Crosstrek Wilderness. We cycled through options B (Corolla hybrid AWD), C (Rav4), D (base Corolla), and E (used base Corolla) over the course of weeks. To end up at a lesser trim of Crosstrek seems odd, but it makes a lot of sense for us. It gets good gas mileage, it isn’t crazy expensive for a new one, it’s almost as capable as the wilderness trim, it has a hatch and roof rails. It just does a little bit of everything pretty well.

In the evening JC and I went to the beach and had drinks. We drank gin and tonic which just hits so much harsher than canned drinks like beer and cider. It was a rough night of sleep because of that. However the beach was fucking nuts in a good way. We saw this topless chick walk into the ocean with a fancy wooden chest that was open holding a bunch of fruit. I thought she was filming something for social media, but there was no camera around. She got blasted by a wave and the fruit and box went everywhere.

As she came back to shore she looked like she was in disbelief; like she expected that to go differently. She went to her towel and started rubbing oil on herself over and over. A lifeguard came over, probably to say “are you going to pick that shit up”. She went and got the fancy box but none of the fruit. She rubbed oil some more and then packed up and left.

There was also this old dude roaming around our area completely nude, and he seemed lost like he had dementia. It was creeping the fuck out of me.

Our PM sent us videos of our yard and it is definitely browned out in some significant patches in the front. We ultimately told her it’s not that bad and we’ll fix it when we get back. She said the tenants were really disappointed not to return it to us super green like we left it. Those words are hollow though, if they really felt that way they would have watered it manually. I don’t put that on them though, this sprinkler situation should not have taken six weeks to resolve. It shouldn’t have taken six days.

BC picked Sonic 3 for movie night.

Travel Log: Day 358 (6/20), Spain

After sleeping pretty badly, both JC and I rallied back for our runs. After that I just lounged around our Airbnb, not doing anything noteworthy.

JC and I went to the beach again. We kept the drinking down after getting the shit kicked out of us last night by gin. The beach didn’t disappoint in delivering somthing weird. There was a guy in assless shorts, kind of like assless chaps.

For dinner JC and I ate at a Turkish place on the walk back from the beach. It was fine, but our somosas were ice cold in the middle. Some of these places don’t try super hard. FOC (Latin America food) on this same strip was great though.

Travel Log: Day 359 (6/21), Spain

JC and I started the day at the beach. We got there a little later than usual. There were a lot of people and it was hot. JC popped her top for the first time here, and really looked she belonged. The nudity at the beaches has quickly become normalized for us. My mindset is more along the lines of why wouldn’t someone lose their clothes if they’re tanning. That said I’m not losing my trunks any time soon.

We declared today movie day, where everyone got to pick a movie, and everyone else could either watch it or not. JC picked The Help, BC picked Guardians Of The Galaxy 3, and AC picked Safety. I watched both of the girls movies but not BC’s since I haven’t seen #2 in that series.

JC and I went for a walk in the evening.