BBC Theme: Holidays

First posted 16 Dec 2013

It’s late, as always but here’s the entry for ‘Holidays’ …

For my last two holiday’s I’ve been to Spain. Which is surprising because, barring a brief trip to Lloret Del Mar in 2009 I’ve never been to Spain. You’ll know if you’ve ever been, that Lloret Del Mar does not count. This post takes the form of a “what I did on my holidays” activity that I remember from school.

In June 2013 I went to the seaside town of Calafell, which is about 45 minutes by train from Barcelona. It has a huge sandy beach, which we played Frisbee on at the European Beach Ultimate Championships. “We” was the GB Women’s Masters Ultimate Frisbee team, and we had a great time despite losing to Germany in the final.

The best thing about this beach was the lovely sea. It was the a perfect temperature for swimming, and it was about shoulder deep (for me, waist height for the rest of the population) for what seemed like forever. It was ideally suited for frollicking around in.

Following our defeat a group of us travelled to Barcelona for a Sunday evening of tapas, wine and a fire demon carnival. It was a lot of fun, on Monday, most of our little gang flew back to the UK. Leaving myself and one other to discover the delights of Barcelona.

We stayed in an amazing apartment, with a guy called David who I’d found through the website AirB’n’B. David was a great host and his apartment was wonderful, centrally located, airy, with a terrace and an extremely comfy bed.

Boy was it hot, the whole city was roasting and so we generally tried to head out later in the evening for the serious business (eating and drinking) and tried to stay cool for the rest of the day.

The next day, Martin and I headed out to try and go to a gallery (I think this was the Miro one). We failed because most public things and galleries are closed on a Monday. Instead we took a cable car up to the Olympic Park. Thank goodness for the cable car as it was pretty hot already and the hill was pretty big. The park was great, the stadium, which is now looking a little bit worn was still pretty impressive and the views from the top of the park were great. There were outdoor escalators, which at first we shunned to take the stairs. But we quickly realised that this was utter madness and a recipe for sweatiness. We then headed back into Barcelona, via a coffee stop to find some lunch.

We headed out to La Sagrada Família, and arrived there too late to go inside. We looked at the outside and both decided that we think Gaudi must have been on a lot of drugs. We walked up the Av. Gaudi towards a big hospital, which we then admired whilst sipping horrible wine from a streetside cafe. We then kept walking, and walking, we found the City Park and Zoo, the Arc De Triomf, and finally stumbled into a Brazillian restaurant. We ate a lot of amazing food, and drank a lot of great wine this night.

I didn’t really realise how much the Beach Ultimate Championships had tired me out, and there are lots of bits of this holiday that are a blur, and I definitely suffered with aching legs and the lack of sleep really hit me on Tuesday night, after a day on the beach and in the science museum, and an evening in the micro-brewery. I was out for the count, and pretty much had to be carried home. On Wednesday, Martin and I headed our separate ways, him back to an even hotter Madrid and me back to a warmish Leeds.

Holidays in general don’t need to be in Spain, and mine as a rule, are not. My last big one was in Japan and China. This trip was once again fuelled by playing frisbee. We played at the World Championships in Sakai, Japan. The tournament and the holiday afterwards were absolutely remarkable. Japan is a brilliant yet crazy place, and China was amazing. So much to see and do, and both were really very culturally different to anywhere else I’d ever been.

Overall I preferred China, it was more laid back than Japan, and I liked the food better – which was a surprise. I’d love to go back and I really want to go to Tibet and Mongolia as a result of going pretty close to the border and loving the food and culture.

Arriving in China by boat was pretty overwhelming, we woke up on the ferry at about 8am and looked out to find ourselves in the river delta with the outskirts of Shanghai on both banks. The boat slowed to a walking pace and we proceeded to sail for another 5 hours until we reached the dock in central Shanghai. The amount of traffic on the river was incredible, and the cargoes were so varied. Huge tankers, tiny fishing boats and even people in the shallows fishing with nets. It was a swarm of life and I think I’ll always remember the feeling of insignificance.

As we rounded the final bend towards the French quarter of Shanghai the skyscrapers towering over us I still didn’t really understand just how large and densely populated this city was. It was also 36 degrees Celsius and about 90% humidity. Getting into a taxi and negotiating the roads was another experience altogether. Within about 5 minutes of stepping out of the taxi we realised that the language barrier was going to be a real problem!

Being away from home has changed since I now own my own place, and I definitely miss the place when I am away. But I still want to travel and would love to go to Mexico, India and South Africa are also pretty high up on my wish list.

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