The Night Before Travel

Once again, the night before travel is one of little sleep.  I procrastinate, delay, and dilly dally until the hours slip away and I have too little time for too many things to do.

While I was here in Chulilla, I took an inventory of everything I'm traveling with.  Depending on how I count, I have between 52 and 139 things.  To get a number as high as 139, I counted every card in my wallet, every component of my laptop's power cable, etc.  I have 9 pens.  I don't really understand why, but I have had trouble whittling it down.  Regardless, it turns out I can pack everything, including the 3 extra bags into my suitcase.  Since travel today will be by train and not plane, that is just what I've done.

In a couple hours, we hop in the rental car and drive it to Valencia, where we turn it in at the train station.  Then we take a train from Valencia to Barcelona, where we will rent another car, and drive to where we are staying.  We will be about halfway between Barcelona and Tarragona, right on the coast.  In fact, if google maps is to be believed, we will be only 500 meters from the beach.  I expect to swim in the Mediterranean Sea daily for the next few weeks.

Yesterday, Friday, May 1st, was International Workers Day, which is celebrated as a holiday in Spain.  This meant lots of people around.  As we headed down to the bakery, I was looking at a pretty girl instead of where I was going, tripped on a step, and badly stubbed my toe.  I headed back to the apartment so I wouldn't bleed all over the place.  I'm sure the stubbed toe is going to feel great in the salt water, but I expect it will help it heal.

I didn't hike in Chulilla nearly as much as I wanted to.  I'm badly out of shape, and as I have had to remind several people, I'm not on vacation.  It isn't a great idea to exhaust myself before I work an eight hour day on my computer.  It can make it really hard to stay awake.  Still, the hiking I did was wonderful.  I'm looking forward to coming back.  Americans, particularly overweight, non-climbing Americans, are not the norm here in Chulilla.  It is primarily a rock climbing destination, and not so much a tourist one.  It is a great place to experience a taste of true Spanish lifestyle.