A Reckless Week in Spain

Keke and I took our first vacation of 2019 last week for the extended 4th of July holiday and it was amazing!

Friday afternoon I flew into Seattle and had packed plans down to the minute.

My friend Danika had her wedding ceremony in San Diego the weekend prior, which happened to be the same day as BMF, so I couldn't make it. But her reception was in Seattle while I was in town and it was beautiful!

Danika and Shanell I met playing football in 2010 and we've stayed close since. They both are married/engaged and have babies now, and it's so fun to catch up when we're in the same city! Danika lives in Nashville now, Nell is still in Seattle and I'm obviously in Boise, so it's rare we're all together.

We did the Seattle Mist game and after party later that night.. it was the perfect night, besides the Mist narrowly losing.

Sunday, I woke up and went for a long run before church while my best friend Shea got ready for our European adventure! We do these #twoblondesmakearight trips, which are usually national park road trips here in the states, but this year we wanted to take it a step further to the UK and Spain. We have the best time together and our trips are truly indescribable filled with "you'd have to be there to believe it" moments.

We like to wing most things in life, so we had our flights there and back booked, but nothing in between. We hopped on a flight to Manchester with nothing but our backpacks and a rough idea of what we wanted to do in each city.

We arrived in Manchester for a day on Monday. I've only been to London in the UK, so I didn't know how Manchester would compare. It's definitely a more calm city between the two, but we found plenty of things to do. We took the train from the airport into the city and walked miles around town. The weather wasn't the best, which ended up being perfect for our walk, otherwise we would've gotten way too hot.

Highlights from the day in Manchester were: high tea, visiting a cathedral and ciders at a real English pub.

Next we hopped on a delayed flight into Barcelona, and this is where the trip really started to get crazy.

We didn't have a hotel or hostel booked, but assumed we'd just fly in and find one easily. That was wrong.

We didn't land until 1am in Barcelona, and took a bus into the city center where most of the hostels and hotels were. Since it was past midnight, all of the online bookings were showing for the next night, so we had to walk everywhere to see if anyone had vacancies. No one did. Everything was booked.

We walked around streets and alleys for over an hour before finally finding one that had a vacancy and ended up being super cheap compared to the other ones. Shout out to our guy Jeffrey at Be Sound Hostel.

Our first day in Barcelona was dope. We hit a few things we knew we wanted to go to: the Arc, a few parks and fountains, got a huge mojito and got lost in streets everywhere just exploring all of the cute shops.

The park right by the Arc was one of my favorite parts of Barcelona. People running, working out, having picnics. I always run in every city I travel to so I decided the park was the run destination for the next morning.

Spain has been having record high temperatures but Barcelona wasn't too bad, maybe high 80s. We were for sure sweating 100% of the time, but it was bearable.

This next picture is from the Sagrada Familia, the most famous church in Spain. It's still currently being built and due to be done by 2026. It's literally amazing outside and inside. The most intricate, detailed masterpiece I've ever seen.

If you weren't watching my IG stories, you didn't see a lot from this trip as most things didn't make it to the main page. But it was a sight you have to see in person. Truly immaculate.

We went on a tour suggested by our hostel, and that ended up being our best decision because we met Brian the tour guy! He's Hungarian but grew up in Florida and now lives in Barcelona and he was the dopest. He invited us to hang out with him later that night and took us to the most amazing view of the city. We would've never seen this without Bry the tour guy!

The next day, our last in Barcelona, we met up with Bry again for the beach. We didn't know that women go topless and men go fully nude! Obviously not everyone partakes, but I'd say it was about a 30/70 split of nude to covered. Shea and I decided to do as the Barcelonians do and go top off. It felt so freeing! Especially since it's normal there so no one is staring at you.

The beaches were filled with some of the most beautiful people I've seen in my life. I really feel like living in a place with that many attractive people would turn into a situation.

We opted for a boat ride from Barcelona to Ibiza over a plane for a different experience. The port was right by the city center and it was a nine hour overnight ride. We arrived in Ibiza Friday morning and didn't stop once we arrived.

There was so much to see in Ibiza! More beautiful shops, streets, a castle and dope people everywhere.

Ibiza is a party island, home to the largest club in the world and nonstop day and night parties. I can't even recount the craziness that ensued for us on that island, but I'll just say there were more drinks than hours of sleep.

We went to the biggest club in the world, met guys who run a boat party and went on that, illegally rented a scooter and scooted all over the entire island, and met some of the coolest people! Shout out to Hugo!

Barcelona I would 100% visit again, but I'm not sure about Ibiza. As beautiful as it is, I want more out of a vacation than partying. Two days there was perfect. Any more I wouldn't have survived.

We booked a long layover in London on the way home yesterday morning and had time to go to the Tower Bridge! The weather was apparently bad for the first time in weeks, so Shea and I were the only people on the bridge which was really cool.

Thank God for the 9.5 hour flight from London to Seattle, because I was exhausted, needed sleep and had a full day in Seattle planned before coming back to Boise.

My birthday is coming up on Friday and my family threw me a party yesterday afternoon, then I had some beverages with friends. The whole time I was so ready to get home but dreading going back to the airport. I can't count how many flights we took or how many hours were spent in airports and in the air, and I was not ready to do it again.

Luckily I was fully exhausted still, so I passed out before my flight even took off from Seattle and didn't wake up until I was in Boise.

There's sooo much from this trip that didn't make social media like a groping, a call to the police, getting a creep kicked out of our hostel, a scooter injury, a phone left on a train, random drunk adventures.. things I'll never recreate and always remember.

That's the best part of travel! The things that go wrong. The crazy stories that come out of it. The wrong turns you take and the connections that come out of it. Spain will go down as one of my favorite European trips thus far, and it wouldn't have been the same without my best friend!