Better late than never, I finally arrived in Spain! Whilst my original flight would have taken me straight to Girona, my second booking was to Barcelona so I had to catch a bus, train and shuttle in order to end up in the right place. Having recently navigated myself around the world, I shouldn't have been too worried about a three hour journey through Spain but it was the first time I'd ever gone it alone. I was certainly glad to see my travel buds there waiting for me at the other end.
And not just them, but the Sydney boys too who we last saw back in Fiji! It's been a whole six months since we were altogether last, but within six minutes it was as though we'd never left. With heaps to catch up on, there was a massive backlog of stories to tell and by the time we pulled up outside the villa, my cheeks already ached.
The villa was about forty minutes outside of Girona in a little town called Tamariu which consists of just a couple of shops and restaurants along the sea front. Fortunately, we had a car so we were able to venture elsewhere but in complete honesty, I could have locked myself in the villa for three days and still been content. It was absolutely beautiful; a three storey stone house complete with turrets, a rooftop terrace, a private pool and most importantly, amazing company.
Whilst the others had popped out to collect me, Kate and Erica had stayed behind to prepare dinner and so we came home to an incredible spread of lamb, aubergine, salad and potatoes laid out on the table outside. It was all very civilised but as the boys began to start serving drinks by the bowl, I had a sneaky suspicion it wouldn't stay that way for long. It's difficult to say how much we drank but it was enough so that by the end of the evening, we couldn't detect/didn't care that Will had accidentally added milk to our vodka punch.
The next morning, I woke up early determined to make the most of my short few days. To get my bearings, I decided to go along with the boys who were popping into town to pick up 'dos baguettes' (insert Essex accent) fresh from the bakery for breakfast. For me, this holiday was far more about the people than the place and so I'd done very little research on the area. Besides, I'd been to Spain plenty of times in the past and had never been particularly blown away.
Imagine my surprise then when I caught my first glimpse of the gorgeous Costa Brava. The early morning sunshine cast a brilliant light over the golden sand which is tucked away in a small bay and surrounded by beautiful turquoise waters. It looked more like Croatia than anywhere else I've been to in Spain and quickly changed my attitude to wanting to explore the country further. Eager to spend more of our morning at this beautiful spot, we raced back to the villa to round up the others and returned soon after.
Sadly, however, we weren't the only ones. By the time we got back, the beach was overrun with people who presumably all held the same appreciation for this amazing place. It somewhat disturbed the peace of our pretty little bay but it was nevertheless a glorious view. Whilst we girls positioned ourselves horizontally on the sand, the boys disappeared off onto the rocks with their fishing rod and squirmy bait.
From our sunbathing set up, we could just about make out their silhouettes against the sun and assumed from the lack of triumphant waving that it wasn't going awfully well. After an hour or so Hana and I went to investigate with the intention, of course, of taking the piss. However, we must have been their lucky charms because as soon as we showed up they caught their first fish! Still, it was hardly enough to make a meal for seven so we walked back up to the villa to prepare a proper lunch.
Our food had barely gone down and we were already devising various pool games and plotting against one another to throw each other in (for future reference, sun tanning oil is by far the best defence.) A combination of the sunshine, water and being surrounded by friends transformed us all back into big kids.
In the evening we gave our resident chef a break and drove into Begur, a quaint little town with old stone buildings and a beautiful square. We ended up splitting into two groups for dinner; 'the fish eaters and non' as the first were keen to try out the area's traditional paella dish. However, judging by the state of them after their meal, you could reasonably assume we'd split into 'alcoholics and non.'
Amie, Erica and Kate were hilariously drunk and giggled the whole way home which inspired the rest of us to pour a couple too. Once back at the villa, the games soon commenced, our favourite being Mafia which involved a God, a police officer, a serial killer and some rather confused civilians. It all proved a little too complicated for Amie (understandably, after her third bottle of wine) and so we eventually switched to team charades which lasted until Hana's award winning Shrek impression put us all to shame. Knowing they could never top it, the fish eating alcoholics stripped off and jumped into the pool for a midnight swim.
In the meantime the rest of us got down to discussing our plans for the next year and working out when on earth we'd all be on the same side of the world again. So far our group holidays have been rather spontaneous and the conversations were swaying towards another spur of the moment splurge. Had we had access to the internet that evening, I've no doubt that we would have ended up with seven tickets to Thailand booked on Daddy Wise's card. I'm still undecided as to whether this was unfortunate or the opposite.
Thursday morning came around far too quickly and we were all gutted that it was our final day. Hana and I were keen to buy treats to take home so the boys drove us to the local shop which had an overwhelmingly large (and amazingly cheap!) chocolate selection. Between us, we cleared out the shelves and Stuart took whatever was left to conduct a treasure hunt back at the villa later that evening!
Rather than heading straight back, the four of us took a slight detour to Calella; another beautiful town just a little way down the road. It was way past cocktail o'clock by this point so we stopped off for a caipirinha and re-lived our Brazil days whilst reminiscing about Fiji. I genuinely could have stayed there all day but when Hana fell off her chair and attracted the attention of the entire bar, we decided it was probably time to leave. Making one final pitstop at the lighthouse on top of the hill, we finally drove back to join the others.
We found the girls exactly where we'd left them, though perhaps shifted ever so slightly to follow the last few rays of sunshine. The scene was one of peace and content but it was very short lived; the sugary cocktails had switched us into mischief mode and we made it our mission to get everyone in the pool just one last time. The boys proved the hardest to wrestle and so we settled for dressing up in their clothes and jumping in ourselves instead. Unfortunately they then adopted the same tactic and not only got our airport clothes soaking wet, but showed us up massively by working our outfits better than us. No boys should look that comfortable in a bra and leggings.
Our last evening consisted of a family outing to the nearby crazy golf course. Unsurprisingly, nobody had significantly up-skilled since Fiji though there were a couple of holes in ones on a few questionable courses. With a smug Stuart in tow (shock) we returned to the house for our final supper. It was our full intention to have an early night as we needed to be up at a ridiculous hour to head to the airport but we were far too distracted with the excitement of Mafia and running around the garden in the dark hunting for Milka.
By the time we actually climbed into bed, we set our alarms for just two hours later. As a result, the flight home was kind of a blur but I was pretty pleased because the goodbyes seemed far less real. I've no idea when we'll all be together again but I do know that it will be worth the wait and in the meantime, I can give my cheeks a well deserved rest.
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