Joanna found an amazing campsite online before we left for Spain. Camping Barcelona sits outside the city along the Mediterranean Sea. This wonderful little place is inland a bit and the Sea is just a walk away. We had to hop a train from the airport to get to the site and we relied on the little Spanish I knew to find our way. I got nervous and thought we were going the wrong way, so we hopped off the train, and asked an attendant only to find we were on the right train to begin with. Always trust yourself! Intuition is a wonderful thing and self doubt is not, learning this little nugget over and over throughout life. Definitely a learning experience all around. Once we finally found a train going our way, it was getting late, and luckily we called the camp just in time. They had one last vehicle picking up people at the train station to bring all of us to camp. We were super grateful for their transportation service.
Upon arriving in the evening, we checked in, got our spot, and set up our tent in the dark. We were actually happy this happened because when we woke up, we saw the beauty all around us. This Campsite had animals walking around, crazy Spanish chickens, and loud screaming peacocks. I will write about the chickens in another blog and how they got the adjective “crazy” to describe them. We left our bags in the tent, had our passports with us of course, and…a sarong! We took one with us everywhere and always will because of our experience at the airport. Walking around the camp we found a cute little restaurant, had our first beer from Spain, and our first meal. Afterwards we sipped our café con leches and then walked around some more. The center where we checked in had activities you can sign up for. We chose to try sea kayaking and Joanna wanted to go scuba diving.
The sea kayak was saved for another day and a whole blog will be written about that one! The transportation service was good to take us all the way into Barcelona as well. We usually stoped in town then hopped the train into the city. The largest town, Mataró, had beautiful cobblestone streets, shops lined up and down hills, and such a warm welcome for tourists or anyone who ventured there. We found a local pub my cousin and I ended up making frequent stops at just because of the owner and his family. He and his dad would tell us stories and every time we were there he would pour us some new drink to try. They were very kind. Walking along the streets after, down steep hills, and coming across meat hanging on storefronts…being scraped off for customers…was a different experience. I love animals so this one was a challenge for me but it is their culture and lifestyle. I just closed my eyes and carried on. Until next time…
Thank you all for reading and have a happy start to your week. One week until Christmas!! I still have ornaments for sale on my website if anyone is interested. Here is the link! Ornaments are pictured below.
-Karen Hilliard
Also, if you would like to show support, I recently joined “buy me a coffee” which is a way for anyone to contribute to the creative process behind the paintings. Fuel the artist so to speak. Here is the link if you are interested and I truly appreciate the support and the fact that you are liking these blogs, as well as my art posts. I am working hard to bring you all fresh content! Here is the link to my Instagram where I try to post daily. You can also find me on Facebook at my art page Karen Hilliard Art.
Thank you again for all of your support!
