Spring Break Trip to Europe – March 2019

This time two years ago I was in the midst of the best vacation of my life. It was the spring semester of my senior year at the University of Maryland and I went on a spring break trip to Spain and Portugal with my friends from my business fraternity. With there being light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic, I wanted to take some time to recount some of the fun experiences in anticipation of trying to have similar fun right around the corner. 

I’m not sure who had the original thought to go to those places, but without my friends Abbey, Lauren, and Perveen leading the charge on planning the whole trip, it wouldn’t have happened. The following events wouldn’t have occurred if it wasn’t for them. From start to finish they organized the whole trip and absolutely knocked it out of the park. The guys on the trip, Pablo, Suraj, Tim, and I will be indefinitely indebted to them until we can repay them with an equally amazing trip.

Barcelona (March 14 – 15, 2019)

Barcelona was the first stop on our adventure, probably because that was the cheapest place to land in Europe. I had actually been to Barcelona the summer before when Tim and I did a summer program at the London School of Economics. This time was a little different because when Tim and I were there, just a couple days prior there was a very large terrorist attack so the whole city was somber. We were still able to enjoy our time, but there was a large cloud hanging over the city.

Before I get into any stories from this trip, I need to give a special shout out to my friend Pablo. As much credit as I needed to give to the girls for planning the trip, Pablo was the one who executed the trip for us. Pablo is fluent in Spanish and has family that live near Barcelona so he had also been before. Not only is Pablo one of the best people to be around just in general, having his ability to speak Spanish elevated us one step above American college kids which made the world of difference for our experience. He was able to be a translator for us while we were out and about making our experience flawless

As quickly as we got to Barcelona, we were almost already zipping through to the next city, but we made sure we had our fun first. With adjusting to the time change and coming off of a red eye, I think we still were able to take good advantage of the city. We started off absolutely feasting and gorging ourselves at a brunch place found by Lauren. It was called Brunch and Cake and I think almost everyone got the same thing on the menu called the “Super Sandwich.” It had a syringe with guacamole stocking out of the sandwich and it tasted as good as it looked. This was just the first of a plethora of outstanding food to come.

After we ate, we went to the Sagrada Famila and walked around the city. Later in the evening, Tim and I split off to get some additional food. We were perpetually hungry and could always eat on this trip. Another common theme of this trip was Tim and I being vacuum cleaners sucking up any additional food others in the group didn’t finish. People stopped asking at a point and just started handing us their unfinished plates so we could finish all the delicious food.

From our previous trip to Barcelona, Tim and I fell in love with the pincho bars. Pinchos, which is a subset of Tapas, are a small bite sized assortment of foods sent from the heavens. They usually consist of some sort of bread with meats and cheeses layered on top of them with toothpicks holding it all together. They are laid out for the taking on the bar counter and depending on how many toothpicks you have remaining, that is how much you would pay at the end of the night – a concept that I would love to try to replicate in America. 

Going to a pinchos bar was at the top of our list of things that we wanted to do while in Barcelona, so we found ourselves in a hole in the wall spot near our Airbnb. We could have used Pablo in this situation because the place was packed shoulder to shoulder and no one was speaking English. We eventually made our way to the counter and were able to secure a spot. We filled up on bread, ham, cheese, and beer to begin a night of fun!

We got back together with the group to formulate our plans for the evening. Our end goal was the popular club named Opium, but we made a couple of stops before we ended up there later in the evening. We went to a very fun shot bar called Espit Chupitos. There was a wall sized menu full of shots ranging from having whip cream on top to being set on fire all while the bar was illuminated by blacklight. We were able to make it to Opium later in the night, but I’ll leave this picture of Tim below from Espit Chupitos to accurately capture the energy from the night.

The following day in Barcelona was a slow moving one. In combination from going out the previous night and running on little sleep from the travel, we moseyed our way through the city. In the evening, we ended up at a place called Bunkers Del Carmel or “The Bunkers”. They were built in the late 1930’s during the Spanish Civil War and have a beautiful view overlooking the city. This is a popular spot for young people to bring some wine and hang out as the sun set. 

Still to this day I don’t know if I’ve seen the sky with that specific color gradient before. The blue from the ocean seamlessly transitioned into the soft orange of the sunset as you continued to look up. It was a beautiful evening where the sun was still warm on your face, but a light jacket was needed as the sun set. There were plenty of bottles of wine being consumed with some groups having light music playing through speakers several yards away. It was a gorgeous final night before an early flight to Mallorca the next day.

Mallorca (March 16 – 17, 2019)

Being the only person who knew how to drive stick shift, I was the one who was tasked with driving the rental car. I was excited for it, until I actually started to drive. I probably had about 6 months of experience driving stick from a car that I got from my uncle. I felt like I was competent until I started to pull out of the airport parking garage, which isn’t a good time to start second guessing your abilities.

We got a Nissan NV200 van that could fit all 7 of us. I stalled out as I started to pull out of the initial parking spot. Not a good start. I was able to get the car slowly rolling again, but the drive wasn’t smooth at all. The car was all herky jerky as I was switching gears. Something was just off, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I didn’t feel fully confident driving, but things went a little smoother once we got on the highway to our airbnb. 

We wanted to check out the water after we got settled into our Airbnb, so we all piled into the car. Once again, the drive wasn’t smooth and the car was taking a long time to get up to speed. I thought that driving stick in Europe should be the same as driving in the US. The worst part of the whole experience is when I pulled into a parking spot when we got to the water. I almost always back into spots, but with how not confident I was driving I just pulled into a spot. The problem wasn’t pulling in, it was backing out. I put the car in reverse, but as I eased off the clutch to give the car gas, I was going forward! I had no idea what was going on. I tried to put the car into reverse again, but I crept forward so the car was practically on the curb. I had to put the car into neutral and be pushed back by Pablo and Suraj because I couldn’t figure out how to go into reverse. Not ideal at all.

After a few hours of Googling and even reaching out to my parents, I found one obscure video that solved the mystery for me. Looking at the diagram below, you would think that you need to shift the gear stick all the way to the left and up to go in reverse, like I was trying. I figured that first gear wasn’t all the way to the left, but one column away from the left and up. It turns out that there is a little latch below the head of the shifter that I needed to pull up that enabled going in reverse. First gear and reverse were in the same position, but all that mattered is whether or not you pulled up a latch or didn’t as you tried to shift into the top left position. So what I thought was 1st gear based on the diagram was really third gear which threw me out of whack. Once I figured that out, then we started to cook with gas. I was able to take a breather and we could comfortably get around the island.

Mallorca reminded me a lot of southern California. I truthfully think we left a little on the table while we were there. I think the really beautiful beaches were on the opposite side of the island. Since we were on a pretty tight time crunch, we didn’t make it to the northern part of the island. We were able to check out Palma and hang out by the water. It was a perfect middle part of the trip because we weren’t trying to rush from one spot to another. We could scramble on the rocks next to the water for a couple of hours and didn’t feel like we needed to be elsewhere. The reason why we were there was to hang out by the water and take in the scenic views. The water was a little too cold to swim in as well, but I’m sure that being able to swim there would have made that stop even better.

Seville (March 18 – 19, 2019)

Seville was my destination on our trip. This whole trip ranks as some of the top moments of my life, but these specific days in Seville could be the best days of my life. The food was out of this world. The weather was immaculate. Everything just seemed to fall into place while we were there. I didn’t know anything about Seville heading there, but it was a lot larger than I expected. One of my cousins had done a semester abroad there, so she gave us all the spots that we needed to check out while we were there.

The first two spots that I want to highlight are two restaurants. Both of them were recommendations from my cousin. The first was a place that was also recommended to us by our Airbnb host called La Taberna. The second place might be the place where I had the best meal of my life. It is called Ovejas Negras and I think that is where Tim and I did the most damage. We ordered about half the menu and we even had to ask for seconds because of how much we enjoyed the meal. I would go back specifically to Seville just to have the risotto and the tuna tartare there.

In addition to the great restaurant food we had, we were walking through the city when we stumbled across an olive cart. They had buckets full of different types of olives when Tim and I proceeded to buy a couple of pounds worth of them. They came in plastic bags just like how you would get a fish from the pet store. I think after walking around the city for a bit Tim and I were sweating olive oil due to how many we ate that afternoon.

Seville is also home to the Alcazar which is a palace that sits in the middle of the city. It gained even more fame because several scenes of Game of Thrones were shot in the palace to portray the magical land of Dorne. Our time walking through the gardens might be a top 3 moment of my life. There were picturesque clouds in the sky and the sun kept you warm when it gently hit your skin, but didn’t make you hot. There was a slight breeze which added to the majestic gardens which the palace surrounds. In the center of the palace there was a maze of bushes and flowers that you would get lost in, just to find your friends a couple minutes later. There was a slight hum of conversation between others, but no louder than you would experience at a quiet art museum. 

We also made our way to a club called Koko which served free beer for the first hour of being open. I don’t know if it was just a promo for the night or if that is a common thing, but it was something we all took advantage of while we could. Seville had it all from the historic landmarks, to the night life, to the food and everything in between. This would be a place I would love to go back and visit at some point in my life.

Porto (March 20 – 21, 2019)

We had our best Airbnb in Porto. We had a rooftop that we could hang out on and had a top tier view of the city. Porto was a very cool walkable city that the weather fortunately held up for us again. We went on a port wine tasting tour while we were there. I don’t think any of us really enjoyed the wine, but it was a fun experience nonetheless. I believe Port requires a mature palate that none of us college kids had nailed down.

We had our “ugly American” moment while we were in Porto. There was a cafe that became famous because JK Rowling spent time writing Harry Potter while she lived in Porto. There was a bit of a wait to get in and it was an extremely upscale and fancy restaurant. No one was particularly hungry and we were there just like everyone else, the cafe sold itself as the place where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter. We sat down to see the cheapest thing on the menu was a coffee for €5. After much deliberation, we just got up and left the cafe. Not one of our prouder moments, but I know they weren’t charging €5 for a coffee when JK Rowling was writing her books!

Lisbon (March 22 – 23, 2019)

Lisbon was the last stop on our trip. This was my least favorite stop during our trip. I think it was in combination with the city itself, but also the thought of heading home was top of mind. As a city, I wasn’t too impressed by Lisbon. It seemed like we were getting stopped on every other corner with people trying to sell us drugs, which didn’t occur in any other city while we were in Europe. 

The food didn’t live up to some of the other meals we had in the other cities and there was no specific cool landmark within the city. We did go to a very cool castle in a place called Sintra which was about 30 minutes outside of Lisbon. It was a very beautiful and colorful castle on a hill that overlooked the sea. It was a fun place to walk around and take pictures around because you don’t see anything like it in the US. It is a must do if you are visiting Lisbon.

The Next Trip

I’m not sure what the next trip will be, but after writing this I have more pent up demand to travel than I’ve had in my life. How could I not want to run back a similar trip in a new location with a fantastic group of people? I really have a great appreciation for this trip after writing more in depth about it. I’ll give a slight plug that I was able to do this because I have a journal entry from every day on this trip. Without having my daily journal I wouldn’t have been able to remember 50% of this. I hope the person reading this can have a similar set of memories (doesn’t have to be travel related) that you can look back to as fondly as I can for this trip.

Peace and Love.