Yes, this worst vacation ever had finally reached the halfway point. After 4 days B. and I had only made it as far as Granada (See what I dealt with on days 1 & 2 and 3 & 4)
My fever finally broke, and I was able to eat solid food. Since it was already Day 4, and I only had 3 days left to get to Barcelona, we abandoned our plans to try to go to Morocco. Instead, we began the slow and tortuos process of returning to Barcelona.
This time, I’d finally learned my lesson though. Make arrangements in advance. We looked up the train schedule and saw that we would only be able to get as far as Madrid on that day, and the next day we would have to continue on from there, because of the train schedule. That was fine. We made the reservations by phone to guarantee seats and then went online and booked a hostel.
Even if the worst vacation ever was halfway done, there were still plenty of miserable suprises left. Rather than book our hostel using Hostelling International, or another reputable and reliable source, we’d gone to a random web page. Well, they sold us a lie. We arrived in Madrid at 10 PM and the hostel did not exist. 3 blocks away we found a real hotel, and they put us up for the night, but it cost me nearly $100 for the two of us.
The next morning, we arrived at the Train station, only to find out that our reservation had been cancelled because we had failed to check-in two hours in advance! There was no later train that day, and that train was sold out. We could not get on it. With no other choice we settled in for another bus ride. Again with no a/c, and full of cigarette smoke. This time, the ride was nearly 30 hours. At this point, this worst vacation ever had left me in a state of near shock. I barely even remember that bus ride, except that I spent the entire time listening to Dar Williams on my iPod, until the batteries ran out.
We arrived in Barcelona exhausted, sore, and at this point truly sick of each other. B. was blaming me for everything that had gone wrong on the trip and I was fed up with the fact that not only had she borrowed nearly $600 from me without even saying “Thank You” but she then had the nerve to tell me that she really hated borrowing money from her parents because they work really hard for it. We were both ready to take a break from eachother.
We agreed that we would meet in the evening at the Ramblas. The Ramblas is one of the neatest streets in Barcelona. It has a pedestrian promenade and all along it you can see musicians, people dressed as statues, artists, performers and hundreds of little different stands selling everything from flowers to parakeets.
I really hoped that we would make it to Parc Güell. This park was designed by the architect Gaudí(the same guy that designed the Sagrada Familia Cathedral). Consistent with Gaudí’s style, the park consists of many architectural weirdnesses and bright mosaic tile works. As of today it continues to be a place that I dream of visiting, but have yet to go to.
When I met up with B. at 8 PM I was actually in a good mood. The next morning I would be getting on a plane back to the states, and despite daily frustrations and challenges, it had been kind of neat to take this first vacation to another country without my family.
We stopped into an internet cafe to book our hostel (this time we made sure to use hostelling international’s website) and when we finished I put my wallet in my bag and we went outside to explore the Ramblas and see the sights.
Moments later, I noticed that my bag was open and my wallet was gone. All my cash, all my credit and ATM cards, gone. I had kept my passport and traveller’s cheques separate, thank G-d. But, nobody wanted to accept the traveller’s cheques (this is becoming more and more frequent, which is why I never travel with them anymore) and so I had no way to get my hands on anymore cash. I could not even afford to get to the hotel. Having all your financial means disappear can easily make a great trip become your worst vacation ever in an instant. The feeling that you can’t do anything and are totally dependent on the people around you is one of the worst I have had.
B. made me beg her for almost 15 minutes before she would give me €20.00 for a taxi to the airport. That money was my own money that I had lent her, because she had failed to budget accurately for the trip. Now, with no other way to get to the airport, she was insisting that she needed the money!
I arrived at the airport hours before I would be allowed to check in, and camped out near the ticket counter and waited. None of the little restaurants would take my traveller’s cheques so I had nothing at all to do but sit and be first in line to check in.
Then, it happened again. My worst vacation ever would not come to an end. The ticket agent insisted that he could not issue me a ticket because the computer would not accept that I did in fact exist as a human being. He made me wait until every other person had been checked in before going to get his supervisor and eventually issuing my boarding pass. They took so long, that they sent me through security with a special escort so that I could avoid the lines and not miss my flight.
That small kindness finally broke the curse of the worst vacation ever. Seven hours later I was on my way home: stinky, tired and hating my roommate. Somehow I’d managed to come out of the trip determined that I would visit Barcelona again and committed to taking as many more trips as I possibly could in my life.
Go back to the beginning of this worst vacation ever
José has been traveling longer than he can quite remember, and is always on the lookout for another opportunity to hit the road, hop on the plane or grab a train to someplace new. When not traipsing the world, he enjoys studying foreign languages, 
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