After 28 days on the road, carrying our lives on our backs and jumping from train to train, hostel to hostel, Meghan and I were pretty tired out. After a week in Greece and Italy, with a lot of bar-hopping in between, I was about ready to sleep for seven or eight days. Once we reached Bern, the cold temperature didn't help our ambition to walk around, but we did the best we could, seeing much of what the very small, very beautiful capital city of 120,000 has to offer within the first few hours of our arrival. We checked into the hostel at 15:00, and spent most of the evening sitting around, doing laundry, and reading. On our way to the train station that morning, I remarked that Switzerland was the only country in our travels that didn't have any pigeons. We also noticed that Switzerland is the only country where McDonald's serves 'chicken' wings. Coincidence? Probably.
Anyways, this was to be a long day on trains, switching threes times as we made our way through Switzerland, France and into Spain. It was an uneventful journey for the most part, the only events out of the ordinairy being that there were tons of police at one of the train stations in France and a long delay once we crossed the Spanish border. I have no idea why there were so many police and emergency vehicles around but they were controlling the flow of traffic in and out of the station and had some of the exits cordoned off. I didn't really feel like sticking around until I found out or until a bomb went off or something. As for the delay, we were told in broken English that the tracks up ahead were 'broken', which is a great comfort after a long day of traveling, but we eventually were back on our way, and made it into Barcelona after nightfall.
As we hopped in our cab on our way to the hostel, I smacked my head off the side of the cab and then my head bounced back and smacked the door. I yelled a quick combination of interesting words, grabbed my head with both hands and thought: "Wow, what a great end to a great day." It took us a bit of walking to find the hostel once we got dropped off, but once we did we went into the office, and I shrugged off my backpack and... that was it. My leather folder (with my Eurail Pass, Passport, insurance info, cruise ticket, etc.) was defintely not in my hand anymore.
"Could I see your passport please?" (Hostel lady)
"Uh oh." I said
"Don't say uh oh." said Meghan
"Uh oh." I repeated.
And then I remembered grabbing my head WITH BOTH HANDS after I smacked it off the side of the cab. "Wonderful." I thought. The folder was still in some cab, roaming the streets of Barcelona. To make matters worse, the hostel lady told me there was no way of tracking down who had dirven us there from the train station, even if we called the cab company. As soon as we had finished checking in I told Meghan I would be back, and I headed down to the streets, determined to somehow find the cab that had driven us to the hostel. Just as I stepped down from the last step to the ground floor, a familiar face stepped through the door: Mr. Cab Driver, with my folder in hand. I could not believe it. He had driven around the city, and returned once he had found my folder in the back seat. He asked for some cash, so I gave him 10 Euro... which is quite a lot, but after making a dumbass mistake like that, I didn't care.
As I sat on my bed the next morning (Friday), with a stuffy nose, applying nasal decongestant with instructions that I could not read, and listening to Meghan cough her incessant cough, I remarked about how sick and tired I was of walking. Back-packing around Europe was interesting and all that, but by this point, my legs were ready to tell me to eff off and just quit. And enough of these old buildings and sights to see. And I realize that a lot of people would be pissed at me if they somehow heard me thinking that, while they dug out from 20cm of snow back on PEI. But I was done. And I guess that is an good place to be at the end of a trip.
With the consolation that this would be our last day of walking around and looking at random stuff, we headed out to the streets to see what we could see. It was a warm sunny day and we toured around the waterfront and the sidestreets and bought some supplies for the cruise ship that we were getting on the next day. On Meghan's insistence, we jumped on a dumb over-priced tour bus and went around the city. It was a huge waste of time, and after about an hour I told her I would meet her back at the hostel, jumped off, and walked through the city by myself. It was the first time I had had the chance to go off on my own in a long time, and it was damn near exhillerating. By the time I got back, it was dark and Meghan was just getting back from the bus tour. We found a little place for dinner, and ended the evening (our last in Europe) by having an argument in hushed tones over dinner at the restaurant. Good times.
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