MY UNFORGETTABLE SUMMER

If I had to describe this summer I would say it has been very stressful, full of good memories and very funny with my family, friends and my boyfriend. 

It all started when we finished school that with our friends we went to Platja d’Aro to spend a week in the beach and going to clubs to relax and forget about all the routine. During the same week my friends from the other school also had holidays in an apartment in Salou so I had to divide this week in a half to spend the first one with my friends from Sant Miquel dels Sants and then the other half of the week with my friends of SEK-Catalunya. 

We are ready to party in Platja d'Aro!

In platja d’Aro we were eleven girls in a really small apartment and it was really difficult to live all together. There were always problems when it came to buy food or go to the beach, because everyone wanted to do something different so we argued a lot, but at the end we were there to enjoy the beginning of the summer so we decided to try and no to get on the nerves of the others and finally we had a lot of fun going together to the clubs and then to the beach to watch the stars and so on. We also met a lot of people and friends from Vic and also some more from Marianne’s and I old school so we had a really great time all together. 

In the picture above we are in a ship in Platja d'Aro and below in Port Aventura

My aim during that week was to get a sun tan, but as my name says, it’s really difficult for me to change my skin color and look better. When the days finished in Platja d’Aro Marianne and I had to go back to ours houses to do de laundry and pack again for the next days in Salou with our other friends. We had to go there by train as none of our parents could drive us there because they were working. It was very boring to go from Vic to Barcelona-Sants and then to Salou, because there was lot of people and the trains were not on time and all together it was really confusing and we were afraid to lose the train. Finally after a hard trip we arrived to the apartment with our friends and after unpacking we immediately went to the beach. We wanted to go with the banana in the water that tries you to fall in the middle of the sea but there were not available ones until the following week so we decided to go to Port Aventura which was really close. We spent there the whole day and it was so hot that it was impossible to go there without drinking water or being wet from the water in the park. We left the park when it was closing and we all fell asleep in the bus the way back to the apartment. We really had a great time in all of the different sites of the amusement park. We also had the express ticket so that we didn’t had to cue and some of the staff there in the park didn’t remembered to cross out the ones in which we were going to so that we could go there as many times we wanted without queueing. 

In Salou with my friends of my old school in La Garriga

The days in Salou ended and a morning after we went out to a disco my parents came to pick me up and went to Madrid with our friends from there but I was so tired that I slept all the way to Madrid. We were going to spend three days in a hotel in Alcalá de Henares with two families which we have been friends now for six years when we first met in Morocco. They are really nice people and they both have children the age of my brother and I. 

They prepared a tour through the entire city for us and it was really interesting because there they have a lot of cultural patrimony buildings. 

Aw! I almost forgot, this year I was not supposed to go to the USA as I had to do the obligatory essay called “Treball de recerca” that has to be done during the summer about a topic that interests you. Well so I had already in mind that I was going to spend all the August here in Torelló working and going out with my friends but in Madrid my parents told me that I was going with my brother to the USA. At first I was really against going there because I don’t like when I have something in mind and they change me my plans from the night to the day so I  was quite angry but a few hours later I thought that it was a really good opportunity to learn and practice English and this year a unique opportunity because my brother’s family from last year invited us again. As we didn’t went there with any company we wanted to pay some money to them for taking care of us during three weeks but they didn’t wanted anything so we only had the pay the plane ticket. Another think I hate about going to the USA is the time you have to spend in the plane. This year it was a flight of nine hours. Quite a lot, isn't it?

We were supposed to sleep during the flight to avoid the famous jet lag, but we couldn’t sleep as we were all the time watching films and listening to music. We arrived to the airport of Philadelphia at 2 am and the father of the family and the two sons were waiting there for us. I have to confess that I was really nervous about meeting them as they were not my family from last year…This nerves I had quickly went away when the father started talking. It was a really nice man and really funny. That evening we went to have dinner in a Chinese restaurant and I tried for the first time sushi. I have to admit that I thought it was going to be worst than it was. The father’s name was Mark, the mother’s name was Pam and the two boys, the one of 12 old years was called Joseph and the youngest one of 10 years old was Matthew. I thought that I would be a little uncomfortable being all boys in the house and younger than me but we really had a good time and they were very funny and nice although sometimes I would have killed them because they were always fighting and they had a TDH problem. I also met all the neighbors and they were all very nice and sometimes I went to their pool to spend the evening, as the ones in front of us were two girls of eighteen and fifteen years old.

Our family from the USA this three weeks in Philadelphia

During this three weeks we did some really nice things such as going to baseball matches with the Phillies team (which is the one from Philadeplhia), we also went to a building called Movie Tavern, which is a huge movie theatre that inside is like a restaurant, while you are watching a movie you can press a button and a waiter comes and you can choose whatever you want to eat or drink. We also went to visit Washington DC, Philadelphia (the city) as they lived in a neighborhood in the suburbs, and we also went three days to the state of New York to a town called Cooper’stown which there is the Baseball Hall of fame museum which for the baseball fans is like the Meca for the Muslims. We went to visit this museum and the next day we went to have dinner with an Indian family that the father  works with Pam and they had just came back from Barcelona staying with my parents. I’ll explain it better: when we went to USA this Indian family went to do a tour to Europe and they spend two days in Barcelona and Pam as a favor asked to my parents if they could prepare some nice places to go for them to visit so my parents agreed and they spent one whole day sightseeing Barcelona with them. They really enjoyed their time with my parents so that’s why they wanted to invite us to go and have dinner to their house all together. They had two daughters which were eighteen and fifteen. All the family was really nice and I loved to meet them as I love to meet people from different countries and cultures. They prepared a dinner with Indian food and I was crazy about it because probably it is the foreign food I love most. 

 In Philadelphia Art Museum with Estela a friend of Barcelona and the Drytons family

In the Phillies game

From one hand I didn’t want to come back to Spain because there we were treated Ricard and I as kings and I personally love the United States but however I wanted to see again my friends, family and of course my boyfriend who I had missed a lot as we hadn’t ever been separated one of each other for so long.

The trip back home was about six hours so it was way better than the first one, but the handicap was that we arrived to Barcelona at 9 am in the morning and to avoid again the annoing jet lag we had to sleep in the plane but I only could sleep two hours so for me that day was really hard to stay awake until the night. 

Finally, back to reality three days after arriving to Spain I started working on my essay and doing homework, preparing the new and hard year I was going to start in a few days. 

As I said at the beginning, it has been a really stressful summer because I haven’t stop travelling from one place to another but everywhere I’ve been I’ve had a lovely time which I’m not going to forget ever!!!