My first time going to Spain was when I was 18. My first longer trip, first backpacking trip, and the last trip before starting University. There was three of us traveling together – me, Miha and Irena, friends and classmates from high school. We started our trip in Barcelona, managed to get robbed on the second day, danced the nights away, ate chicken in the middle of Plaza de Catalunya, went to Erotic Museum of Barcelona (of course), slept on the beach and also managed to see a bit of culture at Sagrada Familia. Our next stop was Madrid. And that is where we fell madly in love. Partially in the city atmosphere, the people (meaning guys, who were and still are very different than in Slovenia), the pub crawls and cute guys that came with that, the culture, sangria and everything else that makes Madrid Madrid. We didn’t yet have the appreciation of food or wine at that time. 🙂

Our base was Ole Hostel, which was frankly a dump for my current standards. We got the experience of drunk British guys passing out in our dorm, people having sex on the bunk next to us and bedbugs, but we also met some amazing people that I up to this day follow on social media and try to keep in touch with, at least a bit. If nothing else, I smile at their photos noting how much we all changed in the last 12 years. How our priorities changed, how we grew up. Well, some of us did. 🙂

When I went to Spain for the first time, I didn’t yet know that I will be visiting the country frequently. In fact, I think Spain is still my most visited destination for now. The reason? Well, aside from my love of tapas, Spanish clothes and warm climate, one of my best high school friends decided to move there. I still remember us being 18, missing our flight from Barcelona to Venice. It was just a few days before University was supposed to start. We were broke because we extended our Spanish trip for 2 weeks. We were eating the shared food we borrowed from the hostels we stayed in and bag soup and we drank the cheapest Don Simon sangria for the past two weeks, before taking the night bus to Barcelona (we also drank sangria at 5 am in the morning because we were young and stupid and we could). We still had some time, so we strolled Las Ramblas and found some last minute souvenirs. And we severely underestimated the city train traffic in rush hour so we missed our train to the airport and eventually our flight home. We had to buy new tickets with literally our last money, fly to Florence (the other option was Frankfurt and we knew our geography – at least we had that going for us), wait with homeless people in front of the train station in Florence because it was probably 4 in the morning by the time we got there (all because our moms didn’t allow us to take the car with two Juans we met at the airport and who by chance were going to Slovenia).

We then switched a few trains (with our newly bought suitcases and our old backpacks – lots of luggage basically, but the suitcases were a bargain) to get to Udine, where our moms had to pick us up because trains to Slovenia were apparently on strike. I think at one point Irena was already awake for 36 hours, I of course slept the whole way. I still remember her saying on the train, that one day she was gonna live in Madrid. And so she went on Erasmus a couple of years later, and she hasn’t returned to live in Slovenia since.

The trips to Spain that followed were much more blurry, mostly it was me, Irena and Hana, sometimes we had some people joining us. From dancing the whole nights away, going to Retiro park in spring, strolling the museums, crazy shopping sprees for Spanish brands, buying Spanish poetry or Christmas presents in December, we always had fun and we all still cherish Madrid – it has a special place in all our hearts.

I learned to appreciate these moments, our moments, more each year, especially since we all live in different countries now and coordinating gets more and more difficult each year, but we manage. Hana moved to Vienna (Austria) and is doing her Ph.D. in statistics, I stayed in Ljubljana (Slovenia), while Irena is still in Madrid (Spain).

And she is also the main reason for my nostalgic post. It is her birthday today, and she doesn’t yet know it, but her great, awesome boyfriend arranged for me to come to surprise her. So, in a couple of hours, I’ll be standing on their doorstep. From first high school parties, falling in love, getting drunk at the seaside, figuring out we went to kindergarten together, cutting school and going to the seaside with her cabriolet Renault (yes, we were awesome like that, very Aerosmith – Crazy vibe going on there), traveling around Spain and learning first Spanish words and in general doing all sorts of stupid shit…It sometimes seems like we drift apart, not talk for months at a time, but when we see each other things are always like we just saw each other 5 minutes ago.

So, I  haven’t thought about my first Spanish trip in years, but I still remember it in details, which I cannot say for many of the other trips I made over the years. It is one of those trips we will be thinking about when we will be old ladies, sitting on a porch somewhere and getting drunk on rakija.

But for now, cheers to old friends, great memories that were and the ones that are still in the making, and of course, happy birthday to Irena. <3

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