Trip to Sitges Spain – Day One

I just got back from my first ever trip to Europe and it was absolutely incredible. People kept telling me “you’re going to have the best time ever!”, but I didn’t want my expectations to be too high and then get disappointed. Luckily it was fantastic. So let’s back up and talk about how this trip came to be. My friend Molly and I met back in 4th grade and she is still one of the friends I have the most in common with to this day. We’re both from Florida, but now living in California (she lives in Northern Cali). She’s a super smart PhD and even though I like science quite a bit, the stuff she studies is way over my head. She called me and told me she was going to be presenting at a conference (FMR1 Premutation- told you it was some smarty pants stuff) in Barcelona and asked if I wanted to tag along. At first I was a little torn so I called my dad to see what he thought. I thought he would say “you can’t afford that” but instead he said “you should DEFINITELY go, even your little brother has been to Europe” so then I knew I HAD to go. Molly and I decided we would also visit Paris and would consider the trip a celebration of our 20 years(!) of friendship. I already did a little pre-post about how I got there and what hotel I stayed at in Sitges and my flying essentials so be sure to check those out too!

When I arrived at the hotel the pouring rain was finally starting to let up. I met up with Molly and both of us were so excited we began exploring immediately. We walked down toward the marina and around the city.

 

There was an awesome huge old church in the town and the sea wall had a great little “splash zone.”

There’s endless restaurants that overlook the water. I love all the bright blues.

We stopped for a little snack of espresso and a chocolate croissant at el Fornet a little sidewalk cafe.

A little selfie action by the water. Wearing my new “Boss Lady” shirt 😉

A scooter by the sea, so Mediterranean.

I made Molly pose next to this scooter because it seemed appopriate. Next time we need to take our life into our own hands and rent one of these little bad boys.

More of the art around the Estela Hotel. The fish is made out of soda cans.

Another picture of the view from our hotel room, this time at sunset. The view was just so gorgeous. It was also a prime location to creep on surfers changing in the parking lot.

Then Molly’s conference group had a little excursion so I took some time to put my head on.

When she came back we took the 20 minute walk back into town which had a whole different look at night.

Palau Marycel is a mansion a rich American bought to house all of his art. Ballin’.

For dinner we went to Pizzeria Cap De La Vila which was on the same road as the cafe we went to earlier in the day. I had read so many times about how there’s a lot of pick pockets in Spain which made me super paranoid. The only time I actually saw anyone get robbed was at this pizza restaurant and it was a local (our waiter) being robbed. Some middle aged pseudo-gypsy lady ran by and grabbed some money off the table. Our waiter yelled at her like what are you doing? Get back here. Then she just power walked away and he kind of shrugged which made me think maybe she just grabbed a couple Euro tip or something. It was pretty weird.

For dinner we had some traditional Catalonian food. Just kidding, I had a pepperoni pizza. Molly had a rocket and jamón ibérico pizza. They were both delicious. We did at least have Estrellas with the pizza which is a Spanish beer. The waiter was speaking to us in English and when he asked if we were ready to order I said “sí” and he laughed!

After dinner a police car pulled up outside the restaurant and the cops were just sort of wandering around. Then all of a sudden a blind man smoking a cigar starts getting closer to them with his cane tapping it around and almost hits the cops with the cane. They were like “woah woah do you need help?” and he just kind of stumbled/bumped into the car and then turned and walked the other way. I think he may have had a few Estrellas too. It was just a funny awkward thing to watch the cops who didn’t know what to do and the blind guy was not phased one bit.

After dinner Molly and I got some gelato on the same street. I had speculoos (cookie butter) and salted caramel, yum. I could go for some right now.

After that we walked back to the hotel and I slept for about a million hours thanks to jet lag. Keep an eye out for more posts of Sitges, Barcelona, and Paris coming up!