Last two days of Spain and first day in Dubrovnik

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Even though I knew I would be completely fine alone in Spain for two days, I had been slightly nervous about it leading up to Gina leaving. It ended up being a very relaxing and self assuring experience. I was fine eating at restaurants alone and felt comfortable navigating the city by myself. Right after Gina left, I ended up going back to sleep til about 12 pm afternoon then I did some laundry, packed etc... nothing too impressive. Around 4 pm I got myself together and met a friend for dinner before the FC Barcelona game. We went to a highly rated restaurant that was literally about 100 yds down the street from where my apartment was... I'm still slightly confused by how Gina and I never realized that it was there. It was called Cera 23 and was very small but had lots of character. We had beef carpaccio with guacamole, sesame crusted tuna with cinnamon sweet potato puree and balsamic reduction, and then a pork tenderloin with apple chutney. The drink of choice for the night was a blackberry mojito. Everything was perfectly seasoned and cooked to perfection. I am still kicking myself for finding Cera after Gina left. Camp Nou (FC Barcelona's stadium) is a quick cab ride from El Raval and we arrived about 5 minutes before Barca scored the first goal of the game. The stadium is massive--it holds over 100,000 fans and is the largest "futbol" stadium in Europe. Having grown up with soccer being such a big part of my life, I was really able to appreciate the venue, die hard fans, and high level of play. The final score was FC Barcelona 3, Elche 0. Messi scored two goals, which was not surprising and perfect because I was wearing his jersey. My last day I spent mostly on the beach. The weather was great and the beach wasn't overly crowded. I stopped by the Ramblas market one last time to get my empanada fix and had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in El Rambla de Raval. I had no intention of sleeping through my alarm so I went to bed earlier and more sober than I had any other night on the trip. I arrived at the airport in plenty of time for my flight and landed in Dubrovnik at 12:30 pm. <pre style="padding: 5px;">When I tried to get a taxi I found out that Croatia does not use euros, oops, and had to then figure out the kuna exchange before the 30 minute drive to Old Town Dubrovnik. The view coming into Dubrovnik looks exactly like the amazing pictures you see on the internet or post cards, but once I arrived at the apartment and went out on the balcony I realized that only experiencing the view in real life can do it justice. Before Alex and Jim arrived I chatted with the owners of the apartment, who just happened to have lived in Sunnyvale for 6 years (crazy small world) and absolutely loved me because I was from the area. They gave us some good tips and as soon as Alex and Jim got settled, we headed to Old Town. It is a very short walk distance wise, but the majority of the town is on a steep hillside so its a bit of a hike down to the city center. We had a great late lunch/early dinner at a restaurant on the outside of the city walls, right on the water. Then we sat on a pier for a couple hours drinking Karlovacko beer, watching Croatian kids play soccer and admiring the surroundings. A walk through the city paired with some gelato was the perfect night cap. On our way home we ended up getting a little lost, there are about 20 different sets of steps that all look alike and more than half of them are dead ends. It was about 10 pm when we made it back and it was just in time for a fireworks show right on the water. We had no idea what it was for but took it as a good omen for the trip. Today we plan on enjoying the beach, amazingly blue water and possible taking a trip to an island close by. Gonna be a rough day 😉

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Photos

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Blackberry Mojito

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Final score :)

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Croatian beer