Wine tasting, flower festival and beaches: Costa Brava at its best

Last week I've been fully occupied, which I can not complain about.
First, last monday, thanks to a contest I won held by Costa brava Pirineu de Girona(FB page: https://www.facebook.com/costabravapirineudegirona?fref=ts), I had the opportunity to go wine tasting for the first time in my life and I've got to say it was pretty nice. The price consisted of a guided tour to the old oil mill, which produces the current oil of the enterprise Empordàlia and then to the cellar. After that, a visit to the "Agrobotiga Vilajuïga" where we tasted 3 different types of wine(white, red and garnatxa) and each type of wine were accompained by a tapa.        
  

I have never been the biggest wine fan, but after making the tour and the tasting, I wouldn't mind at all doing it again. Good thing about the visit, is that between the wine tasting and lunch we had and hour more or less andthe cellar is located   is near Sant Pere de Rodes, a beautifully located monastery due to its unique views over the northern part of Costa Brava. So my buddy Albert and I decided to go and check it out.

The weekend arrived and even though the weather wasn't the best, I had decided to spend a weekend in the coast and Platja d'aro was the destination. This place is a perfect tourism located village with everything you need as a tourist you can find, from resorts to small rural houses, big and crowded beaches to the most lovely and beautiful "cales"(small and hidden beaches). 

My recommendations on this village is to walk a bit further away from the big and main beach the see the small ones such as Caval Bernat or Cala del pi, which with 5 minutes of walking, you will feel yourself lost in paradise and almost having the beaches for yourself.
For the evening, if the weather allows it, I recommend to take a walk in the seafront and have a lovely dinner at the seaside in one of its lovely resturants.

Weekend was finished and Girona temps de flors had started, I had early in this month dedicated a whole post talking about the this flower festival, which is why, due to its importance I couldn't finish this post in a better way than by mentioning it. This year, at least from my point of view I have just one word to describe the festival: PEOPLE. I don't know if it is just that I got really lucky the previous years of the festival, but I had the feeling this year it was extreamly crowded, even in the middle of the day when everybody supposedly are eating... Still though, as every year, the city of Girona is full of life during the festival and the streets of the old town dresses up in a beautifully and colorful way that it is worth to see.

 

Next post will be about Braga and its Enterro da Gata, which I will be visiting tomorrow.

Why go abroad?

Before I make a new post about my time as erasmus I would like to make a small reflection about going abroad.

On most of my posts so far I am talking about how good my time was a Erasmus, how good it was as a finding myself experience, etc. The point I want to get to is not that by going on erasmus you will be a new person, that it is the best you can do, I mean probably a big part of my readers aren't university students and don't have the chance to make this type of programmes. The point I want to get to is, go abroad, experience to live in a other country, with a other culture, way of living, food... It can be nothing but good for you because it will help you to either improve a language or to learn a new one, you will make contacts from all over the world, I have no doubt at all that it will be a rewarding experience. And of all people I've talked to about going abroad whether it is to go studying or working, most of the time I hear answers like "but my English is not that good", "what if nobody there speaks English?", "I am scared to be alone and so far from home"...And I tell them, of course you are scared, but that is part of the experience, the fear of the unknown and as soon as you arrive to your destination, you will make it work because it will end up being a need.

Quoting my father again, he left Spain when he was 18 years old to move to Sweden, did he know Swedish? NO, not even English. What the hell, he hadn't even finished school, but he moved because of the need to get a job and the opportunity was in Sweden. So, basically what he had to do is to work hard, interact with locals and study. After have lived around 30 years in Sweden, my dad had learned a new language, had made lifetime long friends and had met the love of his life with whom he built a family. Do you think that is what he had expected when he was 18, lost and moved to Sweden?

So what I am trying to say is, whether it is by fear, need, curiosity or whatever, DO IT, move around and don't dream it or say what if, because some day you will regret not having done it.


For all of you who are students and read this post, I recommend you to read the article on the link, which re-states all I've mentioned and gives you more reasons to do it:
http://www.moneycrashers.com/reasons-why-study-abroad-benefits/

Reasons to travel while you are young

Since I'm back from my Erasmus I have been traveling non-stop, or at least a lot more than I used to before. And most of the things I hear from people about it is: "I want to travel too", "are you rich?", etc. Answer: Do it, and no of course I am not rich. You just have to make it a priority. What I mean with that is instead of going out every thursday and saturday night, week after week spending 20 something Euros per night, save it, and check low cost websites everyday and if you're lucky you will find flights back and forth for less than 25 euros. 

My dad told me once, I envy you because when I was young I did not have the possibility nor the facilities to travel as you have. And damn, he is right! When if not now is the best moment to travel, I am young, full of energy, curiosity and it couldn't be easier to travel. When he was young if you wanted to travel within Europe you had to pass through long processes and sometimes you couldn't even get into a country. Nowadays, at least in Europe we have the Schengen Agreement which allow al European Union citizens to move freely one country to a other. 

But, it is true, it is easy to say or write it here on a blog and difficult to do. Myself, I haven't been out of Europe yet, but you have to take everything step by step. Because if you are a beginner in climbing, you won't start with Mount Everest on your second day of training right? 

I can't stand those people that spend day and night writing YOLO here and there but I have to say, they are somehow right and true because, You Only Live Once, or better said, you are only young once so you better make it count or you will regret it for the rest of your life. Because think about it this way, this time of your life is the only time you can afford to make mistakes, this is the only time you can afford to do anything you want, this is THE time. Because you will have plenty of time the rest of your life to fix those mistakes, to regret or not whatever you have or haven't done. If you don't do it now, you will end up never doing it, because when you are older you have more restrictions, more responsabilities that would not allow you to make these things.

It is said that how you really learn something is by experience it or by practise, that is why most of the world travelers around the world end up saying that a round the world trip have tought them more then all the notebooks they have used. It is also said that traveling open your eyes and make you face the reality, that after traveling the world, problems we could have back home seems like crap compared to what other people around the world is passing through, and they still have a smile on their face.

And what is most important of all, traveling helps you to find yourself, to get inspired, motivated, to get influenced and to change to a better person. 

At the moment, I recently became 21, and I have so far lived in 3 countries(Sweden, Spain and Denmark) and visited 8 countries but a uncountable number of cities and I am just starting and not planning on stopping. I wish that everybody that reads this posts things about themselves and about their lives and what they want to do with it. And whatever you want to do, just make it a priority and if you can dream it, you can achieve it.