Spain

Me and my girlfriend Mariel were about 17-18 years old when we decided to walk into a travel agency and tell them to send us anywhere as long as it was the cheapest trip they got for 2 weeks. They suggested Lanzarote and we didn't even know where it was but it sounded exotic so we skipped school and went. I remember getting excited seeing it from above in the airplane and when we had went through the customs we were supposed to be greeted by a woman who worked for the travel agency. She would tell all of us tourists with unspecific accomodation where we would be staying. The problem was that she couldn't find me & Mariel on the list and she looked worried. Every hotel would probably be booked already by now so we imagined worst case scenario, but instead it worked in our favour. Since all low budget accomodation were fully booked they had to give us a room with our own patio at a really nice hotel, with pool, tennis court and basketball court, so we had no complains!

Lanzarote is a Spanish island but it's actually located outside the northwestern coast of Africa, and it's still the closest I've ever been to visit Africa to this day. It's one of the Canary Islands and mostly charter tourists go there so we stood out of the crowd with our almost gothic appearance with purple hair, ripped jeans and provocative T-shirts. I remember having bondage pants while ironically have written "HÅKAN" on my bare chest, probably the palest chest they have ever seen in this sunny paradise. 

The reference on my chest was to Håkan Hellström who had just released his acclaimed solo pop album in Sweden, and I thought he was such a wimp. Since I loved contrasts and liked when people got confused by my appearance, it was a great combo of the hardest you could get, bondage pants, and the weakest, Håkan Hellström. I loved to wear stuff like that, like a pink shirt with seashells on it or a horse shirt, to make people don't understand if I was a crazy goth or a cute little boy/girl. It still fits my personality to embrace all sides of life but I don't express it like a teenager anymore, and nowadays I see Håkan's first album as one of the best ever!

We pretty much spent our vacation with partying every third day, going on adventures every third day and relaxing every third day. We went by a submarine for the first time ever and also on a camel safari in the volcanic desert (before I understood it was animal cruelty).

This is me while riding the camel in the desert

Then we visited a gigantic cave called Cueva de los Verdes where there's even a stage for concerts when you get as deep in the cave as you can get. I always dreamed about being able to perform there or to see a band like Sigur Rós perform, their music would fit the setting. 

Since I know that animals develop senses to fit their environment I thought it was so strange to see blind and white crabs living in the interior lagoon of the cave, when it's one of the most beautiful and dark places. They can't see the beauty of their home and they shine as much as possible for their predators to find them.

You can't find a single spot of grass on the island except for fake grass outside 5 star hotels. It's all made up of lava from volcanic eruptions and when me and Mariel took the drink Sex On The Beach literally and had just that, then we understood that even the sand on the island is special. The black lava sand sticks to your body and is much harder to get off so I recommend everybody who wants to have sex on the beach to choose a lava free destination. 

Since we were vegetarians we had not much to choose from at a place for charter tourism back in the days, so one day we could only have potatoes and sauce at a restaurant. It was one of the best dishes I have ever eaten, the potatoes were wrinkled and salty and the two sauces were two different kind of mojo sauces. The red which was alright and the green that was spectacular. They both have the same foundation of oil, vinegar, cumin, garlic and chili, and then the red one contains paprika and the green one fresh coriander. When we arrived at an all you can eat buffet another day and they had the same dish, we literally ate like 25 potatoes each. It still waters my mouth to think about how good it tasted.

It took me a long time until I returned to Spain and this time with my new girlfriend Felicia, and this time we went to real Spain, and not an occupied island. We arrived at Alicante on the southeast coast and we went there both for pleasure and to look for a possible new home, as we did when we went to Malta. You could tell that we had just missed the busy summer season and there was a vibe that felt kind of dead to me. It should be nice to avoid all the tourists but instead it felt like the place was resting, just waiting for the next summer. 

We had made the mistake of chosing Hotel Mio Cid, a hotel that was far off from the city center. I had fallen in love with the medieval theme of the hotel and I had also got a great vibe from it, sometimes you just get a feeling of which is the right hotel. And I can't complain about the hotel, just the location, or well maybe I can complain about the pool which was more of a graveyard for bugs than a pool. And the beach that was supposed to be a step away from the hotel was more of a dump where dogs could take a dump without their owners picking it up. So most of the time we went other places like when we went into town to visit the most famous tourist attraction in the city, the castle on the hill called Castillo de Santa Bárbara. 

It was nice with great views over the city but hot as hell in the burning sun so we went into a temporary Star Wars exhibition at the castle to take shelter.

When we went down to the city center again we visited a big old ship in the harbour and at this time in life I was always so eager to see everything, that I often missed the opportunity to enjoy the places I went, and this ship was one of those things. We should have just sat there enjoying our afternoon with a great view from the stern, but instead I felt the urge to hurry up to see the next thing. We went to a lot of pointless museums and I actually liked the art out in the streets more. I loved the fact that the street outside the local police station was filled with mushrooms with facial expressions that suggested that they were high.

When we got tired of the mainland we went by boat to see the small island called Isla De Tabarca, and I had read a lot of negative stuff about it before we went there, but I wanted to get my own opinion. A lot of tourists had complained that there was nothing to do on the island and that was exactly what I liked about it, most of it wasn't exploited for tourists except for the beach and some souvenir shops in the small and cozy town. The rest of the island was a big desert with deserted and worn down buildings in the middle of nowhere and the heat was so crazy that even the cactuses were dying. When we got as far as we could on the deserted part of the island  we saw another small island next to it with just a cross on it, and even though I don't like religion and their symbols I thought it was a nice ending to the long walk out to nowhere. It felt like something you would only see in a movie and I like those moments.

Back at the mainland we went by train to a small village called Villajoyosa where we visited a chocolate factory, a dream since I saw the movie Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. The experience had a hard time to compete with the movie, and the most exciting thing was probably that we sneaked into the Spanish tour instead of the English because we didn't want to wait one more hour. We got through half of the tour by nodding politely to everything the tour guide told us in Spanish until she asked us something where she wanted an answer and we just kept on nodding. Then she asked us "you can't speak Spanish right?", and we shook our heads. She was nice enough to let us stay on the tour and explain everything in English too, just for us. We had never heard about the chocolate brand Valor before, but she explained that they exist in Sweden too, and since then I have seen it a couple of times. It's not one of my favourites, I think it's kind of bland actually.

On another train ride in the opposite direction we went to the small town of Elche to visit a huge park of palm trees. We couldn't find it so we stumbled upon a huge street art area made up off an old, almost dried out canal instead.

People were out walking their dogs and riding their bikes through this magical place and it felt so endless that we walked and walked and we couldn't even get to the end of it. It's so great to find this creative places out in small villages where you think it will just be another sleeping village. Then when we weren't even trying anymore, we found the palm tree park.

In the end we had visited everything there was to see in Alicante except for the bullfighting museum which was located next to the arena where the actual bullfighting takes place. I hate animal cruelty so I despised this place from the get-go, but I want to see all the sides of life, even the horrible ones. We decided we could give it a go since our visit wouldn't help the cause in any way since the museum was for free. The museum was closed and we went astray and ended up inside the corridors of the arena somehow. A guard yelled at us and we explained that we were looking for the museum and he said that we weren't allowed in here. I told him that we would leave and that it all had just been a mistake, but I also asked him kindly if we could just go inside and have a quick peak in the arena. Oddly enough he agreed and we went inside. Even though there were no bulls I was still scared of standing in the middle of the empty arena because I thought a bull would attack me at any given moment. Bullfighting is disgusting in every way but it was still a grand experience to be standing there in the middle of the huge arena, with no people at the stance, and feeling like both a hero and a zero at the same time. Of course I had to interact the scene from the cartoon Ferdinand which we see every Christmas in Sweden, and then we thought the guard was losing his patience with us, and we left.

I had felt that Alicante didn't seem exciting enough to go to, but Felicia had convinced me that it was the right spot for our holiday so I went along with it. That was if she joined me to go visit the island of Ibiza while we were there. It was just a short flight away from the coast, and Ibiza is legendary for many reasons. In the 70's it was a spot for hippies and nowadays it's a spot for another kind of naked people. Drunk and high tourists in their 20's who listens to house and who has turned Ibiza into a commercialised caricature of it's former self.

I wanted to embrace both sides and we went down to the bay of San Antonio to experience the latter one. It didn't take long before some guys hit on Felicia and asked her if she wanted weed, just because I had went 20 metres away for her to take a picture of me.

I knew there was going to be a lot of idiots on the island who just had came here to party their brains out and get laid, so I was confused when I was the one who was being called crazy. A club promoter saw my T-shirt of Johnny Cash holding a kitten with the caption "Pussy and cash" and he said "man, that's sick, dude you're really sick!". He meant is as a compliment and he laughed and brofisted me.

Me and Felicia are probably the only ones who have been visiting Ibiza in a sober way and we didn't even have a drink. We still felt the party vibe because all the shops were playing music at night club volume and I liked it. I enjoyed being a voyager in this crazy place where everything was just about getting drunk and getting laid. People were riding bikes high and falling off in high speed, even though it was still just morning. When I needed a break from it all I went into the pool at our neighbouring hostel and after that we went down to the famous Café Del Mar to watch the sunset.

It's a common thing to do and people cheer and applaud spontaneously, as if the sun is doing some kind of show. Ibiza nowadays was fun for one day but in the end I got a bit bored by everything saying pussy this, fuck that, drugs this, party that. It's a one trick pony and you just get bored of it in the end. But maybe it did something good subconsciously because I can tell you one thing, the sex is better at Ibiza, maybe it's because of all the sexual tension in the air.

The next day we wanted to experience the old hippie Ibiza before we would fly back to Alicante in the evening again. We went to the small village of Sant Josep by bus to try and go out to an old hippie beach called Atlantis. We couldn't find anything to eat in Sant Josep so we had to go to a fine dining place, where they would serve us a small portion of great vegetarian food for an expensive sum of money. This was my first experience of fine dining and it was as I had imagined, too little food for too much money. Why go to a restaurant if you have to leave hungry?
In the end we took a cab out to Atlantis and we asked the driver to come get us at a certain time so that we wouldn't miss our flight back to Alicante. It felt risky being out in nowhere depending on the taxi to show up as we had agreed.
I thought it was strange that we were left at a high cliff because I had read that Atlantis was supposed to be a beach. We were lost for a while until we found a small route that lead us to a hippie (or more likely a homeless man who knew he could get money from dumb tourists if he acted as a wise hippie) sitting by a ring of stones and telling "wisdom" to two dumb tourists. Probably in exchange for money I would guess.

We reached another cliff but this time there was at least a steep way down, and we asked two exhausted men if Atlantis was down there. They nodded and said they have just been there, and that we should get a helicopter to get down there, because it was one hell of a climb. I couldn't even understand how we would be able to get down there, and even worse, get up again, but at the same time we had put too much effort in getting here so we couldn't give in now. Down the steep hill we went accompanied by lizards and sometimes we had to jump off small cliffs to get further down, and I couldn't understand how we would be able to get up again. But right now my only focus was to get down.

We arrived down at the lost city and we could see the old carvings from the original hippies where they had made their own city, as far away from the society as possible. The climb down to the really bottom of the place was a slippery and dangerous one and one wrong step and you would fall into the raging sea slamming into the rocks. One of the formations looked like a sinking boat and barebreasted people enjoyed the shade of it in the awful heat of the sun. I tried to get over to it but it was so damn slippery to walk through the natural pool. And every time you slipped you fell on razorsharp cliffs, so I just gave up in the end. 

We sat there eating some snacks and drinking some water and enjoying the view at the same time it occured to us both that the worst part was to come. How would we even get up again? We also had a taxi that would be waiting for us at a certain time. When I climbed up the first slippery bit and I made it, it felt like if I had survived a 50/50 chance of falling into a certain death in the raging sea. Then I stood and waited for Felicia to come and I prayed for her to make it because I couldn't even see her, so I was scared that I would hear a roar from her falling down. After what felt like 30 minutes, but probably was like 2, she finally got up and I was so happy to see her. 

We tried to go up another route than the one we had came from because we thought it would be impossible to go up that way. We ended up in what felt like quicksand and we had to run not to fall down again, and I was exhausted when we got up from it, and that was just 3% of the climb finished. I told Felicia that I felt dehydrated because of the combination of the burning sun and the quicksand climb, and I'm also a redhead so the sun isn't my best friend. In my mind I had already given up, we had gotten nowhere and I was already ready to give in. I felt as if I had no strength left in me at all and I collapsed. Felicia really helped me with pushing me to carry on at the same time as she understood that I needed to rest in between, and she gave me almost all of her water when mine was gone. My heart was beating fast and I felt that I would faint at any second, and I was about to give up and tell Felicia to try and get a medic for me, but I kept pushing on. I was sure I was going to die on this mountain by now and I think it's hard to grasp if you weren't there, but you're so helpless out in the wild when something like this happens. It was important for me that Felicia didn't lie to me to be nice when I asked her how much it was left of the mountain to climb, because I didn't even have the power to look up. I just watched my feet and continued to walk between the breaks. Some guys were jumping down the mountain cheering at us while smoking weed to go down to Atlantis, and I hated these "new hippies" even more by now. When I saw the edge of the cliff and realized we had made it I ran up the last part because I was so happy to see it. I don't know where that strenght came from, but it was suddenly there, at least until I reached the cliff, then I dropped to the ground. I thanked Felicia for saving my life and we jumped inside the cab and went to the airport to go back to Alicante. Because of this near death experience I wouldn't recommend anyone to go to Atlantis but I'm really happy to have been there and seen it in hindsight, much like Albania. 

Back at Alicante we went for a train ride to Benidorm, a bit further up the coast than Villajoyosa, and it felt like a paradise for British retired people. It was fun to see the same shirt as we had seen in Ibiza, but now saying "Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Benidorm". It was more fitting with Ibiza at the end of the sentence, I can tell you that much. There was nothing much to see and do in Benidorm except for going down to a beautiful stairway by the sea and eating disgusting food, so we went out to the water park at the edge of the town called Aqualandia. 

The place was a total rip off where we had to pay a lot to get in and then pay for everything inside as well. "Oh you want to go around this jet stream circle on a water wheel? Just 5 euro!".

I hate places like that and I was glad when we got back to Alicante where thunder and lightning awaited us. Dumb as we were we went down to our dog turd beach to witness the scenery of lightning hovering above the castle on the hill in the city. Felicia took some pictures and it was scary to see that you could see lightning right next to me on the photos that our eyes hadn't seen. We quickly ran back to the hotel again to take shelter!

Two years later me and Felicia returned to the country by going to Barcelona, finally we would find the essence of Spain I thought, because the first city I think of when I think of Spain is Barcelona. We stayed at Hotel Lléo with a rooftop pool and it was amazing to be on a rooftop in one of the most famous cities in the world. It felt so vibrant and I loved every second we spent there.

We went down to the famous city beach called La Barceloneta through narrows streets with people hanging their laundry outside. It was wonderful to sit at a restaurant at the beach just enjoying the scenery and watching the airplanes come and go in the horizon. 

We went to the famous Park Güell but the queue was so long to get in that we just gave up and saw it from a distance instead.

Then we headed to the famous church Sagrada Família. It looked amazing as it looks as if it has melted in the sun and became a goth relic of some kind, but unfortunately it's also a building site since it's still not finished even though they began to build it in 1882.

* Best things about Spain – wrinkled Canary Island potatoes with mojo verde sauce, the hidden gem of the street art canal of Elche, and enjoying the rooftop pool at the heart of Barcelona at Hotel Lléo

* Most mediocre thing about Spain – it was a strange feeling to be standing inside an empty bullfighting arena, it was a grand feeling until you thought of what was taking place in there, and it was such a conflict in my mind that I enjoyed the arena, and to be standing there, but hating everything that usually takes place there

* Worst things about Spain – I hate to say it but the hippie beach of Atlantis at Ibiza is one of my worst experiences ever, you should go there by boat to experience the beauty of it without risking your life by climbing up and down the cliff in the heat of the sun during the day

Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):
1. Croatia
2. Montenegro
3. Andorra
4. Cyprus
5. Greece
6. Italy
7. Spain
8. Monaco
9. Malta
10. Netherlands
11. Iceland
12. Denmark
13. Lithuania
14. Macedonia
15. Portugal
16. Slovakia
17. Slovenia
18. New Zealand
19. Ireland
20. Belgium
21. Poland
22. Estonia
23. Switzerland
24. San Marino
25. Kosovo
26. Romania
27. Finland
28. Latvia
29. Moldova
30. Norway
31. France
32. Bulgaria
33. Luxembourg
34. Liechtenstein
35. China
36. Serbia
37. Bosnia And Herzegovina
38. Albania