My plan was to drop off my hire care at Valencia airport, and then get a bus or train to Barcelona
Instead of driving for 4 hours, which would be kinda boring, figured Iâd get a bus/coach or train, read, go on my laptop, chill, whatever
However, I didnât book a train/bus ahead of time đ I just figured Iâd figure it out once I arrived
Cue me queuing for 30 minutes at the Valencia train station only to be told that the trains are full
Then me going âoh shit oh shit oh shitâ for 3 mins, trying to find buses and it seeming like theyâre all sold out. âOh shit am I going to have to fly? How embarrassing, and I just came from the airportâ
Luckily I found a coach that had one seat left, 6 hours from now. (That is, it was 2pm, and the coach leaves at 8pm. Itâs currently 4:30pm and Iâm in a shopping mall)
Itâs just so silly because I could have planned ahead, booked a train for 3pm, got on the train, got to Barcelona for around 6pm, time to wander round the Gothic quarter, etc. Vs now Iâll be arriving at my Airbnb at around 00:30, straight to bed, RIP
What went wrong?
This is the flip side of me being like âfuckinâ boomers who stress out and think everythingâs so hard, donât they get that you can just plug whereever youâre going into Google Maps and figure it out as you go, feeling cool as you do it?â. Which is true if youâre relying on e.g. buses that arrive every 30 mins. But for a 4 hour journey between big cities, you should assume that the things are much more likely to sell out
What went well
It was kinda stressful for a few mins, but I had my friends who I was sending messages about it the whole time (Simmo offered to help which was sweet), and I found a bus within a few mins
What is frustrating about it?
Couldâve wandered around Barcelona a bit â not much of a loss as Iâm honestly not that fussed about solo travel, and I was in Barcelona ~1 year ago. It would have been kind of nice to wander the Gothic Quarter a bit, but also kinda lonely and non-profound
Embarrassing (which has a good side) â to have been all âIâm so great, Iâm a zoomer, everything is easyâ (the good flip side is that itâs usefully humbling, âoh yeah Iâm still dumbâ)
Inconvenience â couldâve got a ~2.5 hour train, instead walked for half an hour in 32 degree heat and my suitcase to get to bus station, now have to wait til 8pm, then a 4 hour coach, etc
Good flip side â I have some time to work now (I want to write a memo re: what I want from community, I want to do ~2 hours of my contractor gig). On the coach, Iâve got my paperback of David Foster Wallaceâs âOblivionâ, which I read ~100 pages of during the transit from England to my Dadâs hospital. I havenât read it for a few years and itâs really really lovely to return now Iâve learned a bunch more.
Argument in the queue for the train ticket
This was actually quite fun and a win, but it did leave me with some adrenaline/cortisol, shaky knees (lol), just before the ticket person telling me the trains were sold out
Guy cut in front of me in the queue, I only realised a few minutes later, tapped him on the shoulder and said âI think youâve got infront of meâ, he got defensive and said âI only did it because that guy did it, why arenât you complaining at himâ, I said âI didnât notice the other guy and also he seems like a nicer guy than youâ (honestly, this guy was immediately defensive and just had a bad attitude). There was a second round that I cba to explain but included me saying that âsaying you cut in front because someone else cut in front is like âI did something unethical because someone else didâ which is a pretty tricky life philosophyâ or something, lol, because the gap in between our two âaltercationsâ gave me time to do the thing where you think of âoh man I should have said that in the momentâ
Immediately after our second altercation, I had a really nice chat with another guy next to me from Cambodia who was telling me where heâs moving to and about his electric unicycle that heâs had for 10 years, lol. Felt like a nice thing to go from âI swear this other guy is a dick and has a terrible attitudeâ to having a warm connection with the other guy, did reassure me re: like âIâm not the dick in this situationâ or something, lol.
Basically, practice being disagreeable. But also not like, being reactive for the sake of it. Like, I noticed that he cut in front of me in the queue and thought about it for a few mins before saying anything. Like âwell I mean, who cares, maybe heâs in more of a rushâ vs âidk it seems kinda shitty to cut in front of someoneâ vs then seeing him doing it again and being like âok time to tell him offâ
All this did give me an appreciation for shopping malls
After the travel fuck-up and slogging through the Valencian sun with my suitcase and walking to the bus station, 5 mins from the bus station I spotted a shopping mall and was like âthat might be a good place to cool downâ, and was immediately soothed by the shitty generic-ness, the AC, the liminal âcould be anywhere in the worldâ-ness of it. Felt very David Foster Wallace âA Supposedly Fun Thing That Iâll Never Do Againâ re: boomers being soothed by cruise ships and shopping malls. Itâs stressful out there! This is a very controlled environment, youâre just here to spend money on shit, ahhhhh. Consumerism as a safety blanket for stressed out people, in a society where there arenât really any viable alternatives