June 19-22: Lloret de Mar, Spain

“Okay,” Dan said, turning around mid-stride to stare at me and Neil, who were characteristically trailing behind, “Does everyone have their soap packets?”

At that particular moment, we were walking back to our hotel, located in the resort town of Lloret del Mar, on the eastern coast of Spain.

We were also out of soap.

Hence the question about soap packets, which we had acquired earlier from the hotel management and, not wanting to return to our rooms, decided to cart them around for the rest of the day.

I felt around in my rear pocket. “Yeah.”

Neil patted his shorts. “Um…,” he said, “I think I lost mine.”

We all groaned. For whatever reason, soap was hard to come by in Spain, especially in a resort town.

This predicament, by the way, would be remedied in unimaginably wondrous ways when we purchased—for the bargain price of 2.50 Euros—what was to be known for the duration of the trip as the Holy Grail of liquid soap.

But more on that later.

Lloret de Mar was not my kind of place.

By day, it was a beach town. Near the hotel, there were two beaches we frequented. They were filled with frat-boy-looking twenty-somethings, attractive tanned women, and a fair number of orange-skinned retirees.

By night, the old men and women, and children all retired to their rooms, and the night-life began. Of course, by night-life, I mean lots of noisy clubs with rainbow strobey light and thumpidy-thump music, and scantily clad women, dressed in intriguing furry boots.

“Do you want to see tits?”, someone waving a handful of pamphlets asked as we walked by.

“Sorry,” Neil grunted, “We’re going somewhere.”

He persisted. “You don’t like big tits?” he asked Dan.

“I love—love—big tits,” Dan said (a little bit too enthusiastically), “But we’re going somewhere.”

I just smiled at the man and said nothing.

I remember two things about our brief stint in Lloret de Mar.

The first had me and Neil waking up at 4:50 AM and walking to the main beach, just so I could get some photos of the sunrise. You don’t get those kinds of sunrises in Oxford or London— you know, the kind where the sun peaks over the ocean, and golden rays stream towards you, glittering off the water. What a sight!

My second memory was of the three of us, sitting at the outside patio of our hotel, enjoying the night breeze, and enjoying a rather large bottle of Canadian Whiskey we’d bought for 10 Euros at the local supermarket (alcohol here was nearly cheaper than water). Most of the hotels inhabitants were gone, and it was just us, a bottle of booze, and more snacks than you could shake a fist at.

After Lloret de Mar, we headed towards Barcelona.