wiljen's adventures: Passport Rescue Mission

Monday 6th April

Ok, so we talked to the lovely reception ladies, who gave us the train info, to get from here back to Salou. Remembering it is only 60kms, but we have to change trains midway. Hmm! Ok! We can do this. Organise another day here, as this is not just a couple of hours journey, it's gonna take most of the day. Trains run every half hour from Cunit, yes, that is the right spelling, funny I know. They run every two hours from our midway point of St Vincenc, and every hour from Salou. All odd times....ugh!

Coffee, tea and cornflakes.

7:30am and still dark. Daylight saving downer.

Day starts like this - wake up at 6:30am (after drowning sorrows till late last night), have shower under hose like spout that has one stream of water running straight down the wall (at least it was hot), eat cornflakes with room temp long life milk (that stuff is disgusting), drink half your lovely cup of tea before walking 10 minutes hoping to find the train station. Speak broken Spanish and get two tickets (not sure if they are return or not, we'll see) to Salou.

Waiting at St Vincenc for next train

Hope this is the right train, at least it is heading in the right direction. No worries, we get to St Vincenc and hop off. We have to wait 40mins, so now we need a coffee while we wait. Will heads to the counter and asks for, in Aussie Spanish, "Dos Cafe con Leche". The guy looks him straight in the eye and says "two white coffees? Easier in English, hey?" Very nice guy, great sense of humour.

This is a big junction point. Which platform?

We're watching the screen to see which platform we have to be on, and with one minute to go it shows us the middle one. So off we run, down two flights of stairs, round the corner and up two flights to the platform as the doors close, wave hysterically and the guard opens the doors so we can jump on....Amazing race, here we come.

It's 9:30am and Spain is still mostly asleep.

33mins later we are back in Salou. It has taken us just over two hours to go 60kms. Should we have ridden back? After the coffee we both needed a toilet, and we had half an hour to wait until the hostel opened, so we went next door to Dunkin Coffee. Got a coffee and croissant and used the toilets. Only I had a bit of trouble. No toilet paper! Common problem in Spain, as I have mentioned, but still I need more lessons. I made the discovery too late, and let's just say "I really, really, needed paper" . Let me just tell you, that shiny tourist maps are not ideal as bathroom aides......

Yay, we are reunited. Happy happy happy!

All was not lost, the lovely lady from the Hostel handed me the precious passport, and happy as can be we toddled off back to the train station. The next train wasn't for another hour or so, so we just hung around as there wasn't much else we wanted to do. I though I might have another go at a toilet, and went to use the one on the platform. One of those big metal boxes that are fully automatic. Well, this also did not go to plan....seriously....what the! As I tried to go in, a man came out. Ok, sorry, I go in and shut the door. I'm checking it is locked, when suddenly all this noise starts happening, and the toilet flushes, and I notice the floor is also being flushed and starts filling up with water.....Ugh...I can't get out, I'm trapped in the metal box filling up with water......HELP!

Needless to say I got out with wet shoes and laughing stupidly at myself...no more toilets for me today.

The train back to Cunit (he he he he) was jam packed with all the noisey holiday makers we put up with two nights ago, heading home to Barcelona. All with luggage, totally chockers.

Standing room only. ..lucky we get off soon.

So, we managed to get ourselves back to our camp ground, having to ask several people if the train we got on actually goes to Cunit. They couldn't get why we were giggling every time we said it.....