Me ‘n Milli– A Travel Buddy
Full-circle friendship
I’d been in Europe barely a week when Milena and I crossed paths in a village corner store. As I briefly recounted in one of my first blogs, we became attached at the hip for a couple of days. In our first 24 hours as friends, we hitch-hiked to another city, braved strenuous hikes, squeezed in the trunk of a stranger’s car and skinny dipped under the stars.
She then headed home to Cologne, Germany. We said our goodbyes, rendering them ‘see ya laters’. We were right. Things came full circle when I ended up spending my last days in Europe next to Milli.
As my time in Baleal came to a close, I meandered around Portugal's Algarve and planned a trip to mainland Spain. I was nearing my 90-day limit– about a week remained before I legally had to be out of the EU (Schengen border code), so I booked it to Barcelona. Milli, eager for a change of scenery and unable to turn down an adventure, met me there.
As expected, the week was a jolly whirlwind. We wandered the streets of the sparkly city, immersed in Barcelona’s storybook architecture. We lapped up the skate culture, lingering outside museums in the evening to watch locals shred staircases and rails. We lounged by the harbor, listening to street performers.
I love exploring solo. But at this point I’d spent so much time on my own, and traveling with Milli was refreshing.
How fun it is to navigate with a friend, to have both your brains to work from! To have someone to hold your water bottle or help you with your bag when you need to take off your jacket. Someone with which to share the goofy delusion that follows a long day of trains and buses and cities.
As solo travelers, these small things were not lost on either of us. We were just two independent girls, happy to not be alone.
It was a joy to miss buses together, to ride metros in good company, to romp through towns with belongings on our back. We processed life together– lives that mirror each other vividly, though lived millions of miles away.
We both caught gnarly colds and nursed ourselves back to health. During that time we bummed around in sweats, holding ever-present mugs of tea while other young travelers mingled over the hostel’s sangria and frolicked to bar crawls.
On our second day together I wrote in my journal : “I feel so energized to be with a friend, even if we’re both sick. Our laughter is medicinal.”
We healed up quickly and decided to flee the center of Barcelona. On a midnight whim, we booked bus tickets to Costa Brava. There we stayed at a bed and breakfast and spent time hiking to remote beaches down the coast and exploring the old, warmly lit town of Tossa de Mar.
It was November now and the peak season had passed in full. I’m not even sure there was another soul staying at our entire bed and breakfast. A coast dotted with tourists in warmer months was now tranquil and bare. Aside from the welcomed company of a few spear fishermen and the occasional elderly couple, we practically had the town to ourselves.
We then found on Booking.com a yacht to stay on for €25 each in Premià de mar. We made dinner, watched Mama Mia and sipped sangria from the top of the boat, where the sunset tinted every neighboring boat a peachy pink.
We indulged in picnics of pastries and jam on the nearby beach, where we took naps, did puzzles in the sand and swam in serene water as sailboats floated by. We bought fresh baguettes at local bakeries.
“Why am I so obsessed with watching sailboats?” I asked aloud. “It’s not the sailboat that you like, it is what it represents for you: freedom,” Milli answered.
From the beach, we listened to hourly bells resound from the town church and felt the rattle of the nearby train. Barcelona’s skyline zigzagged the horizon on the west. Time floated by.
Our week was up. Parting ways, I was off to Madrid and Milli to Valencia before we both flew home. We hugged goodbye on the train and she left me with a drawing of Deià, the village in Mallorca where we’d met just a few months before.
Milli, and your time shared together, sounds delightful!
So rich with description of a true traveling friend .
Love you Milli! So thankful you and Gwen met!