Team Wiener's winter vacation: Part I, a comedy of errors

Only one word could aptly describe my week-long winter break ... it was an adventure. And like most good adventures (I'm guessing) it started with catastrophe.

My friends Shannon, Amy and I meticulously planned out a relaxing week in the south of France, with plans to go to Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Arles and Nice. Everything went according to plan with the exception of one small but important detail. There are two airports in Brussels, one was 10 minutes from the train station and the other was 50 minutes. We didn't know this and had only budgeted enough time to get to the 10-minute airport. We missed our flight and there wouldn't be another one to Marseille for three days. So we went home and re-worked our plans so we could still catch our return flight at the end of the week. This time we decided to be a bit more daring and booked a flight to Barcelona. It shortened our vacation a little bit, but we didn't mind so much because then we would be saving money on hostels and food.

So we left Lille for Brussels on Monday evening so we could spend the night there and make it to our 10:30 a.m. flight on time. Instead, we ended up on the wrong train and missed our flight a second time. We were all furious and depressed at first, but then we found out there was another flight to Barcelona that same day so we coughed up the extra €75 to transfer our tickets. It was probably the best €75 I'll ever spend. I knew that if I gave up and went back to Lille I would have spent the rest of the week depressed as hell that I'd had a shot at a real adventure and messed it up. We didn't miss any more flights, trains or buses for the rest of the trip.

Team Wiener was born the first night of our trip when Shannon's habit of saying "Go Team!" whenever we did something dumb led me to suggest we have a team name. We picked it randomly from a Tram map in Belgium along with our individual code names: Verboekhoven (Me - Verb for short), Houba de Strooper (Amy) and Groene Jager (Shannon). You gotta love Dutch. Team Wiener's existence became permanent when we missed our second flight ... it seemed like the perfect title for a group of people with a habit of making really dumb mistakes.

Team pride resurfaced in Barcelona when we ordered paella without knowing exactly what was in it. Although it was listed on the vegetarian section of the menu, the Spanish specialty arrived with whole shrimp (eyes included), muscles, chicken and pork. Except for the eyes, chicken and pork it was really good, but my team mates refused to eat any of it. In honour of my bravery, I was temporarily dubbed Houba de Strooper (which is clearly the best name).

PP (post-paella) we ended up drinking sangria in an Irish pub with two Brits we met at the hostel. An odd mix of cultures, I know but the sangria was good. So good, in fact, I think from now on my life will be incomplete without it.

The next day we explored Barcelona which, by the way, is absolutely amazing. The weather was a huge relief after Lille ... 20° Celsius and sunny. The city is full of big parks and amazing buildings. Even the street lamps in some areas were works of art. The people were nice, even the ones who didn't speak English. Amy knows a little bit of Spanish and we were able to get around pretty easily. We took a cable car over the city with amazing views, and hiked to the top of a green hill where we saw the site of the 1992 Olympics. On our way back down we stopped at an out door café to sip limonada and sit in the sun. We finished off the day at the Picasso museum, which is in the artist's old house. I could go on forever about this experience alone, so if you are interested in Picasso let me know.

Leaving Barcelona was sad, but since we were taking a train to Marseille we got to see some of the most beautiful Spanish coastline on our way out of the country. I flipped through the copy of Vogue España I'd bought and decided not only was I going back to Barcelona someday, but I'd like to learn to speak Spanish, too.