Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Arriba!

Husband is a deal-hunting rockstar.

There is a budget airline here in thrifty Deutschland called Germanwings which offers "blind booking" to major cities. You can choose a certain type of vacation you want (i.e. cultural, adventure, Eastern/Western Europe, etc) and then choose your departure city and dates of travel and it will send you to one of 6-9 options of destination depending on the flight schedules for a paltry 60 euro round-trip. Usually there are 3 or 4 really great options in each category (like Barcelona, Lisbon, Venice, Vienna) and then a few less desirable ones (Leipzig, Dresden, Frankfurt), so you're running about a 50/50 shot of getting a crappy location.

Now let me take this time to say that while my friends and family and millions of strangers in the States are melting their little faces off due to the widespread heat-wave, Husband and I have been huddled together in our little corner of Germany trying to stay warm. The high today was 62. Sixty-two degrees. Fahrenheit. Excluding early April, I don't think we've broken the 80 degree mark all year, and the last few weeks have been downright chilly. Far be it for me to complain (heh), and glory knows I'd rather have a mild summer sans trips to the pool over a sweaty mess of tan worthy temperatures, but I'm starting to feel a little gypped here. So we decided a trip to a beachy place was in order. Husband's a nut for a deal so we went the Germanwings route.

Husband found a way to beat the system.

It took several hours of study and playing around with dates and travel options, and possibly a single bead of sweat, but he managed to guarantee us a trip to Barcelona. Now we just need to find a hotel within the next 3 days and then we will be set for a glorious 5-day beachy vacation. What is the Spanish word for "Huzzah?" 

Hola. Me llamo Guten Allie. Yo quiero la playa. Uno cerveza por favor. Y una margarita. Erm, dos margaritas.

I've been trying to brush up on...ahem..."my Spanish" which, despite 6 years of study, is nowhere near even remedial, but try as I might, I just can't get German words out of my mind. Funny, because when I can't figure out the German word for something I usually default to the Spanish word. Thanks brain. Way to be a team player.

But I'm not concerned. I imagine my mouth will be so constantly full of paella and booze that any attempts at speach in any language will just come out as incomprehensible grunts and morsel-infused flying spittle. It may not be pretty, but that's the way I like it.




2 comments:

Holly said...

so jealous. have fun amigo!

Anonymous said...

When I'm looking for the German word for something my brain defaults to French - I haven't taken French in school since Grade 9. WTH?!

(Actually, there's a totally scientific reason for this. Your brain stores all "semi-learned" languages in one area of your brain. Once you're fluent that language then gets it's on "compartment". Interesting, no?)

My second cousin who was just visiting from Gremany said the weather has been total shite there too. She totally loved sitting on our balcony and drinking her first Canadian beer :)

This has become ridiculously long. Yikes.

Enjoy Spain!!!!