So it was after exams when I found out that my family and I would be going to Spain in the half term. But the little twist was, it wasn’t going to be just us that were going - 4 other families would join us. Obviously, I was excited! It was going to be really fun staying in a Villa with 13 other people, getting to know everybody much better. Plus it was a bonus we were going after my exams, a huge stress relief. Then it dawned on me: with this amount of people going, we could either end up at each other’s throats or be at peace with each other. Luckily, there were no fights that would lead to broken bones, just a few irritating people.

In Barcelona, Spain 

We never thought that the most complicated part of the trip would be getting there. It all went wrong from the beginning, when we tried to book our tickets at the same time. Unfortunately, we waited too long to be able to get a direct flight from London to Spain, so we had to book a flight to Geneva, Switzerland and then change to get a flight to Spain. However, when booking the tickets, some people (like me) were put on an earlier flight to Geneva and the rest were put on the one after. This was only the start of our problems. The first batch of people then had to wait 3hours at the Geneva airport for the rest so we could then all get on the plane to Spain. Sounds simple, right?

On the airplane from Switzerland to Spain

Let me recall the mishaps that happened whilst travelling to Spain. One of us nearly missed the flight to Geneva but made it by arriving in style on one of those airport golf carts. When I asked my Auntie, "how did you manage to get the driver to drive you?" she said, "Your mum told him I had a bad back." We lost one of the children at the airport. She is only 6, but she turned up in the toilets and claimed she told her mum that she was going. When we finally got to Spain, we had to take a 2 hour train ride to the villa. It would have been fine if we didn’t have 14 SUITCASES and 3 kids who couldn’t hold their own, as they were below 8 years!

Excluding the long journey to Spain, the rest of the trip was great. We really bonded with the other families, and learned new things about them that we didn’t know. Our Villa was in a town called Miami Platja; we were told it was called Miami because it looks like Miami in America.

Miami Platja, the town we stayed in

Although we were in Spain for just a week, we learnt so much about the Spanish lifestyle, food, and culture - including the Siesta, when the shops close from 2-5pm.

Food that we had in Spain: Nuggets and calamari, Waffles and ice cream and Sangria on the rocks. Mmm...

We did quite a few things in Spain: going to the beach, visiting Barcelona for the day, going to the water park, Port Aventura, having a BBQ at the villa and we even tried to learn Spanish.  We failed miserably.

This is the beach, the BBQ, The statue of ‘Christoffel Columbus’ in Barcelona, and the water park

Although there were up and downs, people got on each other's nerves, and the journey was extremely long for no reason, I had a great time and would do it again with the same people. Goodbye España for now...until we meet again! 

Nadia Adusei-Boateng is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program.

All photos courtesy and copyright Nadia Adusei-Boateng