You can listen my column as soon as you visit below:
https://stand.fm/episodes/60573fb48db9632b541bb60c

Hello　everyone. How are you today？ It's Teacher Asuka.
Today, I'm going to talk about my 3rd travel diary in Spain.

After booking my bus ticket to go back to London on the next day at ‘Barcelona-Sants Bus Station’(currently starts from ‘Barcelona-Nord Coach Station’) around 8:00am, looking at a map, I walked alone for a while to get to the Youth Hostel which I was going to stay for just a night. (In the former column, I had booked, or reserved the above Youth Hostel already.)

Because of the early Easter Sunday, I had found only a few elder people around here. I wanted to ask some of them the way to that Youth Hostel from here. I had a courage and tried saying this question in Spanish like ¿Dónde está la estación más cercana?,

that means ‘ Where’s the nearest station?’ in English.

One elderly man replied something in Spanish, unfortunately I could not understand what he said beacuse I was not able to speak Spanish actually. Young generation tend to speak English recently, however most elderly people in Spain tend not to speak English just like most elderly people in Japan.

Therefore, I couldn’t catch any information how to get to that reserved accommodation and got lost again! Soon I found another elderly woman passed by and I asked her the way to my accommodation. All of a sudden, she took me to the nearest bakery shop to provide me a piece of bread and went away.

First I was so surprised what she did for such a foreigner like me, however soon I found that her kind behavior made me encouraged and cheered me up. I appreciated her from the bottom of my heart.

After I came out from the bakery shop, luckily I found a taxi just in front of the shop. Someone got off the taxi and I asked a driver the way to my accommodation. As soon as I got on the taxi and he drove me to that accommodation. I realized the way which I had walked before was the wrong direction while I was riding the taxi. I arrived at my accommodation safely in the end. What an experience it was!

Map of Barcelona

When I entered the Youth Hostel, one of the staffs spoke to me ‘Konnichiwa’ in Japanese! ‘Konnichiwa’means‘Hello’in English.

I was so relieved and thanked his hospitality. After I checked in there, I made a female friend who came from Argentina and had a roommate. She could speak Spanish and English, so I went out with her to travel around Barcelona.

Cathedral

We visited around Cathedral first and then went to Las Ramblas street in order to get to the Columbus Monument. Along the way to Columbus Monument, there were a lot of shops in Las Ramblas street so that we enjoyed talking with each other and walking along there.

Las Ramblas street

On the next day, I would leave Barcelona by the long-distance bus, that is ‘EuroLines’ coach travel to go back alone to London. What do you think how many hours did it take from Barcelona to London?  Although it depends on traffic situations, it took about 23hours and 50 minutes at that time! You may think what a long journey it is! However, the long-distance bus has its own bathroom facility as well as a wide range of seats so that you can stay as much as comfortable. In addition, you don’t have to worry about the language barrier because you can use English inside the bus!

On the way to London, the bus stopped moving to take a rest twice, the first is a rest to go outside from the bus to have something to eat at night at Girona in Spain, the next is for a rest to have a breakfast at a city in the north France on the way to ‘Calais’ in France. (When you reach Calais, you get on a P&O ferry between Calais and the Strait of Dover in the UK. You can be allowed to get into it together with the long-distance bus. Boarding the ferry, we should be allowed to get out of the bus and spend time in the ferry. It takes about 15 minutes.) 

After reaching Dover, we needed to go through passport control. I had got a student pass therefore I could go through that control and finally I went back to London. An exceedingly long travel by the long-distance coach had ended. I could also say that another unforgettable and precious travel memory made me be grown up more and more.
Many thanks for all the people who cared me a lot here.

Thank you for joining this time as well.
See you next time!   

Bye for now.     

Teacher Asuka

For more info:

Barcelona

https://www.spain.info/en/destination/barcelona/

https://www.barcelonaturisme.com/wv3/en/

Columbus Monument

https://bcnshop.barcelonaturisme.com/shopv3/en/product/18334/columbus-monument.html?o=h