Thursday, July 24th: We decide to go back downtown and do some more shopping. We pick up some breakfast and coffee and ask about the tourist bus tour I’ve read about. It’s leaving in four minutes, so we also tick off the physical exercise for today. At La Aljaferia we decide to take a longer stop because I hadn’t seen it last year, but was told it was beautiful. Hello, what understatement! It’s amazing! We take the whole tour, I even sit down and learn about flags. At this point I am either confusing people with my interest in this topic or with my tour shirt. A girl is looking at me, looking again and then pinching her mother and then the two of them are looking at me. (If you read this, make sure to say hello next time! ;)) Some time later we learn that we already have 200 followers on our Insta account. Pretty amazing for my little „Schnapsidee“!
Near this beautiful place we find another beautiful place for coffee and snacks. The waitress speaks a little English and understands a bit of German, but she is so nice that I quickly gather the confidence to place our order in Spanish. Apparently she’s so thrilled about me trying that in the end she gives my kids another churro for free and I don’t have proof but she may have given us a huge discount. I love this city and its people.
But of course, my new found self-confidence needs to be hold back and so we walk into another supermarket where I choose the self-checkout. Because it’s quicker? Because you don’t have to embarrass yourself by not getting anything the cashiers say? All valid reasons. When you are not me. Self-checkouts hate me in every country as I have now discovered. It’s not working as planned, one of the employees needs to come to the rescue. And another one. The third one is staying until we’re done and out of the store. Next time remind me about it, please.
We get back onto the bus and take the rest of the tour. At Plaza España we decide to check out the ice cream parlor I had seen on Instagram which my kids demanded to visit because the icecreams there are huge. And covered in chocolate. The bus is the same we need to take back to the hostal, only into the opposite direction. I suddenly decide that we need a rechargeable bus ticket. We wanted to get that earlier, but then the sudden leave of the tour canceled that plan. My husband does not feel so well, so I park him with the kids on a bench and promise to be back soon. Well, I probably would have if I knew where to buy this ticket and when I finally found it, that I was waiting in the wrong queue. But again – the people of Zaragoza, so helpful and cute. And: I met another Arde fan! When I was leaving the counter after I got my ticket, a guy was smiling at me and started singing „Qué vida tan dura“ and I answered him and this was one of the best seconds of my life so far! So, an eternity later I arrive with the ticket and we get on the right bus. My husband is sleeping, not even a strong coffee at the ice cream place can wake him up for long. So we have our delicious chocolate covered icecream (which is working much better in theory than in 32 degree weather when the ice is melting, but the chocolate is too hard to bite) and try to find the bus stop to get home to the hostal. My husband appears to be really sick so we put him into one room and let him rest. Checkout is at noon, that’s sufficient time to recover, get up, put a rooftop box back on and leave.
In the middle of the night, I wake up. There’s noise and people talking loudly and running around. I have the feeling that I did cause it because I suddenly remember hearing music or a noise like an alarm clock. Was it my phone? Did I not turn off an alarm to remind me of something? You know these sounds you hear, but somehow build into your dreams? I check the phone. No, my playlist went off as planned, no alarm set and the music wasn’t too loud. I think I hear someone saying „We need to find the one!“ Okay, if you need to find someone downtown Zaragoza listening to Bunbury to go to sleep, I might be guilty as charged. I open the door hesitantly. Are they waiting for me? Do I have to go to jail now for my taste in music? I hope they let me make a last phone call so I can tell my husband he has to take the kids home. I open my eyes. The hostal floor is empty. I still hear muffled talking, but I foremost do smell something. Apparently someone was smoking and the fire alarm went off. I f*cking slept through a fire alarm.
