Hola Amigos!

During my 10 day travel in Spain I found myself frequently making mental notes of things I could blog about for when I returned. Now that I'm back, all I can think about is how my traveling partner, Harder, and I made it through 10 WHOLE DAYS without any problems -- no fights, no bickering, none of that passive aggressive sh!t that us girls sometimes can't help. Sometimes I feel like I'm a person who has a low tolerance for annoying people.. and not once was I annoyed by Harder's company. Not once! Overall, I have come back from Spain with new appreciation for the Harder-types... the perfect traveling companion.

It's not everyday you come across the perfect traveling partner so you must look carefully. I better stress that a traveling partner should be chosen with EXTREME CAUTION. Remember, you will be spending your every waking moment with this person. He or she will be the last person you talk to before bed, the first person you see when you wake up, the person who sits by you on that long plane ride, the person who you have all your meals with, the person you sightsee with, the person who shares her spare undies incase you run out…etc. My traveling experiences thus far have allowed me to compile a list of qualities that qualifies someone as a perfect traveling companion. Before I start, I should mention one very important point: if you have any doubts about your partner before the travels over any small annoying qualities he or she might possess, DO NOT overlook this. I can assure you that these annoyances will only get progressively worse with the more time you spend together and you will find yourself regretting the moment you stepped on the plane. So, onto the list…

SAWNSAWN’S CRITERIA FOR THE PERFECT TRAVELING COMPANION:

The perfect traveling companion MUST BE:

Funny. Harder was very good at making me laugh, and I’d like to believe that I gave her a good chuckle once or twice.

Able to tough it out for the late nights. Jet lag’s a b!tch but you’ve got to push through it to make the most of your time.

Able to walk in silence. Talking is great and all, but sometimes you just need a little silence – having silence without awkwardness is important. Being with someone 24 hours of the day is hard, you start to miss being alone. So these moments of walking without talking sort of let you reflect by yourself.

Good with directions. This is where I would lack as a traveling companion. Harder was damn good with the directions and a wiz at the subway maps. Without her I would have spent the entire time in Spain trying to find my way back to the hotel. I think I have anterograde amnesia when it comes to directions.

Able to afford unforeseen expenses. This receipt shows a Fanta that I paid 6.5 EUROS for which comes out to about $10 CDN. I have to admit, it was painful to know that I had just spent as much on a 200 mL Fanta that I could have spent on 5 gelatos. But I did it, and I made it into a learning experience … I ate a lot of baguettes for the next few meals to make up for that one.

Able to rough it. We decided to take the overnight train from Barcelona to Seville so that we could save on a hostel. That night was rough… there was no sleep for sawnsawn.

Able to take cool photos. I was impressed with a lot of the photos that Harder took. I’m the type of person who likes candid photos moreso than the posed ones… and I think she did a pretty good job with this.

Have your back. See those men in the back? They were making some pretty rude remarks and hand gestures to me and the next thing I know, a stone-cold faced Harder turns around, and flips them right off! It really warmed my heart to know that she had my back.

Have similar levels of stimulation threshold. Sometimes there’s no itinerary. You have to go out and find ways to entertain yourself after you’ve already seen everything – sometimes this means sitting out on some steps in Barcelona and chit chatting for two hours, or maybe to a shisha lounge to chat and smoke some arguilla for a while. Either way, it helps when both have similar stimulation thresholds. Ideally, and luckily for us, our threshold levels are low… extremely low haha.

Open to culture. This is an obvious one. Your prospective traveling companion should immediately be disqualified if he or she does not possess this quality. From this trip, all I’ve got to say is: snails, bull tail, and chocolate con churros.

Able to find new things to talk about when your conversation topics get old. You run out of things to talk about. So what? Harder and I made the best of things. We played games like “Pick-out-who-you-could-pick-pocket”, or “Pick-out-who-you-could-take-on” while watching passerbyers. I really enjoyed those games.

Able to tolerate crappy events without getting in a hissy fit. Sometimes you get a crappy hostel, or you lose things, or you break your sandals, you get lice, but in the words of Jo Lee you just can’t lose your sh!t. Luckily for us, the worse we ever encountered was this dried pork sandwich in Cordoba. But I can imagine that we’d be able to handle far worse without losing our sh!t. The exception would ofcourse be losing your passport… yeah I’d probably lose my sh!t then.

Able to visit the dessert stands as often as you do. Spain had some of the best gelato and churros I’ve ever had. Having someone eat with you helps you feel less like a glutton.

Patient. There was just one time that Harder didn’t get gelato with me, and it was right before we wanted to hit up a bar. She stood outside with me the entire time it took to finish eating my chocolate mint chip gelato before we headed in… I felt bad because a lot of people were staring at us but I really hate to be rushed when I eat.

Kind. The ultimate traveling companion will rub your back or talk you to sleep if you’re feeling sad.

Able to come to terms with looking stupid sometimes. You get bored of posing all the time.. so you entertain yourselves with trying to capture scissor and roundhouse kicks on camera. Unfortunately for me, this entailed showing my bum to all of Spain – note to self, don’t do a roundhouse while wearing a skirt.

Speak the language. This is not critical, but it is definitely a good asset. I do not speak a lick of Spanish, but Harder does! And it made things a whole lot easier with Macarena, our wonderful host in Seville who spoke no English.

Able to share a pillow. Macarena only had that one pillow for us… it was hard for the first couple of nights, but only b/c I have high standards for sleeping etiquette. Harder was good at sharing though.

Able to know when it's time to get down to business. Harder was good at making sure we stayed on top of things like planning how to get to and from the hostels and such. The gameface she has for tackling this hamburger is similar to the one she uses for tackling the practicalities.

So I think I’ve got around 18 points there, if I’ve missed any leave me a comment and I’ll add it in. This list should always be up for revision. I’d say that if you find someone that meets at least 14 of these qualities you’ve got yourself a winner. Luckily for me, I scored all 18.

Thanks Har!