Carles & Jamie’s Love Story: Jamie’s version
It all started when me and one of my best friend’s from college, Katie decided to go on our first Euro trip over Christmas break 2012. I was already living in Spain at that point so Barcelona was a perfect start and stopping point for us to plan our trip. We finally narrowed it down to Amsterdam, London, Paris, Bologna, Florence, Rome and then back to Barcelona just in time (literally landed at 10pm) to ring in the New Year. The second stop on our trip was London and because one of my friends from Barcelona is from England, she graciously invited Katie and I to stay a few nights with her at her sisters house. On the last night there, my friend, Lucy had to take a train back to her hometown as it was December 23rd which left us the option to head to a hostel. We looked around, compared prices (nothing like a backpackers budget) and realized the pound wasn’t our best friend as the cheapest hostel we could find was around $30 per night for a bunk bed. Upon entering the hostel and seeing (and smelling…think: locker room) where we we would be sleeping (in a huge room that sleeps about 30 people with 3 beds stacked onto of each other and a “privacy curtain”) I instantly regretted our decision. However about an hour later when we were sitting on our beds trying to figure out our next plan of attack to see London, a very attractive Spanish guy popped his head around the corner and asked us in his very broken English if we knew where the lockers were to keep our belongings in. We spent the next 24 hours together running around London with our new friend from Barcelona, Carles. As Katie and I had already made plans to leave the next day to head to Paris, we said goodbye to our friend and little did we know he would actually change his plans and meet us in Italy 4 days later! As we were landing in the airport in Bologna trying to find wifi to text our new amigo Carles who was supposed to be meeting us there, I remember Katie looking at me and saying “are you sure about this?” We were very sure alright, as the next 4 days were spent exploring Bologna, Florence and Rome with Carles and then 2 other friends, Kristin and Will, we had met up with who were Katie’s friends from the states. Carles fit in perfectly with us even without speaking very good English. It was one of those friendships that just clicked right away. After getting back to Barcelona and Katie leaving, it was back to normal every day routines. Luckily Carles and I kept in touch and actually hung out *just as friends* several times. We would do language exchanges (I teach him English for an hour and him teach me Spanish the next), go out to dinner or a club, and even drive up 2 hours up into the mountains to go skiing. Carles claims he was trying to win me over but I was sure he was an amazing new best friend that I just liked to hang out with. It wasn’t until me, Carles, my friend Lucy, and her friend Adele all moved into a 4 bedroom flat in the neighborhood right by the beach when finally Carles and I decided we were becoming more than friends. We spent many weekends away exploring the Catalan countryside, Southern Spain, and then in August took another little Eurotrip with my best friend Kristen and her boyfriend Jake. We met traveling, spent most of our days in Barcelona traveling, and now travel whenever we can. I couldn’t imagine my life without my best friend, my “sweetie”, Spanish teacher, travel partner, personal trainer and (my favorite title yet) husband.
Carles’ version
I think we all agree that from when we are very young we all hear about some amazing love stories and we all wonder how ours will be. Honestly I had never thought or dreamt about it, however I ended up living one of the most unexpected and amazing ones. Let me explain how it happened…Christmas 2012. I decided that I did not want to spend my Christmas holidays in Barcelona so I booked a flight to go London for 5 nights. Since I was backpacking by myself I did not care about where I was staying, all I wanted it was to have fun and meet new people. Therefore I booked a bed in a room with 30 more people. I thought that would be the best way to meet people, since we were sleeping all together in the same room. When I walked in the hostel I could smell right away that terrible smell that sometimes I feel I still remember when Jamie and I talk about it. I walked into the room. I saw a few randoms and weirdos which I expected to happened. I was trying to find a bed at the end of the room far from the door. I got by the last bunk bed and totally unexpected I looked at a cute blue eye blonde hair skinny girl. I smiled at her. She smiled back and I froze and turned around. I walked towards the beginning of the room, I took a deep breath and I told myself: you have to man up and say something good. Turned around, walked towards her again and trust me I really tried to put my English together and say something cool and grammatically correct but I ended up asking if they knew where the lockers were. The stupidest question ever to ask mixed with the worst English ever. It worked though. She smiled and talked to me. El resto es historia…
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