When I hear the word Barcelona, I think of the Dylan song “Boots of Spanish Leather,” of vagabonds, restless travelers, letters from home, beaches, colorful tapestries, and sangria. It’s a place I knew of but didn’t expect to see during my year living abroad here in Europe. But as it turns out, I think that those kind of last minute, unexpected adventures tend to be the best kind.

Two weeks ago, one of the American Au Pairs that I met here in France asked if I wanted to take a trip with her and a couple of other Au Pairs in the area. Initially they were planning on going to Copenhagen, but when the flight prices climbed we decided on Spain instead. It’s a hard life, I know.

There was a part of me resisting the trip because of financial reasons, but I couldn’t ignore the gut feeling that this one was a trip I needed to take. I had been spending the past couple of weeks prior feeling restless, and made a conscious decision that I needed to get out and explore more. While there are always logical and smart reasons to resist doing things in life, I think there are also just as many valid reasons to support moments of recklessness, irresponsibly, and beautiful ridiculousness.

We met on Friday night, started drinking wine and went out to a local bar in Annecy since we were all staying at one of the Au Pair’s basement apartments for the night. Immediately I felt at ease, which is sometimes a tricky thing to do when you move alone to a new country and are thrown into new and unknown social situations. We all just clicked. We laughed, we drank, listened to T Swift on repeat, laughed some more, got home at 1:30 AM, ate chicken nuggets, fell asleep and woke up 2 hours later in the same clothes and with the same makeup from the night before. We drove to Geneva at 4:00 AM, landed in Spain by 8 AM, and began our Barcelona adventure on a Saturday morning in November.

We had some plans on where to go, but for the most part we decided to wing it when we got there. As Brandy proclaimed that Friday night…. “I’m not a mapper, I’m a feeler!” In fact, I think this quote pretty much sums up the entire trip.

We saw the incredible Sagrada Familia church in mid-construction, the beach, the magic fountain light show, the Barcelona night life with some semi-locals, and the lovely Gaudi artwork at Park Guell. We got drunk downtown, stumbled out of bars, met people with accents from all over the world who have been exploring it for years, slept in bunk beds, vomited outside of a cab, drove through red lights at high speeds on windy roads, lost a phone, got pick-pocketed, slapped the aforementioned man silly with the infamous Barcelona Backhand, drank wine, ate pasta, took the subway, bought matching back-packs, drank sangria, spent too much money, got lost- and somehow made it out alive. The time passed too quickly, but at the same time it felt like we were there for weeks.

I couldn’t have imagined it any better, with a better group of girls. From now on, when I hear the name Barcelona, I won’t be thinking of Dylan, but instead of a certain amazing lip-syncing video on the subway and the fact that life really doesn’t get any better than spontaneous moments of laughter and craziness with other like-minded people.