In the summer of 2010 when final exams were over and the holiday had just started, my friends and I planned a ten-day-trip to Spain, which we were all excited about. A dream was finally fulfilled after having such a wonderful trip; however, we also encountered some terrible and scary phases.

This adventure was the most memorable, for me, and one which we all learned from. I think everyone could learn from our bad experiences to prevent experiencing what we faced during this trip. First of all, I was the one who decided that we should go to Spain in the ?rst place.I had taken a history class about The Kingdom of Spain, and how most of the historical landmarks stand till the present time. After a couple of history classes, I became addicted to learning more about Spain.

Eventually, I convinced my friends to agree on taking this trip and assured them that they would de? nitely love it there as much as I would. It took a lot of time for us to plan our visit there; for example, we had to figure out how long we were going to stay and what exactly we were going to do. After two weeks of planning the whole trip we were all ready to take the next step and were very excited for this adventure.On the 4th of June we arrived in Madrid, it was already after midnight so we could not really do anything at that time.

We called a taxi to take us to the apartment that we rented online, and as soon as we got there we checked-in and fell asleep right away. This trip was only for 10 days so we had to make the best of it and not waste any time. The next day, the first thing I did was ask my friends to go buy some groceries such as, bottles of water, cheese and bread, and some snacks to eat if we ever stayed at the apartment.Later on, we called a taxi that took us to Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, which is one of the biggest and most beautiful soccer ? elds in the world. We spent an hour and a half there.

Then, we went to a club where they provided dinner with a flamingo-dance show. I always wanted to watch that kind of dancing so I was very excited when we decided to go there. The show was only for an hour and the club was not as big or as fancy as other clubs in Madrid. We were supposed to stay in Madrid for 3 days; instead, we only stayed for 2, because there was not much to do around there.Thus, we took the bus to Marbial, where one of my friend’s parents had a small house.

His parents did not agree with him using the house, but he insisted we go there anyway; besides, he had the spare key with him. As soon as we entered the house the timer for the alarm started and my friend was so panicked, because he forgot the password for the alarm. The sound was too loud; it caught the attention of everyone around us. We were so embarrassed, because it looked as if we were robbing the house.But after so many tries my friend remembered the password.

Then, after we settled down and rested for a while we went swimming at a very beautiful beach that was right across from the house. When we got back to the house, after spending hours at the beach, I noticed that the door was left open. I asked my friends if anyone forgot to close the door, but they all shook their heads and said “no”. I stuck my head, quietly, into the house to see if anyone was there; fortunately, I saw no one, but I realized that some of our belongings were missing.

We were all so mad about what happened, but thankfully all our passports and money were still there in the safe box. As days went by, we decided that it was time to move to another city, so we took another bus to Seville. When we finally arrived in Seville, after a very long drive, we checked-in at a hotel and called it a day. We woke up early the next day, because we were very excited to see the cathedral, which was previously a mosque.

Then, after that we went to Alcazar. The word Alcazar is derived from the Arabic language meaning “The Palace”.I always dreamed about seeing this place and there I was, walking between its walls, taking a lot of pictures to show my family later on, and just having a great time there with my friends. Our next and final stop was Barcelona. Fortunately, the bus we took had to make a quick stop at Valencia before going to Barcelona, and I was happy about it for I got to see the famous opera house, which was near the bus stop.

I never went inside I was only interested in the building itself, where the opera show is held. After all, I’m not a fan of the opera anyways. Then the journey continued, and we arrived at Barcelona at 5 in the morning.After checking-in at the hotel we immediately went to Camp Nou, which is the soccer stadium for Barcelona Football Club; in fact, this stadium is one of the largest in the world in terms of capacity. On the next day, we woke up early to catch an early breakfast and go for walk. I was warned not to keep any valuable items in my position and before even going to Barcelona, the bus driver told us to be very careful since they have many thieves there.

We all kept that in mind, but we still wanted to dress up nicely, because we were planning on attending a party, which we were invited to.The location for the party was not that far from the hotel so I told my friends to walk. While walking, we realized that we took a wrong turn so we turned around to go back to where we were before. Then suddenly there was a man standing alone in front of us.

I think he knew we were not Spanish speakers, so he talked in English saying, “I want all you money” and he took out a gun and pointed it to our faces. We all had some money on us; but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for him, and he asked for more by saying “I want watch” and I was the only one wearing a watch, so I gave it to him. I was so terrified.I never felt this way before in my life; being at gun point with nothing to protect myself and with nowhere to go.

After that, he left without doing or saying anything else. I never told my parents about what happened at the apartment. But this time, after facing something like this, I just couldn’t keep it to myself, so I called my father and told him everything that’s happened that night. He reacted by saying that we should all just come back home on the next flight, and so we did. We still had two more days left for the flight, but after all these incidents we couldn’t stay much longer.

Finally, I arrived home. I experienced the most fun I have ever had by traveling with my friends, without my family, for the first time in my life. Also, visiting places that I’ve always dreamed of seeing was wonderful. However, experiencing some of the worst things that could ever happen to someone by being robbed more than once, which was the result for not listening to a warning and not making sure that the apartment door is shut completely.

We all make mistakes in our lives, but what is important is that we learn from them.