The Best Part Was Getting Lost

Our first Airbnb, a forest and the number 10

Somewhere inside an apartment in Barcelona, my life partner and I lay completely still in the bedroom of a woman we had only just met, listening to her have sex with someone in the kitchen.

We both tried not to laugh...failing miserably.

We kept our laughter as soft as we could, stayed inside our room and pretended that absolutely nothing unusual was happening on the other side of the wall. Although we tried to sneak a peek on occasion...

The following morning, nobody mentioned a thing.

Welcome to our first Airbnb experience. 😂

It was September 2011, Airbnb was still a completely new concept to us, and we had booked a bedroom inside the home of a single woman who was somewhere in her forties or fifties. She welcomed us warmly, gave us recommendations and had created a home that felt as wild and free as she appeared to be. Our room even had access to a small, idyllic space tucked between the surrounding buildings, somewhere between a balcony and a private little nook.

The arrangement felt romantic, adventurous and slightly uncomfortable all at once.

By the end of that weekend, we had decided that we still liked the Airbnb concept. We would simply book the entire place to ourselves from then on. 😜

Ten Years Together

Barcelona was our gift to each other for being together for ten years.

We had met outside the swimming pool in my hometown in 2001 and became a couple within days. By 2011, we had made it to 31 and 27, and our first two children were seven and six. We were living in an apartment complex in the Netherlands. My life partner worked hard at a meat processing company, while I spent countless hours studying Aerospace Engineering and dipping my toes into corporate life.

Those first ten years had already carried us through several moves, two children, university life and more trauma healing than a short travel story could ever contain.

For me, reaching ten years together meant a lot. My life partner and I did not grow up with a loving relationship between our parents as an example. Knowing that we had created that love together, and were still choosing one another ten years later, felt amazing.

We saved for the trip, I arranged it all, as I tend to do, and found the cheapest flight we could get from Eindhoven. I think we flew with Ryanair. Our children stayed with their auntie, and we left for a long weekend, from Friday morning until Monday afternoon.

For several days, we could step outside work, university, bills, apartment life and the daily rhythm of parenting. We missed the children a little, of course. 😜 Yet having those days as just the two of us felt wonderful.

We arrived in warmth.

The heat, the language and the palm trees immediately told us we had left the Netherlands behind. We took a bus from the airport, searched for the home of a stranger during our first Airbnb adventure, dropped off our bags and went out to walk.

Our first destination was La Rambla.

Wandering Instead of Sightseeing

La Rambla was crowded. Street performers, human statues, artists and market stalls competed for space and attention, while people moved past us in every direction.

That busy street became one of the places we kept returning to throughout the weekend. On one of those visits we suddenly found ourselves watching a parade filled with enormous figures. Kings, queens, historical characters, animals and creatures moved through the street, surrounded by dancing, drums, music and a joyful kind of chaos.

We had no clue what we were watching.

It appeared to be a yearly local tradition, and we happened to walk straight into it. On another evening, light moved across the front of a large building as a crowd watched. I had completely forgotten that light show until my life partner mentioned it fifteen years later.

We did not visit the Sagrada Família, Park Güell, Casa Batlló, the Gothic Quarter, Camp Nou or most of the places found on a standard Barcelona list. We have never been travelers who need to work through famous attractions one by one.

We wandered through the streets. We walked, used the metro, found the harbor near the end of La Rambla, ate, danced and allowed the city to appear around us.

One night, we went out and had far too many shots. That same night ended with our host's unforgettable kitchen performance, which may explain why neither of us managed to remain completely serious behind that bedroom door.

The tapas also earned a place in my life partner's memory. We found a great spot where each tapa was priced separately and served on a skewer. They were delicious, but also expensive enough to become the first thing that came to his mind when I recently asked what he remembered about Barcelona.

The experience we continued talking about for years, however, began when an ordinary path led us into the woods.

Following the Tower

I cannot remember where we were trying to go, all I got is a picture of the park it all started, Parc de Vallvidrera.

We did not enter the forest with a hiking plan, packed lunches, water bottles or useful footwear. The path simply took us there. At first we kept walking, expecting it to lead somewhere obvious. Instead, it became steep, rocky, muddy and overgrown, sometimes all at once.

I wore ballerinas...my other half slides...

Eventually, the direction stopped making sense. The paths split, the trees hid our surroundings, and we had no clear idea which way would take us back toward the city.

We were lost.

We were also not particularly worried.

Above the trees, we could see a telecom tower. My partner in crime looked at it and gave us a new plan: walk toward the tower.

And so we did.

For hours, we followed Torre de Collserola as it slowly grew larger between the trees. We encountered almost nobody. We had no food and 500 ml of water, and we stopped to rest many times. Our feet hurt. Our shoes belonged on city streets. Still, the weather was pleasant, the forest was beautiful and the whole thing felt like an adventure we had discovered by accident.

Whenever we lost sight of our route, we looked for the tower again.

Eventually, we reached it.

We had made it back to civilization, or at least to something that looked enough like civilization for us to celebrate. Then we discovered that visitors could travel up the tower in a glass elevator to a viewpoint overlooking Barcelona.

I loved it.

My life partner did not share my enthusiasm for the transparent floor beneath our feet. He is not a fan of heights, and an elevator that allowed him to look straight down was hardly his idea of comfort. Yet the view from the top was beautiful. Barcelona opened beneath us, stretching from the city toward the sea, while the forest we had just crossed spread out around the hills.

From the tower, we saw the statue of Jesus above the Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor de Jesús on Tibidabo. That became our next landmark and, more importantly, our way home.

The route from the tower to the temple was easy to follow. We walked toward Jesus, entered the church and went up toward the statue, where another wide view over Barcelona waited for us. From Tibidabo, we could finally make our way back using public transport.

Before we did, we found a local restaurant and ordered paella.

No food could have arrived at a better moment.

After hours in the woods with only 500 ml of water, the paella tasted like a reward for following the tower all the way out. We sat there with sore feet, ridiculous shoes and the deeply satisfying feeling that accompanies three simple words:

We made it.

The Number 10

Somewhere during our Barcelona weekend, we met a street artist on La Rambla.

My life partner and I were both wearing the silver bracelets we had owned since our first year together. They already carried words that belong to us, and we asked the artist to add one more detail.

The number 10.

We watched as the artist punched it by hand into both bracelets, marking the ten years that had carried us from the swimming pool in my hometown to a crowded street in Barcelona.

The trip itself was our anniversary gift. The number became the part we carried home.

We still have those bracelets in 2026. We still wear them every day.

The Memory We Brought Home

On Monday, tired and with sore feet, we took a bus back to the airport and flew home. We brought gifts for the children and my sisters and brother, although neither of us can currently remember what it all was.

Seeing the children again felt familiar.

Home.

The first story we told was the one about getting lost.

The kitchen story remained between the adults. 😂

Barcelona did not feel like the beginning of our nomadic life at the time. It was a fun weekend, a celebration and a pause from days that felt very full. When I look at the photographs now, I see how young we were. I also see a woman who felt lost in daily life and was trying to figure out how to change its direction.

For a few days, she stepped outside that life.

She walked through a warm city beside the person she had already loved for ten years. She danced, ate expensive tapas, laughed quietly in a stranger's bedroom, wandered into a forest in ballerinas and kept moving toward the only landmark she could see.

In 2026, my life partner and I have been together for roughly twenty-five years. Our family and our life now look nothing like anything we could have imagined during that weekend. Yet the way we traveled through Barcelona feels familiar.

We do not plan too much. When the route disappears, we look at what we can see. Then we turn the situation into something we can work with.

Would I deliberately repeat that forest walk from Torre de Collserola to Tibidabo?

Absolutely not. Hahahhaha

Would I hand our younger selves two bottles of water and a bit of food and let them continue?

Yes.

Keep being spontaneous.

The best part was getting lost.