You’d have thought that I am having a good time. Like all other holidays, something would mar the experience.
After two hurried and stressful tour group experiences, I didn’t want to take my mother on a tour group holiday again.
However, with my mother’s old age, I didn’t want to shoulder the responsibility of caring for my mother in a foreign land all alone so I asked my youngest sister to come with me, explaining how awful it would be to be targeted by pickpockets and crooks due to our aged-mother-and-lone-scrawny-Asian-woman status.
After some consideration, she agreed to do it. I asked if her husband would give her money to go on the tour. She didn’t say much but since she agreed, I thought everything would work out.
What I didn’t expect was that she was expecting me to pay for her share as well.
There were signs as we were preparing for the trip. I told her it would be better if she paid with her card so that I could pay her back in cash. She agreed. However, she would wait for me to book just about everything.
Sign 2: She would not be involved in the planning. Whenever I asked her to plan with me, she would find excuses to leave or not turn up knowing I had set aside time to plan. She kept saying she’s ok with everything.
Today, I felt that I should be very clear about it. I showed her the tabulated sums of money that were her share to bear.
After that, things changed.
She would be unhappy over trivial things.
Then towards the end of the day, she exploded, “Do you know you are very inconsiderate? I have to come for a trip that I have to fork out money for. I have to put up with your nonsense. Do you know how much I have been tolerating?”
Imagine how incredulous I felt. For this whole trip, the one planning and stressing out is me. After planning, you refuse to follow my plan and cancel what I have planned. Aren’t you the inconsiderate one? Shouldn’t I be the one who should feel indignant?”
I reminded her before the trip, I did ask her if her husband would be paying for her. She rolled her eyes. Then she said she wouldn’t mind spending two weeks in Spain but just going to Sagrada Familia!
I told her this is not Phuket or Bali where you just rest and relax. You have come so far and you say you just want to take things easy. I said, “Why didn’t you mention that when I discussed with you?”
She said she did tell me she wanted to start every day late, waking up at 10am or 11am and there’s no need to go to so many places
but I insisted that these things have to be done early and all those places have to be visited.
I said all these are points of interest. How can you go to a place without visiting its place of interest? Then you go there for what?
She continued to explode at me, accusing me of sleeping for at least 8 hours on the plane for the first leg - when the first leg was a 7-hour flight. I said I haven’t slept for 8 hours for a long time. I worked 15 hours a day. How do I get 8 hours of sleep?
She said,”Ha! Ha! Ha!” sarcastically and made contradictory statements, that I was disturbing her sleep by moving my arms constantly.
Well, the one who sleeps for 10 hours every day is not me.
Then she complained that I go to too many places. I said I wanted to hit 3 Casas (Casa Vicen, Casa Mila and Casa Balto), but since she wanted just one, we did one today. She started rambling over other places.
She said she wanted to return to the hotel to sleep from 2.30pm but I forced her to go out at 3.30pm. I said,” I was prepared that you didn’t want to go out. I even had my selfie stick with me.” She again gave a sarcastic smirk.
She said she didn’t want to come, but I kept saying I was scared scared scared, that’s why she came. But she didn’t want to go to any of these places.
Of course I know she’s a housewife and doesn’t have an income. If I had a better person to ask, would I have resorted to asking her?
This is a side of my sister I had never known.
When she refused to plan for the itinerary, I told my third sister that I was worried that she would complain about the planning later. My third sister even assured me that she was a very relaxed person and would go with what I had planned. Now my third sister would say that even a relaxed person like my youngest sister couldn’t stand me.
I am always at fault in the family. Always the faulty one.
It’s only our first day of our 14-day trip. Imagine how awful the situation is.
I went to Casa Balto at 9.30pm when it started to turn dark to take some light-up pictures of the building. Really pretty.
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