Barcelona... the city of tents

Hola from Barcelona! Wow Barcelona... um what a great place. I'm on the bus coming home from Barcelona, so let me recap our adventure.

We got to Barcelona around 10pm, which wasn't bad, and the city was just coming alive. We had some problems finding the metro station, but thankfully Jessica can ask people in Spanish and we were good. I wrote down the directions from the bus and train stations to the hostel who hoped to stay at, and thankfully I wrote them down from both, because we didn't take the train like planned. We took the bus. It was cheaper, and wait there was room. So a 5 hour bus right it was... woohoo.

The metro ride was sooo funny. First we bought the wrong tickets, but Jessica (our savior) figured it out, the woman who helped us was talking a mile a minute in Spanish... it was so scary. We get on the metro, and the first part of the journey is fine, but we had to switch trains. We get to the platform of the second train, and it's there, and the last of the big group of people are getting on, so I figure it's going to leave really soon. I jumped in the last door, and as soon as I did, the doors closed. I looked around and found Jessica but no one else. There still on the platform giving Jessica and I the saddest looks are Amaya, Kathleen and Cassie. HAHAHA! It was so funny, Jessica and I nearly died laughing! The next stop was ours, so we got off and waited for the next train. Jessica and I talked, I said I give her credit for going to a country where English is not the main language, and she admitted that yeah it was difficult, and she has experienced the little cycle of moods that the Study Abroad Offices warn you about. Here in England, I haven't experienced any of that- it's like, first you like it, then you are homesick, and then you get use to it... whatever, I'm in heaven. I was homesick when I was in Spain... FOR ENGLAND! Well London mostly. But I give her and Mary all the credit in the world, there is a reason why I am in England... I don't do languages. So the girls were on the next train, and we had a few good laughs at their expense... and of course they took pictures of them missing the train... HAHA!

So we found our hostel, but not before having some boys full out check out my flat mates and say, "Welcome to Barcelona" and then me staring down another guy who did a foot to head check out of Kathleen! Oh wow. I was in the back, giving people the evil eye, because the Spanish do not hold back, but if you catch them doing it, they will stop. So this guy was standing on the corner of the street, and full out checked out Kathleen, and one eye looked at me, and I was glaring, I had on my, "Don't mess with me" face, and his eyes dropped to the ground. Oh yeah! Point to me! Every time we walk somewhere in Spain, I always walk in the back and protect the flat mates, of course they didn't know my reasoning until I told them that story, but as always I am the protector.

The hostel we had planned to stay at was full, but they told us to go next door at the other hostel and we got a room there. It's weird, these hostels are not clearly marked, but what matters if we found it. We got a room to ourselves because there was 5 of us, and I claimed one of the top bunks as soon as we entered. Cassie took the bed underneath mine, Jessica and Amaya took the other bunk bed, and Kathleen took the single bed. We didn't stay in the hostel long though, the night was young, and we went exploring Barcelona!

The next morning, we got up around 10:30amish, and um had to hurry to be out by 11am. We hit the market for breakfast, but right next to the market, was oh yes a DUNKIN DONUTS! OHHHHHH! I have been craving Dunkies since I got to England, and oh wow! I of course had to get a Chocolate Frosted donut... it was calling my name! It was so good too, omg. So the market, sooo much food! I got an apple to balance out my breakfast, and the others got fruit too and some bread. The fruit and vegetable section was fine, but wow, we walked through the fish section and that was no good. Squid, fish, octopus... they were staring at me! I could have had my own aquarium with the amount of fish there, I kept my eyes in front of me, and did not look any other way until we got to the meat section, and that was just as bad. I love meat... it's awesome, tastes sooo good, but I don't need to see a whole dead pig staring at me! I almost lost the other girls I was walking so fast through that section too! We got to bread section finally, and I as allowed to relax. Oh wow, it was just not good. I would never be able to work there or anything. Of course then I got in trouble with a lady when I picked up an apple and bought it. You aren't suppose to touch the fruit, but hey with apples, I pick the apple I will be buying, I don't a yucky one.

So we ate our food, well they ate, I had my apple as we were walking to find a place to sit and eat. While they ate, I went into the Kodak store because I had left my newly charged batteries at Jessica's place. Argh so annoying. In the Kodak store... I was by myself, and I bought batteries. They were behind the counter, and when it was my turn, I did the whole, "Hola" thing, and then pointed at the batteries and said, "Un batteries?" Just praying that I was close. She understood, and went over to them pointing at the AA batteries. I nodded and said, "Oui." OUI? AH! Of course I corrected myself right away with, "Si! Si!" But omg, how horrible can I get? I'm in Spain and my French comes out! I felt like an idiot. Anyway I got my batteries and left.

Barcelona is a cool place, they have the people dressed up on the streets like London does, but these people are creepy! There was a vampire, and I found a female Ent! That was cool! There were a lot of musicians on the streets, and two women were playing Schnindler's List. Great, I only had that in my head all day long, but they did it well.

It's really hard to map out where we went... because I have no idea. We started out at some fountain, and walked. We went down many little alleyways, Barcelona is made up of these little streets, they are cute. In the day time of course, at night... well no thanks. It's funny walking down the street and seeing all these stores, they are all Spanish and then a Foot Locker. Foot Locker is in English, same logo and everything. It's just so funny. We went into a few churches, which of course were beautiful. Amaya and Kathleen also got robbed in front of one church. There were flower sellers in front of this one church and they put a flower into the shirts of Amaya and Kathleen, and one tried to do that to me, but I tilted my sun glasses and raised an eyebrow and nope, she went back to Amaya and Kathleen. The thing is they give you a flower, and then you have to pay for it if you want it. Amaya and Kathleen were struggling to figure all of this out, and were getting money out of their purses, when I decided it was time to go in. I told them to give back the flowers, they don't need them, and I walked into the church. At the door of the church is a sign to avoid the flower sellers... oh wow. I guess as people admire the flower, or something they rob you.. I don't get it, but I'm sure they work as a team.

The Churches though, just unbelievable. Just as pretty as in Valencia. When we were at the second Church I believe, a priest came out and started saying something in Spanish. We sat down to listen, I have a feeling it was the Hail Mary... I heard Mary's name a lot in Spanish.

Of course we found the one thing that could make my day in any city... the original Roman wall. Oh it was beautiful. We came upon this wall, and I just looked at it and thought, "Wow old. I wonder how old?" There was a sign that said, "Roman wall." Good signs. There was a lot of this wall compared to the one in England, over the course of the day we found more parts of it, a few times. There is so much of it, just look at my pictures, I took like 11 pictures of a wall.

We also went to the Chocolate Museum and that was awesome. Um it made me soo hungry. Everything there is made out of chocolate, though some of it looks like wax. We spent some time there just thinking, "Man that looks good enough to eat!" The one thing I would never have eaten though was the Finding Nemo statue/display thing. It was all the characters from Finding Nemo, and looked so real. It was awesome! We of course bought chocolate before leaving, and it was really good. We could have bought a bar of chocolate in the way they use to make it, omg I forget what ingredients they use to put in it... I'll find out, but that was a bit too risky for me. I just got a bar of dark chocolate and one of milk chocolate, and I was a happy kid. Cassie got a cup of hot chocolate aka melted chocolate, and it was so rich. When you dip a piece of chocolate into it, it's even better. Omg, it was awesome, we all had a few sips of it.

After that we went to a park, it was huge. We went into the park, and thought wait, it's 2:30pm in Spain, we should probably have some lunch. We went to a nice little place really close to the park, and we all got their special deal of the day. I had a salad, chicken, and ice cream. It was pretty good. The chicken was interesting, it wasn't cut up or anything- it was a chicken. It looked like what we buy in Stop N Shop... a whole chicken. I tore it apart, I was hungry. We were there for awhile, well it's Spain so the service is slow.

The park, our last stop on the day. It was beautiful. One of my favorite things about it was the statue that looked very Romanish... and yeah the guy died a hundred years ago. But it was just the head, and it looked like an emperor... I was amused. We all enjoyed the big mammoth, and of course we played on him. The fountain was unbelievable, so big! I took a video of Kathleen galloping... HAHAH! Amaya kept asking where her coconuts were... hehe, yes we like Monty Python. So then we heard sheep... and Kathleen was like, "I'm coming sheep!" They wanted to play with us... but then we realized they were in the Barcelona Zoo. We didn't go in.

So that was Barcelona, I didn't say a lot about the park though we spent an hour or two there, mostly at the fountain just staring. Look at my pics for the fountain. Barcelona was beautiful, I loved it. We got a bus back, got into Valencia at like midnight, and took a taxi home. It was good though.