Spent Friday night in Gatwick... tried to sleep, was very much unsuccessful in my endeavour. First it took me forever to find two seats together. Once I finally got all comfortable rearranging my bags and getting a make-shift bed going, have my ear plugs in, eye mask on, am totally comfortable... and this lady comes over, starts poking my shoulder and asks to sit. Now, airport sleeping etiquette: you do not ask someone who is clearly either asleep or almost asleep to move their bags. There are other seats. It’s a damn airport. Also, you, under no circumstances, POKE SOMEONE WHO MAY BE ASLEEP. Seriously. I told her I was trying to sleep, to which she snarkily replied: “I think that’s what most people are trying to do.” Whatever. You want to break the code, you ... read more

Hiya. So, you guessed it, more wandering today! But first I had to get work stuff in order! Met with the agency today to go over final paperwork and contract stuff - oh this is real, this is exciting!!! (Sidenote: I will be doing a different blog for my teaching adventures. Details to follow by email once I get organized.) Since I was around Clampton, I roamed the little shops - found a cute stationary store so scored some goodies for penpal buddies :) I can't wait to start writing letters back home - I love me a good letter. Again, had a picnic for lunch - God I love the green space in this city. I actually went to St. Paul's Cathedral and ate in the garden area. I even managed to beat the lunch ... read more

(Recap back for the 27th. I'm just slow) Ok, I’m starting to get bad at updating now... tends to happen towards the end of my trips haha. We went on one of the free tours today – different company this time since our usual doesn’t run here. (Runner Beans today! It was good!) We started in Plaça Reial and heard about the pipe smoking championships and all the pipe smoking that goes on in one of the pipe smoking bars. How quaint. From there we headed off into the Gothic Quarter (great architecture), but we kind of weaved in and out of areas. We also did the Jewish Quarter (neat seeing the Hebrew inscriptions on some of the old stones). Other than that, it was really the main tourist area/the old town that we walked around. ... read more

Considering it’s my birthday, not much happening today... we took the bus all day from Madrid to Barcelona – an 8 hour bus ride. At least we had air-conditioning on this one. Spain’s interesting to drive through – a lot of giant bull outlines/placards along the highway, and a lot of varying landscapes – great big fields followed by deep valleys and tons of sandy brown... parts kind of look like driving through Nevada...? There was one point it looked like the wind turbines had just invaded – there was honestly over 100 in a small area... I have never seen that many in one spot. It was kind of mesmerizing/horrifying haha. Our hostel in Barcelona is a little... odd? Thankfully we got there the same time as two guys who were picking up their luggage ... read more

Not going to lie, I've been very lazy the past two days so this entry is not going to be that exciting because I don't have the desire to write properly haha. Succint and to the point for now. Yesterday, we started the day off by going to the big Sunday market – and by big, I mean big... it takes over an entire neighbourhood down near Calle Toledo... it’s crazy!! They really did have everything though, so it was fun to look around and people watch. Funny thing is one of the busiest stalls was one selling rubber tubing. We totally did not understand. Just rubber... hm. Anyway, after looking at a bunch of jewellery, clothes, bags, electronics, books, etc we headed down towards Madrid Rio – a big park they created in the middle ... read more