If a man's brain were in his feet, wouldn't it be susceptible to frostbite?

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I just wrote a huge blog about Spain, and it got deleted. Bahh. *shakes fist at British internet*

Anywho, I'll try it again.

Barcelona was gorgeous. It was sweatshirt weather. We were right next to the Mediterranean Sea. There were mountains. And the people I went with were very easy going. It was a lovely weekend away from London.

We left our hotel around 2:45 am on Friday morning in order to catch a 75 minute bus ride to our airport. By the time, we got there, we only had 40 minutes to check-in and go through security. Three of the boys out of our group of eight (four boys and four girls) did online check-in and were bragging about not having to stand in line. So, they got to go right through security and up to the waiting area in the terminal. Plus by doing this they saved 4 pounds and received priority boarding. Sounds like a good deal, but online check-in is reserved for those with European passports only. A few people in the program have done it before and had no problems, so they boys followed suit. The rest of us patiently waited in line.

Security is getting to be a piece of cake, as long as you keep all your liquids in one small bag. I was randomly selected to go through a shoe scanner as well. But no fears, I wasn't packing anything in my pink tennies.

We didn't have to wait for long in the terminal. And I got to see my friend Andy, who randomly booked the same exact flight for Barcelona last weekend as I did with a girl from his program. We had found this out only a few days before when we had met up in his area of town. We dutifully went to the back of the line with our regular check-in tickets, while the three boys marched proudly to the front of the line. However, that was as far as they got as the airport people refused to let them through with their non-European passports. We chuckled at their unfortunate situation and grabbed our hostel information from one of the boys in case they weren't allowed to board at all. They weren't.

And so we were off without our head tour guide, which sadden us all, as Dave had planned the trip, what we were going to see, where our hostel was at, and what modes of transportation we needed. The plane ride took nearly 2 hours, and I think all of us slept a little. We flew into Raus, which was over an hour outside of Barcelona, so we had to take a bus into town. I didn't mind since it gave us a chance to see the countryside of Spain. Beautiful! The sand was red, the cosas were Spanish looking, they had funky looking trees....we definitely weren't in London anymore. And they had mountains!! The rest of the group slept some more. *shakes head* They weren't getting a siesta later on!

We managed to find our hostel all right. It was actually a pretty famous one for Barcelona and packed with Americans & other foreigners. It was located in Plaza Real and served us breakfast AND dinner. We were a corner away from a popular street, Las Rambas (?) and 10 or so minutes from the beach. Perfect location. Since we arrived around 1:00 pm, we had the whole day to explore despite our tiredness. Las Rambas had several people lined up down the street dressed as crazy characters for people to take their pictures with. Our first impression of Spanish people was made when we got off the Metro and a man saw our confusion with our map out and pointed us in the right direction. Excellent.

Our first goal was the beach. The water was a little cold & I got my shoes soaked, but ehh, who cares? It was the Sea! We got some Gilatto (basically ice cream but better) and walked along the coast line. Basically, we just walked around all afternoon since we didn't have our tour guide to take us anywhere. We didn't mind though, Barcelona is a pretty enough town with enough to see that you didn't need plans. Upon returning to our hostel, Amy talked me into going to the Picasso Museum. I'm not a huge art fan and as soon as we paid and started looking around, I got really, really tired. I felt like I had narcolepsy as I kept randomly falling asleep standing up while trying to look at his paintings! All day I been fine and the "lets go team!" perky one everyone loves to hate, but I just couldn't handle standing up anymore. Plus, Picasso was an odd dude. It was a cool museum though, built into 5 mansions in what used to be the center of town.

The dinners at the hostel weren't amazing, but they were free so we ate them. My supper that night consisted of potatoes with chopped up hotdog pieces thrown in. Not too bad with ketchup really. Then after some waiting around & taking my contacts out, which my eyes were grateful for, Amy and I slipped into the bar downstairs to watch a Spanish band and flamenco dancer. The dancer's dress was really pretty, and she was neat to watch. Lots of stomping of the feet and waving her dress around. Bed sounded amazing by this time, so off I went, despite the Spanish culture of staying up all night.

Throughout the night, the rest of our group managed to arrive after paying for another plane ticket for later flights. One paid an outrageous amount of money (like over $200...suddenly the 4 pound extra charge to check-in in person looked pretty darn cheap) and the other two's were only a $100ish. I'm not sure why they didn't all fly together, but they all got in rather late. Breakfast at the hostel was really good, with cereal and fruit and a toasted sandwich. Dave then took over his natural role as our leader and took us around town. We first went to the 1992 Summer Olympics site for the track boys to take their picture by. The stadium looked pretty average, but the area around it was really nice. He then led us through a couple of parks and back on the Metro to find Sagrada Familia church, one of Antoni Gaudi's masterpieces. You have to see the place in order to really take in what it looks like. Pictures just don't do it justice.

There were escalators all over town, leading upwards since the town was very hilly. This helped with our next goal, Park Guell, another work of Gaudi's. We hit a couple of parks and did a little shopping. It was nice to just follow someone who knew what they were doing around town and was overall a very relaxing weekend. After the tour, I voted for a siesta (we actually had no problem with communication, as most of the people knew enough English and we knew enough Spanish -- the Spanish actually starts to come back to you once your forced to speak it), but that was disturbed by Amy who wanted to go sit down by the beach. I glared at her and demanded Gilato before getting out of bed. She said that was fine. Brandon joined us, & we had a nice long sit on the sand watching the waves come in.

We had to leave around 6:30 am the next morning, and people were still up partying from the night before as we dragged ourselves through town. The bus we needed was packed, and we were worried there wasn't going to be enough room, but luckily we found seats. There was a huge hoard of people that had to sit in the aisles, but at least he let them on the bus. I wanted to watch the scenery again, but sleep won out.

And it now December 1st! November flew by! I have papers to get done, and my internship is sadly coming to an end. We went to Winchester, England, today as a group and saw where Jane Austin was buried and the actual round table from King Arthur's story in a castle. It was chilly and rainy all day, so sort of a downer, but it was still a cool English town. I was rather miserable as a cold has overtaken my head this week, but I got out my umbrella and got through it. Today, a lot of Christmas festivals start, and Christmas lights will be lit all over town. So it’s going to be a pretty next couple of weeks. On Monday we're going to see King Lear with Ian McKellen in it, best known for his recent roles in "Lord of the Rings" as Gandalf (and I admit, I still haven't watched any of those movies or read the books...yet). Next weekend I'm going to Scotland to see the Lochness Monster with three other girls. I'll take a net along just in case he decides to show up. And then one more weekend after that, and I'll be on my way back home!

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Photos

Plaza Real
The view outside our hostel

Random piece of art
It's got a wire in his nose?

Random Park
You can't see it, but this park had a wholly mammoth.