Blogs from La Rambla, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, Europe - page 7

May 31st, we were experiencing major culture shock traveling to four very different countries within the day. We left Tanzania at 2:15am. 5 hours later we were flying over one of the wonders of the world, the Egyptian Pyramids, arriving in Cairo, Egypt. From the air, Cairo looks like it was built on another planet. The expansive dessert city with buildings set in carved out sand plots was like an ant colony. The airport was busy with groups of men in cloaks and women in headscarves with some in head to tow black cloaks only revealing their eyes through tiny slits. I noticed that interestingly many of the women did have colorful shoes. People were sitting in groups on beautiful prayer rugs on the airport floor. They had us check in again in Egypt where ... read more

Today was supposedly the international day of free museums- so we took the day off school and headed to the fc Barcelona museum- apparently they dont agree with this and wanted 18euro to go in just to see camp nou! Hopefully we will get tickets for a game and see it this way instead, 18 euro to see a empty stadium? We then headed to montjuic and found out that poble espanol does not count as a museum either but decided to head in anyways. Poble espanol is an artificial town with houses and monumnets from all over spain- supposedly a must see! But was very touristy and I felt that the buildings just on the streets of Barcelona were a lot better than here! Very disappointed! But I can see that if you hadn’t seen ... read more

well i have been slacking on these posts due to lack of internet connection. however, spain has been surprisingly wonderful. with copious amounts of sangria and tapas... life is good. don't mind my grammar...as i am well into my third glass of sangria as we speak. when we arrived in madrid we stayed with our lovely couch-surfing hosts martin and izzy. they are a young married couple from georgia and north carolina who have been here a few years teaching english. they completely exceeded my expectations by taking us to bars....showing us all of the tourist attractions and cooking us dinner. they are lovely people and right now they are planning their own back packing trip through eastern europe. so i wish them luck! spain is lovely. the women and men are absolutely beautiful. but seriously....if ... read more

After a wonderful not at all too early flight from London to Hamburg (we had to wake up at 4am) Ally and I landed in Germany with only my limited knowledge of German which really meant we could request some medicine for ah....digestive concerns and buy a pregnancy test. (lets just say they were the easiest phrases to pronounce on my 'Learn German' ipod thing) And yet with our amazing talent and wit we managed to get out of the airport, board TWO different trains and arrive at Charlotte's house alive and well, pregnancy tests in hand. For the most part it was fairly normal, we went to both Charlotte's and Hanna's school for half a day each, met some very nice Germans, went shopping in Hamburg, tried currywurst, ate gummy bears and saw the very ... read more

BarceLOCA - that was not a misprint. Barca was, at first, a little daunting. It is a huge city (so big that the street I was staying on wasn´t named on any of the bloody maps) with a constant and bustling night life, so arriving in the late evening was perhaps not my best idea. In the end I got to the Albareda hostel, and it was really cool. Within minutes of arrival, I had struck up with a Belgian guy and his Greek friend (Julien and Gina). An Aussie joined up (Jordan Manson), and finally a French Canadian from Montreal (Pierre-Luc). There was also a really friendly Galician girl, Susana, though she acted with far more decorum than the rest of us as she was working. As a consequence of meeting these people, I may ... read more