Viva en Barcelona!

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I need preface this blog by saying that either Europe, or maybe just hostels and public places in Europe are horrible for getting internet. This has lead me to not be able to post blogs very frequently. During my last 2 weeks in London, nothing too exciting happened, I was just finishing schoolwork. But this past week I have been in Barcelona and Rome! I was in Barcelona for about 3-4 days and Rome 3 days. Tomorrow I am off to Orvieo, Italy which is about an hour train ride northeast of Rome sort of near Tuscany. After that I will go to Naples (the city that invented pizza and ice cream) and Capri (an Island off of Italy), and Pompei's ruins. Then London quick to catch my flight home!

I wrote this blog a few days ago (when I had no internet) and saved it to my computer, so I thought instead of wasting my precious internet time (and precious sleeping time from walking all over Rome for 3 days... I'm exhausted!), I'd just post this. Sorry, no pictures for now, I will put them on when I have more time to sort through them. Keep checking though, they will come! Maybe around the time I go back to London or come home (April 17th and 18th).... anyway, here it is...

It’s official. I’ve set foot in the Mediterranean. And it was FREEZING! I think Barcelona is colder than London. Our beach vacation might not be what we thought it would be.

We left sunny London this morning and arrived in cloudy, cold and windy Barcelona. Somehow with the little bit of Spanish we knew, we made it to our hostel, although the trip there was quite an adventure. We made it from the airport to the train and then from the train to the metro. On the metro, waiting for a mysterious train that wasn’t showing up and the word “incidente” on the screen, we met a couple from Omaha! It’s so crazy that halfway across the world you meet people who live blocks from you. They were visiting their daughter who went to college in Boston and was studying here. Then Kati’s wallet about got stolen from a pick-pocketer behind us. Fortunately we caught him and he gave it back.. there was nowhere for him to run on the train, but it’s probably good it happened there because now we’ll all be extra cautious. There was a lot of commotion and people slapping the guys and yelling at them. Scary!

All we wanted once we ditched our luggage was food, so we found a place to go eat Spanish tapas and paella and drink sangria.. it was really good, although it was ironically a lot like most sangria I’ve had and similar to rice-a-roni… Paella, the Barcelona treat. The tapas we had were chicken croquettes and hot potatoes. Chicken croquettes are like if you can imagine chicken nuggets but the chicken is the consistency of mashed potatoes, but it still tastes like chicken. The hot potatoes were diced up potatoes with some sort of mayo-ketchup-like sauce. The meal was good, but the ½ liter of sangria was the best! Oh, we also got some type of Spanish crème brule (sp?) type thing for desert, and then proceeded to eat gelato after that. My friend Brittany told me that when she went to Europe, they had ice cream every day, if not twice a day and I had to do the same. I’m just following a good friend’s orders really.. no need to ask why I had two deserts.

After an early dinner, Kati went back to the hostel and Adam and I were determined to see the beach. It’s kind of a long walk, but doable. The waves were really intense and there were actually people in wetsuits surfing! Brrrr! I decided that if I made it all that way, I was going to set foot in it. I was also curious to see how cold it was. Turns out, cold! One wave just trickled over my feet and when I wasn’t looking the next one came up and got my rolled up jeans.. oops. Anyway, we sat there and watched the waves for a little while and played fetch with a random dog who kept bringing this rock to us to throw for him and telling him things like, “Hola perro!” “Donde? Donde esta?” Then it began to rain and we went back.
Hopefully the rest of my Barcelona beach vacation warms up!

I am staying here until the 11th, then going to Rome until the 14th, then to a town called Orvieto which is a bit northwest of Rome, then on the 15th to Naples, Pompei, Vesuvius and Capri which are all very near each other. Hopefully there are no more earthquakes!

As for my last few weeks in London, not a ton of interesting things happened as I was finishing up my school assignments. We did take a night off to see a play. It was called 3 Days of Rain and it has the actor James McAvoy in it which was exciting because we had all seen movies he’s been in. The venue was fairly small too so it was a lot more personal. It was VERY good!

My last few activities in London after school ended were going to Camden Town Market (very cool.. I could not stop buying things!), Regent’s Park (in my opinion, London’s most beautiful park), and one last concert by one of our favorite London musicians.
I will try my hardest to keep updating soon. It’s easier to find time to write now since I am done with school, but now I have to struggle with whether or not hostels have internet. I’ll be travelling this whole time until sometime around April 17th or 18th and then I will return home and not have to carry all of my belongings with me all the time! It will be nice!

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