Barcelonaaa!

So sorry that I'm not good at updating this blog! It's hard to get to the internet at the end of the day because we're always go-go-go and I end up just passing out, or wasting our one hour of paid internet on emails or something. I'm actually writing this in word right now while in Santorini because we don't have internet here - so I'll save it and post it as soon as we get to an internet spot. But we'll get to Satorini later ;)

Let me tell you a little bit about Barcelona! Like I said in my previous post, we were supposed to wake up early on wednesday to catch a train to barcelona at 8 - remember that first class reservation I told you about that we lost because we over slept. Well...luckily we eventually got to Barcelona. We hurried to the train station and tried to explain in broken Spanish that we had missed our train. We ended up just having to buy another ticket and eventually made it to Barcelona in the afternoon. Our hostel was pretty cool. So far we haven't had a single issue with our hostels (I hope I didn't just jinx myself). Well, the hostel was good, but we're in a mixed dorm and we find out we're sharing with two boys! We were a little creeped out just because, i don't know that's weird, but we didn't have time to worry about it when there is a beach near by! We immediately drop our stuff off and start walking to the beach. We walked down Las Ramblas and along the port and still a little bit more until.........THE BEACH!! We were so excited to just sit and relax and do nothing for a while after a stressful morning. We walked along the beach with our shoes off (and averting our eyes from the masses of naked people - yikes to nude beaches). The weather was beautiful and the water felt amazing on our feet. We decided not to put our bathing suits and get in because we got to Barcelona late and didn't have as much time to just chill on the beach like we originially planned. Nonetheless, we sat on the beach for an hour or two. It was so relaxing! The tide kept getting higher so we kept almost getting wet - but no worries, because it's the mediterranian sea - it can do what it wants. Stephanie laid back and chilled, while I proceeded to dig a big hole. And then a tunnel going to another hole. I was quite proud of myself! I'll try and post some pictures of that if I can - you'll be impressed.

We eventually had to peace out, so I ruined my canal/tunnel so no one could claim it as their own, and we headed back to our hostel to cook some dinner! We realized that we need to start utilizing the kitchen because we're spending too much money on food. So we stopped at a supermarket and picked up some noodles and croquettes, these delicious things we had in madrid. Once we were in the kitchen cooking, this boy, Alex, came and helped us figure out how to use the oven. We got to talking and it turned out that he was one of the boys in our room! Sweet! This made us a little less nervous because he was cool and harmless and he also said that the other guy was cool too - so our stressed there were relieved. We cooked our cheap dinner - it was delicious, ad then headed back to our room to figure out what to do for the night. One of Alex's friends, Jason, stopped in and he was from Texas too! We decided to embrace the fact that we were in Spain and drink some Sangria and then we headed to some bar that Alex and Jason had heard of called The Nevermind Bar. It was pretty sketch - especially the walk there, but we made Jason promise us that he would walk us home. We hung out in there for a while with those two boys and these British people! It was so fun because I got them to do American accents and we tried Brittish ones. I don't know, maybe it was one of those things you had to be there for, but we had a good laugh. We hung out with them for a while and all of us were staying in the same hostel so we headed back and hung out for a bit. Stephanie and I were exhausted and had to take advantage of our one day in Barcelona the next day. Oh, I think I forgot to mention that - we had to cut a day off of Barcelona, because when we were making our train reservations in Madrid we had read the train schedule wrong when making our itinerary and the overnight train from Barcelona to Interlaken only left on certain days. So we had to either cut a day out of Barcelona or add like 3 days to it and cut it out of somewhere else. We were bummed, but the choice was pretty obvious. So now we're actually a day ahead of schedule, but it's cool because I think we're going to add Bruges, Belgium to our list because a few people have told me it's awesome (shout out to Tosha and Aubree). Anywho...we went to bed. P.S. Esteban (the other guy in our room) never did come home, so we never met him.

We woke up the next day and showered because we stank of cigarette smoke thanks to the sketch Nevermind Bar. That's one thing that's really surprised me about people over here - they all smoke! It's pretty ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if lung cancer was like the number one killer over here. Anywho, we checked out of our hostel because we were leaving that night, and we headed over to the Travel Bar to meet up for our free walking tour of Barcelona's Gothic area. I really enjoyed it! We learned a lot of the history behind all of the sights - which of course made it all more interesting. My favorite part was the Christopher Colombus informatio and when we saw Queen Victoria and King Ferdinand's castle (they were the ones who granted Colombus the money to come discover America - or something like that - I learned about it in history class so I semi-remembered what it was all about). We even saw the wood Colombus brought back from the New World. Our tour guide also took us to places you shouldn't ever go, includig Geroge Orwell Plaza, A.K.A Trippy Plaza because that's where all the drug deals go down. She also said that at night in that area you have like an 85% chance of being robbed - but don't worry mom, I was with like 15 other people and it was only like 12 in the afternoon - I didn't go back at night. Overall, the tour was a great idea and a great way to see a lot of Barcelona in the little time that we had.

Afterwards, Stephanie and I headed to one of the tapas places our tour guide reccomended and got some delicious tapas (which got their name from - in the older days it used to be a law that bartenders serve food with people's drinks and then they started becoming customary. And the people, in order to keep bugs from going into their drinks, would put their little plates of food on top of their drinks and the Spanish verd for to cover is tapar - hence, tapas. We learned that on the tour too, if you couldn't tell). Our food and Sangria was delicious - we decided to indulge since it was our last day in Spain.

After lunch, we hopped on the metro (I'm starting to hate metros - it was cool for like a day), and headed to La Sagrada Familia. It's this huge church that has been being built since like the 1890s. Ghadi devoted his life to it and they're still buildind it according to his plan. it won't be done until like 2030 or something! It's insanely big and very detailed - it was really cool. We went inside and looked around and took pictures, and did the tourist thing. We left, picked up our bags from our hostel, and headed to the train station to catch our train for Interlaken! We didn't miss it and we were at the right station this time - so definitely a less stressful experiece than Paris and Madrid. We had a couchette (which is a little cabin room with four beds in it) so we got to sleep on our over night train. Overall, Barcelona was awesome, but honsetly, I liked Madrid better. Barcelona did have the beach on it's side though, so that was a plus. Perhaps if we got to experiece more, it would have surpassed Madrid, but that wasn't the case.

I'll leave Interlaken to it's own post because it definitely deserves it.

Hi to Casey - I've been taking some pictures of some dogs to make a European dog album for you - you'll love it, i can't wait. But me telling you this will probably cause you to convince yourself to hate it. But whatevs.

Hi to Grandma! My parents told me that you were going over to Aunt Jayne's to read my blog! That makes me feel special! I hope I can get to the internet soon enough in order to post this! Love and miss you and grandpa - and the rest of the Lasco's!

Byeeeeee!