Barracho en Barcelona

Getting here was quite the adventure...
Ten hour flight from SFO to London Hethrow. Layover for two hours. Flight delayed an additional hour. Get on the flight from London to Barcelona and wait an hour and forty-five minutes because a bastard decides to get off the plane and get his bag from underneath. The same amount of time it takes for us to fly to Barcelona. No es bueno. At the airport in Barcelona all of our bags come except for one. We wait more than an hour and a half before we find it on another baggage claim belt. It's already one in the morning when we get to the hotel when we were supposed to be there at 8. Amalia bought tickets for dinner and a show and we couldn't even go, on top of that they paid in cash and it was non-refundable.

I wish America was similar to Barcelona.

(Just so you know I'm pretty faded writing this...I'll tell you why later)

So I'm by myself since everyone else jumped on a boat-a very very large boat-today. I've seen amazing architecture by Gaudi, and I plan on taking a autobus tourismo tomorrow to see more of it :)

I didn't know what to do after the cruise left so I told the taxi driver, in my worst spanish ever, "Quiero ir al restaurante.. er... cerca de museo de... maritime? maritim-e? maritim? shit.... donde esta la playa? ok er vale. Quiero ir a la playa." haha! He struggled to understand my non-Spain spanish as much as I did trying to get the words out of my mouth. So here I am at the beach. I decide to go down to the water before I find something to eat so at least I don't feel so bloated. It is so blue and the water is amazingly warm (in contrast to the ocean temperature in Frisco) Almost all the women are topless, and no one cares!! I remembered that I forgot my swimsuit at home so I went and found one for myself. I wanted to change and go back to the beach but then I realized... I don't have a towel, or anywhere to put my purse... so I'll go tomorrow sometime :) I start walking down the street, since I have no where in particular to be.

I bought a popcicle and found my way to the Metro-it reminds me so much of BART-I stared at the Metro map for so long!! I was trying to figure out the closest station to my hotel and while I'm staring at it this man came up to me, trying to speak spanish (I think he was german or french?) and asked me if one ticket will take him anywhere on the Metro. I had no idea. And I didn't know what language to answer him in so I just shrugged. Poor guy. I figured out which train and exit to take-brownie points for me:)-and laughed because the Metro uses just the letter M so I thought that I was taking the M (I take the M back home, to get home). Since I took the Metro back to Gracia (the street name) I took a taxi back home and it was only 4 euros. much better than the initial 15 it would have taken.

Siestas are very smart. I got back to the hotel and napped for oh.... an hour and a half? maybe two hours... When I got up I decided to eat since I hadn't earlier, and there are a few restaurants near the hotel so I pulled myself out of bed and left. It was already almost 9:30 here but I was a pretty early arrival for dinner. At the end of dinner ( I had a large hot dog thing, croquttes-kinda like motz sticks- and pork loin) I get dessert and cafe (which is really espresso) and a free chupito, a shot of something with apple flavor. I kept recieving free drinks!!! WOOO! I stayed so long that all the waiters and waitresses there, even the other patrons knew that I was American, that I was on "holiday" in Barcelona and studying in Italy. haha. They all invited me to go party after they got off, why not?

So here I am, buzzed in my hotel room debating on whether I want to party it up in Barcelona... it seems safe enough... but I have to wait because even though it's 1:30am here, people don't go out until 2am. I don't want to be early again!!


OK.
I'm back.

I went to an irish bar and a cuban salsa club. Drinks were free and everyone is so nice!!! I'm not just saying that because I'm drunk either... No one made me feel uncomforable or stupid because my spanish sucks. I highly recommend making friends in Barcelona because it's six in the morning and they're still partying.... I blamed it on my being American that I needed to go to sleep before the sun came up.

Now. Three hours before the Autobus Turismo adventure begins. Salud!