Arrival in Barcelona!

On Saturday we woke up at the crack of dawn to get to the airport for our flight to Barcelona.  When we left our hotel, Venice was completely dead and had a thick fog you had to practically wade through.  I was half expecting a zombie to come around a corner.  We got to the bus station, and when our bus for the airport arrived we had to fight to get on it.  The Italians were extremely rude!  We all made it on the bus, and arrived at the airport two hours prior to departure.  We sat around for a while, and the airport was fairly calm.  When we found out where our terminal was, we walked to it, only to find MASS CHAOS.  We had heard that RyanAir flights are really sketch and seats are first-come-first-serve, but this was crazy!  There was a line of people pushing and shoving, waiting to board their flight.  After we saw that, we made a plan to get to the front of the line – as they were boarding we were at the end of the line moving up with them.  Another group of Americans were there with us, and naturally they were wearing a ton of red and blue.  I spotted a KU hat and told my group the bad news.  We talked to them for a bit, some went to STA, they’re studying in Paderno, and then they cut us in line.  Rude!  Other Italians fought their way into the line, but we made it on the plane and got ready to go to Spain!

We flew over the Swiss Alps, France, and the Mediterranean Sea, and circled around over the ocean for a while before we were able to land.  I was looking for sharks and dolphins, but didn’t see any.  We found our hostel and five of us girls are in one room, two in another.  I am in the room of five, and when we moved into the room there were men’s shoes neatly in a line under one of the beds, and clothes folded in a perfect stack on the bed.  Lucky guy (or maybe unlucky), in a room with five girls!  We looked at all his stuff and evaluated him to be a clean cut American (with American Eagle flip flops), but didn’t meet him until later in the evening – he is a Spanish teacher in Boston, currently teaching/studying in London on his two week vacation from a private school.  He’s in his late 20s and gave us lots of pointers on what to see, and for the most part leaves the room whenever we are getting ready or going to bed.

We met up with the boys, who have to stay in a different hostel because this one filled up, and fought over where to eat for lunch.  So we ditched them, went to a quick place, ate on a bench and headed to the Gaudi park, Parque Guell.  We didn’t realize how long the walk was, so after about an hour we had made a list of shops to go to (we found the shopping district) and got to know the city a little.  Barcelona is a huge city, with wide sidewalks and huge 6-lane streets, which is a nice change of pace from the tiny paver streets of almost all Italian cities.  People have the right-of-way here, which is a different experience, and there is grass and trees built into the streets.  There are more shops here than I saw even in Milan, and I’m a little concerned for my bank account.

We finally arrived at the park (after hiking up a steep hill that made me feel like I was back at Castiglion Fiorentino).  There was a beautiful view of the city in the park, and we roamed around for a while, searching out different Gaudi pieces or architecture and design.  Interesting things we saw at the park include a crazy man in a leopard leotard “singing” by one of the viewpoints – I wanted to pay him to stop.  Video will be uploaded sometime.  There were illegal merchants selling illegal jewelry, purses, sunglasses, and we saw them all running when there was a police man supposedly in the area.  We went down to a lower part of the park and saw a man getting chased, almost tackled, and then taken away for selling illegal merchandise. 

Just as we were leaving we ran into the boys again, and on the metro home they decided to see if they could get tickets to a soccer game that night.  We rested in the hostel for a bit, freshened up and went to search out some dinner on Las Ramblas.  We went to a side street to find something less expensive, and ended at a restaurant where me, Kelsey, Beth and Annie tried paella.  It was basically rice, chicken and sea food.  And by sea food I mean little creatures in my dinner, complete with tentacles and eyeballs.  I am proud to say that I tried calamari (squid!), giant shrimp with the head still on, and even a baby oyster, which was chewy and crunchy at the same time.  We went back to the hostel and went to bed, because we were exhausted.  On the way we got a glimpse of the night life in Barcelona – everyone is out in the cool spring evening shopping and eating and hanging out in all the public spaces, it’s going to be a great week!

Tomorrow we are going to Mass at Sagrada Familia and then grabbing food for a picnic on the beach! It’s going to be 60 degrees and sunny all day!

Cara Marie