October 8th-10th! Barcelona :)

Hola! New country, new language! Yo muy emocionante y nerviosa! So apparently there were a lot of threats about traveling in Europe. So it was a little scary traveling...but we made it and had a blast! Let me tell ya :) So about 16 of from the whole group decided to go to Barcelona this weekend. The other people from HUG either went to Kalavrita (a ski island in greece), Santorini (the island we went to on our cruise), and the others went to Austria (to go on the Sound of Music tour). So, we had the biggest group going to Barcelona. Our flight went into Rome and we had a layover there for a few hours. Let me tell ya, airports here in Europe are not the same. First of all, there are not bathrooms every 100 feet...you have to search! It was slightly ridiculous, but we made it :p

Once we got to Barcelona, our group of 16 split in two. Six of us girls went one place, and the other ten went to another place. (We got different hostels in different parts of the city). So in my group was Lydia, Emily Woods (there are three emily's), Samantha Kiser (three samantha's), Kaitlyn, and Rachel. It was a pretty diverse but really good group! We finally figured out which train that would take us to the metro (very confusing). Then, when we got to the metro area, there are about four lines that you can catch, and within in that, different lines. So it was sooooooo confusing. So, we decided to work up the courage to ask someone. The two ladies that we asked literally walked us all the way to the other line so that we could get there. There was a bit of a language barrier because we soon found out that Barcelonians don't necessarily speak "spanish." Instead, they speak catalounian which is a mix of spanish and french. Therefore, it was a bit of a challenge. But after about fifteen minutes of them directing us, we figured it out. Then when we were on our way to the town of our hostel! Once we get to the town, we have to find our hostel. Which was another adventure in itself. So we start walking and somehow, we passed the street that we were supposed to turn on. After about ten minutes of wondering, we decided that since we lucked out last time, might as well ask someone again! So we saw these two older couples and approached them. We asked them if they spoke english but they said no, only catalounian and french. So we tried to communicate via spanish and ended up that they too led us to exactly where we needed to go! I don't know how we lucked out both times but us six girls must have looked very tired and confused enough for nice people to help us :) So finally we checked in, and grabbed some dinner (another interesting experience) and went to bed cause we were exhausted!

me, samantha, lydia, rachel, kaitlyn

me, lydia, and emily :)

in front of some gaudy work :)

a fountain :)

some structure in the park

some gaudy work !

park

park

park

park

park

park with the infamous aligator that everyone wanted a pic with

park

fountain where it was supposed to have a show but didn't

The next morning we woke up early (crazy...i know right?..um not my idea by the way). The group wanted to go on some of the free walking tours that they give in the city of Barcelona. So we grabbed some breakfast, walked to the metro and headed to Las Ramblas (the main street in Barcelona). We walked around for a bit, and saw some really pretty buildings! Once we were on Las Ramblas, I knew that we were in Spain!! Then we joined the walking tour and learned a lot about the Gaudy architecture all around the city. (By the way this was the first time we were on a tour that we didn't have to take notes, so of course i didn't! but i do remember some of it :) Anyways, the Gaudy tour was so beautiful and the buildings were astonishing. After the tour we spent the rest of the day walking around the rest of the city and window shopping and eating ice cream (of course).  We also went to the Gaudy park....which was so beautiful and amazing :) Then we went to what was supposed to be a fountain show that had lights...but apparently there was no water in it and so they didn't have the show. It was disappointing but instead we just sat on the steps and people watched for about an hour. It was really fun/funny :)

The next day we did another tour. This one was actually my favorite, however it got interupted with the fact that Lydia and I had to pee so badly! It was awful, so we had to skip out on the last half of the tour. Then the rest of the day we just walked around again and window shopped.  We went to the market, starbucks (yay), and saw the other group of students a few times. I also bought a scarf (as always haha). That night our group of six split into groups of threes and we all did something different. My group just walked to another part of town and ate dinner and relaxed for a few hours just sitting and talking. It was a really good night!

Then in the morning we had to leave and that was another experience. We were able to get to the metro (by this time we were experts) but once we got to the main line, we had no idea where we were supposed to go to get to the airport. We got to the right place after about 30 minutes of looking. Then we had to wait another twenty minutes for our train to get there. However, the train we got on was the WRONG train! I was so scared cause I thought we would for sure miss our flight. The train we were on apparently was going to another city and we were not sure if it was going to stop before it got there! But thankfully it did, so we got off ASAP. Then we caught the right one, and made it to the airport on time. This plane ride seemed to be longer than the last...but we finally got there with Dr. James ready to take us back "home." It was a long and tiring trip, but well worth it :)