Hello World

Hey guys!

The whirlwind tour of Europe is half over. I'm sort of sad, but I'm looking forward to heading back to Ireland where they speak English. Spanish and Italian have not been good to me, and I haven't even tried French yet. Uh oh...

Our time in Spain was quite the experience. Saturday morning we departed the Globetrotter for the Dublin airport. Since it was our first time flying Ryanair, we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get through the airport and deal with everything that we needed to deal with. Our flight was at 1:45 and we got to the airport shortly before 11 and had no problems with check in or security. I was PUMPED to see that my bag fit in the restrictions too; I was slightly nervous about the size of it, but it worked nicely. Our flight was delayed almost two hours, so needless to say our adventure was not off to the best start.

We finally got on the flight and landed in Barcelona and, after bridging the language barrier, figured out that we needed to head to City Centre and head down La Rambla to our hostel. The street our hostel was on was not numbered accurately. Our hostel number was "24." The numbers went 22, 23, 25...24 was down the street about a fourth of a mile for some reason. After about an hour or so of searching, we finally found our hostel and dropped our things off. We grabbed some dinner and then headed back to the hostel and called it a night early. We were all overwhelmed and in a huge culture shock, mainly because of the language barrier, and our hostel was not the best in the world.

We woke up the next morning with some better attitudes and a goal to find a Catholic Church to go to mass at. We found one right on La Rambla that was at 11, so we chilled outside until it was time for mass. The entire mass was in Spanish so we didn't understand a word of it until the priest broke into English briefly, and then returned to Spanish. After that, we found a place to get really cheap lunch, the Pita Inn. I had a lamb sandwhich, so good. In the afternoon we met up with the guys who were also in Barcelona for the same time that we were and we toured the city on foot with them. We went from La Rambla to the beaches to Port Olympico to Segrada Familia all the way back across town to the Magic Fountain. We walked for about 7 or 8 hours but we saw so much of the city, (especially some Gaudi Architecture) so I didn't care that my feet were about to fall off. We wanted to see the Olympic Stadium for the 1992 Olympic games but we didn't end up finding it. We later discovered that we were probably about two minutes away from it at one point. So close, but so far. By the end of our tour, it was time for dinner so we grabbed some cheap sandwiches at a restuarant not too far from La Rambla. After dinner, the six of us (me, Brit, Hannah, Ken, Jake, and Mike) went out with some other AQ peeps in Barcelona for some Sangria on La Rambla. We capped off the night with a trip to an Irish Pub (go figure) and some of the guys had a pint, not Guinness, and then we called it a night.

Monday was a day to sleep in from the exhausting yet very exciting and awesome day we had on Sunday. After grabbing some lunch, we took a siesta and then went down to the pier and enjoyed the view of the ocean for sometime. We grabbed dinner on La Rambla and had paella, the rice dish that Spain is well known for. Afterward we invited Bridget, Vaughn, and Rian over to our hostel for a "hostel party," which ultimately resulted in a late night trip to the Pita Inn and then McDonalds. Everybody came back to our hostel, since theirs was a long walk away, and crashed for the night.

Tuesday was our last day in Barcelona. I woke up with a strong desire for greasy Mexican food. I think I'm having Adobe withdrawals to be honest. After grabbing some breakfast (not a taco or burrito mind you) we met up with Jake, Ken and Mike and went to the Picasso Museum. After taking Humanities, I have a newfound appreciation for art, and I found the museum to be really cool and interesting. Still not a fan of cubism though...I could do without that Picasso. After the museum we grabbed some lunch and then went back to our hostel. The girls crashed but I wanted to see Parque Guell so I went out on my own and planned to meet up with everyone from AQ at 6. I unfortunately could not make it to the park and back in enough time, so I settled for grabbing some Gelato and walking around the streets for an hour while almost getting lost. It was a poor substitute, but it'll have to do. That evening there were 13 out of 20 of the AQ students in Barcelona so we all met up and attempted to have dinner together. I say attempted because Jake, Brittany, Hannah and myself opted out of having Chinese food and instead grabbed some sandwiches. After that we checked out of our hostel and said goodbye to everyone since we had a 6 a.m. flight to Rome, meaning we spent the night in the airport so we wouldn't miss our flight.

I didn't get to do a whole lot in Barcelona unfortunately. It ended up being a lazy trip, but it definitely gives me a reason to return. Despite the first night and not knowing a lot of Spanish, I really enjoyed Barcelona and would return in a heartbeat.

Here are some pictures:

Segrada Familia. Crazy architecture. It cost 10 euro to get in, so we didn't go inside, but it was still an awesome view from the outside.

The beach. Not quite the same as Lake Michigan, but I still enjoyed it.

The view of the city from the top of the Montjuic Barcelona Fountain. This fountain is a water/light show but unfortunately it wasn't playing on Sunday when we went to the top. The view was still awesome though.

That's all for Barcelona/Spain. I want to go back there so bad.

So far Rome has been pretty good to us. We're here until Wednesday and then we head to Paris. I'll have a Rome update/review for you then.

Peace. Love. Barcelona.

Rob