Friday morning, we were up and out the door at 6:30 am to speed walk to Santa Maria Novella train station to catch our train to Pisa. We made it, all bought our tickets, ran around trying to find a place to verify our tickets, sprinted to the train, and boarded the train, which felt like a sauna, didn't leave for 10 minutes, and almost landed us a 50 euro fee for putting our feet on the seats in front of us. We finally arrived in Pisa (along with another random group of students studying in Florence and going to Barcelona) for my first experience with Ryan Air (a great discount airline in Europe). Our flight went to Girona (about an hour out of Barcelona). From Girona, we took a bus to Barcelona. It was about 1 by the time we arrived in Barcelona, so we were all ready for lunch. The 14 of us wandered towards what we believed to be the center of town and took some random rights and left and found ourselves at a wonderful tapas place on a main street. The sangria was strong and the sun was glorious! After lunch, we made our way to the hostel. Half of us walked the 45 minutes while the others took on the metro station. My only motivation to walk was to find a Starbucks. And we did. And it was one delicious grande nonfat caramel macchiato with extra caramel :) On our walk, we say Gaudi's Casa Batillo and Casa Mila both of which were incredible! We were able to see Once we checked into the hotel, we made our way to our cute little room at Residencia Erasmus Gracia, took a little lay down, and get recharged for the rest of the evening. We took on the metro system and made our way to the Mirador de Colom (also known as the huge statue of Christopher Columbus) to meet Maggie who had explored with some of her friends. From there, we wandered onto harbor that has an aquarium, IMAX theatre, and a variety of restaurants. After that, we still had time to kill before heading to the restaurant I wanted to go for dinner (it came up when I Googled "best paella in Barcelona", so I wasn't about to pass that up!). Some people wanted to catch happy hour, so when we were offered free shots at a little restaurant, we went on in. We got our free shots, but were hoping we weren't going to have to buy anything. The owner pressured us into getting something, so we got the cheapest beer while watching highlights of all the weekend futbol games. Once it was dinner time, we went to the restaurant and checked out the menu, which was more expensive that we all thought, but I wanted that paella, so I was still down. Unfortunately, some people decided against making a decision, so they went in with us and complained the entire time about the price. Needless to say, I did not enjoy that dinner or the paella I had been craving all week (though it really was incredible!!). Oh well, that's what you get when you travel with cranky, hungry college students on a budget. After that we sped walk to the destination I wrote down for our pub crawl, which turned out to be a location for a different pub crawl. We were too exhausted to deal with it, headed to an Irish Pub called Dunnes, got some nachos, and decided to call it a night, so we could enjoy a day full of sight seeing. We felt a little lame going to bed before midnight in the party capital of Europe, but we got over that fast once we laid down on those beds!
Saturday started off with Starbucks and three of us split from the group. Sarah, Mary, and I wandered down La Rambla, which is a major street full of shopping and whatnot. We stumbled upon a little candy shop where the candies were presented like pills and you put them into little medicine like bottles. It was pretty cute and who doesn't like candy?! After that we saw the Font de Canaletes and headed to the Piacasso museum. We got in there for free! My jaw literally dropped when he told me and the man then went onto giggle and tell his co-worker that I dropped my jaw because he demonstrated. Haha oh well! The museum was awesome, although I was surprised to not see more of his well known work. I really want to know what caused the dramatic transformation in his artwork! After the museum, we met up with the group at Dunnes for lunch, got bagels, then went to a puppy store :) Sarah, Mary, and I stayed together and went to the Parc de La Ciutadella, which I fell in love with- I felt like I was walking in Paris mixed together with Southern California. There were a bunch of trees, open spaces, children birthday parties, buildings, dogs, and general prettiness. My favorite (and soon my least favorite) spot was the fountain there. We were admiring it, taking pictures and soon decided to climb to the top of it. On our way up, we we confronted with about 7 5 feet tall Spanish women trying to get us to sign petitions or something. I don't know Spanish and just decided to hold my purse, say no gracias and avoid all eye contact. Unfortunately, Sarah did not do the same. Two of them put their clipboards into her face and started touching her arm. She tried to get them away and then I heard to say "They stole my wallet!". We started pointing and yelling. Finally they started pointing at the ground and we saw her wallet there. She checked her wallet and saw that her cards were in there, so we left very quickly. We were shocked and our hearts were beating out of our chests. We made our way to the beach so we could just sit there and relax. We bought fresh bananas and kiwis and watched the ocean. It was so nice to put our feet in the sand and enjoy. Luckily Sarah calmed down and checked her wallet only to find her cash was still in there!! It was a miracle. They must have unzipped her bag, grabbed the wallet, and then threw it under a shoe or something so we wouldn't notice it. It was such a relief to find out nothing actually got stolen, but it was still so creepy! After the beach, we got Starbucks (reoccurring theme of the weekend much?) and met the group at Wok to Walk for a cheap, but pretty decent dinner. Once dinner was over, all of us went to the magic fountain show at Muntanya e Montjuic. It seriously felt like we were in Las Vegas watching this fountain light up with Spanish Queen-like music, but it was really cool! We went back to the hostel to change and take on the Barcelona night life! Of course I brought my Barcelona airport bus ticket instead of my metro pass, but a nice guy let me walk through with him and I just hopped over the next stand. Sorry Spanish law. We signed up to go to a club called Razzmataz through a hostel where our friends were, but the tickets didn't go on sale until midnight and we didn't leave until 1:45 am... We enjoyed exploring the area, hanging out with the other GU students who we met up with there, and making new friends. We finally made it to Razzmataz and many of our friends were well under the influence, so it made it hard to have much fun when we were looking out for the others who were struggling because the place was huge, loud, and dark. Sarah and I ended up leaving early to take our very intoxicated friend home in a cab. We then went to bed at 6 am. Ohh life.. Turns out that night, our friend had been kicked out of the club within a minute of getting there because he accidentally went into the girls bathroom because he couldn't see the sign and our other friend got mugged- he left by himself because it was impossible to find anyone, turned a corner, got hit in the face with a big stick/wood plank by one guy, put in a chokehold by another from behind, and knocked unconscious. They got his 3 year old iPhone and his 1 euro and 50 cents (just enough to get home on the metro). Poor kid woke up to find his stuff scattered on the sidewalk with no money and completely lost. They didn't take his cards or ID and by some miracle, he made it home alright. TOO MUCH.
On Sunday, we got up in time to check out. We headed up to Gaudi's Park so we could see the world's longest bench, his house, and many of his other famous art works. It was a gorgeous day and full of people. Having been so worn out from the weekend and the night before, we were really not digging sight seeing and were ready to get back to Florence! We then made our way to Temple de La Sagrada Familia, got Starbucks, and Subway. After that we wandered back to La Rambla and put into our name for lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. Thumbs up for a California burger (with GUACAMOLE yumm)! We were exhausted and our feet hurt so bad, we just sat in the park and let time pass before making our way to the metro to catch the bus to the Girona Airport. At Girona, we got the BEST McDonald's Happy Meal (or at least that's how it felt when I was hungry, tired, and cranky). Ryan Air got us to Pisa (bear in mind it was a 30 euro roundtrip flight. Only trade off? They try to sell things to you for the entire flight). We got into Pisa and realized we had 10 minutes to make it to our bus to Florence or else we would be staying in Pisa until 12:20 am. We landed and booked it to the bus (in the rain. wearing flip flops. then soon going bare foot. running in the wrong directions). Luckily we made it on the bus just in time and would not have been happier! Britt and I took the last row, sprawled out, and laughed about the weekend we survived (well almost. we weren't back in Florence yet!). Before the bus even started, I got an instant message from Sean's roommate, Tanner, telling me to not freak out, but Sean broke his ankle really badly and was being rushed into surgery. There I was. In the back on the bus, soaking wet, rain was pouring on the window (literally looked like one of those depressing scenes from a movie), and half way across the world from the only place I wanted to be! So while I was driving to Florence in the early minutes of Valentines's Day, Sean was back in Spokane getting his ankle put back into place. I had gone into the trip being more homesick and boyfriend sick than normal/than I had been all semester and that was seriously the cherry on top of the icing on top of the cherry on top of the cake. So after a mild breakdown with help from Britt and my iPod, we arrived in Florence and walked as fast as we could across Florence. When I arrived back at the pensione, the flowers my parents ordered for me for my birthday were sitting outside our room door. It was exactly what I needed. The flowers were struggling because they had been in the hall for a good three days, but luckily some lovely ladies of Gallo d'Oro kept an eye out for them and watered them for me! We all had no problem whatsoever falling asleep that night and we couldn't have been happier to be asleep in our beds even though I was still so sad thinking about poor Sean! (Send some love his way, please!)
We are already looking back at the weekend and laughing. It was full of life experiences and reminded us to appreciate the good and learn from the bad. Barcelona, you win. I do hope to go back on day, but maybe with just a tiny group or one other person. For now, I am just enjoying spending quality time with my parents while they are in town for the week! They could not have come at a better time and it is fun to share some of my study abroad experience with them (and enjoy some delicious meals out in Florence!)
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