Day 42 - A Conocer Barcelona

July 12 – Hello Barcelona

I wake up to some commotion. It turns out that the vomiting girl didn’t even belong to our hostel. The real girl arrived and said someone was in her bed. So they tried to wake her up quietly but that didn’t really work out. The vomiting girl went out with people who were staying in our room and apparently was too drunk off her mind to have gone back to her own hostel. Anyway, it was sooooo gross. The bunks were really close. So, the backpack of the girl who was under the vomiting girl was full of just maggot-looking soup of vomit. (To paint a picture for you :) )

When we went outside, we were really close to the Las Ramblas – the main walkway with all the shops, artists, etc. First thing we did was go to Picasso’s Museum. This one is bigger than the one in Malaga. I love Picasso’s work. I still can’t comprehend how something can be so broken and incongruous and be beautiful and sane at the same time. My favorite sala was their temporary exhibition – which had various artists’ study of Velasquez’s Las Meninas.

I loved it. After that, we just walked around the Las Ramblas. I saw another Starbucks. So after we walked around for a while and took in all the usual plaza craziness (painters, statue people, magic people, etc.), we stopped by Starbucks so I could buy another mug. We’re collecting city mugs and I must say buying $18 mugs is getting a bit expensive. LOL.

Anyway, we dropped off our stuff at our hostel to get ready for our Fat Bike Tour. The meeting point was really close to our hostel which was good. I had not been on a bike in so long. I seriously cannot remember the last time – wait – I do. Haha. I bought this bike last summer but returned it coz I didn’t really want a mountain bike. (I found out I’d prefer one of those cruiser bikes) Anyway, the bike tour was awesome. It was so much fun. I think I spaced out too much when the tour guide was talking because I was just so psyched about being on a bike, driving something, going more than 2 miles per hour, and not walking! LOL We hit the Cathedral (under construction), the steps where the Catholic Kings received Christopher Colombus, square where the Romans executed all these people from way back when, the Gaudi Park, Arc de Triomph and promenade, the Gaudi park, the Sagrada Familia, and the beach. It wasn’t a good day for the beach. It got very windy and a bit chilly. We made a drink stop there. Some had beer and sangria. When it started to rain, we pedaled back to the bike tour’s shop where we kept our stuff and to pay for the tour. :)

For dinner, we went back out in the rain. It was miserable. We were walking forever under the rain and they could not decide where to eat. We finally found this one sorta Italian restaurant who had an offer of 3 courses for 6.95. Shannen finally got her paella. Breanna, Juile, and I got spaghetti, chicken with fries, and flan. I was going to order sangria but Shannen already had sangria with her paella package so we made a deal coz she only wanted water. When the bill came, our jaws dropped. Julie’s and Breanna’s drinks were 5.10 each. Ridicuhlous. Good thing I only ended up getting water. 10 oz. for 2.10 euros. LOL.

We went back to the hostel and had this 2 hour conversation with a girl from New Zealand and 2 British girls. After that got into the wee hours of the morning, we decided to call it a night. :P

Day 41 - Wanderpul Adventure

July 11 – Adventureful Travel to Barcelona

I started to pack today. :) I knew I didn’t have time because we had to rendezvous for our Barcelona trip (with Breanna, Julie, and Shannen) at 4:30 but I started packing anyway. After a shower and dropping by the internet café to try to check-in, we met at Gran Via to catch the airport bus.

We got to the airport and found out that the airport we’re flying into in Barcelona is Girona – a nearby city – an hour bus ride from Barcelona. Then we found out that only EU citizens can check-in online and that we had to pay for our boarding pass. 5 euros apiece. Ridicuhlous. When we got to Barcelona, we found out that the 3 euro bus ride the lady was talking about in Granada, turned out to be a 21 euro round trip ride. As if our luck couldn’t get any worse, when we were in the Metro, we bought tickets from the Renfe not the Metro itself. So, we jumped over the ticket thing. Hahaha. It helped that it was around 1am at this time. We didn’t really have for real directions to the hostel because I was in a hurry this afternoon coz I started packing when I shouldn’t have. I thought just the address would be enough. So, when we get off the Metro, we start walking towards “our street.” Nope. There was nothing there. Everything was closed down. Good thing we bumped into some policemen. It turned out we were in city limits. Like the other side of the street was another city. LOL. So, the police radioed control office and sorted us out. We still ended up shelling out more money because we then took the taxi. Furthermore, the taxista didn’t really know the street of the hostel. Not that he was a bad taxi driver, it’s just that the street is one of those really narrow ones. Imagine when Aladdin escaped from stealing that apple? Well, the streets were like those except that this was at midnight and instead of fruit vendors, there were prostitutes and drunk people. We finally found our hotel after a super long ass trip. As if it couldn’t get any worse right. I wake up in the middle of the night to a very strange sound. Like someone is throwing up. I was in the lower bunk. So I look left and I vaguely remember the girl on the top bunk to our left just puking her brains out. I was too sleepy and tired to care. It was like raining vomit. LOL. So I just turn around the other way and keep on sleeping. Hahaha.

It occurred to me that many of you might not know what a hostel really is. It’s cheap accommodation mainly used by backpackers, student travelers, people who are tight on budget, people who don’t mind not-so nice place so long as it’s a place to stay. Usually you share a room with people you don’t know but usually people who stay there are young and chill and mind their own business. It’s actually a cool place to meet people. Depends on the hostel but possible features could be internet access, lockers, AC, and kitchen. My opinion: I think it’s genius. :P I don’t mind the other people. Sometimes I do mind the cleanliness and the showers. Sometimes I don’t take showers and wait till I get back to a nice shower. LOL. But it does the job. :P