Holy guacamole, Batman. It’s only been a couple of days since I wrote the last time, and already SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED. Which is SUCH a blessing, but also is SUCH curse, because that means this thing will be forever long again. And all of your eyes will hate me for reading such an intense novel. But I promise, life in Spain is just TOO DARN GOOD to not document every detail of it.
Last Thursday was like a Friday to us because we didn’t have class on Friday – hooooorayyyyy. So Thursday night, a group of 11 of us packed our bags for the weekend and headed to the airport to fly to … BARCELONA. From the moment that Whitney and I stepped out of our house, it was an adventure. After first finding our way to the train station, finding the correct bus stop there to get to the airport, and then actually catching the bus to the airport, we felt as if we were on a roll and doing GREAT with our punctuality, because typically, we fail at being on time. However, not only were we punctual at the airport, we were REALLY punctual. Our madre told us it would take an hour to get to the airport, and it really only took like 15 minutes. Therefore, the group of us was FOUR HOURS EARLY for our 10:45 flight to Barcelona. Now, maybe in the Atlanta airport you could entertain yourself for that long, but we’re talking the Sevila airport here. There ain’t much going on there. And, unlike the great ATL, you can’t check in for a flight ahead of time. Instead, you wait until the name of your flight pops up on the screen. So, we sat in the lobby for a few hours and waited for our precious flight. Lo and behold, eventually the name of it does come up, so we go and stand in line for them to collect our passes. We wait and we wait and we wait some more, only to realize once one of us makes it up to the counter, that we’re in the wrong line. And the other line has been open the whole time. With no people in it. Oh, let the games of the Barcelona weekend begin.
So eventually after going through the proper line, the group of us headed through security, which we were able to get through various liquids that faaaaaaar outweighed the 3 oz. rule, one of which included Whitney’s pepper spray. So if by any chance you are ever in the Sevilla airport and don’t feel safe, it’s probably because you’re not. Just a little heads up for ya. Once we snuck our contraband in, we head to our gate for our flight to Gerona. Why Gerona, you ask? Yes, you are correct. We were in fact traveling to Barcelona, but the airline we took (Ryanair) is quite ghetto and doesn’t have an airport in Barcelona that it can fly into. Therefore, we had to take the 2 hour plane ride to Gerona and then from there catch the bus that drives the one hour from Gerona to Barcelona.
So, when we approach our ghetto gate, we read that our flight has been delayed. No big deal, right? Wrong. As we sat there, just chilling and hanging out waiting on the flight, one of the girls in our group, Paige, runs into her hermano, the son of her madre for the summer. He, being the rebellious Ryanair employee that he is, pulls Paige over to the side and whispers sweet-nothings in her ear. What are they of, you ask? Oh you know, he just tells her that the French have gone on STRIKE and that the delay is going to be pretty stinking intense. So intense, in fact, that at 10:45, the time that our flight was supposed to take off from Sevilla, it still hadn’t even left the city it was in before!!! With all of the extra time on our hands, we used our optimistic natures to make the best of the situation. And by best, I mean we all put our nerdy caps on and classified EVERY member of our study abroad group and our directors into the different Harry Potter Houses at Hogwarts. Be proud – yours truly made it into the best house of them all – Gryffindor!! We took this activity so seriously that we all voted on the different character traits of each person to get a majority rules decision on which house they best exemplified. We’re hardcore, our study abroad group. God bless America.
Eventually, at 1 AM, after being in the airport for over 6 hours, our plane arrived and took off for Gerona – hallelujah. When we arrived in Gerona, we made a mad dash to the bus, rode the hour and a half to Barcelona, and then got a sketchy, sketchy cab ride to the middle of nowhere before we asked a precious little Spanish popo how the heck to get to our hotel, which was no where close to where the home-skillet cab driver dropped us off. Imagine. As we walked through a few less than comforting looking streets, we couldn’t help but laugh hysterically. This was the epitome of a European vacation. Carefully thought out but completely against everything we had planned on. We arrived at our sketchy looking hostel (which looked EXACTLY like the one in Just Married – rest in peace, Brittany Murphy) and tucked in for the night. Or should I say morning. Seeing as how it was, oh you know, 5:45 IN THE MORNING before we finally rolled over in our beds and turned out the light. Yah. Que triste.
A mere four hours later, we woke up to begin our day of intense sightseeing around the city. Conveniently for breakfast, there was a little café that had coffee and other breakfast foods. We bolted inside, and to our immense joy, what did we behold on the menu? STINKING WAFFLES AND PANCAKES. Spain is great, but they SHO ain’t got enough waffles. When there is a lack of all things waffle, including Waffle House, I have a problem. But luckily Bready, the best café ever, solved that problem with their delicious banana-nut-honey-ice cream waffle with clumps of sugar dispersed throughout. Yeah, be jealous. It was pretty much the jam. So after my heavenly food and cup of needed joe, we headed out to explore of all of Gaudi’s architecture throughout the city. Call me ignorant, but prior to this trip, I had had no poopin clue who that man was. But man, was he talented! His buildings literally look like something out of a fairy tale. Our first stop to admire was El Parque Guell, an amazing and immense park designed by him over a century ago. It was beautiful, and of course, with any beautiful place, we took lots of pictures, which will be sure to be uploaded soon. Best of all the park, we encountered a tucked away little gem that we would have NEVER expected to find. Drum roll please… down these stone steps, we found, to our shock and awe, THE LOCATION FOR THE FINAL RUNWAY SHOW FOR AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL: SEASON 7. Please just imagine our elation. We went nuts, absolutely nuts. And, as absolutely appropriate, we had ourselves our own little fashion show and photo shoot Tyra style. Those pictures are AWESOME. Fierce like Tyra baby. After our glamour shots at Parque Guell (and the HOURS we spent exploring it), we headed to La Segrada Familia (which they are STILL building and have been since the 1800s) and afterwards walked back by all of his hotels and gawked at Gaudi’s ingenuity some more. It truly is insane the things that Gaudi thought to create. From looking like sand castles to make-believe palaces, his work is just unreal and truly does take you to another world. And the best part of it was, we didn’t have to spend a single CENTIMO to see any of it. Hallelujah for cheap activities.
Despite how awesome Gaudi was, the joy of the day came later that night. We decided to hit up IceBarcelona, one of the three bars in the world. What is an ice bar, you ask? Oh, no big deal, just a bar that is completely made of ice. And boy, let me tell you, it was straight UP made of nothing but ice! The tables, the cups, the chairs, the decorations, heck, even the bar – ICE. Most of you know I HATE being cold with a passion, but this was so worth it. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced (get it, coolest??? I know, I know, I = cheesy). When we walked it, the temperature was at negative 13 degrees Celsius, and by the time we left, it was even colder than that. When we arrived, they gave us parkas and massive gloves to keep our poor little Georgian bodies warm. We donned our apparel and headed in and had a BLAST, but after about 30 minutes, our bodies were pre-hypothermic and we HAD to make an escape.
Overnight in our sketchy hostel (owned by one incredibly sweet lady and one grouchy old man), our bodies had time to recuperate for the next day. We got up, put on our comfy shoes, and started our journey – of shoppingggggggg, God’s gift to women. All day long, we meandered through store, after store, after store, and made some pretty darn good and cheap buys along the way. God sho did bless me with the ability to find and appreciate a good sale. All day long we walked, shopped, ate, and walked some more until it was time to go get dinner, for which a group of us girls found a delicious Chinese restaurant with four courses for 8,45 Euros. Now people, especially those of you that have been to the incredibly expensive land of Europe, this is a STEAL. So we loaded up on carbs there, headed to the market and bought local, fresh fruit smoothies for one Euro, and then started the hike to find this fountain that Yatri had been talking about all weekend. We walked and we walked and we walked some more until we finally found it. And boy, was it ever worth the hike – and all of the sketchiness. It was incredible. In fact, it was one of those blow your face off moments. Cause seriously, it was mind boggling. When we walked up, we could hear the rush of water. Better yet, when we rounded the corner, it was other worldly. The most beautiful patterns of changing colors, lights, water pressure, water designs, and music that accompanied all of this. Every so many minutes, there would be another coordinated show with a melody of a certain genre of music to go along with the insane lights and water. And, don’t you fret, because as Spain loves American music so much, there was DEFINITELY an American section, to which we all danced and sang obnoxiously. Such a beautiful moment!
After the Aurora-Borealis-like light show, we walked halfway back to our hostel and killed some time at a café and had coffee and desserts until 1 AM. Why so late, you ask? Oh you, only because we had to stay up ALL NIGHT and not sleep. We had kept our things in the lobby of our hostel, because we couldn’t pay for another night but also couldn’t tote our belongings all over the not-safest-city of Barcelona. We went back to the hostel where we got our stuff and met some wonderful and caring individuals from Georgia Tech (fancy that, NICE people actually going to that school! Only kidding… slightly), and then caught the metro to the bus station. We arrived at the bus station super early and waited there for an hour, but it was much better to be early rather than late and panicked and evil to one another. At 3:45, we got on a BALLING double-decker bus to drive the hour to our airport in Reus (God bless sketchy Ryan Air). I can’t even describe how cool that double-decker bus was. I felt just like Harry Potter riding on the Knight Bus in Book 3. Yep, I went there. I seem to always involve Harry Potter. Maybe that’s a bad thing to you, but in my world, you can never have enough.
At the ridiculous hour of 5:30 AM, we arrived at the Reus airport and waited to board our 6:45 AM flight back to Sevilla. We got back in the city at 8:15 and rode the bus to our house, which we arrived at at 9 AM, and after breakfast and showering (using all of those liquids we didn’t even try to attempt to sneak on the plane to get ourselves clean from our never-ending journey, we finally went to bed at 10 AM. Alas, we didn’t sleep for long, as later on that night, we went to… A BULL FIGHT!!!
But you don’t get to hear about that yet. Cause this thing is already 4 pages on a Word document. I’ll save that for my next one when I recap this week. Which is sad to say, that will be soon, because it’s already Thursday. Ahhh where is this summer going??? Can I please stay here longer?? Please??? Please?????? Oi vay. Me encanta España!
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