Bienvenidos a Barthelona! Part 1

So it is officially February, and I am still writing about October. Oh mon Dieu! Quelle surprise! So just bare with me.

I last left off talking about the start of my Toussaints vacation - otherwise known as All Saint's Vacation. I left you with the thought of eating calf head and creepy dolls - a pleasant image, I know. On Friday the 28th, Mindy, Tina, and I headed to BARTHELONA, ESPANA! Otherwise known as, Barcelona, Spain!

Because all of France is on vacation for the Toussaint holiday, flights leaving the country were extremely outrageous. If we wanted to fly to Barcelona from Lyon, it would have been several hundred Euro - not worth it. So we decided to take the next best thing. Nope, not a train. Nope, not a bus. Ok, I guess the third best thing - a car! We didn't rent a car, because it would have taken us 4 days to get there - 3 Americans, none of us know how to drive stick - it wouldn't have worked out. So what did we do?

**Dear Mom and Dad: If you are reading this, please sit down. Please.

Well, there is this website here called CoVoiturage. It is a website where people in Europe who own cars and want to visit different cities post where they are going and ask if anyone wants to join them to cut down on travel/gas costs. So, Tina scoured the website and found this guy, Romain, who was going to Barcelona from Lyon, and he had 3 spots in his car. Three of us. Three spots, perfect!

Not going to lie, I was extremely nervous. 1.) We were going to be travelling with a random French guy. 2.) How was I going to explain this to my parents (SURPRISE! I love you <3 ) 3. We were going to be travelling with a random French guy.

Everything we had heard about website was great - people loved it, there were never any problems, lots of recommendations, etc. Tina also had been contacting Romain for the past week, and said he seemed really nice and legit. Still Thursday morning came around and my stomach was in knots. He was picking us up at Part Dieu, which is one of the train stations in Lyon - so I knew a lot of people would be around - just in case. Tina and Mindy had beaten me there (Mindy left early to go to the bank) and when I saw Romain, my first initial thought was, oh yeah, I could take him, no problem.

Romain ended up being a super awesome 28 year old French guy, that loved to Salsa dance and talk with us. He was very interested to learn about us and tell us about himself. It was very interesting to listen about his life and his love for McDonald's (yep - he loves MacDo!) It made the 7 hour car ride go very quickly! So, moral of the story is I am still alive, so parents you can breathe easily now! I have a feeling I will be getting a call about this soon... oops.

We arrived in Barcelona around 7:30/8 and Romain dropped us off not too far from our hostel, Equity Point. It was on a really swanky strip in Barcelona, very close to Las Ramblas, and next to a Gaudi house! We were greeted by Marius (this made me so happy that he was named Marius because of Les Mis) and was super nice and helpful and got us situated. We were starving, so he listed some cheap restaurants in the area and we left our things to go grab some Sangria and Spanish food! Now, I don't speak a word (ok, I know a few words) of Spanish, Mindy knows a little, and Tina knows a bit more - so we were kind of struggling at this restaurant. I kept pronouncing things with a French accent and saying merci, instead of gracias. It was quite comical - and then there was a mix-up between myself and the table next to us - I accidentally accepted their fries from the waiter (oops - my meal came with fries too) so they didn't get their fries until they complained, and then we got charged for the fries. They were very nice and took it off our bill after the situation was explained. These things always happen to me, oops. We were all exhausted, so we went back to the hotel to enjoy a free drink (Sangria!) that we got just for staying there, then headed to bed.

The next day we decided to go to Las Ramblas and check out parts of Barcelona. Now, I had told the Spanish teacher at my good school that I was going to Barcelona, and he gave me a very hard time. He comes from southern Spain and has ties to Madrid, so he kept telling me that Barcelona is dirty, ugly, that I will catch diseases, that it is very touristy, etc. He was joking of course about some things, but I instantly saw what he said when we got to Las Ramblas. This was my second time visiting Barcelona, and I think it was like the veil had been lifted this time. I saw some of the dirtiness; I saw some of the ugly; and I reallllllly noticed the tourists. Everywhere I turned I heard French, English, or Italian. The only time I heard Spanish was when we were in restaurants. Our first stop was my all time favorite - La Boqueria! If you read my blog from Paris, then you might know it is the largest outdoor market in Europe! This market amazes me every time I see it. The colors, the smells, the atmosphere. I love it! I just love markets in general! AND I did NOT get pooped on by a pigeon this time - woohoo! I call that an achievement. Believe me, whenever a pigeon did fly by I darted out of the way. I probably looked like a crazy person, but don't judge until you get pooped on. Also, don't judge someone who has gotten pooped on. I wanted to be anything and everything at the market! It amazes me so much! I wish they had markets like this in the states.

Ok, I think this is getting fairly long so I have decided to cut this into 2 parts, so the rest of Barcelona will be in the next blog!

Adios!