Barce-freaking-lona!!!

BARCELONA WAS SOOOOO AMAZING!!!

That's to put it simply! Where to begin--

We left Oviedo at like six and it was pouuuurrring rain! Luckily, there was a cab right by the Gorda (a meeting point statue) and it was five euros to the bus station, the ride was well worth it, especially since my paraguas did me no good! The bus station was uneventful, as was sthe airport. The airport in Asturias is super small, but it was way cool to watch the planes take off. The flight was short and sweet :)

When we got to Barcelona, I was blown away by the size of the airport (huge.) and the amount of English speaking, and the weird Spanish (different dialect, and I was like huh??? Sounded more French than Spanish). Yada, yada, yada, then we got to our hostel. It was not as bad as I was expecting. It was just like a dorm I stayed in at Weber State for a leadership conference, but better. The WSU dorm was baaad. Anyway, the first place we went was the La Sagrada Familia. It's this amazing church that was started sometime near 1926, and Gaudi took over designs of it. It's not expected to be completed until 2040!! We get up to the front of it and my camera DIED!! {It's a good thing I am not putting pictures up til I get home, so I can get the Barcelona ones from friends} I paid for the audio tour because that was the top of my list to see in Barcelona. It was way cool! Kind of hard to explain, it was one of those things that you need to see for yourself to get the meaning and significance, etc.

After that we walked all the freaking way across to this big office building that appeared to be a giant blue penis. ha, it was funny, believe me. It was a disappointment--nothing to see. Then we missed our bus like three times {The public transportation system in Barcelona was difficult!}

Night came and we hit Las Ramblas (huge shopping, touristy streets) for some dinner and meandering. I didn't love Las Ramblas, it was kinda lame, but that's ok. We went home and crashed!

The next day was quite an adventure! One of the girls in our group was an art history buff and found out about this Dali museum in Figures. It's this teeny town 30 minutes from the French border. We knew the train ride would take awhile (two hrs each way), but we had it all planned out and got an early start, so we thought we were good to go. Not so much...

We headed to the train station and waited in line got our tickets, and asked where to go (nothing is listed on the tickets--i.e. gate, number, etc.) Keep in mind that the Spanish is different and this person that we were talking to knew no English. He told us to get on at 14, so we did and it left. Two stops later, they were announcing that this was the end of the line. We get off there and go to ask someone, and he tells us to go back to where we came from and ask them. We head back there and ask someone who appears to know what he is doing and he says, "Oh you just missed it, take the train at 12:46--two hours from the current time!) We weren't too happy about that, chillin in the train station for two hours, but we tried to make the best of it, got some lunch (I had a sandwich with no traces of pork anywhere! Yay for chicken!) and sat there. We asked some other guys, just for clarification, and they were like, "Oh, you could have taken the 11:40 one. Apparently, the first guy we talked to earlier didn't know about that train. So we waited some more and finally, it was time to go get on the train. The ride was long; we probably should have kept going the 30 minutes to France, ahaha, but none of us had out passports :( sad day.

I loved the little town that this Dali museum was in, so cute and quaint. I didn't love Dali's stuff, he was a sex-obsessed weirdo, and it showed in his artwork. After that, we did some shopping and had the best ice cream ever.

We were hoping to make it back to Barcelona in time to watch the futbol game, but no such luck with the trains. More waiting, and time on the train, we got back to Barcelona and went back to the hostal, it was late.

The third and final day I had in Barcelona was the best one. We started out with the Picasso museum, AND the public transportation system was good to us! Yay!! The picasso museum was really cool {and cheap.} There were way cool shops near there too! Then we went to Gaudi's Park Guell, this park that Gaudi designed, it was soooo interesting! We got some great pics that I will have to put on when I get back to the states. We also hit the cathedral too, that was pretty ordinary, considering I've been to quite a few cathedrals here in Spain, but they did have an elevator to the roof, the view was ammmaaaazzziiinnnngg! Best thing ever.Seriously. So sad I did not have my camera :(

The next thing we did was my fave! There was this huge fountain in front of a palace that had a water show that night!! It was soooo awesome, and the view of the entire city was incredible! We also caught a free concert, so awesome for music junkie me, even though I couldn't understand what they were saying. It was still good. Then we just sat on the steps of the palace listening to street musicians and watching the artists. At around midnight we headed to the subway, it was CLOSED. I mean really, it's Barcelona! I expected it to maybe close at two or so, but midnight?? No way! We did find one gate that was open and luckily there were still trains going to the stop that we needed.

The next day, we checked out of the hostal really early and caught our flight back to Oviedo. We got back and were already late to school, so I went home and Rosa was like, "Do you have school right now? I thought you were in your bed!" So note to all you people--if I go missing in Spain, make sure they check my bed first, because she didn't even make sure! hahaha kidding.

What a great {adventurous} weekend.

peace out, girl scouts
xoxox ash