Return to France.

Thursday: ROUGH. I woke up at 7:00am, hungover, and only had maybe 2-3 hours of sleep. I had to do some last minute packing and shower. Showering was quite a challenge that morning. We left the hostel at 8:00am. I didn't get to eat breakfast. I was so hungry. We caught a cab to the train station and got on our train. The train ride was a bit rough. The shaking and movement of the train didn't make me very happy. I slept on the train until Montpellier. From there, we took another train to Valence TGV. Upon arriving, we find out that our train to Grenoble was cancelled. We attempted to catch a bus, but they were all full. So, we had to take an hour long train ride to Lyon, and then, back to Grenoble. Now, Valence TGV to Grenoble is an hour. Valence TGV to Lyon to Grenoble was about 3 hours. We were planning on getting back around 5:30pm, but we arrived near 8:30pm. That has been the second time the SNCF has fucked up our trains. I'm starting realize that the SNCF is not as reliable as I thought. Grrr. At least, we got back to Grenoble.

Barça: part Monday - Wednesday

Monday: Anna and I woke up around 10:00am. I asked her what time it was and I completely thought that she said, 8:00am. Then, I proceeded to sleep until 11:00am. Anna did not seem too happy with me. Apparently, during the extra hour of sleep, I missed the depart of the other two Americans. Darn. Well, we went to the Museu de la Xocolata (Museum of Chocolate). The entry ticket was a bar of dark chocolate. DELICIOUS. They had a bunch of stuff on history of chocolate, how it's processed, and some very interesting chocolate sculptures. All the sculptures looked amazing. At the end, we decided to buy some odd chocolates, so I bought "ginger" and Anna bought "cheese and honey." Both are disgusting. After, we went to the Parc de la Ciutadella. It was a nice park: a lot of foliage and grassy areas, a huge lake, a zoo, some historical museums, a greenhouse, and a huge Gaudi monument that had fountains and a waterfall. It would be really nice in the summer. We went to the port after to eat lunch. We ended up at a restaurant called "Toc de Mar." It had a real nice "menu de dia." I had a calamari, a HUGE plate of arroz negro, dessert, and wine. The calamari was real nice. Arroz negro is a paella dish, cooked in squid ink. Anna had the salmon carpaccio and the seafood paella. WHAT A HUGE AND DELICIOUS LUNCH and all for 12 euros. Beautiful. After lunch, we explored the beaches of Barcelona. The weather wasn't the extremely nice, but the beaches looked real pretty. We ended the day by going to the mercat (market) on Las Ramblas and buying some bread, Spanish ham, and cheese. After such a huge lunch, we decided to go for a light dinner. Spanish ham is sooooo delicious, but it is quite expensive. I can see why people tell me that Spanish ham is the best in the world. That night, two Australians checked in: Maddy and Margot. They had just finished their tour of the US and are now doing their European adventure. Impressive. Maddy is an editor of children books and Margot is doing for Ph.D in creative writing. They are just real lovely people.

Tuesday: We went to the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia. It's this huge roman catholic cathedral that has been under construction since the 1880s. It looks amazing, but the interior is mostly unfinished. It was definitely not worth the 10 euro entrance fee. For those going to Barcelona, just look at it from the outside. The interior is not worth the 10 euros. After, we wandered around Barcelona. We accidentally ran across the Arc de Trimpf. Cool. Anna and I were feeling pretty tired that day, so we went back to the hostel and took a big nap. That night, we went for tapas with all the hostel people. Real fun! There were the Polish people, Margot and Maddy, Jimmy, and then, Alessia and Mirko joined us later. All the dishes were real good. At midnight, we sang Happy Birthday to the birthday girl, Margot, in Spanish, French, English, and Polish. She seemed to really enjoy it. We got back to the hostel around 2:00am. What a great dinner.

Wednesday: First thing, we went to the Miro museum on Montjuïc. I really enjoyed it. You should google Miro if you don't know anything about his works. His style is real simple, almost kid-like. We explored Montjuïc a bit more after and ended up at the Olympic stadium. After, we went for lunch in the center. That night, we went out for Margot's birthday. Insane time! Mirko cooked dinner, which consisted of rice and spanish chicken. Delicious. We finished quite a bit of cavas, which is Spanish sparkling wine. We went out to a bar around 11:00pm which had live music. Real good. I bought the birthday girl two shots of tequila. (To all, if it's your birthday, I will buy you a drink.) I drank quite a bit that night. Maybe a bit too much. It was so much fun and I had so much fun dancing. We got back around 3:00am. HORRIBLE DECISION. I had to wake up around 7:00am to catch the train.

Barça: part hostel

The Barcelona Central Garden Hostel really made this trip special. First off, the owners, Alessia and Mirko, picked Anna and I up by car from the train station and we did a little car tour of Barcelona. What a great way to start off the trip. The hostel itself was extremely nice and proper. It's nice and cozy. It has about 10 rooms, a kitchen, a living room, 2 computers available for use, and 4 full bedrooms. Apparently, we were the first guests at the hostel, so we got upgraded from a 6 bed room to a 2 bed room, without being charged extra. Props to Anna for choosing this place! I was surprised by how well Alessia and Mirko know Barcelona. They knew places to visit, restaurants to eat at, bars/clubs to go to. They were such a lovely couple and had so many stories to tell. They have owned resturants in Barcelona and New York, where Mirko was once one of the top chefs in New York. Their old restaurant in Barcelona was ranked in the top 10 out of 3000 resturants in Barcelona. Impressive stuff. I really enjoyed that they pushed for the guests to meet and talk with each other. Mirko made dinner twice, which was nice because: his cooking was absolutely delicious, we didn't spend more money going out to a restaurant, and we got to sit down and meet the other guests. There was also the Sunday where Mirko drove us around to see the attractions that were a little further out of Barcelona. I couldn't believe that they were doing this for us! It's this kind of hospitality that Alessia and Mirko exhibited, that really made this trip extra special.

Barça: part 2

Saturday: We woke up, expecting to have to find something to eat for breakfast, but Alessia and Mirko had already bought some bread and jam for us. It was really nice of them. Then, we sat down with Alessia and she went through an hour presentation of ''What To Do in Barcelona.'' After, we were off to explore. We started with Place de Catalunya and Las Ramblas. Place de Catalunya is a nice square with fountains and statues. There are a lot of pigeons though, which was quite frightening with them flying around/at you. Las Ramblas is a big tourist street, but it was nice. There's a merçat (market) right off Las Ramblas and it was AMAZING. They sold fruit, meat, seafood, and they even had restaurants in there. They had tons of fruit and vegetables for dirt cheap, like 1 kilo of oranges, apples, or bananas for 1 euro. There was also a lot of stands where they sold Spanish hams. DELICIOUS. We found a nice little restaurant there and ate lunch. I had some rice, sausage, and potatoes. It was a lot for only paying 5 euros. We finished Las Ramblas and then, we walked around the port. Real pretty. After, we decided to explore some of the smaller streets of the old city. We went back to the hostel for a break and then, we went to a Flamenco show. We met up with 2 other Americans there, Katie and Devon. They are both studying in Antibes, France and they go to UofFlorida in the US. The show was nothing less than amazing. The music, the dancing. It was all so intense. I really enjoyed it. I was surprised that it was so good, because we only paid about 7 euros, with some of the better shows being 40+ euros. Then, we all went out for some tapas. Anna and I were wanting to eat quite a bit, but the other two didn't seem up for it. So, we really didn't get to experience a true tapas meal and didn't end up eating a lot. We also had sangria, which was decent. The other two Americans seem to be very tight with their money. I mean, I understand why they were, but Anna and I are fine with spending money on a good meal. Dinner was a bit of a bummer, but all in all, it was a great day. Weather was got worse as the day passed, as it did rain quite a bit.

Sunday: Weather was a lot better. It started off pretty murky, but it got nicer as the day passed. Mirko drove Anna, Devon, Katie, and I to a bunch of different places. First, we went to Montjuïc. We visited the castle there. It had nice gardens and some cannons from the Spanish Civil War. It was cool. It had some really nice views of Barça. After, we went to Tebidabo next. It took about 45 minutes to get from Monjuïc to Tebidabo. Quite a drive. Katie didn't look so good after going up the mountain to Tebidabo. Apparently, she gets car-sick easily. Up there, once again, there were amazing views of Barça. There was also, a church on top of another church. Interesting. After, we went to Park Güell. So cool. Gaudi designed the entire park: the buildings and the vegetation. It was so cool. Definitely one of my favorite part's of Barcelona. We walked around. I really enjoy Gaudi's architecture. It's really something different from anything I've seen. We had ''lunch'' there, which consisted of a 5 euro piece of bread with some chorizo. Booooo. After Park Güell, we went back to the hostel. Anna and I went out for a petit apéro, which was a delicious 5 euro, 3 pieces of tapas and sangria. DELICIOUS. Alessia and Mirko actually made spaghetti for us that night. Really delicious, as Mirko use to be one of the top chefs in New York. Crazy. After dinner, Anna and I decided to search for some gelato, but was unsuccessful. However, it was about 11:30pm when we decided to go searching.

Barça

So, let's start with Friday. Of course, I didn't sleep well Thursday night. I was up late packing, stressing, worrying, and such. This always seems to be the story before a big day of traveling. I had to pack my toiletries Friday morning and I was off to the train station. I was in such a rush Friday morning that I unfortunately didn't get to eat breakfast.

Well, before explaining my trip so far, I want to give you an overview of we had planned. I am traveling with my Finnish friend, Anna, to Barcelona from Friday until Thurdsay. We left Grenoble at 11:00am on Friday and arrived in Barcelona at 9:00pm. We arrived an hour later than expected. That was such a long day of traveling. We are leaving bright and early on Thursday at 8:00am and expected to return to Grenoble around 5:30pm.

So, we took the bus from Grenoble to Valence TGV. It took us about an hour and a half to get there. There, our train to Montpellier was delayed 15 minutes. It didn't really matter, since we had an hour and half wait at Montpellier for our train to Barcelona. We got to Montpellier, searched desparately for food, found a kebab place to get food, and then returned to the train station to find out that our train was canceled. We talked to the 'accueil' and they said to take the next train to Perpignan. From there, we could get the train to Barcelona. So, we were again delayed another half hour to wait for the train to Perpignan. At Perpignan, it was a bit of a choatic rush, as we only had 10 minutes to change trains. We got on the train and about a couple seconds later, it started leaving. The train from Perpignan to Barcelona took about 5 hours. WAY TOO LONG. When we finally got to Barcelona, the hostel was nice enough to send someone to pick us up. We received a ride to the hostel, with a little driving tour of the city. It was so nice of the hostel owners.

This hostel has been nothing but amazing. They have really gone out of their way to make our time in Barcelona really special. I'll update later on what we did today, yesterday, and this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING HOSTEL. Barcelona Central Garden!