Spain. What a time there! I took the night train from Paris to Madrid, where I met up with people I actually knew! I spent the day with Adriana Gonzales, who I have known since middle school and haven’t seen since the summer after high school, and her boyfriend Aaron Turkle. We spent the day exploring different museums like the Sofia and the El Prado. They introduced me to Boccodillos, which are small sandwiches with either ham(jambon), cheese, or calamari. The Spaniards surprisingly really like calamari. We went to Madrid’s Mercado, which was an amazing market with everything that you could want. These markets are amazing to see and give you a real sense of the culture. There are some of the weirdest and yet coolest things here too! That night ended up being quite crazy with Adriana, Aaron, and Alice(Adriana’s roommate who came later in the day) missing their bus and a bit of a problem with the police in the Atocha station, but it all ended up good in the end and we all got to hang out more. The next day, I was back to exploring by myself, and got to see all of the other sights that I had yet to see. There were so many, that I barely made it to all of them, plus rain in the latter part of the day made me slow down just a bit. The following day, I went to Sevilla, and I didn’t see a single barber there! It was a beautiful town, with the gardens of Real Alcarez and the Cathedral. It was actually quite a larger town than I thought it would be. While here, I found one of the coolest things! Cheetos that were soccer balls! I do wish they had those in the US, but since most of the US doesn’t follow soccer like the Europeans, I guess its understandable. In Sevilla, I made some new friends with many people from all over Canada, and actually ended up on the same night train to Portugal with one of them. It is always nice to be able to travel with other people you have already met or know. Getting off the train, I actually thought that Portugal was just the same exact as Spain, until I went to the top of Castelo San Juan. Lisbon has a giant bridge that looks like an exact replica of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and has gorgeous views out towards the Atlantic Ocean. After exploring the town, I went down to the docks and sat down by the water, fell asleep for a bit and then realized what a bad idea that was. I had no sunscreen on and being a ginger, this most likely won’t turn into a tan sadly. Just more red. I actually was sitting at the train station waiting for my night train to go back to Madrid, and this guy started talking to me in Portuguese, which I had no clue what he was saying. He kept on talking to me and I finally was able to understand what he was saying. From what I could gather, he was saying how English people don’t ever learn the language of the country they are visiting, but if he were visiting another place, he would be expected to speak or understand English. That is very true, and I do wish that I knew at least another language fluently and not just bits of other languages. He then talked to me about what was going on in Libya, but I wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying with that, so I just nodded. The following day, I ended up at my friend Adriana’s town of Tomelloso. It’s a smaller Spanish town, but has quite a few people in it. I got to try some more crazy Spanish food, and also found out how much Spaniards like mayo with everything! The next day, Adriana, Aaron, and I went to Barcelona. It was all our first time there, so we wanted to explore basically everything. We went to Sagrada Familia, a beautiful cathedral that is done inside, but won’t be finished on the outside until around 2020. It was started back around the 1890s I do believe, completely designed by the famous Spanish artist Gaudi. Although it was a bit costly, it was definitely worth seeing. Most of the other things in Barcelona were free such as the Gothic Quarter (although you have to pay to go inside some places, but they look the same inside as out), La Rambla, Princesa St, and the Olympic Village. The beach at the Olympic Village was pretty amazing and full of people. I can just imagine during the summer how overpacked it must be with all the tourist! We actually lucked out too, because that weekend was the first Sunday of the month, and most museums are free on the first Sunday of the month, so we got to go to the Picasso Museum, which actually shows the progression of him from some of his first paintings to some of his last paintings, which is what most people know him by, with the crazy faces and displaced parts. We all left Barcelona on Sunday night, with Adriana and Aaron going back to teach, and me going on to Italy. I was really glad I got to see them. It honestly was nice getting to be around people that you know, especially after being on my own for a month. The only bad thing was, I lost my voice because I wasn’t used to talking so much, but it is slowly returning thanks to meds. Now, if only I could have a teleporter……I guess that’s a little harder to get than meds.
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