Free Travel: Barcelona, Spain

Well, I am currently in a hostel in Barcelona, Spain. And it. is. awesome.

We arrived here by plane yesterday and took an hour long bus ride into the city (RyanAir serves ariports outside main cities instead of in them, which is why their rates are so cheap). We walked around a little bit, but mainly stayed around our hostel. We are staying in the Urbany Hostel, which is a lot cooler than I expected. We have 4 strangers in our room: 2 Brazillian guys, 1 middle-aged heavier set woman (with an Obama sticker on her computer), and a chinese girl. We have spoken a little bit to the guys, but not much has been said between the others. But thats all part of the experience.

We got up at 6 this morning - yes, 6 - to go to the train station to reserve our overnight train to Paris, which is pretty crucial to our free travel plans. (You can't reserve trains unless you are in that country it leaves from). May I also mention that the Brazillian guys didn't walk into our room until we were leaving, at 6am, from partying all night.

So we get to the train station, talk to some people, and discover that the French railways are on strike, starting today.

Perfect.

We talk and reviewed our options. Apparently those who already had reservations were given a bus that would take them there, so we tried to get reservations on that. However, it was full. So we went back to our hostel and scoured the internet for travel options, hopefully a cheap flight. However, at such late notice (1 day prior to leaving), nothing is cheap. We finally settled for the best deal we could find, which was a 100 euro flight to Paris.

We are still not sure how travelling withing Paris will go (some of us were planning to go to the beaches of Normandy, which may not happen now) and we are not even sure the strike will be over before we have to leave Paris for Switzerland. Please pray that we find a safe and affordable way to continue our travels...

After several deep breaths and some breakfast, we took a short nap and headed out for the city. We walked around all day, found some cheap food at a really cool marjet area, and enjoyed seeing the sights of the city. (yes Mom, I took pictures). We visited some of the famous sights of the city, including a cool Gothic church and the Picasso Museum.

After dinner at a recommended pizza place, we came back to our hostel. Apparently tomorrow is a National holiday, so they are kicking it off tonight. Outside our hostel in the middle of the street was just utter chaos. There was a huge bonfire, fireworks EVERYWHERE (I'm talking these things have been going off nonstop for a few hours now), a drumline, some live music, some fire twirlers, and more fireworks (did I mention there were a lot of those things?).

It was the most fun night I've had in a while, and it was extremely cool to be able to party with the locals (in a clean, alcohol-free way) and celebrate a part of their culture. And it was extra cool that it inculded 3 of my favorite things: drums, fire, and explosives.

Tomorrow we check out of our hostel, plan on going to the beach, touring through this huge family palace thing, and going wherever the wind takes us. At this point, we are planning on spending the night in the airport instead of paying a high price for a last mintue reservation at the hostel. So hopefully they dont kick us out.

Its been a lot of fun so far, even with the setbacks.

Ciao!
Taylor