Spain!

About a week before Seth was going to be in Barcelona I was almost certain that I wasn't going to go to Spain until I saw an extremely cheap flight so I got lucky and booked it.  I didn't really know the deal with where he was actually going to be up until about 2 days before I was leaving.  I booked my hostel on Sunday and got there Monday.  I was getting to Barcelona a day before Seth was so when I got there I just kind of wandered the city.  It isn't really a walkable city as it is huge but I had nothing else to do so literally walked the entire Barcelona metro area that first afternoon/ night.

Arc de Triomf

Typical street

Christopher Columbus statue

I was staying at the Ideal Youth Hostel just off of La Rambla which is the main walking mall in the city.  At night I walked La Rambla countless times and checked out some protest going on in Catalunya plaza which was right off of La Rambla.  There were hundreds of people maybe thousands of people camping out there.  In total probably about 10,000 people were in the plaza protesting the government.  I didn't understand almost any of the signs but one said "economic terrorism" so they definitely aren't happy about something.

La Rambla

Market

Market

Cathedral of Barcelona

At about midnight I went back to the hostel and the city was still completely packed with people.  They really don't sleep in the city it's amazing.

Protest

the dog didn't like all of the noise

The next day I met 2 american girls that go to the University of Florida law school in the lobby of the hostel.  We went to the beach and got lost in doing so.  The beach was very nice when we finally got there but unfortunately I had to go find where Seth was going to be so I started that adventure.

Barceloneta beach

We were going to meet in the main train station Sants but at the last second he messaged me to meet him at the Renfe station which means train station so we had a little dilemma.  Both of our phones ran out of minutes at the same time also so our communication was gone.  I figured I would catch him at the airport though which was way out of the city but I thought that was the only hope.  Unfortunately the airport had 2 terminals but I thought i remembered he took easyjet so I started heading towards that baggage claim which is when I saw Seth and his group walking my direction.  We got very lucky I could of easily have taken another route and lost him.

We boarded a train that took us all the way to Tossa de Mar which is between Barcelona and France.  Seth's teacher Ralph doesn't take many breaks so we were all starving on the 1.5 hour train ride.  We then took an hour bus ride through the winding roads of Spain.  We finally got to the hotel in the little town and ate at the hotel.  The meals were all inclusive so I ate a ton of food coming from the most expensive country in the world.

view from our room

That night we head down to the ocean and took a dip in the water even though it was raining.  People looked at us like we were crazy but we were all from Maine so cold isn't in our vocabulary.  That night we went out to a pizza place which was amazing.  Extremely friendly staff too so it was awesome.

Tossa De Mar's beach

Tossa de Mar

hanging at the beach

The next day Seth had to do some photography stuff with his class so I figured out my plan on getting back to Barcelona.  In the afternoon Seth and I went kayaking in the very rough waters.  Our kayaks also didn't go over the waves they went through the waves so we had fun with that.  The coast was very scenic with huge cliffs.  We hung out on the beach after to dry up and then I had to head back to Barcelona as I wanted to check out the city more and had to catch my bus from there to Girona airport the next morning.

exploring

Seth and I

I caught a bus straight to Barcelona and toured the city to see all the sites I hadn't seen.  I wanted to see the Sagrada familia so I got off at the metro stop Sagrada (makes sense right?).  It was the wrong stop and it was pretty sketchy.  I can sense when I'm in a place where I shouldnt be pretty easily and all warning signs were going off in my head so I scampered back to the metro as I was definitely the only tourist there.  By the time I made it to the famous church the Sagrada familia it was already pretty dark but I could still somewhat see it and all of the cranes fixing it.

Sagrada familia at night

After I saw the church I headed back into town and ate a baguette on La Rambla.  As I eating outside I felt my bag fall over and kind of tug my leg as the strap was wrapped around my leg.  I didn't think of anything as it happened.  A minute later I heard some guy start freaking out on a guy behind me.  Funny thing is I saw the guy about 3 hours earlier on the metro holding a kid in his arms and pushing another in a stroller.  He stopped the guy from trying to steal my bag a second time from what I understood.  He did this all with his baby in his arms which was pretty amazing.  You always have to pay attention to your belongings in Barcelona!

After my bag was almost taken I headed back to the bus stop as my bus was at 3am.  It was about 11pm when I left the downtown area.  My plan was just to sleep in the bus stop but of course it was closed so I tried to sleep outside of the bus station.  Some other swedes had the same idea as me but it was pretty cold so it was hard to do.

Finally caught the bus and the early flight and I was back in Sweden!  I really want to go back to Barcelona in the future and hopefully for a longer period of time!

Boarding the plane back to Sweden