Barceloooooooooooona!

I spent the last weekend in Barcelona with 7 girlfriends.  We stayed at a hostel calle Kabul backpackers hostel, the same as the one Leah stayed in the weekend before.  I dont think we really liked it as well as Leah did, so our stay there was a bit bittersweet.  When we arrived, we were separated by room from our other friends, so we had three girls in an 8 person room with 5 35-year-old men because there was no age limit at the hostel, i think they were from germany or portugal..I was suffering trying to understand their language. SO anyway, we felt very uncomfortable and one even snored through the night.  The first night we didnt get in off our train until about midnight so we just ended up going to bed.  The second day, Friday, we went to the Sagrada Familia, the huge cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi that is still to this day not finished and there are cranes and modern-day construction workers all over it, still working out Gaudi's plans (he is long dead)  It was very very cool, but we didnt go in at the advice of our director, Armando, who said it wasnt worth the money.  So we spent a few minutes looking at it and walking all around it then we left.  My friend Drew then told me yesterday that going inside the Sagrada Familia was the coolest thing he saw in Barcelona.  Figures, eh?

After that we saw some more of Gaudi's work at Parc Güell, a park he designed.  It has this huge amazing terrace that overlooks the city and these two fairy-tale houses he built.  They look like something out of Hansel and Gretel and are even called the Hansel and Gretel houses.  

After that we walked around the city, went to the Central Market and I bought some caramelos (candies) then I got a coffee at Dunkin Coffee, like DUnkin Donuts, assuming there was the one place I may actually have been able to find realy American coffee.  So I got what wasnt a feature on the menu, because I knew It probably wasnt popular, the Dunkin Original Coffee.  Which still ended up being expresso with milk.  I am giving up my search for my coffee.  It just DOES NOT exist.  Not even at Starbucks, which I have been to twice since I've been here.  When I see one I just run to it. That night we got new annoying French roommates, who talked all the time at the same level whether the three of us were sleeping or not.

That night we went out with an organized club excursion with our hostel.  We went to a club called Catwalk, and it was huge and the beat from the music made my heart bounce before I even entered.  The thing was, since we are in Spain and were with other people from our hostel, we didnt go to the club until 2AM.  So we slept until about 12:30 then we got up then got ready and went.  Normal going out hours for Spaniards that can actually handle that schedule (I never make it past 4am) is about 12 or 1am until 6am.  I dont know how they do it.  Anyway the club was fun but really loud and although we got in free, drinks were about 10 eurp or like 13 dollars, so we said definitely not and didnt drink.  We just danced. It was two huge levels, and on the bottom they played club trance sort of music but then on the next level they played what I would consider normal club music in the US, rap and popular rock/pop.  We went to the second floor where we felt more at home.  On the first floor, they had these two people dancing on these platforms and I swear the people looked like they were straight out of a Sims party (the computer game!) The girl was wearing this leopard print outfit and was just dancing so weird and then there was a guy who was wearing a suit and sunglasses and he was just dancing so funny we couldnt help but laugh.  

The next day we went to the Picasso museum, which was very very cool.  We saw a bunch of his first sketches, of hands and people and things that one practices in art school, so that was very cool, and well put together.  The only thing was with the "economic crisis" here all the ticket prices for everything where we went was at least 3 or 4 euro more than our guidebooks said, which was annoying.  I swear, money just fell from my hands in Barcelona...a very expensive city.  After that we ate gelato which was incredible and then I took a funny picture with all these Asians dressed up as Barcelona soccer players (my new facebook profile picture!)  It was great.  And they all gave the peace sign, too!

Then we came back on the train and there were these ex-band members that were two ladies and they were talking at an extremely high level the whole time so sleep was impossible.  Not to generalize, but there are many Spanish people who talk unnecessarily loudly.  Plus she never sat down the whole 5 hours, she just sood in the aisle talking with these guys across the aisle.  Really ridiculous.  Then her friend was very drugged out and didn't open her eyes fully the entire trip, she had at least 20 piercings on her face alone and huge black ifngernails and 50 bracelets on each wrist and 50 necklaces. Wild girl.

I'm really into this Spanish singer called Chambao, she sings really soothing songs in Spanish and they all have really cool, liberal lyrics as Z would say.  Then i am also listening to one called Búika, who is kind of combination of a little bit flamenco and Spanish but she is African, hard to explain but the sound is very cool. You have to be in the right mood to listen to her though.

Auroras son and daughter both have bands, and I got the website for one (its on myspace, but the name of the band is the Grave Yacht Club, and their CD is called Get Drunk! which I thought was funny.  I will get the name of Bea's band later.

9 days 'til Z gets here!  Its basically all I can think about.  Miss you all. Xoxo