Quite the eventful weekend in Barcelona!

Barcelona...what an adventure.  We left for Barcelona Thursday night at midnight for the 7 hour bus ride...yikes.  But they way there wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be and Katherine and I managed to sleep almost the whole time.  That's not to say we weren't extremely tired when we arrived in Barcelona and had absolutely no idea how to get to our hostel.  Finally we figured out on the map which direction to go and we were on our way.  We decided to stop at a little cafe on the way to get some cafe con leche and some food where we randomly met up with a bunch of our other friends from the fundacion...random.  Eventually we found our hostel at 9 am and found out we couldn't check in until 1pm and the people who worked there were extremely rude and unhelpful.  We ended up wandering around Ramblas, which is the main shopping/tourist street in Barcelona for awhile and then throwing on our swim suits and heading to the beach!  The beach was great...it was beautiful weather and it was so cool to know we were swimming in the Mediterranean Sea!

That night we went out for Chinese food (how Spanish of us) which I had been missing dearly.  A huge group of us went to this huge outdoor rap concert right on the beach that was part of the festival going on in Barcelona over the weekend.  We decided to set off and find a discoteca but on our way it started POURING.  It downpoured our whole walk and after taking shelter under several carnival rides we walked into the first bar we saw.  Even though we were absolutely soaked at this point it ended up being a lot of fun.  There was a guy there teaching different Spanish dances and my friend even taught me how to salsa!  As we were walking home my friend Katherine decided it would be a really good idea to jump into the sea and decided to drag me, Adam, and Kayla along with her.  So the four of us took the leap off the boat dock into the mar and then made the very cold and wet walk home.  Unfortunately my camera was dead at this point to I don't have any pictures but it was definitely a night to remember!

The next day we woke up and got some Subway like typical Americans (don't ever get Subway in Spain, it's awful).  Everyone kind of went off in their own directions (some back to bed)  so Mary and I decided to hop on the tourist bus for the day and go see the sights!  The tourist bus ended up being the perfect way to explore Barcelona.  First we went to the Sagrada Familia which is an absolutely massive and indescribable Catholic church which was designed by Gaudi who is a very famous artist in Barcelona.  It started being built in 1882 and isn't expected to be completed for at least 15 more years and this is with people working on it almost every day.Next we stopped at the park Guell which is a park filled with architecture and artwork by Gaudi.  It also has absolutely beautiful views of the entire city.  Other stops included a former palace and Camp Nou where the Barcelona soccer team plays.

Saturday night we did another pub crawl which took us to a discoteca right near the beach.  We got some free champagne and hung out there for a while and then headed to another discoteca.  It was a lot of fun and me and all my friends were having a lot of fun dancing on the platform until I accidently got pushed off and landed on my head.  So unfortunately I left Barcelona with one free souvenir:  a concussion.  Getting home the next day was definitely an adventure: taxi to the bus station, 8 hour bus ride to Madrid, subway to different bus station in Madrid, another bus from Madrid to Toledo, and a taxi back to Poligono.  Barcelona was a ton of fun but I've never been so happy to be back in Toledo!  This weeked I'm taking a much needed weekend off from traveling but next weekend...Alicante!

Pictures won't upload right now but I'll add some later!