Day one in Barcelona! I just wrote m family a huge email and so I'm goin to simply copy and paste so I don't have to retell :) buenas tardes
Hola familia! thats probably not right but its okay. At the moment it is a quarter after 1 pm here and already my day was so adventurous I´ve come back to the hostel.It started 12 hours ago when I finally walked into my hostel. I arrived late and after dark so finding my hostel was more difficult than necessary and everyone who offered to help was drunk or knew less English than I knew Spanish. Anyway, I signed in and got my room and went to bed in a room of 7 other people. Since it was a Saturday night, most of the people were out anyway and so i was able to figure my stuff out rather simply. And then I stared at the roof. And at the door. Then I checked facebook. And gmail. And youtube. and then I saw the window beside my bed. It has a beautiful view so I looked at that for quite a while and eventually I fell asleep. Around 5 this morning, some very drunk travelers decided to go to bed and drunk whisper while they did so. So basically talk in normal everyday voices. So after only 3 hours of sleep I was up and showering off 21 hours of grime and airplane skin cells. Best shower ever. Also, I couldn´t find the toilet last night and I REALLY had to pee so this morning when I found it hidding by the showers it was also the best pee ever. One becomes so much more grateful for facilities when traveling.
Okay, now to the crazy metroe system part. I don´t really know what happened. Honestly, I needed to go somewhere because its my first day here and so after wandering around and not finding Sagrada Familía I found the metro station and bought a ticket. Luckily, I understood the words for train and ticket and the times. Unfortunately the train system made zero sense and I stared at the screen for about 5 minutes hoping that it would suddenly become an English speaking siri and tell me where to go. It didn´t. So I got a ticket for only a station away but the next station was kinda sketchy so I just stayed on the train. And then we went through the spanish slums or something - people were actually living in things that looked like the horseshelters; three walls and some blankets. So I didnt get off there either. In fact I stayed on until the final stop and greatly debated just going back but then I said to myself "don´t be a girl. Take this chance for adventure" so I got off the train in somewhere called Granollera Centre.I think that where it was.
I stared at a couple more maps which also did me no help and I just walked. I didn´t walk far because as I walked past the bus stop three guys WHO WERE ON THE BUS got OFF the bus and started calling out at me and saying things I didn´t understand but I understood them to be flirtations and oy bonita bella! or something that sounded italian. I ignored them and walked on a mainish street but thought i heard footsteps behind me so I saw a coffee shop open and I stepped in.
I tried to ask where I was but there was a delicious looking crossiant staring at me and my tummy reminded me that I had only eaten some foriegn cereal for breakfast. So I sat down and somehow communicated what I wanted. By the way, When you order black coffee over here you get straight espresso. I am literally shaking right now and not from nerves at all. I sat alone in the empty cafe and began writing in The Book for Len and Syd, and also a journal I have that Alix gave me. But the cafe filled up very quickly and everyone smiled at me and said something. I know people were talking about me wearing no makeup - the ladies here where very defined make up, even in the country like town i was in the women all had on a little makeup- lunch, coffee, four bagettes and five paninis (overheared, understood, got really excited) and other things spoken in a loud spanish fluery. The cashier asked where I was from and I told him and he said he was from peru and spoke a little English. His English was as good as my Spanish so after giving up at conversation I just asked for things in Spanish (Agua, por favor) and he´d reply in english (cold water okay?) and then Id go (Si, Frio Agua es bien) and we didn´t really care about sentence structure and whatnot because we were both communicating in a language we werent comfortable in and we were being understood. Best feeling. His name was Peter. Peter de Peru as I now refer to him. The second person to make conversation with me was Viejo Señor de Cafe which i´m pretending means Old Man from the Cafe. He was maybe 65- 70 years old and couldn´t leave me alone. or understand ´no entienda´. he just chattered away for about 3 minutes and then looked at me expectantly so I told him again " I dont understand" to which he responded by kissing my cheek say something para guapo (handsome) and buying me a coffee. and then he left and came back with his friend, had another coffee and then gave me a hug whispering in my ear guapo guapo señorita and kissing my cheek again. seriously, I probably should have been more creeped out but I just sat there and laughed in confusion surprise. So he left the coffee shop again and I took my chance to book it back to the train and back to Barcelona. The reason I think I left Barcelona is that it was a good 20 minute ride and when I told them estoy de barcelona they all looked super surprised. as if I had just walked from smithers to moricetown. So that was todays adventure.
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