barcelona!!!

i arrived nice and early to the barcelona bus station where i only saw one crazy lady. the kooks make me feel sane and entertain me. theyre always sitting in the middle ofthe stations rambling about sometihng to their invisible friend at hte top of their lungs. maybe they are trying to talk to each other at the different bus stations across spain.. it was barely light at 630 in the morning.. kind of a reminder that summer is now offically over :( i took the metro to carla's stop (yep my friend i just met in lagos).. and since it was so early, i walked around for a bit.. it was sunday morning..apparently to live in barcelona you need to own a dog and walk it early then. there were still a few kids out from the night before.. but the city is pretty calm at that hour.. i sat in a little cafe and enjoyed the thickest chocolate (accent on the e.. i no longer have a spanish keyboard :/) ive ever had. .and a croissant con queso.. i sat and watched the world go by before i decided it was time to wake up carla! her apartment is cute, her roommates are so nice, and the couch was amazing.. better than so many hostel beds ive had and so nice to not be sleeping with 7 other people for 2 nights. carla took me on the semi-locals tour.. shes only lived there for 3 months but it was perfect.. chilled and at the spanish speed of well get to it.. eventually. we walked around for a bit checkin out the Gaudi buildings.. WOW! how cool are they!? so unique and just stuck in the middle of the hustle and bustle of barcelona.. we made it to teh beach to relax for a bit... well all afternoon..but theres really not too much i enjoy more.. so it was perfect. the beach is no lagos, but it was just what i needed! we headed back through the gothic district where Carla was going to take me to this local champangeria for a sandwich.. it was closed :( so we stopped in another spot and i had some typical Catalayn food.. some bread with tomato smeared on it.. just tastes like soggy bread.. and some tortilla.. which i found out in madrid is not like a mexican tortilla..but a loaf of potato basically. its pretty good though! while we were eating.. it started to rain! boo!!!! so much for walking home.. we stopped at the internet place on the way home..when i was writing most of hte last entry.. and it started POURING. and lightning and thunder included. so i waited it out a bit..nad it just kept getting worse... so i booked it back the 2 and half blocks in my rainbows nad little dress. DRENCHED. it was almost funny how hard it was raining out of nowhere. i was pooped and turned in early on my couch for hte night sleeping like a little baby!

the next morning i was supposed to get up early and take care of more little things that always need to be taken care of.. like my phone and postcards ive been carrying around since belguim.. but somehow it never really gets taken care of, even when you devote an hour to it.. my package that is still lost between the states and thailand was apparently sent through some rando thai company that pretended to be a UPS company.. so the spanish UPS man told me many many times. dumb. i surrendered for the day.. maybe tomorrow or in the next country... and carla and i headed to the Park Guell.. Goudi's park... omgosh its so cool. this dude was on some type of crazy drugs.. but his buildings and architecture are so inspiring! and just cool. theres no real edges to anything..nad so many bright colored tiles and unique ways of building walls and whatnot. Carla had made us a little picnic for the park and introduced me to tinto de verano... basically red wine with yellow fanta was her discription.. its delicious..and went so well with our local tapa style picnic lunch of thin sliced ham, brie nad baguette! mmm. then we headed to goudi's church.. something de familia.. someone will probably hurt me for not knowing the full name! one side of the church shows the sad points of jesus' life.. all the figures carved into this huge crazy church have block bodies... and the other side shows the happy things.. nad the chruch looks like its about to melt down... but it also has these crazy bowls of bright fruit on the side..and tehres all types of reptiles and whatnot carved all over the sides.. o yea. and the church still isnt done..they basically been workin on it for like 100 years.. the new proposed finish date is around 2020.. but itll prolly get pushed back again! Carla knew so much info about gaudi and his work so it was awesome hearing it all.. she prolly knew way more than any of hte locals actually. we went back to the apartment again to get ready for a night out.. yes it was monday..but theres always somewhere to go in barcelona.. so got a few beers from the local shop and sat in a plaza to drink for a bit.. heaven forbid we head anywhere before 1 am! ha. we experienced another massive downpour but luckily it died down in time to head to apollo.. the monday night hot spot. we had a friend of a friend whos friend got us in.. guillermo.. aka ricky martin. he was colombian, but i swear he's ricky's protoge. he was havin the best night of his life dancing with the peruivian and american girl he told us many times.. haha. he pretty much thought we were fighting over him all night when we were more of rescuing eachother from his... ricky dancing. haha. it was definitely entertaining and the club was crazy! about 8 random spanish boys ran over and picked me up in the air for no reason.. and then disappeared.. maybe because i screamed a little! ricky rode the bus home with us.. and continued the show dancin all over the bus. o gosh. and as we walked the 7 or 8 blocks from where we got off the bus back to carlas.. we see our bus pass us on the street, realizing that we couldve stayed on it longer. o well. story of life. we did our standard spanish double cheek kisses and head off to bed.. thinking wed never see ricky again..

the next morning was a late one.. i had big plans of making it to the 9 am mass to see the inside of the gaudi church.. that was far too ambitious.. we had a little brekky and headed out around noon.. i wanted some last bit of beach sun i could count on.. and carla wanted to make sure i actually saw some of barcelona.. so we walked the half hour to the beach.. stopping on the main tourist drag wtih the craziest human statues, birds for sale, and everything else that entertains tourists.. the artistic side of barcelona supposedly. .some people def get creativity points. but i dont know about artistic.. we strolled through the markets as well filled with fruits, candy, mushrooms of every shape and size and some meat and everything else there is to eat. cool! we made it to the beach for a bit hoping to relax for an hour or so..but there was no sittin still after getting spit on by some looney crazy man who was flipping his hair in the wind, and running into ricky martin again! ha. he layed on our towel and chatted away with us instead of working selling presale club tickets on the beach. then it was time to head back so i could catch my bus for my flight.. we strolled through more of the gothic region and hit up the sandwich/champange place.. it was cool... apprently far from crowded...but youd never know that by looking at the 30 people crammed into a little side shop all drinking champange and eating tapas. i felt really spanish in there. it was cool. and cheap! then we walked back through the other side of barcelona.. seeing the cathedral that no one visits because of gaudi's stuff, and some more cool buildings stuck into little side streets.. made it back just in time to book it to the bus station and head to the airport..
arriving in frankfurt hahn was not exactly what i had hoped.. no couches to crash on like in the dublin airport.. but because it was basically a ryanair only airport..aka all the backpackers and cheapos.. well, you better believe that strolling through the terminal there was people curled up in their sleeping bags everywhere! ha it was almost like a little club.. i met some cool polish kids who i camped out with.. they had just hiked for over 30 days on teh camino de satiago.. and convinced me i should do the portugal route with them in two years. OK! they thought i was crazy traveling so many places.. i thought they were crazy walking for hitchhiking and then walking for 30 days. but we of course got along and talked all night..and they left me with all their food.. bread, cheese, and chocolate! thankss guys! and after they went to catch their flight around 5 am.. i found myself a little booth to sleep in for a while before catching the 2 hour bus to frankfurt.. thank you ryanair for claiming the frankfurt airport is near frankfurt. NOT. o what we crazy backpackers go through to save a few euro.

so now im in frankfurt... at my pretty nice hostel in the red light district.. doesnt seem to sketch yet! ha. im really excited for my completely new travel experineces to begin tomorrow when meredith and andrew arrive.. meredith and i have kinda been planning stuff, except not really.. its kinda our style...we have eurail passes for germany, switzerland, austria, check republic, slovenia, and croatia...and we eventually have to get to greece so im sure its going to be quite a whirlwind of traveling to get where we need to go! and andrew is a family friend that over-coiscidently ended up on the same flight as mere and is going to travel with us too.. should be interesting! we dont even know where were offically going tomorrow. but oktoberfest is a must stop within the next week! ha. well see where life takes us!!!!