can I get a BARCELONA?

We arrived in the wonderful city of Barcelona around 8am. Our first priority of the day: find our hostel and shower (considering we hadn't showered in 48hours). We spent a few hours at the hostel getting settled, talking to the owners, and using the free wireless internet computers that our home for the evening had provided. Around 1130, we began our day inside the city in search of another wonderful Spanish meal. However, our instincts must not have been fully functioning that day because we picked a cafe where the majority of our meals tasted like stale high school cafeteria food. After an unsatifsying lunch (the first of our fall break, I might add), we set our sights on finding the beach/MEDITERRANEAN SEA. The weather in Barcelona was in the upper-60's. All of us decided we wanted to relax on the beach for awhile, until Flener and I both agreed we were getting in the Med. Sea, no matter the temperature. We proceeded to the nearest grocery store in search of some decent swim suits/beach gear. Flener, Amy, and I all left with 9 euro one-pieces...yes BRETT FLENER was a part of this. Words just really can not describe how hilarious and ridiculous this situation was. All of our suits were far too large for our young adult bodies. In fact, I looked like a 65 year old grandmother. The rest of the girls decided to lay out on the beach while the three of us ran straight towards the water, which was more bearable than I had anticipated. These few hours at the beach are the most memorable of my entire fall break. Brett was in a multi-colored one-piece. I just can not get over that.

After our comical and relaxing time at the beach, we made a quick stop back at the hostel to put on dry clothes, then headed out for a 3 1/2 hour guided bike tour of the city of Barcelona. Besides the 7 of us, the only other people on the tour: 8 obnoxious and immature college frat boys from Indiana, who were studying in Florence. The bike tour was one of the best choices we had made in Spain. Our guide took us through different urban neighborhoods, to a "magical" fountain with mulit-colored lights, down to the beach at sunset, and to other historic sights around Barcelona. The bike tour concluded around 8pm, and we headed straight towards a restaurant our guide had recommended we try. I ordered pita+hummus and a delicious helping of chicken fajitas. Our last supper was a big success and we all decided splurging was okay. And thus concludes the end of a highly memorable, exciting, and hilarious day in Barcelona.

We woke up around 9am on Saturday morning and started packing. Brett guided us to the bus station in Barcelona so that we could purchase our bus tickets to the Girona airport (where we would be flying out of later in the day). We assumed the airport was not more than 20 minutes from our hostel, but it turned out to be closer to an hour and a half away. Good thing I chose to check on the distance the night before or else we would have missed our flight and had no way to get back home to Vienna! After purchasing tickets, we had a few hours to kill and spotted a little league soccer game just down the street. We stayed for the entirety of one of the games, not because we had nothing better to do, but because the mini players were SO talented. They would have destroyed my high school team's without shame. The game was so entertaining. Once the bus arrived at the Girona airport, we eased through security and baggage check with no trouble. Our flight back to Bratislava took around 2 hours. Then we had to catch a train from Bratislava, Slovakia back to Vienna. We arrived back at the hotel around 9pm. This is the first Halloween I spent traveling, but I wouldn't have given up my experiences for the world. Who can say they were in 3 different countries on Halloween besides my group? (Spain, Slovakia, and Austria). I was able to skype call my parents and talk to them for almost an hour, which made me so happy since I hadn't been able to talk to them over fall break at all. I also started the first few days of my blog.

This concludes my fall break blogs. I hope you enjoyed reading them. I wish I could sit down with all of you and go hour-by-hour conversing on all the stories, but until I return home, this will have to suffice. More to come tomorrow!