Accomodations Take 2

FELIZ 2007: 3 King's Day Parade

Immediately after visiting both my assigned apartment (Gran Via), and Bob's (Aldana), we realized that there were enough beds between just these two so that a third apartment wasn't even needed and could be rented to someone else to save all of us money if everyone wanted to live together in 2 apartments instead of the original 3.

We went back to studio to keep Christi company and to look out for people as they straggled in. It was a good time. We missed the arrivals of both Victoria and Gisela. We were present for Ben's frantic phonecall telling us he had slept through the boarding of his flight from Munich to Barcelona, and we panicked right along with him when we realized that Billy would be waiting for Ben to no avail and with only one semester of Spanish under his belt, hoping that he could get to studio on his own. We also wondered "where on earth is rob?" (literally) as the schedule showed him coming in today, but his actual arrival was for the following day. So much for organization, no?

We managed to get Brian to Aldana without having him get caught in a brawl that broke out on St. Bernat (the alley where studio is located) as he walked up. Billy finally made it, after waiting 3 hours at the airport for Ben, then deciding to try pointing to studio on a map and hoping the taxi driver knew where he was going. (There is always a certain amount of relief when you finally see someone you know after a long amount of traveling through lots of foreign countries, people, and systems). Ben finally made it (lugging all of his suitcases, including his guitar through the crowds headed to the 3 King's Day Parade) and we were told Sean would meet up with us later because his flight wasn't coming in until around 5 or 6. (He ended up at the tuberculosis hospital two doors down from studio, having them look up the address for 20 minutes only to realize how close he actually was!)

Finally, we were all (minus Rob) accounted for, so we got packed up and headed to la Plaza de Catalunya for the parade, then on to Christi's for dinner (pics of that are on the main blog page, so I'll leave those out of here).

Brian

Tom

Victoria

Gisela

...all ready for the parade and waiting to leave Gran Via!

Bri

Tom

Gisela

Ben

Monica

Mr. Perez

...walking down Gran Via to Plaza de Catalunya

Accomodations and Such Take 1

Finding my belongings after Jessie balanced my suitcases in the airport was quite interesting...especially in my 6 foot my 3 foot "room" in the hostel...which was taken up mostly by my bed!

So...my hostel (Barcelona Mar) is the least expensive in all of Barcelona at about 16 Euro for the night. Bob and I each got a bunk in a room with 6 other people, none of whom I actually talked to. I was too nervous and out of my element that first day, not to mention exhausted. I did, however, manage to maintain a conversation with my taxi driver entirely in Spanish. He taught me some things about Catalan and the city. All-in-all an enjoyable ride.

I was an hour before check-in time and my bags didnt fit in the non-room lockers, so i just sat in the locker area for an hour and read a book on Catalunya, then checked in, slept for 3 hours, and headed to Plaza de Catalunya to catch a bus to the airport to meet Bob.

Not too much happened. We walked around the city looking for our apartments and studio, and then we got Tapas and ate outside a restaurant called Els Tres Tombs. We shared potatoes, tuna sandwiches, meatballs, and...get this: baby octopus! They were surprisingly good and we bragged about them until everyone else got fed up and decided they needed to see what we were talking about!

Then we slept so we could get up early to meet Christi at studio to get our aparment keys, and to check out of the hostel.