Wow, hello Barcelona!

Day 22. Rain rain go away, and please don’t come another day. A day full of trains! I got up and made some sandwiches for the road (or I guess the tracks), said goodbye to all my new friends I made in Nice and then caught my first train. I tried to sleep a bit on the train, but wasn’t able to ever fully fall asleep, although it was still nice to rest and read on the train. I arrived in Montpellier and had an hour wait before my next train. I originally wanted to walk around outside and maybe bump into Kyle Brown, but it was raining pretty hard so I scratched that idea real quick. When who do I see? Why the Mormon missionaries. I walked over and introduced myself and asked them if they knew Kyle Brown, and of course they did! Haha, Elder Petek was Kyle’s companion here in Montpellier and Elder Arnold said he hasn’t met Kyle but has heard so many great things about him. They had just jumped inside the train station for some cover from the rain, haha, you gotta love chance encounters! We chatted for a bit and it was fun getting to meet one of Kyle’s companions since I didn’t get to see him. I have his address now though, so I am going to try and make a stop in Agen to see him. I met some interesting people on the train to Barcelona and chatted with them for a bit, and then after only taking a couple wrongs turns, asking for directions once and checking my computer twice, I managed to find my hostel (first time finding my hostel and arriving in a new city at night, go me!). I checked in and didn’t even have a chance to drop my bag before I met 3 amazing Australian girls. They invited me to join them in going out for a hostel outing to a couple bars and club. I was already pretty tired and wanted to get situated so I told them I would think about it. Well I thought about it and 'when in Barcelona', haha, it didn’t take much convincing and I decided I would join them. We had a fantastic time together and danced the night away, got some food, and even decided we were going to explore the city together tomorrow! Yay for new friends!!

Day 23. I got to see some of Barcelona in the evening hours the previous night, but I was very excited to see Barcelona during the day! Lucy, Sophie, and Anna are from Perth, Australia, and are so much fun! We were all planning on going on a free walking tour at 11am… but we slept in just a little since we stayed out pretty late the night before and decided to catch the later one that afternoon. So instead we decided we wanted to head towards the waterfront because the weather was so nice and check out an old castle-ish ruins along the way (castle’s and waterfronts are always golden in my book). At the harbor there was a really cool monument statue with big lions surrounding it, so what did we do? Well we climbed and rode them of course! Haha, I wanted to climb the lions back in London but I never had the opportunity, so I was excited to do it here and cross one more thing off my list. The waterfront was beautiful and there were so many sailboats and fish in the harbor (including a ship that looked like the Black Pearl)! After relaxing for a bit and walking along the water we went to go meet up with some of Anna’s friends who were studying here in Barcelona for lunch. YUMMY!!! We went to a restaurant in the Gothic area right next to an old church and had a delicious 3 course meal that had paella as the main course (omg so good, think thick rice in spicy sauce with seafood seasoned to perfection). Haha and at the restaurant, one of the servers saw me sitting with the now 6 girls and shook my hand telling me I was his hero. Win; I’m a G6, no big deal. Lunch was fantastic and the company was great. After lunch we said goodbye to the girls we met up with and explored the Gothic area shops and walked around until Lucy, Sophie, and Anna decided it was time for a Siesta (Nap time in Spain). So I went on the free walking tour solo and the tour was excellent. It was a little hard to understand the tour guide at times, but I got to see the original Barcelona (The Gothic area) and learn about its history. I got to see all the hidden areas and things I don’t think I would have been able to find or appreciate on my own. I took lots of pictures and tipped the tour guide after the tour and caught the metro back to the hostel to make dinner with the girls, which was also excellent. Lucy did almost all the cooking and we got to know each other more over dinner. After dinner Anthony and I purchased our tickets for Italy!!! Woohoo!! I AM SO EXCITED to see him and experience Italy with him!!! (I was beaming for the rest of the night; Hello cloud 9!). After dinner the girls and I met some other people staying at our hostel and played a fun game of Ring of Fire, getting ready for another hostel outing at different bars and clubs. At the bar we went to you got to pour your own drinks, which was awesome (yay for bar tending experience in Colorado my drinks were bomb and I made several for other people at the bar) and they had crazy shots that were in numbered and colored in otherwise indistinguishable bottles. The bar was fun, but holy mother of everything dance and clubs. The club we went to was incredible!! It was massive and there were lights all along the walls and strobe lights were flashing so much you couldn’t really even see other people’s faces. There was a super renowned DJ playing ridiculously good music and the most stunning dancer I have ever seen on stage. I danced with Lucy and Anna all night long until the wee hours of the morning when our feet just couldn’t dance anymore. We walked back to the hostel with our ears ringing and slightly missed the feeling of the bass coursing through our bodies. We chatted at the hostel for a while longer before finally calling it a night. Wow, hello Barcelona.