HelloBCN!

Today we were back on the road - packing up, taking the metro (which we are obviously pros at now) back to the aeropuerto de Madrid, and waiting, waiting, waiting. Instead of getting right to the airport 20 minutes before boarding, we were there around 2 hours ahead of time. Unfortunately, we also chose apparently the wrong ticket option (electronic tickets), which meant we were the last three people to board the plane. I was a little worried when the flight attendant told me to "wait over there" that I wouldn't be able to get on at all! (We had booked through an airline none of us had ever heard of before - Spanair- no, that is not a typo, and we didn't know how it worked as far as tickets and stuff, but we did end up being on the plane when it took off with all our stuff.)

It was nice to arrive and not have a connection to make and it was not late at night either, which just made everything seem (literally and figuratively) sunnier. We decided to wait around the Barcelona airport for an hour, eat, and see if our friend who was coming in later that afternoon would arrive so we could all go to the hostel together. However, since we didn't know Jess' flight number (we did know the airline though), we decided to go ahead without her after 2 hours of sitting around. This time we had to take a shuttle bus to the train station (there weren't really any signs and we had no idea where the bus was actually going until we got there) and then there was a guy in an orange jumpsuit standing at the entrance to the station handing out what I thought were pamphlets. I said I didn't want one. Ooops! They were the tickets for the train, which apparently is completely free because when BCN built the rail line, it wrecked many waterways or something like that and as a result, it's freeeeeee! We found our metro line, got tickets, and got to the hostel all in quite good time. The hostel itself was very different from the last one - very modern with lots of steel and bright colors, and very, very clean.

We checked in and found a bunch of books on Spain and BCN, so we sat around doing some research on what to do while waiting for Jess to show up. When she finally made it, it was still only about 4pm, and we decided to walk around a little and go to the centre ville. We ended up finding a great Indian place a little ways off of La Rambala (where everyone gets pick pocketed and smokes lots of illegal drugs - illegal in the US at least...), went back to the hostel after eating, and another IES-er, Julie was there. Then lots of planning for the rest of the week was done and done and sleeping was achieved.