Journal 28 Friday: Holy shit, I woke up at god knows what hour of the morning when everyone came in from the bar. Hahaha, it's all good though. I was pretty rested and my headache had since gone. The guys who came in were drunk of course, and after they laid down they started to make very loud snoring noises to make fun of one of the other guys that was in here snoring. The best part was that when they finally fell asleep they actually snored themselves....TWICE AS LOUD AS THE FIRST GUY! It was great, hahahahahaha! I woke up at 9:30 meaning I missed breakfast. I could have went straight there without showering, to get something to eat. But for those of you who know me, know that I don't do anything before I take a shower in the morning. So I took my shower and skipped breakfast. Today though I was much better prepared for the strange shower setup; I was able to use the small space much more efficiently than yesterday. After I changed I sat, had a Coke (Lauren, you'd be proud of me for a having a Coke for breakfast), and looked at my map figuring out where to go today. I already knew that I wanted to see the Olympic Stadium, and I also had plans with Paquita and Nireia for lunch. I figured that I could make one huge loop around town, walking of course, and get to Paquita's just in time for lunch at 2:30. I walked around the few blocks where my hostel is at, passing the cathedral and shops I passed by last night. I then walked along the water toward the Olympic Stadium area. I saw the huge sky-tram that runs along the water and shortly after had to turn around since I walked too far and missed my turn. As I made my way through some smaller streets I passed by some really amazing graffiti art, most of which I tried to take pictures of. I hiked up the mountain toward the Stadium, it was a damn good thing I wasn't carrying anything cuz it actually got pretty warm. Well, warm compared to what I was used to in London - which means it was probably a whopping 15 degrees or so (or around 65F). The first Olympic Arena I passed was the Pool. It's amazing, they had this cut right into the side of the mountain. So the stadium seats not only looked at the pool below, but you could also see ALL of Barcelona. You could see all to Vila Olympica (the Olympic Village) and beyond; that's damn far, it's like 6 inches on the map, hahaha. I continued up the hill toward the stadium and finally made it. DAMNNNNN IT WAS HUGE!!! I've never been to any Olympic Stadiums, so I never really had anything to give me an idea of the size of these. I took some pictures of the inside and then went to the snack shop to buy a soda. I bought a Fanta Limon (Lemon Fanta, haha) for 2.10Euros. Holy Hell, I just paid about $3 for a can of soda....what a ripoff. Thank god it was really good and that I was really thirsty. I walked around more of the stadium taking pictures of the amazing views, and, of course, buildings. I was a little sad to see how run down things were here too. The fact that metals were rusting away on doors, and that the paint and stuff was visibly ageing. I know it's been like 12 years since the Olympics here, but it was kind of sad thinking that so much time and work goes into these places and they're never going to be that full ever again. After walking all around the grounds there at the Stadium I walked over to this big Cathedral/Museum place right next to it. I then walked all the way down the hill toward the Columns and Coliseum at the bottom. I passed a couple school groups that were walking around, and a lot of tourists. I slowly (as slow I could walk, which is still pretty fast) started to make my way North towards Paquita's. I walked past a lot of street vendors and shops. There is a really bad motorcycle manufacturer here, who's name I don't know, that has some awesome looking bikes. I stopped at a fruit stand to buy an apple. I sat in the park/walking area between the street and ate it, trying to kill some time since I was going to be there early. I got about two blocks from Paquita's place and was still about 30 minutes early, so I detoured over to the shopping center I was at yesterday, and decided to walk around. I went through 5 of the 6 floors of this store looking at the different food and then, mainly, the clothes. I've really liked a lot of the London, and now also Spanish, clothes I've seen. The French stuff was alright, but a lot of it is designer stuff and a little too weird. After the store I went to Paquita's for lunch. The Spanish have lunch around 2:30, and dinner around 9 or 10. Back home I usually don't eat breakfast, have lunch around 1:30 or 2:00, and then dinner sometime between 6:00 and 9:00. Though living in London I now eat breakfast at 8:00, lunch around 11ish, snack around 3ish, and dinner around 7, and sometimes snack again around 10. I swear I've become such a pig living in London. Anyway, having lunch later was nice, and I realized my body readjusted to my normal eating pattern (ie: not hungry til 2) really easily. But damn, Catalonian's eat a HUGE lunch. First we had pasta with a light meat sauce, I noticed right away that Paquita gave me almost twice as much as her and Nireia. It's because I'm big, I was told, muy alto....grande. I was then promptly given seconds after I finished. After pasta came the "meat dish", we had breaded lemon pork, it was damn good. I told them they ate a lot for lunch, since they had laughed when I said I would need a minute before eating more. Oh, I was given two pieces of pork compared to their one piece - originally I was offered three, haha. We also had bead to go with the food. Nireia explained that lunch is always three parts. There is the main dish, then the "meat dish" for the second course, and then desert. There is also a salad and vegetable dish of some kind on the side. So, after the pork we had salad, and also asparagus and boiled eggs. I had salad and eggs, but passed on the asparagus since I've never really liked it. So, now that we've finished those parts... it was time for dessert... We had fruit salad, it was awesome. It had Kiwi fruit, Pineapple, Grapes, Honeydew, and Almonds (which I usually don't like, but it went with this really well) and it was in Pineapple juice. Ok people, when you make fruit salad use pineapple juice, it's sooo good. And now, we were finally done with lunch... unless of course you want some coffee afterward. So after we ate we sat and talked, the best we could. I feel bad that I can't say more things in Spanish. I think it'd be really interesting to sit and talk with Paquita about when her and my Grandmother were kids. Nireia had to go to class at 4:30, so I offered to take them to dinner if they didn't have plans. They were busy, but said to come back for lunch the next day. I said I would take them anywhere they would like to go, at least I attempted to say that in Spanish. They refused, I insisted, they refused again. So I agreed to lunch again, and said I would see them tomorrow. Nireia invited me to go out with her and some friends after class. I said No Thanks, and that I was going to walk around some more, but thanks for the invitation. I would feel really bad relying on her to translate everything for me. So I started to make my trek towards my hostel. I walked down one of the major shopping streets and window shopped. I passed a couple buildings that were influenced by Ghaudi, they were really cool. I stopped off in H&M and looked at some clothes, I've been trying to find a hat of some sort. I bought a beanie for 3Euros, woo hoo! cheap stuff! I then made my way toward Hard Rock Cafe to buy a glass, to add to my massive collection of beer glasses at home - who knows, maybe one day I'll start drinking, hahaha. I walked past more stores looking at the coats and shoes. I realized back in London that I really like coats. After getting back to my hostel I sat around for a bit, checked email, and paged my family and friends through Sprint's website. I then decided that it was still really early and I should head out and do something. I walked out to Las Ramblas and looked around the market there again. I bought a fruit salad and fresca for dinner. They have a native fruit here that is like Kiwi fruit, but purple and really sweet; it's soooo good. I picked up wine for my family, and then just continued to look around and window shop. I went back to Gothic Point and sat on the computers paging my mom's phone while she emailed me her responses. Haha, they have AIM disabled on the computers here or else I would have just used that. I told her about my day and my plans for tomorrow. Afterward I was going to go get something to drink, so I figured I'd walk down the street and buy something rather then get it out of the vending machine here. Well, the place I was going to go was closed, so I walked around to find another. I ended up buying Gellato, which was a much better choice I decided. Haha. I then walked back to the hostel for the last time of the night. I used the bathroom in our dorm room, and the reason I share this with you is this... All the lights here are on timers... So, you could be in the middle of peeing, and have the light go off, AND, the switch is OUTSIDE the door... yeah... So I sat around the room here and talked to everyone for a while before starting to type this journal, which I'd like to upload late tonight if possible, but we'll see. I listened to some music one of the guys here made, it's like trance music from a rave. He said a couple people have told him that, though he's not familiar with Trance. Tomorrow I'm going to try to make it out to Sagrada de Familia one more time, and then it's lunch with Paquita and Nireia once again before I leave for London.
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