Still in Bar-thel-ona!!!

Well, I was planning on leaving on the 11th from Barcelona. It´s now the 13th. Yes, I seem to be stuck in the vortex known as Barcelona. I had seen all my "must sees" by the 11th. Still in Barcelona, I saw all my "would like to sees" on the 12th. It is now the 13th and, since there´s not much else I really have a desire to do, I´m going to the beach! Now, I´m not a beach bum by any means...and don´t know how well I´ll survive it. I´ve heard it´s crowded and since I´m on my own, there´s no one to watch my things as I go play in the ocean. But, I´ll try to make friends and be careful with my things. What other options do I have??

So, why didn´t Amy leave Barcelona? As you all know, I missed my train to Paris by 5 minutes or so. That was when I decided that Paris would have to be on another trip and that Southern Spain was sounding spectacular! However, due to Barcelona´s location (Northeastern coast of Spain), there´s no transportation that runs down the East coast to the South. You have to go through Madrid. That would take 12-14 hours. I couldn´t find a hostel for 2 nights and I hear it´s been 48 degrees Celsius...which is about 118 degrees Farenheit. No thanks. I´ll have to save Morocco and Granada for my Mediteranean cruise in a couple years.

I thought, instead, I´d take a change of pace and go to Interlaken, Switzerland. It´s all beautiful Alps and outdoor activities, no big city noise, less heat, and no museums. So, that was in the works.

Now, everyone has said, "Oh, Amy. You´ll learn a lot about yourself on this trip." Well...all I´ve learned so far is that I´m somewhat of a ditz when left on my own. Why? Well, yesterday night I was supposed to leave at 20.40 hours. For those of you who are comfortable with military time, you´d know that was 8:40 p.m. For ME (the airhead that I´m proving to be), I thought to myself, "Great! My train leaves at 10:40 p.m." I was packing up my bags at 9 when I double-checked my ticket and realized, to my frustrated amusement, that I had completely missed my train. GOOD GRIEF!

Elder and Hna. Nield, the nice CES couple who let me stay with them the other night, were kind enough to let me stay again. I´ve promised myself that I will definitely be leaving this country TONIGHT! Whether it is on the train I have a ticket for or not.

Hna. Nield let me wash clothes yesterday...so I´ve got clean clothes all ready for the next week or so. That´s so nice!

After checking my email and working on my blog yesterday morning, I went to Montjuic. It´s a area of Barcelona that is up a hill. Supposedly, whoever had control of the fortress at the top of Montjuic, which overlooks the city and the coast, had control of the city. It´s called Montjuic (Mountain of the Jews) because the fortress was built over a Jewish cemetary. I went up there and walked around, wrote some postcards, saw the gardens of the Fundacio Miro...where some of the sculpture works of the Miro, the artist, are displayed. The cable-car that goes from the main road up to the fortress is not running and there was no way I would walk up that hill in the heat. So, I went to the bus stop and started talking to a kid from Brazil. It was fun...he doesn´t speak Spanish or English...and I didn´t speak Portuguese, but Port and Spanish are so similar that we were able to converse and talked for the better part of 30 minutes. He was really nice and showed me pictures from his camera of the Fortress...and the views of the city. He said I really should go. All riiiiiiighht.

Thankfully, there´s a bus that goes up there, too! So, I caught the bus and walked around the fortress! It was really impressive! The views are amazing! There´s a fantastic view of the city and the Mediterreanean. It was gorgeous! I talked to a couple of women that were traveling together. One was from Greece and the other from London. They were very nice. I´m having a blast just talking with people!

I rode the bus down and saw the Plaza Espanya. Wow! It´s incredible! Barcelona is a beautifully layed out city. I did some shopping and went back to the Nield´s apartment (they´d given me a key) to pack up my things. I got to talking with them and, being under the impression that my train left after 10 pm, I didn´t feel too stressed. I took a shower, had dinner...and then realized my mistake! I ran to the station, got a 50% refund for my unused ticket and rescheduled for today to Interlaken.

WELL...after that, I went and did some emailing. My first Sunday in London, I met a couple at church. They told me their nephew is traveling by himself as well and that we should meet up somewhere...it´s just nice to meet people who are doing the same thing as you. So, I gave Cindy, this kid´s aunt, my email address and Landon (their nephew) and I have emailed about our travels. We figured out that our itineraries would coincide in Italy. He said he´d be going sailing with a friend in Milan and invited me along. Sailing on the Mediterranean!! Sounds fabulous! So, I changed my ticket this morning and will be taking a night train (at 20.40...which, for those of you that aren´t very savvy with the military clock, is 8:40 p.m.) to Milan. I WILL be leaving Spain tonight. Guaranteed.

So, that´s the plan. I don´t know when I´ll be able to post next. But, I´ll do my best!

Cultural note: there´s tons of goosing going on. Not to me, personally, but these people can´t seem to keep their hands off each other´s hinies!

Vive España!