Biking Barcelona

2004-09-27 | Barcelona, Spain Somehow I managed to sleep a whole 12 hours in the hostel. I think I have been needing it. My legs were still soar from walking up the glen that overlooks Edinburgh. Anyways the day before, me and my buddies had decided to do this bike around Barcelona. It cost 22 Euros but it is for like 4 and a half hours. We got to see many sights at a perfect pace. We saw a lot of Gaudis sights. We saw the place were Christopher Columbus landed and told everyone of the new world. We saw a park and also the copy of the Arc de Triumph in Paris. The Parisians were pissed about that. After that we sat down at the beach for 45 minutes drinking Cerbezas and hanging out. It was a blast. There was a ton we saw and mainly the pictures will tell the story. After that it was like 6 and we got back to the hostel. I wasn't really hungry and John went out for food. I just relaxed and did my own thing. Me an John met up

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Backpacker in the Beach

2004-09-28 | Barcelona and Sitges, Spain Yesterday John and I did a bunch of research on some great beaches and great day trips to do in Barcelona. We left at about noon to a city called Sitges (about 30 minutes by train). It took us a while to figure out the metro station and to figure out where the national rail goes outbound. Once we found it, it cost us 2 Euros to get there. It was great to get out of the city and see a nice clean town. The town had a lot of white buildings with a lot of vibrant color. We walked to this nice looking church and went about 800 meters up the beach before we started to look for food. This was the first topless beach I have ever been and it looks so natural to do that (although in Barcelona there is a new law that it is legal to walk the streets entirely nude--that is weird). We had lunch and I wasn't surprised when it took forever to get our bill. People in Spain really take their time when eating. After that we

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The Spanish Trails and Spanish Crimes

2004-09-29 | Ancient Spanish Town, Spain John and I had heard of this great day trip with this cute little company called Spanish Trails. Last night we booked and put down payment on a 45 E trip out to an ancient Spanish City. We got to the place before it opened so I drank my coffee and had my breakfast at the Placa de Cataluna. While I was eating, we both saw a guy selling stolen stereos to some of the locals. John and I laughed and also talked about how we have both had first hand experience with getting our stereos stolen. He said "If only there was a cop I would say something" And as we were walking there turned up a cop. I was quite far away enough to simply point him out so I did it. I just had a conversation with the cops. It is not like I am looking for trouble with the seller, but it felt like payback for the 2 times I have had my car stereo stolen. Come to find out, they wont do anything unless I wrote a

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A boring last day and also my thoughts

2004-09-30 | Barcelona, Spain On Thursday John and I were on a venture out to find an STA travel store in Barcelona. The reason that John and I set out to find an STA travel was so that I could make major changes in my trip schedule. Here is what I wrote when all of these things were going through my head one night. I am thinking of going home early by a few weeks. Reason being... I would think I would be entirely exhausted if I traveled very quickly from city to city. It might of possibly been a mistake buying a 30 day consecutive rail pass. It forces me to try to get the most value out of it. It also cost me 700 bucks. Now that I am in the Mediterranean I kind of realize that I would rather chill than be in a hurry. Fully utilizing rail pass cruising around Europe would be better if I had someone to interact with while on the boring trains. I actually am doing quite well right now traveling by myself. I just enjoy relaxing and

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I was a freshman in college and very worried about my grades because my parents were paying my tuition and told me if I didn't do well I would have to pay the tuition myself. I really wanted them to know I took this expensive education seriouly.
I had a really cool english teacher who was pretty casual about things. He was getting ready to test us on grammer principles and things relating to that. He went over the review and kept telling the class we didn't need to study because the information was so basic that 1st grades could wing it.
When I got home I went over the materials and burst into tears because it looked so difficult to me. I thought about what an idiot I was that 1st grade material look extremely hard. I was so scared about looking completely stupid in clas,s so I studied for 3 days, staying up until the wee hours memorizing the info. My friends all talked about how relieved they were to have one less thing to study for thanks to our wonderful english teacher. I didn't say a thing.
Well, testing day arrived and I felt confident I had finally mastered first grade grammer that somehow I missed way back in first grade. I wizzed through the test and was so relieved that no one would find out what a dumb blonde I really was.
The following day the results were in! Much to my shock I was the ONLY person to even pass the test! I got 100% while eveyone else failed. The teacher thought I was brillant. He couldn' understand why no one else passed. Maybe because he told us not to study? Anyway, I learned it never hurts to study even basic things in life.