Hello!

(I wrote this Tuesday night, and am posting it now. I will write another one soon about the last few days)

I'm back in Paris, and it is very cold! Barcelona was in the 75-80 degree range, and it is a whole lot colder than that here, as in 2 degrees Celsius.

But Barcelona was amazing! It was one of those cities that seeps into your skin over time and the longer you are there, the more you want to stay. I think part of that had to do with the fact that there was a 24 hour time lapse in between leaving Paris and actually seeing anything in Barcelona, which made the beginning of the trip frustrating. But I definitely could have used another evening to wander Las Ramblas and bask underneath the palm trees.

But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, so here we go:

I don't actually remember where I left off. But I think I wrote about spending Sunday afternoon on the beach and taking the cable car and all of that. Hopefully.

Sunday night the 4 girls staying at our hostel (Beth, Kathy, Mira, and Christine) wandered around Las Ramblas a bit more before stopping for more paella at a delicious restaurant. It was 15 euros, which is costly, but it was also delicious! Much better than the first night, and there was also a lot more. And it was very flavorful and filling and spectacular. And the shrimp were excellent.

Then we went back to the club we had seen the flamenco show in the night before, because we had liked it so much. It ended up only costing 4 euro since we are students, and we were very happy about that. And the show was FANTASTIC! There were more musicians this time and everybody seemed like they were having a great time. And then there was a male and a female dancer, and the female dancer also sang, and they were incredible. It was the most intense dance-off I have ever seen. Flamenco dancing is kind of like tap dancing in that it is mostly about the feet/legs and making music with the rhythm of the dancing, but it is also less flashy and more passionate, and more stomping than tapping. Apparently they have to replace the stage twice a year because the dancers dance so hard and wear it out. And it was amazing. When we left we were all charged with adrenaline and felt like we had just been through an emotional catharsis, and all we had done was watch! And we all agreed that flamenco dancing would be a great stress reliever. But really, it was beyond words awesome. And I took a 30 second video on my camera because even though you can't see very well because it was dark, I wanted to record just how loud and powerful it was.

Then we wandered some more because night and evening are beautiful since it is still warm and tons of people are still out. We bought gelato, which is always delicious and then headed back to our hostel and went to sleep.

On Monday we had to check out of our hostel at 11, but we stored our bags there and went to the farmer's market that had been closed the day before. I bought some pineapple which was tasty and we wandered around a bit more before Kathy left to go to the Block of Discord (a Gaudi house next to two other strange architect's houses), Mira and Christine went to eat their produce on Las Ramblas, and I went back to the beach. I bought a sandwich on the way and I ate my pineapple and sandwich on the beach, which was nice. It was windier than the day before, but it was also less crowded. And I journaled and did my readings for class and thought about how I was lucky to be doing my homework on the beach in Barcelona. And it was a lovely afternoon.

I walked back to the hostel along the port and we all met at 4 to head to the train station. The ride home was more or less uneventful, with the exception that Kathy had been feeling sick for a few days and wasn't feeling well. But we took a train for 2.5 hours, waited an hour or so, and then took a night train for another 10 hours. But this time we got couchettes for the night train, which were quite luxurious. Couchettes are bunks stacked 3 high for sleeping, and then there are two stacks per compartment, with about a foot and a half in between them. So there were the 4 people from my hostel and then a man and a lady with her son who was like 1 year old. But we didn't really talk to them because they got on the train an hour or two after us, and then it was basically bedtime. And I slept pretty well, and also finished my philosophy homework and Proust book #1, so I am a good student.

We arrived in Paris at 7:30 this morning, went home to take showers and then went to class. Classes were long, as per usual, and I don't remember what we learned. But I did eat lunch in a café and that was fun, even though an hour and a half isn't really a long enough lunch break to eat in a café, so we had to rush even though that is against the rules of French cuisine and culture. But I had a salad and chicken and apple tart and it was delicious.