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So I had three days of waking up free of new bug bites. Today is day four, and I am not sure if my skin is spazzing out or if we´re back to square one. Jessie on the other hand, who had been bite free up to now, woke up with itchy bites all over her arms and legs. Each person reacts a little diffrently I guess so we´ll see how things progress. Let me just say to anyone that knows Jessie, she is NOT a happy camper and I jokingly figure she blames me for this, but in my own defense, it´s not as if I´ve been wrapping myself in her sleeping bag or anything! We´ll see how today´s sight seeing excursions go...
But in other news, I wanted to recapture our first day in Barcelona. We arrived at the hostel around 11, used the free internet, and checked in around 1, took showers, etc. etc. Then we wandered down the famous La Rambla avenue, saw the ridiculously large monument to Christopher Columbus, wandered along the waterfront, etc. I had decided a few days ago that I really needed a taste of home and was determined to see a hollywood movie, in English, while we were in Barcelona. Luckily, there´s an english theater here and we decided to see the Jodie Foster flick, either called The Stranger or something to do with a vigilante.
So, we have a free dinner at the hostel, pasta and mushrooms, around 9 pm, then head down to the metro to find the movie theater. Let me say that the directions are a little confusing and we wandered for a while before Jessie kept yelling at me that we couldn´t go any farther east unless we wanted to walk into the Mediterranean...so we went west and it all worked out. However, on the way out of the theater, around 1 am, we realized that we had forgotten what day it was again and the metro stopped running at 12 am. Oops. Of course it would have been lovely it we had a bus route map but we didn´t. And just our luck, the movie theater was right off the corner of Jessie´s non-detailed map. So we used our general senses and headed off in what we figured was west. Not a very populated area of town, but well lit, we happened upon 4 obvious prostitutes. Surprising considering the uptown feel we had gotten earlier in the evening. Can´t say I´ve ever seen prostitutes bring their own deck chairs out to the corner. Anyway, so we continued on and Jessie grew increasingly annoyed, but hey, at that point, there wasn´t a lot we could do but keep walking and hope to find some reference to where we needed to go. After all, we had spent all day wandering the city so we were somewhat familiar.
Finally, after a few annoyed huffs from Jessie, I walked into a bar and used my slowly improving Spanish skills to get directions back to our hostel and even a hand drawn map. I was so proud of myself! Just like i would have done at home, but in Spanish. After that, things were pretty down hill, even though we were about 1 or 2 miles away from our destination still. We did a little more unintentional sight seeing at 2 in the morning though, saw the Arc de triopmh of Barcelona, a fabulous park, etc. And I think we figured out that guys with plastic bags on the streets selling ¨cervezas¨ were really selling a bit more than that. All in all, I didn´t feel unsafe though since we walk tall and proud and like we have a purpose.
After finally making it back a little after 2, we were excited to crash. Lucky for us though, a girl in our dorm came back trashed around 3 and proceeded to talk, loudly to her new Australian friend for over an hour on the balcony. Funny, but we haven´t stayed at a hostel in a long time where there´s so much English spoken, so usually we´ve been able to ignore people a lot easier. Unfortunately for us, we heard all about their boyfriends and personality traits, in clear and drunken English, until after 4 am.
I was figuring, oh well, at least we can sleep in since we don´t have a schedule. Wrong. Every time the dorm room door shut next door, it felt like our whole room was involved in a major earthquake. Quite jarring and not helpful to the sleep deprived headache. At least I didn´t have a hangover like our annoying roomie. Ah, the wonders of hostel dorms.
So now here I sit, after waiting forever for the free internet, recounting the first day so I can jump into another day of hilarity.
Stay tuned!
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