I found a way out of Barcelona!

Oh boy!

Do you remember how I complained about how long the flight was from Philadelphia to Barcelona (over 7 hours)? I take it all back! I finally found an inexpensive way to get from Barcelona to Madrid. I will be traveling by bus, and the trip that is just a few hundred miles will take 8 hours to complete!!! Do they have beverage carts, blankets, pillows and movies on el autobus? NO! The lady at the ticket counter told me to make sure I am there early because I purchased the last seat on the bus. Great, it is even a REALLY full bus with Europeans (no offense intended). In my head I have this vision of me sitting on a 1970´s retired school bus with no windows or air conditioning and chickens flying around everywhere, people stacked 3 high, children puking in the aisles. Got the mental image? I hope I am sorely mistaken! :)

For a few hours I was afraid I was going to be stuck in Barcelona, I know, poor me. In hindsight, it is probably good that I am leaving because a few more days here and I might get too comfortable for my own good, I may not come home! I feel like I have a few friends here now to ring up and meet for dinner and was even offered a job at the some embassy school teaching English (I sat with the director of the school and his at dinner last night).

I went out last night for tapas with my Indian roommate (and the director of the school) who I have finally been able to understand within the last day. I have to keep asking people here to repeat things slower so that I can understand them, and last night at dinner the waitress (a local) asked me to do the same for her with my Spanish. I guess I am trying too hard to be a local. HAHA

I met a few new friends to tell you about . . . Deon is a really cool guy here from Cape Town, S. Africa. He is studying architecture and just purchased an AWESOME flat on Diputacio (Dee-poo-tas-e-o). Also, I have 2 new flat mates. The guy is not friendly at all and to me seems very lazy. His travel companion though, is very kind. They are from Turkey and her name is Ozega. She has a laptop and has been kind of enough to let me borrow it to find a way out of Barcelona.

Two things I have learned:

1. I packed way too much stuff
(Next time I will bring a SMALL rolling suitcase instead of a hiker´s backpack)

2. I should have brought my laptop (there are free wifi spots everywhere here)

Now that I have another evening in Barcelona I am going to actually do my laundry tonight that I was suppose to do last night. I am sure there will be many things going on tonight, but not nearly as many as usual because it is Sunday. The market was not even very busy today, and those that were there seemed to all be tourists. Are all of the locals still in church? I think market day is Saturday here. I am really mad that I am not in Madrid, because I know the big day to market there is Sunday mornings and the bullfights are on Sunday nights. Oh well, I might try to catch it on a Sunday another time.

Since I am losing a day in Madrid I thought about blowing off my flight to Paris and making other plans when I was ready to leave Madrid in a few days but I have decided to keep my flight to Paris since I have already paid for it. I will travel on to Paris, then Italy (Rome, Venice, and Florence) THEN travel from Florence back to MADRID to spend a few more days there. I also want to venture from Madrid down to Seville at the end of my trip as well. I am moving those unplanned events to the end of my trip since I have to come back to Spain anyway to fly out of Barcelona and because I will have a paycheck to refuel my wallet before those travel plans come along.

Anyway, kind of a boring post today, but I wanted to update everyone as to where I was and what the plans are from here.

Keep commenting!

Love,

Derek :)