Elephants in the Rain

7:32 PM CEST Barcelona
NOTE: Although I have internet now, it is not very fast and my camera's picture file size is a little too much for it to handle right now :( I hope to get pictures up soon!

                Welcome back to the Europe blog! Where I left off last, I was on a plane to Warsaw and very much hoping we wouldn’t miss our connection to Barcelona… well, we did! Funny, they held the connection to Rome for the people on our plane, but for the six people going to Barcelona, we got the shaft.  Flights from Warsaw to Barcelona were only every 24 hours so we were really wondering if we would have to stay the night… thoughts of authentic perogis started dancing to my head… however, fortunately, LOT Polish Airlines set us up to fly to Zurich and then to Barcelona through Swiss Airlines. Bet that cost them a pretty penny… when I was looking up flights from Amsterdam to Zurich, the cheapest was Swiss Airlines for about $550. Needless to say we’re flying to a smaller town in Switzerland for $56 through Easyjet.  My advice? Don’t fly Polish Airlines if you can help it. Not terrible… just very uncomfortable.  We probably got about 25minutes of sleep combined on that 9 hour flight.

                We made it Barcelona by about 7 PM Barcelona time (CEST) and took the Aerobus to Plaza Espana and then took the Metro Green Line (L3) to Drassanes ave as per instructions from the hostel owners.  The hostel is located right off Las Ramblas in kind of a slummy looking area called El Raval.  Okay, not kind of slummy… REALLY slummy. (Pictures later!) Looking back, this is the exact neighborhood that Courtney told me not to even go to… let alone stay in.  Typical luck… In my defense, I booked it before I talked to her and didn’t realize what neighborhood it was in. It is very cool to be two minutes from Las Ramblas!  So when I booked, the owners were very adamant about us giving them an arrival time, but since we had a delay, our arrival time was way off. When we got there, we buzzed up and got no answer! So picture this… two Americans with backpacks who have been awake for 24 hours straight and no place to sleep.  We wander around our janky little neighborhood for a good 15 minutes until we found a place where we could get a cell phone.  Thank goodness I had the numbers to the hostel saved on my phone (which is in permanent airplace mode, by the way) and not online some where! Fortunately the owners answered their phone and sent someone to help us in 20 minutes. The worker, David, made sure that we knew that he waited for us for an hour and a half this afternoon (like that’s such a big deal?).

Let me just describe this hostel to you… it has three rooms… I believe we have the only room with the double bed and the others have bunk beds although I could be wrong there.  It has a tiny “reception” that is actually just a small kitchen table in a room.  We rented sheets and towels for 8 euros because obviously we didn’t have space in our luggage for those and they do not come with the room!  Also, the place is super moldy.  The bathroom is pretty offensive, actually, the smell of mold and mildew is almost nauseating… last night I brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink because the bathroom smelled so bad.  The sewer system can’t handle the toilet paper so they have a wastebasket there for it (gross…) and the shower is nothing but a tub and a hand shower that does not have a hook… it’s just at the height of the tub spout… I took a squat shower because it seemed to make the most sense to me.  I just keep telling myself that we have a little more luxury in Paris and Brussels before we go back to roughing it in Amsterdam… however I do not believe that any other place I booked will be quite as bad at this one!  By the way… staying in Barcelona? The name of this place is Serenity Dassanes… and I would not recommend it.

                There are like 100 cafes all over the city center, but in my desperation this morning, we ended up at Dunkin because I saw a woman holding a Dunkin cup and was all omg donde esta?! They made my iced coffee by pulling at least 4 or 5 shots of espresso and pouring it over ice and milk. Talk about caffeine buzz!  Another unfortunate decision governed by hunger cravings was a tapas place off Las Ramblas.  Since this is a huge tourist area, this was definitely a tourist trap and the food was just OK and wayy over priced! So after spending our entire daily food budget for lunch, we walked it off by heading out towards the gothic neighborhood to see the Cathedral of Barcelona (Pictures later!) we didn’t go in though, saving the money for Sagrada Familia tomorrow! We also saw the gothic church, Santa Maria del Mar (Pictures later!).  It started to rain… a lot… so we went and had some gelato (by the way… JUST as many places for gelato here as there are in Rome!) which tasted just like I remember it in Italy J Once the rain died down, we walked to Parc de la Ciutadella and took pictures by Font de la Cascade (Pictures later!).  There was this large group of people in a gazebo in this park dancing around like crazy to Highway to Hell.  Can’t escape AC/DC no matter where I go…

                It starts to pour again so we take shelter under this large elephant (Pictures later!).  It seemed to be prime real estate as we were sharing this elephant with another couple, and two women and two children and their strollers!  After all the rain, strange white ooze started coming out of the padding in my sandals… it was pretty gross… just by dumb luck, we had bought a cheap pair of flip flops for the shower so I was able to change into those! I then spent the entire walk back wondering if I was flopping mud onto the butt of my white skirt L Oh and because I know my mom will be concerned, I don’t believe the sandals are ruined or anything… they should probably just come with a warning that they cannot be worn for extensive periods in the rain! It was drizzling on and off all day and we were everywhere.

                Back to our garbage-y, sewer-y alley, up four huge flights of stairs, into our teeny tiny room where the double bed leaves only one foot of space on ONE side, and we’re relaxing before trying to find something cheap for dinner. Spaniards don’t eat dinner until about 10 PM… finally, something Andy and I can relate to!!