The people I met in Seville were awesome. On my first night there, the hostel hosted a delicious dinner on the rooftop and we all sat around like old friends just laughing and relating stories about our countries. The next night, I met an Australian guy, a Chile guy, a girl from Uruguay, and a girl from Mexico; we commandeered the common room, watching Spanish MTV, listening to music on our phones, and just talking until 1am. Last night that same group (minus Robert from Chile, who had left) got together again cooking up green spaghetti and just having a blast. I really, really had a great time.
I caught a morning train from Seville to Barcelona. It took six hours for the trip, landing me in Barcelona in the early afternoon. The train ride was a nightmare: I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and planned on just sleeping the entire trip, but the seats were uncomfortable and stiff, the lady sitting next to me hogged the armrest, and there was a young girl sitting behind me who had no volume control and spent the six hours nearly continually shouting random Spanish phrases out. The kid seriously would not stop talking in her yell and her voice was pretty scratchy by the time the train rolled to it's last station.
My hostel was easy enough to find and I'm pretty happy with it's location. It's in the more homey part of the city, a quiet and clean neighborhood with a convenient metro stop. When I checked in, the receptionist was a guy who looked like he was my age; he took down my name and threw me some keys and then went back to watching YouTube videos of old rock music! Normally, when you check into a hostel, the receptionist is loaded with great tips about what to do in the city, how to get around, places to eat, etc, and when this guy just left me alone I felt a little lost.
I threw down my bag and headed back into the city, spending the rest of the afternoon exploring a small part of the city.
There's a pedestrian street section of the city that's full of markets and street performers and tourist traps. It was amazing to walk through -- especially the huge open air market place! I took so many pictures of the dozens of food vendors, selling tons of fresh fruits, vegetables, spices, candies, nuts, olives, breads, and meats. If I lived here, I would just visit those markets and get fresh food every day! The seafood section was weird and I tried not to notice how the lobsters were still twitching on their ice beds.
Barcelona also has this mall and entertainment section built on the sea and floating peacefully next to the yacht yard. There were hundreds of people walking around with me. It was a very cloudy day with the smell of rain in the air, a very welcome break from the scorch of Seville. I got to the Christopher Columbus monument and had a chocolate crepe to celebrate!
When I got back to my hostel, my other roommates had shown up: two guys from Finland and two girls from Australia. Aussies are everywhere! You can't escape them! They're all very friendly. I caught the girls playing a round of Go Fish in the kitchen.
Now I'm the only one in my room. I'm just about ready to pass out and sleep until dawn. No one believes me when I saw that I'm going to bed. It's like I'm breaking the unwritten code of the hostel to party until dawn. Hopefully tomorrow is cool and cloudy like this afternoon was. I feel like this entry is particularly plain and boring, but I'm just so tired right now that my mind isn't spinning in its usual pattern.
Tomorrow is going to be a good day.
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