"The chocolate in the gold coins, you know, the one in the gold coins, nevermind"

Hola from Barcelona! We just arrived at our hostel and have made it to the grocery store to save a little moolah from going out to dinner although we have attracted the eye of like 8 young French girls who are not discreet in staring, I mean are Americans the only ones that can look at people secretly, cause these girls are so obvious (very very young, Austin, you understand...)(we're currently eating noodles and cheese, ha, delish!). Anyway, recap of the last two days:

Saturday-we beached it in Valencia. It took a few minutes for us to figure the bus system out (we just got used to trains), but once we did it wasn't a bad ride, about 30 minutes or so. The way there was pretty terrible, one because of the some of the passengers, and two because there were so many passengers, we had to stand the entire way, which sucks when you have old spanish women running into you, turning around, and speaking 17,000 words in less than 3 seconds. Ohh, interesting: on the bus, we overheard/met about 7 Georgia girls. They did eventually introduce themselves (because they heard us speaking English) but what I mean by overheard is we couldn't help it because they were obnoxiously speaking in overenthusiastic voices saying things like "very good!," "chill, yeaa," and "that's so cool." They were trying to flirt with these two guys from Orange County, Cali, and so everything had to be super chill and cool and like awesome...blah blah... Anyway, the good news is I did meet a fellow Clemson ZTA which was awkward because they had no clue who each other were.. (James/Hallie/Kristy/any other ZTA--I did almost throw up a crown but decided against it) BTW, James, I do not consider you a ZTA (because I just grouped you with other ZTAs), just thought you would have DIED if I did throw it up....anyway, I didn't know her because she was younger but oh well, small world. Once we got to the beach, it was fantastico! The weather was beautiful; it was warm, but not SC humid, and sunny all day. It was really pretty out there, but it's the kind of weather you have to be careful of because you don't feel as hot, and people can sunburn pretty easily I feel. As expected, there were topless women and men with tiny bathing suits everywhere. I, although expecting this, was still thrown back by the sheer number of topless women, and men that basically were. I mean it wasn't just women laying out by themselves topless, people in the water, taking walks, just being free. A little bizarre.. We spent a majority of the day out there and then returned to town to eat dinner at a place called New Orleans. Stephen got the hamburger and I got the quesadilla (I would say fair to moderate). I was so hungry, I broke down and went American.. Then we called it a day, (without blogging because I was exhausted from the sun and did not feel well).

Sunday: We woke up that morning our Hostel was an old church, so the church bell was literally RIGHT next to our window, literally, so it was insanely loud, I didn't know those bells were really that loud... (after waking up through the night to pounding rain. Our hostel in Valencia had enormous open windows, so you could listen and watch the rain/sunset/people/or even the sunrise on the way to the bathroom, haha. And hear random yelling/fireworks throughout the night, who shoots fireworks on random days, I'll never know... So pretty; very Spanish!) Anyway, we attempted to make it to the beach again and had a smoother ride. We packed our own snacks this time (deal) and didn't mind it being cloudy. We did, however, get trapped (because we looked like tourists) by a tiny vietnamese woman who had a pressure point diagram and rubbed feet 5 euros for 5 minutes. We both had to get our feet rubbed because we didn't have change and the lady and I both spoke only broken Spanish. Anyway, was it worth it? I would say definitely yes, if we had more money I would gladly miss a meal for that, fantastico...due to our financial situation, maybe not, but oh well, it felt pretty good. For dinner, we cooked noodles and ate on the terrace and listen to the other people talk about their lives. Another light meal for me...Oh, this btw, meaning we eavesdropped on our roomates discussing their years at Harvard Law and other prestigious places and what kept them "grounded." Muy interesante. And incredibly fake, it was almost irritating how these people live such "extraordinary" lives. One such person, Sam, trapped us in the bathroom. He was an American, but had moved to Spain to teach English. He was really creepy (yankee), and assumed that he was smarter than Erin and I because he spoke Spanish and English (although I hope his Spanish was better because he used the phrase, "most hugest beautiful"...what does that even mean sir?) Anywho, we dodged him that time, but of course, with our luck, he crept out of the shadows every other time we wandered into public areas of the Hostel; Sam, go home please!

Today: We got up, ate a delicious sugar crepe and coffee (crepe con azucar y cafe con leche). Another side note: I really need to learn how to say "Can I or am I able to" so that I can properly order things, I think I'll google that later. I personally think smiling and pointing at pictures works great... As of right now, I'm saying "we want or we have," awesome. Hence why we share every meal. Anyway, after issues at the train station, we finally found out that they had lockers (very convenient since we had already checked out of our hostel and we had 5 hours, literally, to meander around). Um, this was a debacle. It took exact change, VERY, extremely exact change. Like, we had .20 cents left and had to put one 20 cent coin instead of four 5 cent coins...this required me going a few different places to get change and Steve having to block the locker since it was the last one available. Sooo frustrating. And Spanish people have no idea of personal space apparently because they kept wandering to the locker to check it, I wanted to jump at them and say, "yes, I'm still blocking this locker, and yes it still has MY stuff in it, AND, move your bikes, they're in the way..." Oh, and as we were waiting for the train to leave, we got bombarded by two Spanish (very well dressed, heeeyyyy) businessmen who were speaking too quickly for us to understand but were seemingly accusing us of being in the wrong seats James, they tried to pull a one and two, but I was living the wish creed so we were ok..."I wish someone would be in my seats"...we ended up showing them our tickets and they finally sat down. They sat directly across from us in the seats where two seats face two other seats, so we essentially had a double date with these two guys and had NO foot room the entire time. Which was funny because I'm a foot taller than you sir, and yet your legs are all up in my area...I tell you, no personal space...James, another shout out, but these people have NOOOO Valium (VOOOLLLume) control...like NONE...worse than the chinese restaurants in cola...They also followed us to the snack train...but were ok overall. Anyway, we made it through the day and finally made it to Barcelona! We had trouble getting subway tickets in Barcelona though, and had to buy rando candy, and of course what did they have, gold coins, I felt like Dane cook, "Just the cheese, no, no chips, just the cheese.. Ole! Ole!