San Sabastian,

Well, I do not have a lot of time today and there is a ton to go through´. No pictures yet. I am sorry.

Barcelona is extremely different from Madrid. They are seperate entities, both amazing in their own way but completely different. We started our trip in Barcelona on the wrong foot. We got horribly lost, getting off at the wrong metro station from our hostel and walking around for nearly two hours aimlessly, before we stopped someone and asked for directions. The metro system befuddled us; Barcelona´s system makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There are two companies that run the system and instead of using colours, they use shades of colours, so there are three different blue lines. We kept getting lost when we were there; everyday we got lost, but it became more fun than annoying in the end.

We spent our first night in Barcelona at the hostel, just relaxing and getting to know the folks there. We met two Scandinavian girls, Emily and Emma, and ended up hanging out with them for much of our time in the city. We went for our first nice dinner in weeks, which the guys enjoyed but I hated, and just chilled. We got up fairly early and spent much of the day walking around the city. We must have walked for miles. We saw Segrada Familia, an amazing church constructed at first by Antoni Gaudi that is set to be finished in 74 years. We hiked up 72 metres of winding stairs. I never made it to the top, either did Fisch, but the rest of the guys and Emma did. We got some great views of the city and some good pictures as well, so it was well worth the 5€. After that, we walked and walked and walked. We past a bullfighting area, went to a lovely park and chilled a bit, decided 15€ was not worth it for the zoo and found the beach. Barcelona is huge, and is full of unique neighbourhoods that have attitudes unto themselves. Getting acquainted with them was well worth it.

The party area, or one of them for that matter in Barcelona is Las Ramblas, a long street that leads to the beach filled with tourist traps. Throughout the street, there are these performers who dress up in crazy garb and enact statues of themselves for money. I think they are all glorified panhandlers, and seeing them do the same thing every single day was an interesting experience. Like, how do you fail so much at life that you end up being a human sculpture for a living on a street? Plus, hordes of idiotic tourists flocked to see them, giving them money and encouraging their lack of getting a real job. I sound angrier than I really am, because some of their costumes were great, but for the most part it got annoying.

On our first night, Fisch, Kalman and I went to see the North Mississippi Allstars at the Sala Apolo while Kowski and Lance went out with Emma and Emily. The concert was amazing, and I will be writing it up for JamBase, so I will post a link to that. After that, we went out with some American girls we met earlier that day. I went home early because I felt sick but Kalman got accosted by 7 prostitutes apparantely, bringing his grand total from Madrid up to 10. Fisch did not talk to one. Kalman does not look like the type of guy to pay for sex, but it is funny that so many Spanish women think so.

Our second day was spent entirely at the beach. Nothing much to report, except that we all got sun burned, had an amazing, yet tiring day doing nothing and hung out with the American girls for longer. The beach was exhuasting, so we napped and then went for dinner. Well, we had dinner before the nap, a horrible chinese buffet that I am still regretting. To counteract that, Kalman, Fisch and I went for Tapas and Paella with a friend of ours from Costa Rica called Mario who we met in Madrid, met the American girls again and went out. I went to bed early because of a slight cold, but apparantely the guys had a good time. They got back to the hostel at 4AM and proceeded to have a laughing fit. Then I started beating up Kalman because he wouldnt stop snoring, yet not fess up to doing it. He was too out of it, I guess. It was super funny. One more thing, two nights ago the three of us, minus Kowski and Lance went to see this singing fountain at the Olympic Square in town. Essentially, there is this huge fountain that lights up and is choreographed to classical music at night, at fifteen minute intervals. It was absolutely awesome. The lighting and the way the water shot up in accordance to the music was awe inspiring. I got two pictures that worked, thankfully. Plus the view of Barcelona from where the fountain was, which was at the top of the hill, was amazing.

The hostels in Barcelona are crap. We switched after two nights at the Centric Point just north of the main area, called Catalunya Square to one in Las Ramblas called the Ideal. Both were horrid, but they served their purpose. The Centric was always hot, and it was illegal to go on the balcony. At the Ideal, it was illegal to hang towels off the balcony. Weird. Also, Kalman got shoved by a French guy for no reason whatsoever at the Ideal and both hostels took ages, almost an hour, to check in. The pace in Spain is much slower, and checking in to the hostels proved that. Catalunya Square has the highest number of pigeons I have ever seen. Someone blew a horn at the square while we were walking with our bags to switch hostels, and suddenly amass of pigeons came flying at us, Hitchcock style, flying mere inches from our face. I had to duck and thankfully, no one got pooped on.

Yesterday we went to Gaudi Park, a park designed by the architect before he died that has amazing architecture. Gaudi is famous in these parts, as he designed much of Barcelona. His work speaks for itself, as it is elaborate and eloquent; a trip up Sagrada Familia speaks to that. We also went back to the beach, got our train tickets and hung out with Mario for a bit. We also ran into Cam from Madrid and got traditional, delicious Tapas. They are just little appetizers but they were surprisingly filling. After that, we just made our train to San Sabastian and now we are here. The sleeping arrangements on the train were weird. The train is made up of six person compartments, and all of us were seperated. Thankfully mine was quiet and no one spoke English.

We are in San Sabastian after taking the night train from Barcelona last night. We all slept well, then took a four hour nap at our hostel, which we have fallen in love with. It is a quaint little guesthouse and San Sabastian looks amazing. Small, clean, amazing beach, internet cafe with USB ports... excellent. We are travelling with Kalman and Lance till Paris, hitting Bordeaux first on Wednesday.

For more in depth analysis, visit Fisch and his blog at http://adamfisch.livejournal.com