What you've been waiting for, I'm sure

Friday.
wow, okay, I have a lot to catch up on, like 3 days worth of stuff!

okay, so. I'll start with Friday, that's where I left off, I believe.

So. I ended up sleeping really late, until Emily came back from her SaS trip. I didn't even set an alarm that day! we went to lunch really quick and then met up with Sam and Laura to go out into Barcelona. Our plan was to go see La Sagrada Familia and then find an internet cafe or somewhere with internet. We accomplished the first part of said plan, after walking down La Rambla for a while. We ended up walking all the way down to Catalunya square. In between we saw a bunch of street performers. I think I might have mentioned them before. They are like nothing I've ever seen before! The best ones are those that stay perfectly still until someone throws some change in their pail. There was one on this particular day though that was dressed up like Alien, the costume was perfecto. Sam got a picture with it and it groped her face, lol.

OKAY. there are these flag things on some of the poles in the city that advertise portable toilets, apparently there is a problem in Barcelona with people just peeing on the street. >.> also, the flag is pink. like breast cancer awareness pink. It had a little stick figure man on it too.


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that's the best rendition of the picture I can do with a keyboard. You get the idea.


Just off La Rambla is a really neat market called la boqueria. It's a fresh food market, it has everything. seriously, fresh meat, fish, fruit, bread.. all the smells mix in such a delicious way.. <.<  the fruit is really good though, and you don't always get a whiff of the fish market area. When we were there I got a kiwi drink, pretty much a cup full of pureed kiwi. It was so good!

After that we walked all the way up to Catalunya square. I knew that La Sagrada Familia was down the road to the north, but not how far down, so we stopped and asked someone. Laura started in English, I followed up in Spanish. It feels SO FREAKING AWESOME to put my Spanish to good use. too bad we're not spending all our time in Spanish-speaking countries. But anyway, so the lady said that we'd better take the metro because it'd be about a half hour if we walked there.

The metro is pretty much the same everywhere. except maybe Japan, where they pack people tighter than sardines.

La Sagrada Familia is really impressive. on the outside. well, I guess it's impressive on the inside, but it's under construction still (due for completion in like 2026 or something) so we couldn't walk around freely, and there were barriers and ropes everywhere. what I'm saying is, if you get a chance to go over there, save the money and just stare at it from the outside. unless you happen to go in 2026 or thereabouts.

So after that, it was about 630 I guess, and I had said that I would try to meet up with some friends to go out for the Spain world cup game. Buuuut that didn't happen because it took longer to get back to the ship than I anticipated. so. tragedy. upsetting. also because we didn't actually get around to finding an internet cafe, and Emily had toted her laptop around all day and I cut our time short for what would be no reason. That wasn't such an awesome time.

So we ended up just eating on the 7th deck and hanging out on the ship for a while. uploaded the day's photos. Then Sam and I went out and walked around Barcelona until 2am. It was really nice, Barcelona at night is so interesting! There are all these guys just handing out fliers for parties and bars and clubs and all kinds of night life. It's crazy. Also, there are a surprising amount of older people out and about in Barcelona at midnight. I was definitely not used to that! We walked around and found the beach, it was all littered with garbage though. I don't know if it's usually like that or if it's just because of the partying from the holiday and the world cup.

We navigated our way back from the beach and walked down really cool architectural bridge called La Rambla del Mar. We stayed there on a bench for a while and chatted and talked to each other in Spanish ^-^

When we were walking back to the shuttle to get back to the boat we saw these two guys dragging this girl who could hardly walk. She was hammered. It was really sad, Sam and I decided that we were glad that we hadn't gone out and partied hard. Partying in a country isn't experiencing it. you can party anywhere. it's pretty much the same, as far as I can tell. But anyway one of the professors was there and he helped them out and hailed a cab for them. When we got back to the ship we saw that same girl struggling just to stay sitting in a chair, with puke on the floor next to her. Yeah, she chose a great to remember Barcelona.

On the ship Sam and I watched V for Vendetta and fell asleep. and so ends Friday!

Saturday.
Sam and I got up and went to find the train station to Figueres! We left at about 1030. Emily was on an SaS trip that was due back around 1230 or so, so we were going to get all the info so we'd know what was up. Saves time! so we successfully did all that, with minimal trouble with the lady at the counter at the train station. her spanish was too fast and her english was too mangled. It was a little difficult, but finally we figured it out.

So we took the two hour train ride from 3 to 5 to Figueres! This, my friends, is where the wonderful painter Salvador Dali is from! I adore him. There is a fantastic museum there that he even designed. Thus, the main point in going there was for said museum.  But before I get into all that, I want to mention some things I saw in the train on the way there :)

firstly, there is some really cool graffiti in Spain! and it's generally in pretty controlled clusters, and not all on like, people's houses. just on the concrete barriers near the train where nobody really cares.
Generally the countryside looks like anywhere else. Until you come upon the little towns along the railroad track and they are all very old 4 story apartment buildings with terracotta roofs. so much cuter than Alabama's rural areas. Just sayin'. OH. also, there are a lot of hay bales. I'm mostly saying this for dad's benefit. :)  I saw them and I thought of our story about wild bales of hay! I didn't see any though, they were all secure in their fences.

So anyway we got to Figueres (for 17 Euros, btw, round trip). Once we walked out of the train station I insisted on having a picture by the first fountain we saw (you're welcome, mom :P see how well I'm doing, taking pictures of myself in front of things?). It was a fountain with 3 fish sculptures spouting water out. nearby there were some people sitting on a bench, who were making pretty good use of the fountain. as a cooler. for their beer. it was just chilling in the water, ready for whenever they got thirsty. Emily, Sam and I were all pretty amused by it. lol

On another note, it smells different in Figueres. different than any place I've been.

So we walked to the museum and discovered that it had closed about 30 minutes before. ridiculous! we came all that way. So on the fly, we decided to stay the night! But you probably already know that since you're such an avid reader of my blog. But for those of you who somehow missed that entry, we got a room in a really nice hostel (19 Euros per person), with our own bathroom and a tv in the room and clean sheets and internet! 1 Euro for 30 minutes. way better than the deals we get on the ship.

We discovered this hostel via our waiter at the restaurant we decided to eat at, which was pretty good. we also had a glass of wine with dinner. Wine doesn't go very well with fries, btw. We had a little trouble ordering at first, because "red wine" is not, in fact, vino rojo. it is vino tinto. and I knew this (shout out to Alonso here, pretty sure I knew that because of him), but I had forgotten, so we all felt silly for a few minutes after that misunderstanding. clearly we do not have wine that frequently!

After dinner we had some gelato and walked down La Rambla, where there happened to be an art festival going on! It was called the "Glam Festival" and it was really great! there were a lot of really nice paintings and jewelry, and some hand crafted leather goods. expensive, or I would have gotten something. But the coolest part of this festival was that they had a runway that these people would walk down holding pieces of art, mostly paintings. and they were dressed like 16th/17th century masqueraders! they had big white wigs and their faces were painted up and the ladies had on big poofy dresses! I loved it. It was so fascinating. coolest thing ever. :D (I thought of Hannah and Jess as I was watching!)

After that we were pretty tired and we needed to get up at 9 to get in the Dali museum! So we went to our room and laid around and talked for a while and watched some Spanish tv! I found a music video channel and they were playing songs we knew! from like 2001. lol. and some more modern stuff, and some Spanish stuff. it was a pretty amusing mix.

So this hostel didn't have air conditioning, just an open window. which was fine, until I woke up in the middle of the night with an intense fear that someone could just climb up on the roof ledge and reach their hand in and steal my stuff that was on the table directly under the window. So I got up and moved my bag. :P  It's funny, because later on I was telling someone that story and they said "or they could have just come in!" and I didn't even think about that. I was just worried that they would steal my bag, which had all my important stuff in it. I think it's because our debriefing made us paranoid about pickpockets. (ps, we managed to keep all our stuff, though apparently 60 or so of the students reported incidents by the end of our time in Barcelona).

Sunday.
It is really easy to get ready in the morning when you have nothing to change into. Since we stayed in Figueres on the fly, we wore the same clothes and didn't brush our teeth and felt totally gross. woo!

Dali museum: 8 Euros.
I can't even explain to you how amazing it was. His most famous painting (the persistence of memory) is at the MoMA in NYC, but I saw originals of so many things that I've seen in books! the first one I saw there that I was in love with before was his painting Tristan and Isolde. I almost cried. It was so amazing. I took a lot of pictures, and I had Sam take a picture of me with his painting of the portrait of Picasso! That museum was so interesting. I could have stayed there for longer, but we had a train to catch! I was really tempted to by a mug or something from the gift shop. Actually what I really wanted was a tshirt with Dali's spindly-legged elephants on it, but those were like 40 Euros D: So I just have my photos as souvenirs.

Also at the museum we randomly happened upon a couple other SaSers who had stayed the night on the fly, too. Richard and Rachel, I have since hung out with them and they are pretty cool kids :)

OH. on another note, in Figueres, there are far fewer people who speak English. I was thrilled :)

Anyway, on the way back to the train station we stopped and had some really delicious pastries.

I slept most of the way back on the train, the countryside was less interesting this time around.

When we got back into Barcelona we had a couple hours still so Emily and Sam bought some souvenirs and we went back to the candy shop to get our favorite items.

Then we went back to the ship and I went to a presentation by Doctors Without Borders and that was the end of that day, pretty much! On ship time was 6pm and we sailed out of Spain at 9. ONWARD TO ITALIA!

actually, that night I played a cool game with Richard and Rachel (that I can't remember the name of... something that starts with a C...), then played spoons with a bunch of people, then watched Dr Horrible with the same people, then hung out with Sami until like 4 in the morning. woo! :D

Monday.
Italy Day, a day of seminars that I didn't go to. well, I went to the ones at 11 and 8 that I was required to go to, but otherwise, I hung out and laid out in the sun, jumped in the pool for the first time (cold!), had dinner with my extended family, and just relaxed before the hectic time that will be Italy!

A couple things to address:
you may be wondering, "Hayden, when do you go to class? Do you go when you're in port? Do you have class just when you're sailing?" Well my friend, I do not have class in port. We did not have class for Italy Day. We won't have class for Turkey Day. But we did have class all the way across the Atlantic, seven full days of class, including Saturday and Sunday. When we get back on the ship from Naples and we spend a couple days sailing to Croatia, we will have class again. In fact, the day we get back on the ship, there is a midterm exam in Global Studies. right after the barbecue that we'll have for the 4th of the July. fantastic, right? and Uncle Rex complained about having to go to class for 3 days out of the week :P Though really when it's all said and done, we only have about 22 days of class for the whole two months we're gone. BALLIN!

Thanks to the people who have emailed me so far! I love it :) I don't get to check the comments on the blog very often at all, so if you have the time, an email would be lovely! ehsloan@semesteratsea.net 

I hope you feel sufficiently caught up now on my doings, it took me a long time to type all this up!

if you read all this, holla!

if you laughed at my rendition of the peeing stick figure, holla!

love and hugs dears, I'm going to sleep.
Rome tomorrow!