The Palacio Real... in Barcelona?

Another day of walking for the Honey Badgers (sorry that sounds really dumb.  It’s the easiest way to refer to the group without saying the group.  Because that sounds cliquey).  We checked out of our hostel at 10:00 and went to print our boarding passes.  Everyone printed theirs, but when I went to check in, the agency we used to book flights hadn’t reserved my flight “home”.  I called the airline and asked for someone who spoke English, and the guys told me that the English specialist wouldn’t be there for another hour.  I hung up, but then I realized that I hadn’t solved the problem of getting home.  I called back and decided I would figure it out in Spanish.  It didn’t end up being too bad and somehow we managed to get a correct flight home.  We took our bags looked at the map we had of Barcelona to try to figure out what we could do.  The map had highlighted some of the important places in the city, and we decided that “Estacio Sants” looked cool, and it was in a part of the city we hadn’t been to yet.  I thought it was the soccer stadium or something.   When we got off, we realized that we had taken the Metro to the biggest bus station in Barcelona.  It was funny but it had also been kind of a long trip (the train randomly switched directions and it took us two stops to realize we were back where we started) and we were tired, so we stopped at a sub place and got sandwiches (Pans – it was expensive but absolutely delicious).  We ended up walking around for the rest of the day – we found a cartel? (we don’t really know.  It was a pretty building with a fence) and a country club and a university.  We thought we were headed towards a castle until we asked the lady at the country club where the Palacio Real was, and she just looked at us like we were idiots (the Palacio Real is in Madrid).  We showed her the map where we had seen some kind of indication of a palace, but she had no idea what we were talking about.  We decided that the lady who lived 15 minutes away from the location was just ignorant and didn’t know she lived next to a castle and proceeded to go find it.  Instead we came across the soccer stadium, which was actually really cool.  It’s crazy that their soccer stadiums are as big as our college football stadiums.  One day I’m coming to a game…

We finally gave up on the search for the non-existent palace (guess we should listen to the natives when it comes to important monuments) and we stopped at a coffee shop at the university to rest and get some water.  It made me want to be a student in Spain SO badly.  It was just like a caribou coffee and they were studying and talking and hanging out and I sooooo wanted to be a part of it.   I figured out that I hate sticking out, and one of the reasons it bothers me so much that people automatically speak English to me is that it blatantly tells me that I don’t belong.  So I want to be able to surprise people with my fluency and be like “Boo you.  I’m blonde and American and I can understand you AND respond in your language”.  In summary  - I absolutely loved the feeling of pretending like I was a student at the university and I’d really like to look into doing a solo study abroad. 

Today was also the day that the metro stations within a mile radius of the university were all conveniently closed for construction, so we had walk the 45 minutes back to the Estacio Sants bus station to get to the airport.

Our flight back home was delayed by about 45 minutes, but we were still scheduled to land at 9:30, which gave us plenty of time to get to the bus station before our 10:45 bus from Sevilla back to Cadiz (Drew had looked up the times online the night before).  We landed and had to wait in line for about 10 minutes for a bus to the bus station.  When we got to the bus station, we walked in and everything looked pretty abandoned.  We walked up to the window to buy our ticket, only to find that it was closed and that the last train for Cadiz had left at 10:00.  It was 10:04.  We laughed a little, Blake took a picture (typical) and we headed towards the train station to see if we could get a ticket home through that.  It was about a 20 minute walk, and when we got to the station I went to the window and asked the lady if there were any trains going back to Cadiz.  She just looked up and slowly shook her head and said that the last bus had left at 9:45.  Ohhh Spain.

 SO we ended up stuck in Sevilla for the night.  It was SO FUNNY and I was so excited because I’ve always wanted to have a legit story like that.  We went to the closest hotel to try to find a room, but it was too nice and was too expensive for our world traveling college student selves.  So we asked if she knew of any cheaper places (again, classy American college student question).  She actually was really nice and directed us to the city center and said that we’d be able to find somewhere to stay there.  We trekked our way (it was about an hour walk), and at this point we weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere.  Thankfully, the excitement of the situation distracted me from the weight of my backpack and the developing blisters on my feet.  Everything in the city was lit up and the church in the center looked beautiful, and there were also a ton of people walking around (and lots of tourists from all over the place so it made us feel even more legit that we had our backpacks as we were pasando through the city). 

After stopping at 3 different hostels that were booked, we decided we would take the next thing we saw.  Turns out it’s a 4 star hotel called Hotel Ingleterra, but at this point we were desperate.  I guess the guy at the front desk saw the look on Drew and I’s face when he told us it was gonna be 200 euros for a 2 person bedroom, because when we asked him if he knew of anything cheaper and told him our story he was SUPER helpful.   He looked up several different hostels and ended up finding us a deal for 20 euros/person.  Turns out his best friend’s name was Marny and she was from South Carolina (we found that out afterward… thank you).  And even though we didn’t tip him we thanked him profusely –it was a HUGE blessing that we found him.  The hostel we went to was great and it was 4 people to a room which was exactly what we needed.  And we got a welcome drink.  When we walked into our room, we were all so relieved and exhausted and collapsed on the bed, and we were all ranting about how nice the guy at the hotel had been and how nice the hostel was.  Blake sits up and goes “I hate to be negative Nancy, but does this place have air conditioning?”  (turns out it did, we just didn’t see it until the next morning).  We also didn’t have sheets on our beds, but I didn’t care at all. 

 We were starving, but the only place open at 1 in the morning and serving food was a kebob place.  We brought our food (and HUMMUS!) and sat in the plaza next to the beautiful church and enjoyed being in Sevilla…  another perfect ending to an awesome, adventurous weekend.

We woke up the next morning at 6, caught the 7:00 bus, got back to Cadiz at 7:30, picked up breakfast and went to class.  Mission accomplished.

Highlight: Getting stuck.  And getting to write two WT tips because I feel like it was a worthy day of it.

WT Tip #12:  When you go to big cities, try to have at least a plan of what you want to see.  It’s nice to see a city in the non touristy way, but in order to avoid walking around aimlessly for 3 days sometimes you have to have a plan.

WT Tip #13:  Complaining doesn’t solve anything.  Laughing, on the other hand, can turn an inconvenient situation into an incredible memory.