The plane ride to Madrid I passed out the second I got into my seat. I woke up with about half an hour left in the flight and an ungodly amount of turbulents. The Spaniards, apparently, thought it was as fun as a rollercoaster ride, whooping and hollering every time the plane slightly moved. I have to admit however I was slightly scared because they were the worst turbulents I had experienced in my life. I was also slightly miffed because being sick, I thoght there was no need to yell about it. I was feeling really weak when we landed and headed to the metro and towards our hostel, which luckily was only stops away. As we were walking to our hostel, we noticed a Dunkin Donuts. In all of the places in the world, not London, but Madrid. Who knew. We put our stuff down, and headed towards a little café where Yasin and I had decided to try and eat some food. I had a really delicious fruit smoothie with raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. The euro is weaker than the pound and Spain is so much cheaper than London, I felt like I was almost like robbing them. After the little café we decided to get donuts at the Dunkin donuts, where almost all of the donuts were in shapes of hearts. I was only able to take a few bites of mine but needless to say it was delicious.
Back at the hostel Yasin and I took powernaps while Ryan went for a run. I woke up still feeling really shitty so Ryan and Yasin went out for some dinner around 10. They came back with a 1.5L of water, Powerade, and crackers, all of which cost them less than 3 Euro. Insane. After a long nights rest, I woke up feeling better and able to walk around. We had breakfast at the hostel and Ryan had planned out a walking tour for us of the city. It was a beautiful day outside and we spent the entire time just walking around Madrid, going inside Cathedrals, taking pictures of beautiful walls and streets, looking at postcards and little shops. We went into this really cool handmade belt and suspender shop where they had hundreds of belts! After a long day of walking, we got our ticket to Barcelona and got on the 3 hour high speed train.
We slept the entire train to Barcelona, so we were ready to go. We arrive at our hostel, where the lady was so friendly and welcoming. We were staying in the only other mixed dorm, and it just so happened to be a Chinese family. The parents didn’t speak English, but the girl who was our age, spoke perfect English and was actually studying abroad from China in Amsterdam. We had a lot of fun talking to her and she loved our American accent. She said it was ‘much more beautiful than the British accent’, which personally, I didn't understand because I think the British accent is way cooler than any 'New Yawk' accent but hey, I'll take whatever American compliments I can get. That night in Barcelona we decided to take the metro to the Mediterranean where there was a boardwalk and lots of nightclubs. On the way out the door of our hostel we notice a booklet for ‘Icebarcelona..10% off’. We decided this was our destination. There is an ice bar in London but it’s really expensive and you only get 45 minutes inside. We get down to the boardwalk and we get handed even more little flyers for ‘Opium’ where they are advertising for a chocolate fountain. It’s free until 2:30am, and dress is ‘funky and classy’ so we decided that that would be our dessert after Icebarcelona. We get to the ice bar and for 13.5 Euro, we got a drink and got the entire Ice Bar to ourselves. We were given these big puffy jackets and gloves and allowed inside. The entire place is made of ice; floor, sculptures, seating, tables, even the mugs you get your drinks in. They played an AWESOME playlist of Missy Elliott and old school 80’s rap and R&B (Yes, American of course, because why would we go to a foreign country to listen to foreign music? What a concept). I only drank about 1/4 of my drink and after about an hour of dancing to keep warm, we decided to head to Opium. Opium was a whole other world, packed with classy dressed Spaniards…but none of them were dancing. The DJ was popping so we obviously got the dance floor started. After about an hour of dancing we found the chocolate fountain, or amazing fondue fatstation, and then after exercising our rights as fat ass Americans, we got back to the dance floor. Now, reminder, this is a Tuesday night. I know that the Spanish culture is to have siesta and all, but the club, which was half full when we got there around midnight, didn’t start to get going until about 2am. (Side note: we’ve been wondering about Europe…Do people work? Do children go to school? What do people do? We see children just roaming around with their parents at all times of the day and people of all ages just shopping or walking around the streets. I know the phrase “Americans live to work, Europeans work to live” but still. Come on people….what do you do with your lives?). At this point I started to feel ill again, and I guess that ¼ of a drink wasn’t the best idea. We walked all the way back to our hostel (I’d say about 3 miles) because the bus/metro system shuts down around midnight.
I woke up the next morning feeling like shit, and we had a walking tour of the old city of Barcelona planned for the day. Honestly, people all of my pictures are either Yasin’s or Ryan’s because I was barely about to keep my camera out. Walking was a task for me; that’s how shitty I felt. I don’t even know what I could have ingested that made me feel so shitty but Morocco, damn, you took a toll on me. It was such a shame because in the waves of minutes where I felt ok to look around and enjoy the city, it seemed amazing. There was so much history and our tour guide was funny and had so much knowledge. I could have definitely pictured myself going to school in Barcelona because of all the winding side streets, shops, people, and endless history.
From Barcelona we headed to Nimes, which included a train switch. When we got to Montpielle the station was closed so we couldn’t buy our ticket to Nimes, so we legit just hopped the train and rode it to Nimes. When we got there, I had accidently booked the hostel for the wrong night. The ‘hotel’ which was on hostel world as a ‘hotel’ was actually disgusting and undergoing construction, so we ended up staying at the Hotel Caesar, which was only 4 Euros more and the nicest hotel so far. It was down the block from the train and we got towels! We spent the entire day walking around the city, which isn’t big at all, but is beautiful to say the least. It is a city, but has a small town feel. It’s French, but was taken over by the Romans hundreds of years ago so has a coliseum, Roman statues, temples, and Roman stairs all over the city. Also, we got the impression it was a wealthy city because there was Armini, Chanel, and boutiques all over the city. We started the day with a bag of French pastries (a bag of French pastries each, still keeping up the American fat ass title. I got a Capris sun, this brioche sugar thing, and three mini French pastries for less than 3 Euro. Why did I go to London again?) Yasin and I obviously stopped in the Zara and it was such a good decision. They had such a good sale going on and since the euro is weaker than the pound, I got a whole bag of stuff for about 30 Euro. Incredible. We walked up to the top of the hill/mountain where we got this awesome view of the city. At the end of the day we went back to the hotel to cancel our room for the night, where we met this cute German couple. I’m currently on the train to Grenoble, where the entire car is full of French army guys. Bonjour!
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