The Pilot

And today it all begins and seemingly does not end. I have now been up for about 36 straight hours and I am definitely feeling it. Probably not the best idea for someone that is attempting to recover from mono...

The flight was not as bad as I thought it would be. We managed to get from New York to Barcelona in approximately 6 hours. Tried to sleep during the overnight flight but I had no success. Once we got off the plane in Barcelona getting through customs was a very simply process. We just had to show our VISA and we were on our way. Getting five of us into one van with our baggage was quite the puzzle however. Our driver somehow managed to squeeze us all in though and we were on our way.

Our hostel that we are staying at is called the Sant Jordi Alberg. It was not what I was expecting at all because it was completely hidden in the middle of the city. Also an observation that I had was that the elevators here are much much smaller than in the United States.

We spent the first day walking all around Barcelona. I am not quite sure how many miles we walked but it was definitely a very high number. Today we attempted to find an apartment for the semester and had moderate success. We found two options that we are putting on hold for the weekend in hopes of finding something else even better. This process really is not as easy as it seems. We have spoken with multiple agencies and have sifted through a ton of different options. On a side note, I thought more people would speak English here. Most people do not, but it has made it even more of a challenge.

We went to one shop looking for sim cards for our phones and in the process had a great conversation with the two workers. They did not really speak English and likewise us with Spanish which made it quite entertaining. There was a lot of Spanglish going on which was pretty funny as well. It is obvious that we are not strong Spanish speakers yet.

For dinner we went to an awesome restaurant called Tapa Tapa. Together we shared different types of tapas and most of them were delicious. I specifically enjoyed the fried shrimp, patatas bravas, and the spanish ham. We also got a pitcher of Sangria which was pretty good as well. After walking around some more and getting some churros con chocolate we decided to call it a night. I don't think any of us could stay awake any longer.