For "Fall Break" (which is awesome because we don't get one of those in America), some of my friends and I decided to go on a cruise leaving from Barcelona, Spain. It was the 5 of us SHU kids and a friend from Northeastern. When the decision was made and the cruise was booked six weeks ago, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
First, we had to get to Barcelona. We took a flight there, without worrying about the fact that we didn't book a hostal. When we landed and got our baggage, the search began. We walked around a little bit, enjoying the warm weather and beautiful buildings until we decided to actually find a place to sleep that night. We got in two different cabs and went to different hotels looking for a room for 6 people. Finally, we gave up, got out of the cabs, and walked more until we found a hostal. Finally, we found a cheap place to stay with amenities and dropped off our luggage.
We decided to explore the area we were in. Luckily, one of us (Danny) had been to Barcelona before and knew his way around. We brought us to a park to look at all the pretty statues and floral sights. As we were walking around, we noticed some people rowing boats on a pond. Of course, me being the one to get excited over things like this, I begged everyone to see how much it would be to rent a boat and if we could do it. The fee was inexpensive, so we got in two boats and rowed away for half an hour. We got up close and personal with ducks and turtles, which made the experience even more fun.
The next thing we did was go to the beach and eat some lunch/dinner. We were looking at the Balearic Sea, and it was gorgeous. The water was freezing, but the food on the beach was delicious. People build sand structures here for a living, and some of them were gorgeous!
That night, we walked down the main street in Barcelona, Nou de la Rambla, and saw some pretty interesting things. First, we encountered a woman screaming, hitting, and spitting at policeman. They just stood there, without paying attention to her; of course there was a crowd giving her the attention she wanted. We then stopped at KFC for a taste of America! The next crazy thing we saw: the people dressed in costumes on the side of the road. For some reason, in touristy areas of Europe, I've noticed several people who paint themselves and stand on the street in costume all day collecting money. They pretend to be statues, disfigured beings, or even willow trees and babies in cradles. When we got to the end of the street, we found Hard Rock Cafe Barcelona and went in for a visit. When we left, we were walking behind a man who would go up to cars dancing and singing, but act totally normal when police would walk by. We made the decision to go back to the hostal and get out of the wild streets of Barcelona. When we walked into our room, a stranger was sleeping in one of the empty beds. Needless to say, the girls weren't too excited. Some of the group (the boys) was comfortable enough to sleep in the beds, but for the other half of us (the girls), we "slept" in our clothes, on top of the sheets. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night.
When we woke up the next morning, we were all ready to get out of the hostal and on our way to the cruise. We stopped at Starbucks (which was the highlight of my morning) before we walked to the port to get on the cruise! When we finally got to the ship, we waited in line for a long time, they took our passports, gave us ID cards to use for the week, and we boarded! We were off on an 8 day cruise around the Mediterranean Sea!
Part 2 coming soon!
Until next time,
Ciao!