****NEW PHOTOS FOR HARROGATE AND BARCELONA*****
Hola mis amigos! Para el primero vez, yo estoy hablando espanol. Yo tene´ muchas anos de español en escuela secundaria y en collegio, pero no he tenido un opertunidad de utilizarla. Estoy muy optimista para mas opertunidades para mejora.
You can probably figure out the gist of what I just said from the similarities in the wording, but if youŕe REALLY curious to find all my mistakes you can do a google search for a spanish/english translator. As you may have picked up, I´m really pumped about finally using my Spanish skills. I´m quite sure I sound awful and my verb conjugations are all over the place, but it is enough for me to communicate things I need and to speak in simple conversations with locals. I´m amazed how much I´ve improved in just one week. Because of this I´m considering changing the game plan for my gap year, leaning toward spending the majority of time in España. It would be a major bonus to come back with nearly fluent skills. Anyhow, more to come on that. I have much thinking and research to do.
I apologize for the delay on this blog writing and the fact that there are no pictures. The hostal I´m staying at doesn´t allow me to upload photos, so I´ll have to do it at my first opportunity. Since leaving Harrogate in the UK last week, much ground has been covered and interesting things transpired. I have definitely found that the actual traveling across- country portion takes a lot of effort, patience, and thick skin. In many cases I have had to book trains to intermediate locations without knowing when or how I will make the connection to the next train, ferry boat, subway, or whatever. Let me share an example. After taking the ferry boat across the English Channel into Calais France, I departed the ferry boat at about 830 pm to a depot station that was completely closed. No ticket agents, tourist information, food, nada. And, the last bus service to and from the depot had left about 30 minutes prior.
If you can, picture me with a very stoic expression on my face. After about 45 minutes of trying to read French maps and brochures, and also waiting for a bus that was never going to come because I didn´t know there was a time change, I spoke to a passing security agent about how to get downtown. Come to find out it was about a 30 minute walk. I could have gotten a taxi too but not really in the budget. So to make a short story long, I walked into Calais at about 10pm having no idea where I could stay for the night. The happy ending is that I got a recommendation from an expensive hotel of where to stay, and it happen to be right across from the train depot where I could buy my next ticket and depart for Paris and Barcelona. Oddly, as difficult as this may sound, for the most part I was pretty cool with the situation. I do have enough money to default to expensive options such as taxis and steep hotels if need be. Anyhow, I thought I would share that particular piece of my adventures so far.
Harrogate was fantastic, and I really enjoyed staying with Jill and then with Linda the last couple days. We took a day trip to York which was absolutely georgous. They have the most grande Abbey or chapel I have ever seen. The inside is filled with dead priests from a thousand years ago. I was happy to continue my adventure toward the focus of my summer which is the Mediterranean. After my night in Calais, I took a train to Paris and really only had about 5 hours to spend there because I intended on taking a night train to Barcelona. This was fine because all I wanted to do in Paris was see the Louve. Guess what??? the one day I arrive in Paris is the one day of the week that the Louve is ALWAYS closed. That was disappointing but I still went and people watched in the square and admired the architecture. Paris definitely has this immensely grande feel to it, almost as if you are not worthy, or not wealthy enough to be there.
Moving along, I make it to the train depot in Paris and, another travel challenge, they suddenly close the depot and tell everyone to leave because there´s been a bomb threat. All trains cancelled. Again, 9pm-ish and I have nowhere to stay in Paris and did no research whatsoever. Thank God I hung around because they re-opened about an hour later and resumed.
I consider Barcelona to be the beginning of my summer adventure on the Mediterranean so I was very happy to get here. In a matter of 24 hours I go from jeans and multiple layers of warmth to my new sandals, shorts and T-shirt. You can feel the Mediteranean in the air. Since I got here I have just been enjoying existing basically. I began to realize my affinity for the language and started meeting local people and its just been going from there. I´ve walked around the center of the city at least twice looking at the roman ruins interspersed and amazing architecture from a hugely revered architect in Barcelona named Gaudi. Its worth doing a google search for Antoni Gaudi if you have a chance. His buildings are the most organic looking I´ve ever seen. It´s sort of like a cross between the Louve in Paris and a Hobbits home in Lord of the Rings. Distinctive from everything else. The other cool thing is that I was invited to a festival in Sitges which is a Beverly Hills style resort town about 30 minutes from here. I stayed there for free basically, 2 nights, with about 6 other people and had a great time and made good friends. Of course I was making my own sandwiches when I could to avoid restaurant costs. The second day was nice enough to head for the beach and I recieved the inaugural sunburn!
So now I´m just trying to figure out my next move and plan on going into some of the museums and enjoying the nightlife. It´s still a bit early for the beach. Iĺl keep you all posted and try to get the pictures up. Hasta Luego!
