On the Road Again....

Day 6
0830 Local Time May 05, 2010 – 2245 Local Time May 05, 2010

Mornings seem to be starting earlier and earlier even though they have actually gotten ever so slightly later than when we first started. But alas, today was another travel day. We got up, ate cheese toast at the hotel, and set out along the highway pulling our luggage. I’m really not a fan of the luggage pulling—it makes things significantly more difficult than just regular walking and is assuredly going to leave my legs black and blue from dragging it into metro trains etc as quickly as possible with a million people around trying to also get on that train—or through that station, or what have you.

Anyway, we got to the Atocha train station with planned in time for getting lost. Luckily, we didn’t get lost so we had an extra hour to relax. Unfortunately, our train was delayed an hour so we sold our souls for 3 Euros a piece Coke Lights and a travel pack of Chips Ahoy. This, along with a little bit of trail mix, ended up being lunch; we just didn’t know it yet.

The train got under way at 1330, an hour after the original planned time and we got into Barcelona around 1745. From there, we struggled with the Catalan signs (well…most of them are in Spanish too, but Spanish and English were no longer the bold signs) to figure out where on earth we needed to go now to get to the hotel. At information, I found out that the easiest way to get there would be to take the metro to the stop, Diagonal, and then from there to take the ferrocarril to Sant Cugat (why did we have to pick a place where I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it??? It’s coo-gaht).

We got off at Sant Cugat but not really because we couldn’t get through the gates. Apparently we had only bought a Zone 1 ticket and not a Zone 2 ticket pass so we were let through but only because we were the bumbling Americans, I think. By this I mean, they didn’t seem to have much problem letting Papo through but somehow I was a little more responsible and they weren’t as willing to let me through. Huh.

Once off the train, we made a quick ATM stop and quickly discovered we were in fact not where we were supposed to be (surprise surprise). A short cab ride away we got to the hotel and they very pleasantly checked us in and hooked us up with internet and a different room that had two beds instead of one. Everyone in the hotels has been extremely pleasant I think to the point that it is really worth noting. So to anyone who’s looking to go to Spain, the Holiday Inns really do seem to be nice places to stay.

At this point, we were a little exhausted after hauling luggage every where and then getting lost without lunch so we took ourselves back to the main square/plaza of Sant Cugat (just one stop over on the train now with our 10 trip zone 2 passes). There we had pasta dinners in a very quant little place and frozen yogurt in another from which we were allowed to take a menu so I’ll have that for my class to show them. =)

After dinner we got back to the hotel, Marc (my pen pal) had called again (he had called before we got there and said he’d call later—before we left we said in case he called to let him know we were having dinner and to ask until when we could call back). So he had called and said just to call back right away and we did. The plan now is to meet him in Barcelona’s Plaza de Cataluña at 11 tomorrow. And that’s all for today folks!

Current Location: Sant Cugat, just outside of Barcelona
Day 6: Over and Out.