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soooo spain sweatdrop crazy times

First day, well, you know how my mom had us leaving on thursday, it figures I was right, we were supposed to leave on wednesday. I was up in my room taking a nap when I hear my mom screaming at me to grab the bags (cause luckily we had packed on monday) and get dressed. Then we go flying down the freeway (my mom almost wrecking MY car by running over curbs and crap... believe me, I was yelling at her to watch the road and not crash my car. Anyhow, by some miracle we made it in time for our flight to Newwark. Then from there we flew to Barcelona.... longest flight ever and I really don't like flying that much. Anyhow I got to sit next to some hot chick, but she ignored me the whole time stare just fell asleep and listened to her ipod the whole time. Tink she was married or engaged or something but w/e. Some lady at the food shop kept callin me babe... duno if that's just her thing or what, strange. After about 10 hours of flying we got to barcelona, and mind, I couldn't sleep on the plane, it sucked, anyhow when we got there, we immediately had to go on a tour of the city because it was 9 am over there (6 hours ahead of my normal time, so that would have been around 3am back home) so I was kinda like a zombie.

Friday! another tour of the city. It's kinda funny cause Barcelona has all these back allies and dark streets that you would never walk through here in the US, but over there, they are filled with people and even though they smell like pee and crap, it's safe. Oh, btw, drinking age over in Spain is 16! My group wasn't allowed to drink though cause it was kinda like a school thing, though... our last day we had a tapas diner (explain later) and the one desert was filled with some kinda alcohol (I seriously didn't know) and I had a whole big thing of it and kinda got silly. It was like taking a few shots of rum or something. I took one bite and told my mom it tasted like alcohol but she said it was fine to eat it so I did. Kinda burned my throat a bit but still liked it.anyhow. We were standing by the one cathedral (they are everywhere) and some crazy lady was walking by with an empty stroller and started yelling at the pidgeons or something O.o some think she was yelling at her imaginary kid, but I duno... she looked angry though. We saw her later that day muttering something to herself with the empty stroller again. Can't remember anything else that day. Wait, now I do. We went to some garden thing and walked around, got to sit on the world's longest bench... it was cool... then wandered around rest of the day at the castle before going to get dinner.

Saturday we went to the picasso museum. Not a big fan of the cubist movement, but it was pretty cool. We had free time to go shopping, I just got my brother an official FC Barcelona shirt for his birthday. It's a goalie jersy so he can wear it when in games. Hope he won't ruin it. The rest of the day we just walked around. At night we walked around through the allies and stuff, visited the ramblas (it was like... hmmm... it was this very long street with shops and street performers and a market place and all that stuff. It was really really crowded and a party at night. We had to watch out for gypsies though lol whee they would pickpocket you while you watched the street performers. They were really cool though. They would paint themselves and their costumes so they looked like a bronze statue or a silver man or clay people or something like that and then stand still, if you put a coin in their bucket, they would move or make a noise, if you put another coin, then they would 'come to life' and do stuff and they let you get a picture. It was pretty awesome. AJ got attacked by a robo cowboy standing on top of one of the fence posts. It was funny. So that was Saturday

Sunday! Sunday we had to go to mass. It wasn't too bad a guess, but I don't beleive in that stuff. After that, we went to the beach! Yep, I swam in the Mediterranean. you know how you hear about the topless beaches in Europe? They are not anything like what anyone imagines... all the old dude walk around in speedos... the little kids run around totally naked, and all the old saggy women walk around topless >_< yuk... I did buy a coconut from some arabic dude for 2 euros... ended up smashing it open on a rock and eating it 3nodding still peeling from my outrageous sunburn too... got burnt so bad my feet started swelling up so the spanish tour dude made me smear yogurt all over myselt, smelled like rotting cheese after a while, but works miracles for the burn.

Monday we got on the metro to Madrid. It was pretty cool and we all got to take a nap cause the ride was 3 hours long. Madrid is really, really hot. Probably didn't help that I had to wear a jacket cause of my sunburn. We took a tour bus to see all the sites then stopped at a museum. Got to see the guirnica, Picasso's most famous work, I have a picture of it, I think. I duno if the stupid scanners that we had to go through ruined my film. I was taking black and white pics with 400 film cause i'm a photography student (ugh, I'm peeling like a lizard >_< all my awesome tan will fade away!) but yeah, lots of pictures. We walked around a bit then headed to our hotel and had dinner. (that hotel food sucked >_< everything seemed stale and nasty)

Tuesday, we woke up early and traveled by dus to Toledo. That was my favorite town. They make the best metal in the world there. I bought a dagger... mom wouldn't let me get a sword (shhh it's actually a letter opener, but we'll just say it's a dagger.) Anyhow, that place is beautiful. I wish we had more than a day to visit there. Anyhow, visited all the shops there and stuff. After that we went to the Prado museum. It's very famous for holding a ton of masterpieces from famous artists. lol, if you have the time, look up the painting: The Garden of Earthly Delights.... this was painted back in the 1400's, but it looks like something that belongs to the 60's with all the stoners and stuff... it's crazy. After the Prado, we went to the Royal Palace and walked around in there. I liked the armoury. They even had armour for their midgets! We went back to the hotel and napped, then we left at 9 for a flaminco dinner. Yet, we went to a club and saw exotic dancers! lol not really, but we just say that. The server gave me wine, but my mom took it before I could drink any. I don't like wine anyways. the dinner was pretty good. We wandered around then went to bed.

Wednesday, Another free day. First off we went to this huge park! it was amazing and... it had the only statue in the world dedicated to the fallen angel, Lucifer. I got pics of it. We stayed there for a few hours, visited the crystal palace. I looked like glass and I don't see what was so wonderful about it, but whatever. After that we went to Plaza del Sol for more shopping time. I found the Real Madrid shop and bought a jersey for myself and my brother. Then we went to a smoothie place and gtom some food. Wandered around a bit cause I don't really like shopping for junk I don't want or need. Went to a cafe and got some icecream (they love icecream in Spain... there's a 'gelato' shop just about every 2 blocks) I got some chocolates for my friends. There wasn't really anything worth buying as souvenirs cause most of it was junk. I found Callate La Boca. That place was sweet, but they didn't have any monster pillows left >_< so I couldn't get one for anyone. Didn't bother with shirts cause I duno anyone's shirt size and didn't want to guess. We met back at the tree then went tot he hotel to get changed. After that we had a Tapas Dinner. It's kinda like family style where they bring out plates of stuff and you pass it all around the table. There was soo much food there. That's where I had my rum cake or whatever it was. Dylan an I took some of the food in two boxes and gave it to the homeless guy sitting in front of our hotel. We felt bad cause he had been just sitting there for two day and hadn't moved from his bench, not to mention all the food we didn't eat was going to be thrown out, so yeh. He was happy for the food. I went running at night and then went to bed.

Thursday, the return flight. Started out slow, but when we got on the plane we ended up being about an hour late cause they had to fix the air conditioning cause somehow it wasn't working. We finally took off and then had to wait in line to use the runway. Some 14 year old kept staring at me. She was sitting in the seat across the isle from me and had 2 seats to herself, anyhow he just kept starting at me for no reason. I duno, I was just sitting there playing with the inflight tv games and reading my boring book for english and he was reading and watching me. I duno, just strange. Anyhow we landed and had to race through customs and bag check and all that shet. We almost missed our connecting flight. Three of us were there before all the others and we were just going to leave without them, but the plain was delayed cause of the baggage neededin to be loaded. It was kinda funny cause if you were there, you would have see three people racing through the airport weaving in and out of peopl with our shoes in our hands and bags dragging behind us. It was crazy. Anyhow, we actually all made it thanks tot he delay so that was good. By then I was really tired and grouchy cause I'm still running on madrid time, but by then it would have been about 1 am for me. I was all excited cause I had a window seat for a change and my mom was in another row with a window seat. Anyhow I got up to use the bathroom and I come back and someone else in my group is in my seat. I was like, "Why you in my seat?" and they told me my mom let them take my set so I could sit next to her. I was really pissed off then cause she had also traded her window seat to someone else so now I was stuck on the inside row again with nothing to do.... i was really really pissed so I refused to talk to her the rest of the trip. She knew I wanted that window seat and decided to be an a** anyways... oh well... that's my trip