The summer is now over :(

This has been the last day of my summer vacation. Although I still have the weekend before going back to work (which I'm so not looking forward to). It went by too fast. I had big plans for the time and I only got to do one of them and that was the Barcelona trip.

By the way, I was nervous they'd only speak catalan in there and I'd understand nothing, but it turned out most of them spoke spanish. Every restaurant(especially the fast food places) had menus in catalan only. You could see catalan is the official language there. As far as I could tell, people spoke castellano(that's spanish) or bad english. There was this one place though, somewhere in Barri Gothic or the place next to it.. ribera? a small bar where we went for tapas one afternoon during siesta. I think the woman there might have been speaking catalan. I'm not sure, but..

This last week I spent feeling ill. First I had a throat ache for a few days then it went away and my nose started running. Didn't have fever but occasionally I was sweating a lot. Then it all stopped suddenly. It was weird.

Last week was my birthday week. I wanted to do something special since it was after all an important birthday, 25 years. And because I pretty much missed my twentieth. Must say it was better than the 20th but not by much. I spent it alone mostly, went to the spy museum and classic american diner for lunch. Walked around the "city" a bit and was bored and came back home. I got nice presents from my bf and my mom. Mom's the only one who sent me a card. I suppose people think I'm old now. I got lots of facebook congratulations but..

I dunno what to say anymore. I want to see one more ncis episode before this shuts down from lack of power..

Barcelona!!

I do apologize for forgetting to write about our trip.
I loved Bcn. It's a nice big city. Perfect weather. Absolutely fantastic sea beaches, with amazingly clear, warm water and no jelly fish. Brilliant. Lively city. I must say thanks to the huge number of tourists. Many of the locals took siesta every day around 2-4pm. They closed their businesses to go home for lunch or whatever.

It's a very clean city. BCNeta trucks cleaning streets and emptying dumpsters 24/7.Although one night we saw rats hanging under some dumpsters. Tried to take a pic but it was too dark.

Surprisingly few grocery stores there, at least in the city center and even those were rather small and mostly run by asians. Our street had one every 30 feet but elsewhere not so much. On the last full day we found the biggest and even that was on the bottom floor of a department store (El Corte Ingles). I loved it. There was a huge selection of alcohol and it was cheap. I wish I'd had money and time and healthy feet to go around the entire grocery section. I suppose I'm weird that way, I like to go to grocery stores when I travel.

We checked 2 night clubs while we were down there. First one was recommended by the arabic bartender at 'bar muy buena'. A salsa club(Antilla). He gave us a card of the place. Turned out the address on the card was false. Took some work finding the place but we did eventually. It was a strange place. You didn't pay an entrance fee. They gave us each a red card (actually only 2 at first but then J went to ask for one more) and you couldn't leave unless you had a green card. A green card you got by buying a drink at the bar. I paid 9e for baileys!! It was a big glass but still. I loved the music. Latin rhythms. A&J didn't like it. Some dude even asked me to dance, I said no since I am terrible at couples dances and everyone else seemed to be really good. We left quite soon.
The second one was a few nights later. The Moog. It was mentioned on the travel book we had. It cost a fortune to get in(10e) and the music was horrible. It was a stereotypical night club with horrible trance-house or whateveritis music. It was so crowded it was hard to move. I hated that place. After we got out of there, my friends were still willing to go to another night club or the beach. My feet were killing me, I could barely stand up(No, I wasn't drunk. Only had 2 ciders and 2 interesting shots at the rock bar(where the bartender, who hadnt paid any attention to me all night, suddenly called me his future wife!?!)). My friends were drunk. They got into a fight with each other, left me alone in the middle of the night in the Rambla. Not the best of ideas. But it was either that or continue following them with my broken feet, so I headed back to the hotel. 3 guys offered to go home with me on the way. This was all in Las Ramblas, it got calmer after that. But since it was something like 3am and I was a girl alone in a short dress I decided to walk via big streets, even though it was a bit longer route and my feet were killing me. I got back to the hotel just fine.

We must have walked at least 16 miles each day. Our hotel was perfectly located. A short walking distance to las ramblas and the plaza de catalunya and a metro station. We walked around a lot. Took strolls in the real Barcelona, where the locals live and where there was no tourists.

I think I got a bit carried away. I'll tell more later when I have time and think of something new to tell. Feel free to suggest and ask.