CaRRying the ToRCh

Well, I've finally finished the Harry Potter book that I intended to leave in London. Now my baggage will be .5 kilo lighter! Other than that, my time in Barcelona has been wonderful. The weather is warm and we are just trying to approach our time here with a leisurely pace. The hostel that we are staying in is nice, clean, and sits right on the beach. Plus, even though our room is for 7 people, my friends and I take up 5 of those beds. The other two people are young teachers, one from Australia and the other from New Zealand. Both are very nice. The only bizarre thing about the hostel is that the side walls to our room don't go all the way up to the ceiling! I think it might be for ventilation but we have such loud neighbors. Amanda almost climbed through the hole near the ceiling early this morning to yell at them.

Once we had gotten over the restless night, though, we set out for a sight seeing adventure. Maggie loves the Olympics just as much as I do (We have plans for London in 2012) and so seeing the old stadium and park etc. were at the top of our list. However, we didn't realize how long it would take to walk there. On our way, we first went down the street called Las Ramblas. It was filled with a lot of tourist shops and numerous human statues. The best part was the market, though. I've heard that it is one of the largest open-air markets in Europe. The fruits and vegetables and especially the candy was so beautiful. Everything looked delicious and Emily and I split one kilo of the reddest strawberries I've ever seen. After we had gotten our fill of the market, we started following the map in search of Olympic-ness. Eventually this meant heading up a fairly steep hill -that never seemed to end. We saw dozens of tour buses and eventually followed signs but it was not an easy climb. The planning committee must have taken Mt. Olympus to heart. Eventually we reached the top and were able to look around. We walked into the stadium and saw the torch that held the flame after the archer shot the flaming arrow. We also collapsed in the park's grass and looked at the pool from above. Our adventure was not over, though. We attempted to take the easy way back down via an air tram car. However, it took us in the wrong direction and left us even higher up on the mountain. Luckily, Amanda was able to find a shortcut which meant our walk back was less than 2 hours. After finally making it home, we all took part in the siesta tradition and then headed off to dinner at 10. How quickly we have come accustomed to the Spanish lifestyle.