welp.

so here's the thing, i still haven't updated this silly blog with my stay in Barcelona. I know there's a lot of people who want to see pictures, hear about my adventures, but honestly, I'm not ready to share that yet. I'm not ready for the story to be told or for the trip to end. I've got it drafted, sitting in the queue, waiting for the pictures to be entered, but I'm just not ready to do that. It's not the right time. 

I learned too much in those few short days, I figured part of my life's mystery out and where some of my insecurities come from. I've done quite a lot since I came back in June, and I'll get to sharing that soon, but I'm not quite ready to give you a peak at My Barcelona. 

One day soon, promise. 

I'm a LIAR.

I'm a liar. A big fat liar. I said I would be done writing about my trip a few weeks ago, and well... oops. I still haven't. Here's my Barcelona recap, folks!

Once I got off the train at the Barcelona station, was starving and needed to find my way into the city and to where I was staying. This is when things get way crazy. I ate at McDonald's and let me tell you, it was some of the best fast food I'd ever had. Europe, and many other countries, have much stricter and better food laws so the food that foreign McDonald's serve is about 10,000 times better than the American ones. Oh, and in Italy, McDonald's serves traditional Italian coffee because there is no way in hell that the Italians, or Spanish for that matter, would serve the crap we do. From there I went to the info center, got the free Barcelona map (sponsored by McDonald's - it told me where all their BCN locations were) and the bus map. Figured out which buses I needed to get the apartment where I was staying and started on my way.

This is where everything hits the fan and my little grudge against Barcelona started. I texted the girl I was staying with - my phone had been just fine my whole trip - and got on the bus. When I transferred to the second bus, about 10 minutes in, I realized that I was heading west, not east... so I had to get off, cross the street with two suitcases and a bag and wait 10 minutes for the next bus heading the right direction. So not happy, plus, I was exhausted and my internet hadn't been working well in Alicante so there were constant calls home to have things researched (train info, bus times, etc). I hadn't heard back from the girl that I was staying with by the time I found the building, so I sent another text and after about a half hour of waiting, called home to have an email sent because apparently I wasn't getting texts from home anymore and data was too expensive without wi-fi. After an hour of waiting, Marina's (who I was staying with) boyfriend Xavier found me in the lobby of the building and apologized and we then realized my phone wasn't working because Marina had gotten the email finally and gave him a call to come give me the keys. He was super nice, helped me with my luggage and went up to the flat. He showed me around, told me where the local markets were and made sure I was okay, and we chatted and apologized in Spanglish for a bit before he had to get back to work. I was so annoyed with the whole day that I just sat in my room for a bit before venturing around the area I was staying in. I found a little bakery that made cupcakes, some of the best I've had, and the markets where I picked up snacks, juice and some food when I didn't feel like going out. I crashed early that night, and got caught up with emails and stuff from home. I woke up the next morning, not quite ready to explore, but knowing that I needed to at least figure out that area that I was staying and get my barrings.

The little taste I got on the first day and a half that I was there was great. I slept a good portion of these days, realizing too that the jet lag caught up with me HUGE, facetimed with my family and just took it easy because I knew that I was going to have to start early and see a big part of the city in a day, so I needed as much energy as I could muster.

tuesdayyyyyy

well, tuesday morning was fun. I walked around SoHo a little more, and into the Bowery area. Got a new pair of Warby Parker sunglasses and a new pair of toms because my other shoes were eating my feet and giving me blisters everywhere.. from there, I went to eat at The Meatball Shop on Stanton. best decision of my day. After having their sandwich at Googa Mooga, I wanted to go and eat their stuff fresh. BEST. EVERRRRRR. 

The special of the day was a Chile Verde meatballs with salsa verde, the risotto was chives and scallions and everything looked and smelled delicious coming out of the kitchen. I sat at the bar, and the bartender was super nice and talkative. He gave me a copy of the Meatball Shop cookbook to browse through while I waited for my food and asked about where I was from and going and whatnot. I talked to the guy next to me a bit, who told me that he came in because he was craving their meatballs. To me, that says something. 

I ordered a slider of the chile verde goodness, the risotto and then a meatball sandwich with the spicy pork meatballs, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. I said I was going to take it with me to the airport, but that ended up being a total lie because I didn't realize how hungry I was. Apparently that happens when you don't eat the whole day. 

Here's how it looked:

From there, I went and picked up my luggage that I had stored, and headed to the airport. It was a beautiful day and i was sad to leave the house that morning, and sad to leave the city, but Italy and my friends were waiting. 

Check in and everything went well, and the flight on AirBerlin was great. BUT, I barely slept. the people behind me kept getting up and using my chair as their push off point, waking me up every 20 minutes or so. I was real mad. real real real mad. the food was good, there were free movies, tv, games and magazines on the little tv screens and it would have been even better if i had gotten sleep on an overnight trip. 

The Berlin terminal, where i had my 6 hour layover however, was crap. I'm just mad that I even had to be there. The chairs were awful, there were no plugs to charge anything and the food choices were yuck. The terminal itself was small, smaller than Long Beach Airport, but luckily the majority of people were really nice. The ride to Barcelona was okay, a little turbulent, but not too bad. My luggage made it everywhere safely, and the Barcelona airport was really nice. The flight to Madrid from BCN was sure to be the death of me, it was crazy turbulent and it felt like the pilot was doing things crazy on purpose, but really just ended up being a lot like the up and down of the flight to Oakland from LA. Madrid to Venice was really nice, I got to sleep on the last three flights, which was really nice, and seeing Jen and  Scott and knowing that I wasn't going to be on a plane for 7 whole days. 

More on Italy over the next few days, so far, the food is beyond words and i love everything other than the rain and the amount of nature that is causing my allergies to go insane. Oh well, dont care, its freaking great.