Barcelona Day 3: Adios!

April 1: I made it to the walking tour this morning! It explained the history of the neighborhood I was staying in, particularly the life of the Jews in Barcelona. Just like everywhere else, they had it pretty sucky. They weren't allowed to live in the city, so instead they had their own walled area in the gothic quarter, where they were self-sufficient. Other times in history, Jews would go outside the city center to live on Montjuic ("Hill of the Jews"). Other interesting things about Barcelona's history: they speak Catalan, not Spanish. However, under the rule of Franco, Catalan was forbidden to be taught, spoken, etc. When his reign ended, the culture kind of exploded, replacing all of the Spanish signs with Catalan, showing extreme Catalan pride, etc.

After the tour, I decided to just wander down to the port. I was walking around Barcelona for probably an hour and a half before making it down to the harbor, where I stopped for lunch and watched some small ships come in. Then, it was off to the beach. Seriously, we're missing out in MN. Anyways, I just layed down in the sun and took a siesta for about an hour or so, before I had to head off to meet my friend Maria. She's from Barcelona and we had planned on meeting up, but as it turned out, we had some other friends who were also in the city, so the 5 of us just ended up shopping the big streets for a while.

Here's another story that will probably make you question my sanity. When I made it back to the hostel, I looked up the night bus schedule, because my hostel runner recommended that I not walk to the bus station alone at 3 am. Well, that was all well and good, until I found out they don't announce the names of bus stops on the night buses. So, I sat there, hoping I would recognize something. Well, I didn't, and finally the bus was empty except for me. Oops. I went and talked to the driver, and he was really nice about it and insisted on dropping me off at the station. My own personal taxi! Seriously, I never knew those few words in spanish would be so useful!

I was still about 45 minutes early for the bus back to the airport, and the inside of the bus station was closed for the evening. There were alot of people around, so I wasn't too worried, and I found myself a nice bench to camp out on until my bus arrived. While I was waiting, this guy named Philip came and sat down next to me. He was from Ghana, and got the opportunity to come to Europe a month earlier. Now, he was headed to Norway to find work as a sailor. He never finished school, and was really interested in hearing about how to go to college. Anywho, the bus came right on time, brought me to the airport, I flew home, and took the train back to LLN where my spring break adventure came to an end!