Electric Blue Journey

Barcelona. Amazing city. If you ever go to Barcelona and Im sorry to say this, but are a younger person, stay in a saint jordi hostel. They are amazing. Specifically I stayed in sagrada familia. Its pretty much a skateboarding place. But any of them are good. My whole time in Barcelona was spent booking a night, saying I was leaving the next day and then just booking another night. Eventually nobody believed I was leaving, one remark was that theyd come back in 2 years and I would still be there. Which is why Im on a train on my way out, but if I wasn't trying to do a Europe trip I would stay in Spain and just travel around there.     Anyway it was a week in Barcelona so yet again I am going to try to do a summary. The first night I got in I ended up just doing the normal settle in, try not to smell and take a shower thing, and ended up meeting 2 american girls who were in my room. We bonded over an awkward situation and from there went to the magic fountain together. No ...

    Starting this post out saying that if you ever go to Spain get the chocolate Kinder Bueno. It is sooo good, pretty much the same as my favorite American chocolate Rocher, but almost close to as good. Anyhow, last time I ended with putting only a little bit of Valencia in at the end of the post. Valencia was so pretty. Theres a long strip of park alone the whole side, kind of cutting through the city that used to be a river but since then all the water has dried up and so they put in a beautiful park. Its so sick because each time you cross under a different bridge the next section of the park is completely different then the last, some have fountains, some statues, some very sour orange trees (yeah we kept trying at least 5 different ones hoping they wouldnt be sour turns out their just sourer then the last), and near the end of the park you enter this huge place. Giant beautiful glass buildings each different from each other, consisting of an aquarium, a planetarium,...

Alright these are going to be quick over views since I really have to catch up on this blog and get back to being up to date by only a few days and not a couple weeks.         So in summary we had Alicante, Spain. There I met a giant group of students from the university there through a guy I met at the hostel who had a friend apart of the group (just to clear up the how i met people question). Most of the students were from the US but some weren't. All in all I met a bunch of translators for me. Some key points from Alicante were hanging out, going to the beach at night, dancing in the club with some free champagne bottle from the hecklers on the street, and salsaing. As part of their class they had to go to a flaminco show so of course I tagged along. Turns out although it was authentic flaminco it was nothing like what you would think it would be. You would picture girls in long flowing skirts dancing with some guys right? I think this would normally be...

    So I realized that I never made any of my spanish observations in my first entry for this leg of the journey. For one the streets are back to normal on the right side and everything. It makes it easier to cross the street, though it is a little disappointing. While you are sitting at a table outside of a restaurant, like I said previously they all have outdoor seating pretty much, there will constantly be someone coming up and either asking you for money or to sell you something. Its the same walking down the street where theres either beggars with their dogs, or hands out, or selling either bags, toys, hats, roses, watches, or jewelry. We are also back to normal sinks, but this time the shower is the one thats messed up. If you remember the sinks back in elementary school where you had to constantly push hot or cold down and it would slowly pop back up and stop, yeah thats how the shower is here. Its not to bad besides the fact that Im the kinda gal who will not step...

    Alright so I realize its been awhile since I have written about much and updated. So here goes. Spain is amazing. It is a freakin awesome place that has a great feel to it. Besides the fact that I can't speak spanish, which hasn't been horrible since I have had a lot of translators around me, it has been a very relaxing feel to it. I am right on the beach and theres pretty much a long board walk called le rambla with a ton of places and everything on it. Here is pretty much the opposite to England. Whereas England had days where you rise early, and everything closes at 4, so its hard to find any place to really go between 17 and the bars opening. Here everything is in my kind of time. Places open at about 11, then they take a siesta around 15 or 18 so places are just closed for people to go home and sleep, late dinners, and then most bars start at 24 and close just in time for the clubs to open at 3.     My first day here I was so dead fro...

Quick update, I havn't and don't have time to write my long ramblings yet about Spain but I figured I should throw something up to let ya know how everything is going. In other words, Awesome :). I have met alot of people here, have had a lot of awesome times, and overall this is an amazing place. I do really wish I spoke spanish but I've met enough english speakers who know spanish to have translators. Alright I do apologize for leaving everybody hanging a bit, and there will definitely be many long posts about my past couple days because I have a lot to gab about but for the time being I have to head out and experience this place some more. Thank you so much for all the comments, love them :) love from place to be revealed after I leave, Spain

    Alright, so Im at the airport and still with out internet access. I figure I should just keep writing though as it will make people happy with all these updated blog stuff. But I did finally get around to buying a book to read and pretty much throw out when Im done, I caved and bought the book One Day which is what the movie is based on, even though I try not to buy ones where I know what happens. Technically though I have only seen the preview so I don't fully know what happens. Anywho, I should have showed up at the airport a long while ago. This one seems to be the place to be, since almost every place possibly, not excluding on the ground, hidden under signs, and any place you can pretty much walk there is a body sprawled out sleeping and the shops are still open so its pretty much a free for all. I am glad though that I went to the museum and show. The musical was pretty kickass. I don't think it ranks very high in my musical list but for the music and everything...

As I keep writing these entries and then looking back or thinking I keep wishing I had inserted things. So since I am trying to kill time at the moment between now and my plane (I got a ticket for a musical too so thats in about 3 hours) Im just going to ramble and see what will come of it. To catch you up first of all, I left Cambridge on a much less packed train back to London. One thing I forgot to mention last was that I had left from Kings Cross station to Cambridge. Its the station that is supposedly the Harry Potter station. The thing is though (from what Ashley tells me) that when writing it Rowling was thinking of a different station. Because, as I was thinking while getting to my train at the time, platform 9 and 10 are completely separated in the station. Why I even bothered to notice this was the fact that I was slightly freaking out that I was going to miss my train. My last ticket on the trip was this one and unlike the others it didn't have the platform or time writt...

    Typing this new entry in Bill's, a restaurant that gives the distinct impression of looking exactly like Trader Joe's from the US, besides the fact that its not a grocery store. I don't have much to add except to just update the blog on what's going on. Cambridge has been a really cool little city to be in, and has definitely made my mind go on the topic of figuring out what I want to do in life. Of course it's not helping narrow it in any sense, besides realizing that I need to get high grades to go anywhere in life and making me dream bigger. I have figured out that where ever I go, whether it is back to UW-Madison or somewhere else that it needs to have lecture classes. But I pretty much already knew that.     Tomorrow I am heading back to London and then from there to Spain. It should be a lot warmer so that will definitely be a high plus from this cold weather, although it has yet to snow here, just frost. Overall I have had some great hosts with ...

    So as you probably could guess from the fact that I was alone in Wales, it was not very eventful. I spent most of the days hanging out or sleeping. I did try to get to the ruined castle nearby on my second day but was pretty unsuccessful. After leaving the hostel all ready to go with warm clothing and my pack all set (even with a headlamp because it would be dark by the time I walked home) I trotted off in the direction he had pointed the castle would be. It turns out he meant literally in the direction but not that that was the way to walk to it. I ended up wandering down 3 roads that ended in a dead end and were somebodys private property. Eventually I walked back down the road that led up to the high hill the hostel was on and past the owners house at the bottom to come to the actual street. I dont remember if I mentioned in my previous post but Ill reiterate, the roads in Wales are freakin scary. Unless you know exactly whats around the corner there is no way of s...

Will update my blog probably tonight but I just wanted to put as a quick side note that I've been told I should formally say I would love people to comment, give me feedback, as well as any tid bits they might want to share with me on this journey. So please please comment on it :), plus if you ask me questions or anything I can probably answer them in a little side blog post or something or figure out how to answer them individually. Thank you :), Journey Girl

So I think I kind of worried everybody with my totally miserable status on Facebook. Heres the story of what has happened to me in the last 48 hours.     My last morning in the hostel I ended up staying in the common room and hanging out with people I'd met because I didn't want to walk around for the whole day with my stuff and I wouldn't be able to get back in if I left. My train left at 9 at night so I finally got to the station at 830. Heres another smack on the head situation. Paddington station, when you get off the tube it says you can connect to the rail, thing is I didn't know where you connected to the rail and where to get my ticket and everything. So immediately after getting off the tube I asked information where it was, he just says go up the stairs. After walking up the stairs I realized how dumb I probably sounded. As soon as you top the stairs there is this giant enormous train station. I couldn't stop thinking of platform 9 and 3/4 the entire time...

    Sitting in Pret A Manger, a restaurant that I have seen practically everywhere and finally realized they had free wifi. Eating a classic English lunch of sea salt and cider vinegar chips, sparkling grape and elderflower juice, and a Swedish meatball hot wrap. Its been a pretty crazyish last few days. Each night I end up following a couple people from the hostel around and each time end up with different people and at different places. It's usually either a food place, pub, or ends at Tesco the local grocery store. It's definitely interesting seeing all the differences, for one nobody really tips here or if they do its not sure how much you give. Also in the grocery stores they make you bag your own stuff which I didn't realize until all my stuff was piled at the end with a bag tossed on top and shes waiting to put the next persons things down there.     The clubs here are crazy, more of not the club itself but their hagglers. Tons of guys from each clu...

    My first night in London went pretty well. I met some people from the hostel and hung out. Some of them I just remet since they were the guys who caught me being stuck in the lift but this time I tried not to look as much of an idiot (I think I pulled it off, though I managed to look like a bigger idiot when I revealed my geography and history knowledge to a different person). Eventually we left the hostel common room and went for dinner at a chinese buffet were I had my first beer with my meal. It really is amazing how cheap stuff is here, that is if your a londoner, its decent for an american.     The funniest thing about meeting all these people is I just couldnt wrap my head around the fact that they werent faking their accents. Half the time I had to be translated to of what the heck they were talking about. The thing is they knew everything about america and could easily compare it to something I was more familiar to. It was a very fun thing thou...

Sitting in Caffee Nero (the type they use makes the O look like a D so at first I was really excited to go eat at cafe nerd and use their free wifi, oh well) updating and watching all the london folk go about their day. The first thing I noticed when glancing out the window of the airplane was the giant highway going through the rolling acres and the fact that the cars were all on the wrong side. Second was the castle of course. But you have to love it that when you land suddenly the voice over the loudspeaker telling you arrived is a british accented ground crew. I thought they might have been hiding the british stewardess in the back until we got there then let her out as a little surprise.     Customs was fairly easy, specially since that was what I was the most nervous about. I didn't even have to show my fake itinerary. The guy just asked me about school and stuff like that. It did take an hour to get through that line though. And yes I had the 9 hour flight next to...

Back Pack with Stuff out Everything officially in the backpack All in all the backpack weighs 16 pounds. But I am slowly figuring out I dont have anything with me I need, nor do I have the appropriate clothes for what I am doing, which is in fact not backpacking.

Sitting at the airport about to embark on this crazy adventure. Everythings starting to fully hit me. As many people have told me this is a bold thing to do. The question I have is whether I am a bold enough person to be the one doing this. Either way this is who is doing it and were stuck with that. Yes I am definitely excited. I mean when else in your life do you get to fly across the world with no plans or expectations to anybody else. No places to be, nobody to feel obligated to, and nothing to live up to. Just you, your backpack, and the world at your feet.     The sign we saw on the way to the airport gives me the reassurance and sign from god that this is in fact exactly what I should be doing. (Its even in blue type, which I am starting to realize everything I brought is blue... a little wierd and disturbing to figure out)     Continuing this blog in the T.G.I. Fridays in the Dallas airport. It would totally be something I would do to go to the m...