BARCA, BARCA, BARCA

I went to Barcelona April 8th-11th with 4 (Kelly, my roommate; and 3 other girls that go to Madison Becca, Carrie, and Sara) of my friends from the Institute (The Spanish-American Institute, where I study). I had to take a later plane than them because I had a presentation in one of my classes that I couldn't skip.

Thursday, April 8th
So I got into Barcelona around 12:30/1:00 AM. From the airport I took a cab to meet them at a bar. I get out of the cab and tell Kelly I'm waiting outside the bar. I find myself in a small alley with a mime. Yes a mime, I'm not sure what he was doing there. I swear I'm not making this up. So, I call Kelly and tell her to come meet me outside. I then get shushed by the mime because I'm talking loud. To my dismay Kelly says shes outside, but I'm outside and don't see her. Of course the bar they send me to has two locations in Barcelona and I of course go to the incorrect one. After figuring that out, we just decide to meet at the apartment so they can let me in and I can put my stuff away. I change and we go to this really cool club that was on the beach. That was the exciting event of Thursday.

Friday, April 9th
We were going to get up and go on a bike tour, but we all slept in too late because we were sleeping in dungeons and the windows were closed. Instead, we went to the Picasso Museum, the Christopher Columbus statue, a street called Las Ramblas (main street with a lot of activity), and to the main harbor area.

Saturday, April 10th
I was given the responsibility to wake everyone that morning by Becca to go on the bike tour. I succeeded and we found ourselves on a 4 hour long tour through Barcelona. IT WAS SO FUN! We saw all of the points of interest and got a bit of a workout.

So now are you ready for another crazy story? Don't worry because in the end we were all safe.
That night Barcelona is playing Madrid, HUGEHUGE competitors. So we decide to go watch the game at a bar and then go out afterwards. Let me set the scene. The 5 of us are walking down a decently populated street with several street lights to get to the main street where the majority of the bars are. We're walking single file down the sidewalk, me in front, Sara in the back and the other 3 somewhere inbetween. Suddenly, I hear a scream. I turn around, and I see a man running from our side of the sidewalk to an alley way. It quickly dawns on me that he took something from this girl. And then it dawns on me that, that girl is SARA! (A man came up to her from behind and tried grabbing her wristlet, after she repeated told him to stop and go away he finally pull it off of her wrist, snapping the part that connects to the zipper off and then sprints away.) So, it takes me awhile to realize what happened and then who it happened to. Kelly starts yelling for him to stop and makes an effort to chase him even though shes wearing heels. Me, clad in flats of course, takes off after him. He runs down a smaller side street, I follow while asking on lookers which direction he just went. Finally I lose him when I ask who I think is an innocent on looker (who I think was actually part of the scheme) which direction and he points down a street with a garbage man at the end who said he saw no one come down that way. The 4 girls are seconds behind me. We stand in the alley cursing the man, who actually mugged her because there was no pocket that was picked, when we realize that Sara is BLEEDING! We figured that when he grabbed the wristlet the metal piece that attaches the wrist part to the clutch must have cut her. Suddenly, a nice British lad appears in the doorway of an apartment in the alley and provides us with some comfort. He reassures Sara that her cut is only a surface wound and that she will survive by putting a little pressure on it. Also, he explains to us that the gang of thieves is a group of Moroccan men that are well-known in that area for stealing things. So, after that excitement we made it to a bar (all of them were SO packed) and watched the last 40 minutes of the game. Barcelona won. The streets were SOOOO crazy. We took a cab from the bar to a club and our cab driver was hilarious. He was this old guy from Pakistan who spooks the funniest English. He told us the people were sentimental in the street after the win. Just very amusing to say the least. We went to this funny Arabic themed club. It was aight.

Sunday, April 11th
The 3 girls from Madison had early flights, but Kelly and I had a flight later in the afternoon so we went and lied on some steps by the water all day, it was nice.