Funny Stories
November 18, 2019- The Bath Towels and the Metro
We all packed for Barcelona, and we discussed what we packed with each other before we left. We all assumed that the place we were staying had bath and hand towels. However, that was so not the case. So, on Sunday after our arrival, we went around town trying to find towels. In Barcelona, a lot of the stores are closed on Sunday. We went into various hotels asking if they had towels and just hoping one hotel would just donate 4 towels to us girls. However, no one offered. Luckily, they have small supermarkets that are similar to the store part of a gas station. They have a few odds and ends items, food, and drinks. We went into about several stores and walked several streets over from our apartment. We still had could not find towels. So, we decided to try using the metro and go to a another store that was recommended for possibly having towels. We bought a 10 swipe metro pass for other excursions on the trip. When we got on the metro, we thought we got off on the last stop and then had a small walk. According to the GPS, it said it was about 20 minutes away. So, we rode the metro to the last stop, looked at our GPS, and the GPS tells us we are now 1 hour away from this store. We were so confused and so lost. We get back on the metro and try again. After using 3 of our metro swipes in less than a hour, we finally figured out where to get off and we found the store. After walking around the store and not having much luck, we were about to leave. Then, one of my friends looks up, and there was a small stack of what looked like towels above the drink fridge in this store. They were towels! Now these towels were children themed, so I had to buy a LOL themed towel. Also, they were 10 Euros each which is around $12 in the US for 1 towel. We were just so glad we found a towel because we just wanted to shower and unpack from our flight and travel day. The next day, Monday, we went out exploring Barcelona. Two places over from our apartment, there was a supermarket that we did not notice on Sunday. And guess what... They had towels. They had every colored bath towel, hand towel, and wash cloth we could have ever wanted. Also, the bath towels were only 5 Euros!! We laughed so much over this experience over bath towels and using the Metro.
November 23, 2019- A rainy weekend in Nice, France
During our first week in Barcelona, we booked a weekend trip to Nice, France. We looked at the weather before we booked, and it said rainy. We contemplated waiting and going another weekend; however, we decided to go despite the rain. We had to be at the airport around 6am for our early flight. The flight was smooth, and it was only 1.5 hours! We get off the plane, and it was rainy, but we all had our umbrellas and were fine. We go to check into our airbnb, but we get there and it was not ready. She said to come back after 12 to check in. They let us leave our bags and go explore Nice. She gave us a lot of good recommendations for food and places to visit. So, we set out on our adventure. We found this cutest little place near our airbnb where we ate an breakfast. Then, we went to the St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral then to an art museum. After these adventures, we were drenched head to toe. It was about 1 pm and we were ready to check in to the airbnb and try to dry off for a few. After being at the airbnb for about a hour, we went out shopping and exploring Nice. Around 5:30, we were still looking around and going to cute stores that we passed. We walked in a few stores, and they told us they were closing early, so we had to leave. We go back to the airbnb to dry off again and freshen up before dinner. We were not at the airbnb very long; however, when we left to get dinner the city of Nice had literally shut down. We walked all over trying to find a place that was open, but we could not. The stores had closed, there were very few people out, and we were starving. We go back to the airbnb, and we ask the receptionist if they had snacks we could buy. The man looked at us confused and chuckled. He did not have any. In the room, there were complimentary snacks. However, it was a very small cracker. There were 4 of them, so we all had one. We found a food delivery service that was delivering food. We ordered a Dominoes pizza, and we were so excited to finally find food. We waited over a hour, and our pizza had not been delivered. We tried calling, but none of us knew French. Oh, and the workers did not understand English. We tried translating small words like "order", "pizza order", and others small phrases into french. But, between our southern twang and not sure how to pronounce the words, we were not able to communicate. While waiting for the pizza, we tried to make the best of the situation. We hung out in our airbnb, played cards, and had many laughs. After about 2 hours of waiting, we here a knock on the door. All of scream. We were so excited that our pizza had finally been delivered. However... it was not the pizza being delivered. It was a man telling us there was a baby in the room over sleeping, so he was asking us to be quieter. So, we are all hungry, frustrated that our pizza is late, and the Nice is shut down. We each ate one of the complementary crackers and waited for our pizza. However, we finally gave up and went to bed. We have laughed so many times over the town shutting down, the pizza not being delivered, and getting excited over a knock at the door. Although this day did not go as planned, it was definitely one full of laughs and memories.
November 30, 2019- Sprinting to the Boat Tour
During the weekend of November 30th, we visited Milan, Italy. Before our arrival, we planned various places to visit and must sees of this town. One of the visits was a boat tour of Milan. We looked at the pictures online, and we became immediately excited. All of us looked forward to this part of the trip. The boat tour was not until 5, so we were able to explore Milan during the day. We ate breakfast at a cute little place by our air bnb before starting our day. Throughout the day, we visited the Duomo, a few shops, and a various other places around. We ate a late lunch and began to head to the boat tour. We knew we had to ride the Metro to get to the part of town the boat tour was located. We have navigated and become familiar with the metro since our last experience. When we got off the metro, we assumed the boat tour was very close to the shopping area we were near. Since we are girls and we love to shop, we only did what girls would do. We shopped for a few minutes. We decided to check the map to make sure we were going to the right direction to the boat tour. Uh-oh! The maps said we were 34 minutes away. It was 4:20, and we had to be there 10 minutes before the tour began. We did not have enough time to walk to the bus tour. So, we tried to get an Uber.. Well, there were not any ubers available near us. We couldn't find a taxi either, so we were frantic. We were so excited for this bust tour, but we knew we weren't going to make it in time. We decided the only way to make it was to run. We ran down two streets, and guess what. There was the boat tour. We were just two streets away. We sprinted through the streets trying to find the tour, running between people, getting a lot of stares along the way, just to be two streets away from our destination. We laughed so hard at ourselves for being so panicked that we were not going to make it. Now, it is time for the boat tour. The part of the trip we were so excited for. We knew we would see the sunset while on the boat, and we would so much about Milan. However, it did not turn out like that. We were on a boat with windows that you could not see out of. The only way you could see really well was getting up and walking to the front of the boat to take a picture. The tour was about an hour long, so we all took a nice nap floating down the river in Milan. Although the tour was not what we had anticipated, we enjoyed being together. We took pictures before getting on the boat, shopped at a few stores in the area, and had the best gelato afterwards. It was a funny experience, and it will be a funny story to look back on. Overall, our time in Milan was fabulous. We all hope to visit Italy again someday!
December 8, 2019 - No Power
We decided not to travel our last weekend in Barcelona. We wanted to experience Spain during the day, and explore different attractions that we cannot explore at night. We did just that. The weather was beautiful. It was Constitution Day on Friday, so we did not have school either. We were able to have 3 days to really explore Barcelona. Thursday after school, we booked a bus tour that took us around parts of Barcelona that we had not explored. Our tour guide was awesome and gave us so many recommendations for places to go if we had time. The tour was so neat, and we were able to get off the bus on some parts to visit different areas the bus could not go. On Friday, we ate brunch, went to La Barceloneta Beach, and then explored Gothic Quarter. On Saturday, we went to Tibidabo which is like an amusement park, but it is on top of a mountain, so we could see the city of Barcelona. We spent the whole day there and then went to get dinner at our favorite pasta place. On Sunday, we woke up and started getting ready to finish a few more places. However, our floor at our accommodation lost power. I had only curled half of my hair! (That was quite a sight haha). We waited a few minutes and called the housekeeper to tell her. She does not speak any English, so we had to use Google Translate to communicate with her. She could not get it to turn on either, and we had to hurry because we had plans and reservations to tour Park Guell. So, we all did the best we could and rocked our bad hair day. When we came back after Park Guell before our next adventure, the power was back on. We were able to fix our hair before heading to the Sagrada Familia.