The Joy of GPS

They say that rain on a wedding day is good luck for the couple. So I will take it to mean the same when, as I embark on my inaugural bike ride in Italy, it starts to rain. Mind you it has been cloudy since I got here and it has only spat a handful of raindrops prior to about 15 seconds into my bike ride--when it starts to really, truly pour. I make it to a nearby coffee shop. I can't help but sit there and be amused at the timing--and be extremely thankful that I am actually here in Italy, being given this chance to see this rain fall on this remarkable land. Fortunately, I brought my iPhone along so I sat there for what could have been close to an hour playing games on it. Never is there time in my life to simply play games. It's fun. Aaaah, Italy, I like being here so much already.

I got a very late start to the ride since I was trying to dig up ride routes on the internet. There's one site that has a lot of rides that look promising, but since I'm so new to this area, it's hard for me to get oriented to ride instructions, in general. After the rain cleared, I set off. It wasn't long before I realized something about this region: there are pretty much all farm roads and very few big, scary roads...so any which way I would go would SIMPLY BE OKAY. Not used to this at all!

And it became obvious that if I tried to follow the ride instructions that I scribbled down that I would spend more time being confused than riding the bike. So off I went, absolutely thrilled that I bought this GPS unit (Forerunner 305 if you're curious) just before coming to Europe. It allowed me a freedom and stress-free ride like I haven't ever had in a new place. I can go anywhere I want to go! And to get home, all I have to do is follow the dotted line (retracing my path on the way out). Easy, I can do this and (for once) not take a wrong turn.

What a fabulous ride it was, too. Felt great to be on the bike and be reminded of the riding that I had fallen in love with last summer when I rode here with Ciclismo Classico. I took very few pics out there since the riding was so much fun.

And for my Bike Across Italy friends, you'll appreciate this sign:

Yeah, how cool is it that Todi and Orvieto are on the same sign? Upon seeing this (remember, I didn't know where I was), it would have been nice to make Orvieto the ride turn around point (with turnaround nutrition being some gelato), but at close to 2 hours on the bike, I finally saw this sign:

Another 42 km would be too much for today, but it's totally POSSIBLE!!!! WEEEE Happy, happy, happy. The rain stayed away, it was warm enough to be too hot in a light-weight shell; spring is sooo here. Interesting, too, the trees are totally bare--with the green grasses and things growing in the fields, I didn't even realize this while gawking at the landscape until later on in the ride.

Post-ride nutrition was a whole lot of mozzarella, basil, bread and olive oil (a feast I couldn't stop thinking about while out there). Post-ride fun included reading for fun (again, something else there's never time for at home) and checking out the ride route on a map. Now the area is beginning to make sense. As one of the guys who's staying here (he's traveling for a year) said tonight in so many words:

When you travel to foreign lands, everything is new. It's like being a kid with having all new experiences--it really slows down time and re-introduces the joy of discovery.

Day 2: Kickin it in Perugia

Click here to see Pictures of Perugia that I took today. It's always nerve wracking, the first time I move somewhere (this is the third time I've moved basically sight unseen), to take a look at the place...is it everything I've hoped for? Will it feel right? Can I make this place home? Fortunately, Perugia feels very good to me. I like it like I liked the hilltowns that I experienced on the bike ride across Italy last summer AND it has a lot of people, a lot of energy. This is a winning combination for someone who ticks the way I do.

While I was waiting to take the bus (great bus system and mini metro, see the pictures of the cute mini metro), I also saw a few road cyclists go past. I know there's tons of riding around here, but it was a positive sign to see people out (welcome change from the extreme lack of cyclists in Barcelona). My bike is ready to go, but I do need to find a bike shop, get some directions for routes, etc. and I need air. My lame little pump isn't enough. Today was Sunday so everything was closed. I understand that businesses are also closed until after lunch on Mondays. Right: if you don't like Monday mornings at work, just cancel them. Italians have the right idea.

I *finally* got to the market earlier today and picked up salad stuff, mozzarella, basil (it's so inexpensive here, woohoo), bread and a few random items. Thank goodness, I've really been missing salad. It's interesting to try to buy food by the kilo. How much does a kilo feel like? I'm only learning what a pound is. In fact, they were selling the bread by the kilo. And I had to ask for the salted or unsalted variety. I chose unsalted (as that's traditional due to a tax on salt in this region once upon a time).

Tonight was family-style dinner where I'm staying. There were 7 of us and all American. Really enjoy being with this group and few things make me happier than eating with a group of people. Our hostess made carrot cake as a birthday cake for the two people in the group celebrating birthdays and it was sooooo tasty. I hope to live with Italians or Italian-speaking people so I am relishing the moments I do have with Americans.

And speaking of birthdays: 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!!!!!!! You're the best! Sorry I can't be there to celebrate with you, but I'm thinking about you and wish you another awesome year. :)

Food Day 1 in Italy & Random Yesterday Items

Breakfast yesterday in Civitavecchia and attempting to read their local news.

At the Perugia train station, I was starving and they were serving rosemary pizza. They should have called it rosemary & salt pizza--it was wonderful, especially after I drizzled olive oil all over it (Amy, you would have loved it).

Dinner last night I cooked in the kitchen here at the house I'm staying in. The bottle of wine is special for one of the girls here who is having a birthday today (they left me a glass full). "They" are (mostly) a group of Americans stationed in Germany, in Italy staying here for the weekend.

It's great to be around such energetic, happy people who speak English (they are all still sleeping at the moment, though, after a long night of birthday celebrating). :)

In Other News

See the last rule posted on Rome elevators (that I had to take)...so technically, I have broken the law and should be locked up.

 I'd say this load qualifies as "bulky."

Yesterday's travel involved train to Rome, then train to Perugia. Got to Perugia at 4pm. Then I had to find the bus to the place where I was hoping to stay. I only knew about this place, but didn't know if there were rooms available or if anyone would be around when I showed up...but I wanted to give it a shot. Worst case scenario, I'd take the bus back to the town center and find someplace to stay there. Again, I've felt so fortunate to be traveling when it isn't tourist season since it's a good gamble that rooms are available.

After getting off of the bus, it was a walk to this long road that eventually turned into gravel that led to where I'm staying. It was a scene straight from a movie. Semi "Under the Tuscan Sun" with the main character (me) being a comedic figure dragging this bike bag to an unknown place. I saw two guys walking near the house and asked if they spoke English. YES, they're American and speak English. I was instantly at home and relieved. The sun set not long after I arrived here (it had been cloudy all day), but the clouds parted long enough to see the sun radiate off the sides of the storybook-perfect villas dotting the rolling hills.

Now to go explore this area, find a more permanent living situation, relax and drink in the Italian air.

How I almost ended up in Italian Jail

Here begins the story of the scariest night of my life (and nothing here is exaggerated for the purpose of making an interesting story). I'm on the train to Roma from Civitavecchia right now; staying in Civitavecchia last night wasn't in my 1/2 baked plan but listen to the story to understand why it got tossed into the itinerary.


I was ready to be off of the ferry last night after 20 hours of sailing from Barcelona! It seemed to take the boat forever to dock--and this was around 8 pm so it was dark at this point. The ferry let out into a large industrial parking lot area. The blue lights of the ferry made the area glow eerily.

I am one of the first people off of the boat. (C@rlo, an older gentleman that I had befriended on the ferry ride grabbed one of my bags and talked to the ferry people such that I could get off nearly first.)

A few words about C@rlo: He speaks almost cero Inglese so talking to him had to be done in Italian...sort of an immersion experience. C@rlo is a tall, thin, fair-skinned Italiano from Napoli. He smokes nearly non-stop and has a confident swagger when he walks. He wears a suit throughout the trip and kicks a pretty fancy pair of leather dress shoes. He pulls his longish-blonde hair back frequently with the gusto of an Italian or as I have Italian men imagined.

The moment I step foot off of the ramp from the ferry, a non-official-looking Italian guy wearing a nice leather jacket asked to have my passport. I shall call this tall, solidly-built, Sicilian-dark man Mario. I handed it to Mario, but was a little concerned about not having it in my possession (since I questioned his officialness). He also pulled aside two teenage Spanish boys as they walked off the ferry. Mario grabbed one of the guy's jackets and kept telling him to keep his hands out of his pockets. A few moments later, Mario was hassling the two men and it seemed a little confrontational.

He told me to wait until an official could come over. I suspected it was a routine customs check or something. Finally, Mario started walking away (quickly) so I had to walk very quickly and push through the crowd--I didn't want to be separated from my passport. When we got over to this other section of the large, paved lot, I started feeling my heart beat harder and I got a gut feeling that this was more than a routine inspection. And here comes C@rlo walking more quickly than his typical gait. I figured I wouldn't see him again considering he had driven his car on the ferry so would be driving away at this point. He asks me something about "telefono." Hmmm. Was he asking me if I had his telefono number in case I had any problems? No. He got more insistent about his telefono (note this is all taking place in front of the officials). And then he got impatient that I wasn't understanding. I would have understood in the same manner if he had been speaking English to me. He was asking me for his telephone in my stuff. "No, no telefono."

"Well, look for it." Ummm, I'm not going to look for a telephone that I don't have. That's when Mario turns to me and tells me that I have due minuti (2 minutes) to find and return the phone to C@rlo and if I find it within this time, I won't go to prison (he crosses his arms which is the international symbol for "handcuff"). So I take a quick look in my backpack which is the only bag it could have possibly been in if C@rlo had accidentally dropped it or mixed it up with my stuff. My search is grossly incomplete since I know I don't have the stupid iPhone. I have my iPhone with me...why would I want a second such device? Lately, I've used mine as a watch and alarm clock during my travels.

Mario gets impatient with me and more insistent that I must find this iPhone. I need to take everything out of the backpack. Thank goodness it was a perfectly still night as I had a lot of little pieces of paper in my backpack. Up to this point in the trip, I've been very good to keep my stuff organized (it's not in my nature to be organized so I was particularly proud of this accomplishment). Last night undid all progress formerly made. After the backpack had been emptied, and an official (who looked official in his uniform), I'll call him Tony, was now picking through all of the contents of my backpack, I started to feel panic. C@rlo is still insisting I have his iPhone and I realize there's a real chance he planted his iPhone somewhere in my stuff.

I pull out the wallet that my iPhone is in and turn it on so the official can see it's mine. Gulp, this is the picture of me and my Janus Rockband friends when we dressed up.

I wonder what Mario thinks of this. Cute? Or does it prove I'm a dark villain who steals from poor, unsuspecting men like C@rlo? I think he was amused and had to quickly shift back into macho, I-mean-business frown.

With the thought of a possibly planted-on-me iPhone, I start ripping through my other bags, throwing everything out onto the concrete...trying my best to find this iPhone before the officals do. Mario doesn't speak English. I try to explain that C@rlo could have slipped it in my stuff. I had done a pretty good job of keeping everything locked and watched during the journey, but I have a lot of bags with a lot of pockets and some that cannot be locked. It was a long journey where I couldn't possibly stay next to my bags the whole time (yeah, sleeping and visiting the bathroom was necessary).

With all of my stuff everywhere, I kept thinking of new possible hiding places...it was a long, tiring task getting through all of it. Even the bike had to be unpacked, wheels in/out of their bags, absolutely everything. Tony (who was hand-picking through everything) turned out to be very nice. He looks at my name on my passport and asks the origins, "Ah, Italiano, si?" I tell him where my nono (grandfather) and nona (grandma) are from. He compliments Sicily (doesn't know grandma's home town) and smiles when he talks with me. I explain that I'm coming to Italy to study and learn Italian, that I love the country. Again, he smiles.

After Tony declares me iPhone free (you have *no* idea how relieved I am that nothing showed up), he asks me if I need "a mano." Si! Yes, I could use a hand. I am absolutely exhaused from the ferry ride, the stress and there's nothing more fun that unpacking and packing everything once again. He helps me pack the bike back up and holds open my duffel while I toss in all of my clothes. It's times like these when I am very happy to have all clean clothes and very boring-looking unmentionables.

Just prior to handing my passport back, Mario asks me if I have money. I hesistate and say yes. They had left my moneybelt alone prior to this point. I rip the thing off and hand it to them. Now I am worried they are asking for a bribe. I'm not giving them anything willingly, but at this point, I'm fine with them taking everything (except for the bike and my riding clothes!) if they just let me go. They look through the moneybelt, return it and my passport and Mario drives away.

I didn't care to talk with Mario or Tony (even though I liked Tony) a moment longer, but here I am, now alone in this large, dark parking lot without any of my fellow travelers. They have all been shuttled away to the nearby town of Civitavecchia. Tony gives me directions as to what to do--wait for the shuttle, it'll be back and it was. I was off. By this time, it's nearly 10 pm and the trip to Roma and then to Perugia could take half of the night. I can't travel any more.

I plead with the shuttle driver not to let me off at the edge of town where it's dark and there is no one out there. "I'm scared!" He doesn't understand, but I think my tone of voice made the intent obvious). No problemo, he assures me, it's a 5 minute walk to the train station. 5 minutes for someone without two large bags and a bike bag (though I am getting proficient at handling the load and I can walk pretty fast with everything in tow). I'm still shaking and completely paranoid so I walk a couple of minutes (it's a nice road that has the Mediterranean Sea to the right and a row of hotels and beach stores on the left) until I see a hotel with a ramp in the front. There isn't a good reason to be scared out here, but the dark of night is enough to completely freak me out at this point.

So that's where I sleep last night--my safe house. All of this skrimping to save money where I can and I happily drop 70 euro on that private room with a large bed. And yes, I put a large piece of furniture behind the door, just because I had to to feel perfectly safe.

It took a couple of hours to wind down (and I was soooo tired), but I slept like a baby. This morning, feeling like a new person, I took a walking tour of Civitavecchia (fairly large town), grabbed a cafe and pastry, bought train tickets to Perugia and am on my way there now.

[Fast forward to tonight...finishing this post, I'm in for the evening and found a place to stay.)

Welcome to Italia! It feels GREAT to be here, despite last night's drama. More on Perugia soon (domani, tomorrow)...it's far bigger than I expected and the place I'm staying is pretty much a dream come true (farm in Perugia). Permanent living situation has yet to be determined. Here's one pic of the vicinity to give you an idea:

The Plan

I will not actually mention The Plan here (considering how public this is) but I do have a 1/2 baked one that needs to start being executed very soon. Will not be at email for awhile (2 days possibly). Sorry for not calling (you know who you are), internet reception (wifi) here has not worked well at all since yesterday and now will be away. Perugia is coming soon!!!!!! I am SOOOOO excited!!!!!

P.S. I spent the day on the bike, but out of the midst of most of the city...lots of beach cruisin'...I tried so hard to get out of city limits but was unsuccessful.

Happy weekend all!!!

Bread and Whine...

Part 1. The Downside of a Commodity
Olive oil. All I want is some extra virgin olive oil to drizzle on everything. I miss it. For the past six months (since the Italy bike ride trip), it has been a large part of my diet. Yesterday, I went to a large market and came out empty handed since they didn't sell a bottle SMALL enough for travel. 3 euros buy a tremendously large, unwieldy bottle of high quality oil. But I don't want to pour out an entire bottle when it's time to move along from Barcelona. Happily, tonight I found a nice, small bottle. Over 5 euro for this award winning Catalunya Aceite de Oliva Virgen Extra. It has a strong flavor, to be sure. I've been working on drinking wine much more and appreciating the differences. Adding olive oil expertise to my list of things to learn in Italy. Speaking of wine, did I mention the cost of it here? Quite inexpensive. I bought a bottle (not the best, but fine table wine) for 1 euro. I happened to brake that one (1/2 full) all over the floor of the hostel in Mallorca so I would be enjoying some wine tonight if I trusted myself a wee-bit more.

I wasn't going to share the picture of dinner tonight, but what the heck, I'm not there to hear your heckling. Really, it felt great to prepare dinner in civilized fashion at this hostel's kitchen tonight.  You're looking at beets (garlic on top, yep, always looking to make friends with my roommates), balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sesasme bread and chocolates from the Boqueria market. Dee-lish!





Part 2.  Where Not to Ride Your Bike but Thank Goodness I Did
Do not ride your road bike in Barcelona unless you're bike-courier-good with a bike. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not that good, but I got a lot of practice today. Let's put it in perspective. Riding around the streets of New York City is easy compared with cycling around Barcelona. This is a city that feigns being a bike-friendly city. (The people are very bike-friendly, the city layout is not.)

The ride started at noon sharp, ended around 7pm tonight and I covered 50 km which was quite an excellent tour of Barcelona (I took some extended breaks, but much of the time was spent at red lights). I really like to get to know cities by bike. Yesterday I only scratched the surface of the city. Today I felt like I began a relationship with the city, where I got to understand some of what makes it tick. It has a personality and now I can differentiate it apart from other cities. When I started this morning, all I could do was define it by putting in the context of other cities that I know. The hills (just above the city) are steep like San Francisco, it has a Montreal feel (without the french), it's big like Atlanta (but waaay bigger)... Now, however, Barcelona stands alone as its own city to me. 

Definition of a Fake Bike City
There are cute little bike roads here and there (next to the regular road) with lanes for each direction clearly marked...but then, you're cruising along and this happy place disappears and you're tossed onto a major thoroughfare if you don't stop, scratch your head wondering what you missed (nothing, it turns out) and jump on the sidewalk where you now get to dodge pedestrian traffic (which is, arguably, more scary than the cars). The cars were terrific all day--I didn't get honked at once and there were numerous occasions where I was given the right-of-way that I never would have gotten elsewhere. And there are the one-way roads. No rhyme or reason on which way or both a road goes. Parked cars are no indication, either, of which way traffic flows. Fortunately, the signage is pretty decent.

I began the ride on La Rambla since it's packed with stores so I was sure to find a bike shop to sell me a good bike map. NO bike shop. Not one. Not one all day long except for a rental shop with no maps that I found just before getting back to the hostel. And what about other cyclists? It was hours before I saw a road cyclist. I probably saw 5 total all day long and guess where I found them?

The Barcelona equivalent of Lookout Mountain!

The story on that a little later. More about how dysfunctional Barcelona is as a bike city. They also have bike self-checkout rentals all over town. Again, faked you out! These little bikes are fine for kicking around to the stores, etc. and if something happens (flat tire, etc), just return it to the rack and the rental company comes by and whisks the bike away to the super secret place where the only tubes and sole mechanic in town can be found. See? I just spent 7 hours riding a bike in a very populated city and couldn't find a single person to talk bikes with.


There's more, hear me out. The intersections don't have corners so you can't just go straight through an intersection--that isn't safe. You have to go to the crosswalks...very inconvenient. Here's an illustration.

If this is confusing, set it up in your kitchen with the spice jars and play it out like you're a bike heading for an intersection. See how bad that is?! Visibility stinks with this sort of setup, too. Seems more dangerous to me.

Back to the Adventure
When I saw the huge antennae on top of the very big hill, it drew me to it--I just had  to get up to it. And there was a magnificent church up there, too, that was (actually) what I really wanted to see...from the ground it looked like a fortress. Here, this is what it looked like from below: 

Pretty tempting, eh? Without a map or the first idea how to get to it, I ended up riding up and down through all of these cool Barcelona neighborhoods looking for that holy grail of a road that would lead me to the coveted prize in the sky. So those neighborhoods...well, they're all built on the hill so logically the roads were all super steep. There were a few occasions where I was in the easiest gear, going about 2 mph and unable to stand up because the back wheel would skip out. Admittedly, I even walked up one road in my desperate search.

No luck, I decided it was just futile and it was time to move along. It was then (of course) that THE road jumped out at me. I was sure this was the one I was searching for. So up I went, once again, but this time, I got what I was after and so much more. The view was awesome (these pics don't do it one bit of justice. H-E-L-L-O Barcelona!

This is the Tibidabo (amusement park next to this amazing church). Not sure what the church is named. I also ended up visiting Parc Guell which was very pretty and found the bike and I hiking all over. Thank goodness I brought the coffee shop caps for the cleats, really came in handy!

To make many long stories shorter, the ride was very satisfying and I felt better out there on the bike than I've felt in a long time. Foot travel simply doesn't do the same thing for me, even if I walk all day long and see a lot of good stuff.

One of the stops I made was at this interesting outdoor venue--next to a shopping area. It was just the weirdest sort of experiences that I really can't explain. There was music blasting and lots of people wearing red (turns out these are Barcelona soccer fans out en masse). I rode into the area and suddenly, without warning, this whole group of guys swarmed me and they threw this red/white scarf on me (good thing I was wearing red/white already), there were cameras and you would have thought we were long lost bestest friends or something. One guy who spoke a little English just kept saying (in a very drunk, spanish accent): you're sooo boo-tee-ful. Clearly he'd be drinking all day long at this point. Hey, if they're going to get pictures, I wanted one for myself--I handed them my camera for one more round. Then the sober guy in the group apologized for his friends' behavior and drug them all away. "We're not all like this," he assured me. Since they meant well and didn't crush me, I thought the whole scene was amusing.

And my bike asked to go clothes shopping, it's had an eye on a shirt...yeah, I actually rode straight into the mall without being stopped. The pink/black stripped shirt at Desigual was that shirt. :)

The rest of the ride found me pedaling all along the beach next to the Mediterranean while the sun set. It was serene--a very good end to a wild day.

Here's the promised link to all of yesterday's pictures:

Yesterday's Adventure in Pics

Internet Connection Issues

All kinds of stories to share from yesterday, but last night as I was preparing the blog, the internet went down here at the hostel (it´s okay on their computer, not mine). So stay tuned, I hope to have a post up by tonight...if I´m here tonight. Presently I am a nomad with no plan.

Tapas and Rambling La Rambla

It's nearly 2am here and I would like to be in bed, sleeping at 2 am. So here's the 2 minute version of today: played tourist and went to Sagrada Familia, the super amazing Goudi church (pics will be available tomorrow, will just send you a link to all of them), saw a wonderful open-air market (ala Pike Place Market in Seattle but much bigger (no fun fish-throwing guys, however), ventured this way and that to get a good feel of the city. I like it, but it is definitely the kind of place that you don't want to experience alone. Gasping in amazement at the Goudi architecture loses something when no one is around to hear the gasp.

Taka, the guy I met this morning, and I went out to find tapas tonight. It may have taken a few wrong turns, but the girl at the hostel gave us the best recommendation for a good place to eat. We chose the sampler menu--9 different Catalan dishes, wine and dessert. (Yep, you know me, I took pictures of everything. New cool food: cuddle fish. Not sure if that's how it's spelled.) This is just what he and I have been looking for! And it was awesome to have a fun person to share the meal with. It was a good experience (in the painful sort of way) to take the long-long way home (kept getting lost, feet tired, oh, knee is all better) so we were out past 1 am finding the hostel...it was a great way to see Barcelona so late, but there were so many people out, it was impossible to tell it was that late. And the night air is warm so no worries on being that kind of uncomfortable. Oh my, we even saw a group of prostitutes/transvestites who were on the job. Other than that, there wasn't much sketchy about being out late.

Oops, I blew past the 2 am deadline, but I know if I don't write anything now, chances are slim I'll capture the story tomorrow. More pics and a movie from tonight will be coming tomorrow...time to go attempt to digest the wonderful Catalan plants and animals consumed at tonight's dinner. Thank goodness I feel like I've satisfied getting to know the food here; being forever on the search for that "perfectly authentic" cuisine is a frustrating and never-ending chore.

Meet Taka...

This is the look of happiness (and tiredness) at finishing a tasty, satisfying meal at nearly midnight.

Sleeping...

Just a quick update on the sleeping situation...apparently I can sleep through anything as I finally awoke at 10:30 this morning to the cleaning women talking very loudly to each other. There was a lot of commotion in the rest of the hostel when I went to sleep last night, but either that went away quickly or the earplugs and eye mask worked as advertised. It's nicely heated here, btw. I met one guy on his way in this morning--from Japan, lived in Korea, learned English at an immersion school in Orlando. Darn, I already forgot his name. Very friendly and English speaking. I like this guy, he told me repeatedly that I cannot possibly be 32 (he's 23)...and this is moments after I drug my body out of bed. Ha ha.

Here's a shot of the downstairs area where there must have been a dance party going on last night. I was curious to take a look last night, but figured if I so much as peeked in, would join the festivities. Tonight I'll want to stay up later considering how late I just slept. Let's go see what the day looks like and wow, I REALLY need a shower.

And today is summer in Mallorca, but...

...I got to pack the bike away and schlep all of my worldly possessions down to the beach front where I caught the bus to Palma, to make the anxiously awaiting ferry boat. I rarely ever complain about a long commute anywhere so long as someone else is doing the driving. The forced time sitting in one place is always thrilling to me since I can't sit still long enough if I'm not tied down (literally). Seriously, I've been heard proclaiming to love going to the dentist for the same reason. To add up all of the time when someone else was doing the driving today is a little ridiculous. 1 hr in the bus, 25 minutes in two different taxis, 7 1/2 hours on the ferry boat. And I was happy the whole time (so long as I wasn't thinking about the gorgeous riding everyone else was doing in Mallorca...that was a little disturbing).

These are two shots from the bus. Fab!

During this time, I finished piecing the family tree together from all of my random notes. It's a fun puzzle to try to piece together--and draw on a single 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper. Next was reading all about Barcelona (thanks, Rick Steves) and get mentally transitioned for what was to come next: moving everything from the ferry to the hostel. The idea that I'm staying in Barcelona, in a hostel, with my bike and stuff, has really stressed me out--for weeks now. I've come very close to canceling this stay and just floating over to Italy instead. That sounds so much easier. Therese--this one's for you. I'll be doing the touristy thing a bit, but also surveying the place by bike, too.

Now that I'm here, settled in the hostel and about to dig into a paella dish (with very strange-looking sea creatures in it), I'm pretty sure I'm happy to be here. You know how it's cool when fun scenes are combined with music? The taxi who picked me up (after dark, mind you) was playing Dire Straits "Money for Nothing" and the next song, as we got to the happening part of Barcelona was "Footloose." Yeah. I like this city already, I can feel the vibe. Or is it just the music? Whatever, it does have a vibe and I think I like it.

The hostel has a vibe, too. I couldn't believe how my feelings of happiness, the thrill of excitement jumped at merely walking into this place. The girl at the front desk is sweet, but I couldn't quite place the accent. She's from Zimbabwe. I've never met someone from Zimbabwe before! They serve breakfast, have computers, wi-fi, a full kitchen for anyone to use, lots of loudly-colored couches, a foosball table (that a group of french guys around my age were playing when I was chilling down there looking at maps). Aaaaah. Definitely like this place.

When I checked in (each room has bunk beds accommodating lots of people) I asked how many others will be in the room. She replies that there will be a couple of other guys. "Guys...you mean men?" I ask. Yep. Hmmm... Sounds potentially sketchy to me (yes, I have the voices of mothers and grandmothers in my ear at all times) so I ask for a room change. She goes through all of the rigmarole of getting me switched and discovers that this room is also all guys, just more of them. This time, I'm okay with it. More guys is less scary than fewer. And I can keep my bike with me in this room.

When I opened the door to the room, there was a guy brushing his teeth (did I mention the shared bathroom is in this room? Yeah...he seemed a bit surprised...possibly dismayed at having a girl roommate). He seems nice, I have no need to be worried. The lockers are HUGE and everything (door keys, locker, etc) all work via an electronic key. Pretty advanced. AND considering the time difference, I don't have to worry about you (moms, grandmothers) not being able to sleep since you'll be awake during the time I'm sleeping tonight. The full report will be forthcoming tomorrow. :) 

Oh my goodness, the waiter just came and refilled my wine glass (to the brim)! Paella is good, though I think the shell fish are just for decoration. There are legs and tentacles everywhere and I can't seem to get into the meat beneath the shell. This must be in a very locals place. The only people here are guys all huddled in a corner doing something that could possibly involve a sporting event. No idea what language they're speaking. It's not Spanish (maybe Catalan?) There's a tv on the wall, but they are more concerned with what's on a laptop. It was weird, when the waiter seated me, he put the key to the wireless internet down in front of me. After awhile I asked for a menu. I'm glad I brought the computer, almost left it at home.

Here's dinner:

That's all to report for today. I have no idea what to do tomorrow. Just looking forward to catching some zzzz's and having breakfast with travelers my age tomorrow morning. Buenos noches!