Heading back to Denton today! We had to get up early to go to the airport. We were heading backwards in time, so the day we left Barcelona is also the day we arrive in Dallas. While on the plane I was sitting right next to Dr. Litton. This turned out to be a problem while I was watching a movie called The Family, which is about a family on the run from the Italian Mafia. It was a action comedy film. Unbeknownst to me it had a sex scene, and there I was sitting next to Dr. Litton. The whole time the scene was playing I was thinking, "Don't look over at my screen, please don't look over at my screen." Then the whole rest of the movie I was worried it was going to happen again. To make sure that didn't happen again I made sure to watch PG movies. I watched Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monster, and then an animated movie. We had a short layover in New Jersey, with just enough time to get some food. I ate Chinese and some ice cream. While there I found out that Carely's parents were going to pick up Priscilla and give her a ride to Denton, even though they would have to backtrack to get home. I offered to take her to her apartment since I was going there anyways. I forgot to mention that Simone and I were splitting the parking cost for my car. Then we got on another plane to Dallas. When we had our bags I called the hotel shuttle and we had to wait about 20 minutes for them to come pick us up. We got in my car and drove back to Denton. Priscilla kept us talking and kept me awake, which was good because we got there around 11pm. It was then that Simone mentioned the parking costs and I realized I had not mentioned it to Priscilla. I told her she could just pay me later, (but I wasn't going to collect since I forgot to mention it) but she had the money on her so she paid me. It was only $18 a person. I then dropped Simone off at the University and then drove to my apartment. My trip is over, until the next one...
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Ann came back to the hotel really drunk at 12:05 this morning. She kept going on and on about how she didn't deserve Chris (her boyfriend). Stephanie, Kelly, Lauren, and one other girl kept trying to calm her down. She felt sick, so they took her in the bathroom. She kept saying over and over that she had to text Chris to tell hims she wasn't worthy of his love. She also was upset because she wasn't being a role model to her menthe. Heather and I were both wide awake by this point. Lauren and Stephanie kept apologizing to us. Eventually, Stephanie thought to let Heather and me go to her and Kelly's room so we could sleep. Instead, they decided to take Ann to their room. they bundled her down the hall. Lauren told us what happened: They got 1 free drink in the ice bar. Then the bartender started flirting with Lauren and gave everyone in the group 3 free drinks a piece. He made them really strong. After 4 drinks, Ann was under the table laying down, so they got a cab back to the hotel. We started going through Ann's stuff so she could charge her camera. When going through her stuff I found some pills, so I gave them to Stephanie to help Ann in the morning. I also gave her what was left of my Pringles. Lauren came back to the room and we went back to sleep. We woke up around 8 and started getting ready to go to breakfast. Ann came back to the room and apologized to us.
We went downstairs, ate breakfast. We got on the bus and went to Las Ramblas. There we met a local tour guide and started playing The Game. In The Game, we traveled down side streets of Las Ramblas, where we met other tour guides and completed challenges. Each of the challenges were based on the 5 senses: touch, hearing, smell, taste, and sight. There were an additional 5 photo challenges to complete. They asked who wanted to be in the first group and no one moves, then Mrs. Gregory said she would be in that group and a ton of people wanted to be in the group (myself included). There were too many people in the group, so I decided to switch groups. I ended up in the Black Group. The first group back with all of the challenges and all of the photos would win. Even if we were not done, we had to meet back up at noon. Then all of the groups left. Our group first headed to Las Ramblas, were we took a picture of the giant thermometer (photo challenge). We then headed towards the next place on the map, but no one in my group was good at reading a map so I took over. Along the way, we decided to complete another of the photo challenges, take a picture with a local. The first guy we approached didn't speak English and waved us off, but one of the girls approached another man and explained what we wanted in broken Spanish, so we took a group photo. Then we headed towards the oldest knife shop in Barcelona (photo challenge). We got a little lost because the square where the next challenge was only had one entrance, but the map didn't show where the entrance was. So we had to walk completely around the walled courtyard to find it. The girl that could speak a little spanish asked a shopkeeper and he told us how to get there. We finally got there, and a lot of the groups were already there. This was the Sight Challenge. There was a list of things that we had to find and take a picture of, and then show the tour guide. We split up the list and went looking for our items. One of the items that I had to find was the word "Aqua." The other groups were looking of it as well and couldn't find it. Finally I looked down and there was a water hole with a cover on it that said "Aqua de Barcelona." I tried to take the picture discreetly but I failed. Heather saw me taking the picture and alerted her group, which alerted the other groups. Finally we left that challenge and went to the next one. This was the Smell Challenge. We were blindfolded and the tour guide put a container of some common household seasonings up to our noses. We had to sniff it and decide what it was. Heather's group got there before us, so we had to wait. While we waited, we discussed strategy. We would each try to remember what we could. I didn't know any of them. Luckily, the tour guide would ask very leading questions and we were able to guess what the items were. We then headed towards the Tasting Challenge. Again, Heather's group was there first and they could only accommodate one at a time. The tour guide said one of the photo challenge locations was close by, so headed there. It was light posts made by Gaudi, which he only made a couple of. We headed back to the tasting challenge, and Heather's group was just leaving. It was approaching the time when we should have been heading back to the meeting place, but the tour guide went ahead and took us. For this challenge, we tasted a tapas (appetizer) and we had to guess what was in it. Afterwards we headed back to the meeting place and we were only a couple of minutes late. We waited for the other groups to come and only 2 groups finished all of the challenges. The first group that arrived with all of the challenges completed got to complete the final challenge. For this challenge there was a lot of random pictures about the history of Barcelona, from Picasso paintings to Roman architecture. The group had to match them up with different time periods of Barcelona history in the time limit. The group finished and won. Afterwards we went and had lunch. After lunch everyone headed in different directions. Heather and Simone wanted to go down to the beach, and I didn't so I was going to head off on my own but I saw Christine and her Mom heading the same direction I was so I joined their group. We wondered around Las Ramblas looking a clothing shops. There was a shop that I had seen when we were playing The Game that I wanted to shop at, but I couldn't remember where it was. I kept looking for it but could not find it. I finally gave up. Dr. Burns and Dr. Litton were planning on attending Mass at the Barcelona Cathedral at 5pm, and we wanted to go. We met up with them there and found out that Mass didn't start until 6pm, so we just hung out on the cathedral steps. Simone joined me there. Apparently they tried to find the beach and got lost, so they had to take a taxi back to Las Ramblas. We attended Mass, which was a lot of fun, but that was probably because I couldn't understand a word that the priest was saying. Occasionally I would recognize a word and I was like, "I know that word!" but that was it. I don't think they were speaking in Spanish, I think we were in the Catalan service. We had to meet up with the rest of the tour group at 7pm for dinner, so we left Mass early, right before they sent the offering bowl around. We met the rest of the tour group at the Christopher Columbus statue and went to dinner. Then we went back to the hotel. We got to sleep relatively late this morning, 8 o'clock. Then we went to breakfast and got on a different tour bus. Diego left yesterday. We then went on a tour of Barcelona with a local tour guide. He explained all the major sites. We stopped at Guadi Park (Guell Park) and took pictures.
Then we went to La Sagrada Familia. It was massive! It had taken them 130 years to complete 60% of it. They are hoping to complete the next 40% in 12 years. The tour guide was not hopeful. We took pictures around it, then got back on the bus. The tour guide dropped us off at the Hard Rock Cafe at Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is a long street filled with shops, all having a sale. Thousands of people crowded the street and the shops. My coat was long enough that I could button it over my baggalini. Chris took us on a quick walking tour to orient us and even stopped at his house to get his 2 dogs. The dogs were really playful! We then got to explore the shops by ourselves. Simone, Heather, and I stock together. We walked quickly through the market, then went to eat lunch. After lunch Heather went and bought herb seeds for her Mom. They had a Penis Pepper and a Pussy Flower seeds. Heather bought some herb seeds, then we started looking for men's wallets for my Dad. We went to at least 5 different department stores looking for a leather wallet and we couldn't find any. Finally we started thinking up different options for souvenirs for Dad. Simone mentioned food as a choice, so I decided to get Dad some chocolate. We went to El Corto Ingles and I bought some chocolate. We then found a bench and sat down for awhile. I filmed Heather doing her presentation, then we walked down La Rambla, then met the group and went to dinner. After dinner our group took the subway back to the hotel. When we got to the platform a train had just arrived, so we jumped on and after it left we realized we were on the wrong train, so we had to get off and go back. We got back to the hotel, then Ann, Lauren, and some other girls decided to go to the ice bar. I went to sleep. This morning the 1st and 2nd shift for breakfast switched, so our room had first shift. Everyone in our room took down their luggage except me. After breakfast I went back up to the room to finish packing. I also tried to email Mrs. Gregory Simone' and my video of your poem, but it was too big for an email. When I got down stairs I told Mrs. Gregory and she said she would probably open a link to submit them on BlackBoard. We got on the bus and started driving to Barcelona. He stopped every 2 hours for a bathroom break and for lunch.
While on the bus, we watched Gone With the Wind. It was a very sad movie, ann creed when Bonnie died. When we got back on the bus after lunch, Ann realized that the 20 euros in her pocket had fallen out. She ran off the bus to find it. Chris followed her while she searched. She couldn't find it and came back to the bus. Chris followed her a few minutes later and acted like he had found it. An thinks he took it out of his wallet because it wasn't crumpled like her was. I think she lied to him later and pretended to find it. We also had a talent show on the bus. Ann and Lauren did a parody of the song by One Direction. One group did a song by Lizzie McGuire. Christina Rohmer did a song from Wicked. The grad students danced. It was very funny. After the talent show, they announced the winers (all participants won a prize). They also gave prizes to other people for things they did on the trip. Heather, Simone, and I won the Prize for the Greatest Creativity in a Challenge for cutting the stinky cheese with Simone's driver's license. We were offered a choice of flags: Spain, Italy, or France. I got the Italian flag. We arrived at the hotel around dinner time and put our suitcases in our room. We met in the lobby and got on the bus. Then we waited and waited for Chris. He didn't show up. Apparently our bus was parked illegally in front of a bus stop. A cranky old man called the police on us and gave the police the license plate number. Dr. Litton wanted to leave and circle the block, but decided not to. The police showed up on motorcycles and started talking to Diego in Spanish. Right after that Chris showed up and we left. Apparently he was at the metro station buying tickets for us when he noticed a tourist getting her pocket picked. He stepped in and the pickpocket ran off with the woman's purse. The woman didn't know where her hotel was, so Chris escorted her back, causing him to be late. He explained this to the police and they told him "good job" and let us leave. We went to the restaurant, which gave us many options to choose from. We got a ticket for an appetizer, meal, and dessert. Two people at my table didn't want their dessert ticket so they gave them to me. I didn't like the last dessert, so I passed it around. I only got 2 desserts. We then returned to the hotel. |
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June 2022
AuthorThese are details from my adventures around the world. |