Our last week of class was kind of a joke.  Since our grades were due early in the week, we had our tests the week before.  We ended up doing a lot of random activities such as creating dialogues or reading articles about the environment.  It actually was a little fun because we didn’t have to worry about grades, but a lot of people skipped.

We’ve done a lot of fun activities for our last week such as salsa lessons with the Venezuelans, a fancy formula dinner, and the usual beach day.  A formula dinner is where you get 3 courses and several options for each course.  I had a delicious salade for my appetizer (entree), duck with a bell pepper sauce and vegetables for the main entree (plat), and mousse au chocolat for dessert.  Of course we also had wine and un petit cafe with dessert!  But, the best thing we did as a group this week was have a pot luck dinner where everyone made traditional food from their country…it was amazing!  The animatrices provided pots, pans and a mini oven so we could cook a real meal!  We had everything from the Italians making homemade carbonara, sushi from the Japanese, some kind of czech hashbrowns, Greek casserole, and crazy good I-don’t-know-what Spanish appetizers.

So, I know this is probably one of those things where you had to be there for it to be funny, but I took a video that night that just cracks me up every time I watch it.  For this potluck, Keegan decided to make some chili, but he put too many peppers in it so it was way too spicy to eat.  So, he was trying to find something to add to it.  He yelled out the window to one of the German guys, who we liked to call Super-deutsch, to ask if he had any beans or something he could add, but all he had was some mustard.  Here is the clip I got on camera which we all think is just hilarious…maybe you just have to know the guy…

After  the potluck, we just hung around outside of the dorms like we usually do.  I have another video chit chatting with Federico…in Italian.

A lot of people weren’t planning to go to the last day of class, including myself because I needed to meet Megan at the airport.  But, the night before, a lot of the guys got a note on their doors saying the administration needed to meet with them during the pause between the two classes.  It turns out that there was a stabbing on August 10th outside of the tabac across the street from our dorms.  The victim was a 21 year old girl who was stabbed multiple times around 9 am.  Apparently, all the guys were suspects!  They all got swabbed, fingerprinted and questioned.  Most of them were in the clear because we have class at 9 am, but there was one guy who skipped that day because he was sick and they had to investigate further on him so he could leave the country on time…insane.

I am super excited now because Megan is finally here!  We are currently in Nice and will be leaving in a few hours for Marseille.  It has been a crazy couple of days and I am starting to get a little worn out.  We had a good last night in Montpellier though!  We went out to dinner with the group for the last time at Moule Frites.  Then, of course, we went to Les Estivales until they kicked us out!  I have so much more to say, but we have to start packing and moving on to the next city.  I will try to post later, but it might not be until after we get back because Megan says I have to “live in the moment,” not on my computer…

At Moule Frites (Tyler)

Les Estivales

haha…the forecast. Looks good to me!

See you all in less than a week!  Hope all is well!

After the caves, we went to a nearby town of Saint Guilhem le Désert to explore and have lunch.  It is a very petit village, well-known for it’s isolation.

Here is the main square in the center of the village and one of the many water fountains of drinking water.  I don’t know why, but these fountains make it much more exciting to fill up your water bottles and it tasted much better than the tap water from the dorms!

This is a stray dog that followed us around for a bit.  He was very dirty, but so cute because when we would go into a store, he would sit outside and wait for us.  On the right, the remains of an old chateau in the mountains!

Our final stop was at a beach on the Hérault river.  It felt soo good to swim in fresh water!  Funny story, it was pouring rain that morning and we weren’t sure if we would make it to the beach or not.  A lot of people decided not to bring their suits, including myself.  SO, of course, it turned out to be a beautiful day.  Long story short, I joined the swim-in-your-underwear club!    I’m so happy that I did because, if you look below, we swam out to these rocks where we could climb up and jump off!  I guess some people even jump off the bridge, but someone recently paralized themself by doing so…it’s not so popular anymore.  If you look just below the window of the bridge on the left side and see a guy with white shorts, that is where we were jumping from!!  It was scary but soo much fun!  I really wish I could have taken pictures, but we had to swim and I didn’t want to risk ruining my camera…it’s one of those things that will always just be a memory.

Last week when we went to the beach, the fellas started a game of football (soccer, to you Americans…) with two little French boys…and they got dominated!

adorable…

The past couple of weeks have been really laid back.  Basically just class and hanging out.  I haven’t taken a lot of pictures, but here are a few from our outings!

I’ll admit, I’ve been slacking on the food pictures lately, but I’m back in the game with this amazing caesar salad.  I don’t know if it was because I was starving by the time I actually got it, but it was probably one of the best salads I’ve ever had!  Thin sliced chicken, FRESH shaved parmesan, and FRESH croutons…I think we might go back again tomorrow!

waiting for the tram to go to Les Estivales!

These are a few pictures from Friday night at L’O Bar.  Believe it or not, it was actually a planned activity through the program.  It was such a blast!  This isn’t even half the people who were there that night.  It’s cool to think that just in this picture, my favorite of the night, there are American, French, Italian, Greek, German, Japanese, and Brazilian people.  I don’t think we got home until 5 am where then a bunch of us piled into the kitchen and cooked up an entire carton of eggs along with other random stuff people pulled out of their rooms.  Such a great night!

Megs is here is 5 days!! I CAN’T WAIT!

]]> http://kckline.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/counting-down-the-days/feed/ 1 kckline August 4, 2010 002 August 4, 2010 007 August 4, 2010 010 August 4, 2010 022 August 14, 2010 006 LesEstivals August 14, 2010 016 August 14, 2010 013 August 14, 2010 009 August 14, 2010 017 http://kckline.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/happy-birthday-tyler/ http://kckline.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/happy-birthday-tyler/#comments Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:03:56 +0000 kckline http://kckline.wordpress.com/?p=360 Continue reading →]]> Last night, a bunch of us went out for Tyler’s 21st birthday!  By a bunch of people, I mean like 30 people went to the Australian Bar for euro beers.  Tyler goes to the University of Washington – Seattle, but he is originally from Oahu, HI!  I am so jealous, but he said I will always have a place to stay if I ever visit!

Craig

From the top down, Keegan, Leon, Virginia, Ryne (yes, not Ryan, but it is pronounced the same), Moi et Emily

Virginia et Moi, one of our animatrices from last month!  I miss her!

Ryne – Moi – Tyler

Craig, Czech girl, Will, moi, Japanese girl, et Sayaka (sorry, I can’t remember the names of the new people…)

Sooo….all of the ladies were invited to dance on the bar, of course we had to go!  Except once we were up there, the bar tenders sprayed water on the ceiling and we got soaked!  It was fun though!

heading home

L’amphithéâtre

LEFT:  The most random things were decorating these windows and the balcony on top like gorilla stuffed animals.

RIGHT: Place de la République

In 1888, Vincent van Gogh spent about a year in Arles and produced over 300 drawings and paintings including The Night Cafe and Starry Night over the Rhone (below). The colors of the flowers in this garden is said to have inspired him during his time there.

Pretty similar, eh? Didn’t even know it until after I got home!

Delicious desserts, gelato and pastries!

After lunch, we spent the rest of the day at the beach!

So, the first guy I turn to who is dancing is Keegan, but as I do a 360 of Corum, I did not know that other guy popped in there!  Nice little surprise!

This video gets good after 1:40!  You know…I said a hip hop a hippie a hippie to the hip hip hop and you don’t stop… that song!

Friday was the last day of our first session.  I really enjoyed every minute of that class.  Unlike the other groups, we didn’t play games or have free time in our last class.  We actually learned an all new concept on our last day.  We did worksheets, exercises, dialogues, etc. until the last 5 minutes.  It was great.  I can’t say it enough, I loved our professor.  I wish I could take classes with her until I was fluent.  Comparing her with my new professor, I really can’t pinpoint what it is I liked about her so much.  She was very interactive, getting us to talk as much as possible and throwing in new twists when she could.  Not everyone liked her teaching methods though.  She would just push through the material without teaching absolutely every little thing, just what she thought was most important.  She would go until we hit something we didn’t understand, stop, teach that lesson, and move on.  When you think about it, it’s quite genius when learning a new language.  When you start at the bottom and just build, everything has something to link back to.  It begins to branch off and eventually you make it full circle.  If we just had random concepts thrown at us, it’s harder to put together to build a sentence.  That is kind of how I felt when I came here.  I knew a lot of vocabulary and conjugations, but didn’t understand how to use them.  Wow, I think that is definitely it and I didn’t realize it until now.

Since a lot of people were planning to leave on Friday, we decided to have a picnic and watch the sunset Thursday night.  We went on the roof of the Corum conference center and opera house.  The helicopter deck was the perfect spot and the sunset was beautiful!

Emma, Pauline, Rachel, Kate, Trudy, Emily, Moi (thought we needed a little wine too), Will, and Hailey

Montpellier sunset

Now, I know this looks less like a picnic and more like a booze fest, but we did have food too…

So, after class, I had a 4-day weekend.  Monday was the day the new people arrived and on Tuesday they had their placement tests.  So, we didn’t to be back until Wednesday.  I decided just to stay, relax for once, and explore Montpellier!  After all, I would feel  little silly if I lived here for 2 months and only knew where the mall and market was!

Saturday was very chill.  It was the first day I could FINALLY sleep in!  Later, I just walked around Comedie, did a little shopping, took a nap in the park, and went to see Inception!  That movie along with Twilight were the only ones showing in English, or their original form.  English with French subtitles.  Very good movie, I thought.  It was a little surreal because the movie is set in Paris (when they weren’t in dreams), so after I left the theater, it felt strange.  I’ve been telling myself everyday that I am in France, but I don’t think it hit me until then.  It felt good to finally feel like I am here.  I think I appreciate it a little more now.

Comedie – it’s been a little cloudy and windy lately!

This is the park between Corum and Comedie where Les Estivals is held every Friday

The pond in the park

Guy sleepin in the park!

The tree I slept under

haha, I watched this duck jump up and eat those branches for like 10 minutes

Sunday, I went to the flea market!  I was hoping to find something cool, but no such luck.  There were a few things I considered buying, but it would have been tough getting home.

just soo much junk…

Monday and Tuesday I explored other parts of Montpellier.  I would just get off at random tram stops that I knew were near churches and other monuments I wanted to find.  I didn’t have a map or anything,  I just got off and walked until I found something familiar.  I made it full circle a couple times which was fun.  I feel like a have a better idea of how the city is layed out and where things are located.   Here is some of what I found along the way…

door knockers

Saint Lupe.  It is located in the Jardin de Peyrou, the highest point of Montpellier.

more of the park

Porte du Peyrou

The church on the right took me FOREVER to actually get to.  I could see it from certain higher points I would reach and I would walk and walk until the next spot and I missed it like 4 times!  It was very anti-climatic.

I want to say this is some kind of sun dial/clock type thing.  I do remember it was 2:10 pm when I took this picture…so, I don’t really know what it means.

Since there are less people in the August class, there are now only 4 groups instead of 6.  I am now in Group B!  There are only two other people who were in my class last time.  So far, it’s not so great.  The class is a lot bigger and I’m not sure how I feel about my professor yet.  The material is not too difficult, it is just boring. Also, some of the newer students are a little too serious.  I think those of us who are here for both months all feel the same way…we miss what we had before.  This time, we have the same professor for both the morning and afternoon classes, but she will only be here for the first and third weeks and we will have another for the second and fourth weeks.  IDK why.  Eh, I’m not too worried about it yet.  It is still only the first week.  We also got to meet our new grad students.  They are a lot older than Virginia, Celia and Jany…but they seem nice.  It is only the second day of class, but I think (and really hope) this will be a fun month!

]]> http://kckline.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/over-the-hump/feed/ 2 kckline July 25, 2010 013 July 25, 2010 025 July 25, 2010 024 July 25, 2010 034 July 28, 2010 001 July 28, 2010 004 July 28, 2010 005 July 28, 2010 015 July 28, 2010 011 July 28, 2010 026 July 28, 2010 020 July 25, 2010 050 July 25, 2010 049 July 25, 2010 048 July 25, 2010 047 July 28, 2010 030 July 28, 2010 031 July 28, 2010 033 July 28, 2010 034 July 28, 2010 036 July 28, 2010 032 July 28, 2010 048 July 28, 2010 053 July 28, 2010 058 July 28, 2010 061 July 28, 2010 068 July 28, 2010 072 July 28, 2010 074 July 28, 2010 079 http://kckline.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/universite-montpellier-iii-paul-valery/ http://kckline.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/universite-montpellier-iii-paul-valery/#comments Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:54:12 +0000 kckline http://kckline.wordpress.com/?p=204 Continue reading →]]> I have already been here for almost a month, going to and from class 6 days a week, and I am still noticing new things along the way.  The Université Montpellier III Paul Valéry campus is a little strange to me.  We just found out today that this University is like a tech school of the University world, and not even a good one at that.  I know it is the summer, but it seems very deserted.  Not only because of the lack of people, but because the structures are old and out of date.  I just would really like to know what this campus is like in full swing.

donut & the hotdog

A bunch of large poles.  Just noticed these for the first time today…also the donut and the hotdog as we like to call it

Here is a street sign for the University with the cafeteria behind it.  Today was maybe the second cloudy day we’ve had since I’ve been here.  It actually rained for about 10 mins while we were in class (il pleut! We just learned weather vocab last week, haha)!

This is where we eat breakfast every morning, right outside of the cafeteria.

I was so excited for lunch today!! I have had some awesome luck at the cafeteria here, unlike many others.  We usually have a lot of choices each day, but you need to know how to pick ‘em!  I think the trick is to keep in mind that it is a school cafeteria…they are not going to be able to pull off some fancy fish platter, so keep it simple and don’t get your hopes up.  Today they had very good meatballs that I made into a meatball sandwich with my bread, some potato balls, pasta, and a side salade with carrots and RED BEETS!!  You all know how I love my red beets!  It was great…

Paleontology dept., kinda creepy.

Everyday as I’m walking through campus, my ears are filled with this loud noise coming from the trees.  People tell me they are some kind of beetle and that we have them in the US too, but I have never heard them before… and if you are in an area with a large concentration of trees, oh man, it’s overwhelming!  Just listen.

Here we all are, hanging out today during our pause between the two morning sessions.  We have class in the building on the left, the I.E.F.E.- Institut d’études françaises pour étrangers (Institute of French Studies for Foreigners) building.  It is pretty nice inside and they have A/C .

This is the “cafe” where we can buy drinks and snacks before, after, and between classes.  It is ran by the grad students (here is Virginia, my teacher for my last afternoon class, and Jany.)

Hanging out in the grass during “la pause”

The entrance to our dorm

We don’t have keys to get in, but a circular tag that you hold up to the black knob to unlock the doors.  Pretty fancy!

This is the kitchen on our floor…basically a stove (or a set of hot plates) and a sink.  I have only seen the Korean girls use it so far.  They all invested in a few pots and pans and make lunch together everyday (maybe dinner too).  Smart girls.

Soo, because it’s been really hot, I’ve been wearing a lot of shorts, dresses and skirts.  Most of my dresses are too short to wear without something under them, so I brought leggings.  However, it is too hot for leggings.  Spandex shorts would be perfect, but I couldn’t find any here.  Haha, so I did the next best thing; I bought a pair of mens boxer briefs!  They were 75% off and purple!  Probably one of my new favorite things to wear, not gonna lie…

Also, another thing I probably shouldn’t admit, I have not done one load of laundry since I’ve been here!  With it being 5 € a load and only one dryer, I’ve been pretty genius about how I’ve been handling my clothing.  First of all, I’m not really a super sweaty person.  Second, I usually wear some kind of under shirt or tank top.  Third, as soon as I get into my dorm and I know I am going to be in there for more than 5 minutes, I usually take off my clothes, hang them up, and put on something cool.  So, I feel pretty confident in this whole ordeal.  The only problem has been underwear.  Simple solution: I have just been washing them, along with my tanks and other smaller items, in my sink.  Perfect.  It’s how the French do 

This weekend I visited Sète and Avignon.  Sète is a small port town and a 17 minute train ride from Montpellier. It actually took longer to get to the train station then it took to get to Sète.  It was very beautiful and we even found a beach right outside of town!

Some kids were jumping off of the bridge.

The usual scene…

This was a gorgeous view…we walked up this steep road until we could see the sea!

If Matt’s house were in Sète…haha

lighthouse and more sailboats!

We just happened to come across this amazing beach only after walking 20-30 minutes.  We thought it was going to be more like 45 mins to an hour outside of town.

AVIGNON

(Sunday excursion)

In July, Avignon is well-known for their theater.  There were tons of people walking around in costumes who were performing and promoting their shows.  A lot of them told us they use little or no speaking so we would understand just as well as anyone else.  I would have loved to stay for a show, but it was not possible with the group.  I am seriously considering taking a train back next weekend to catch a show.

I have a very similar picture of my tour guide when I was here in high school…

(Christian in Avignon – Summer 2004)

I really like this picture!  This fountain was in a beautiful garden once you made it to the top.

Notre Dame des Doms d’Avignon church with a beam of light

Part of the Palais des Papes (it’s HUGE!).  It is a medieval gothic building that was utilized by the popes of the 14th and 15th centuries. We went on a tour where you could walk at your own pace with a telephone type deal to listen to commentary as you go.  It was a little boring because I think I was in there for about an hour and a half, but it was beautiful.

Jesus room?  Yes, those were the stairs to the Jesus room…not as exciting as you would think.

elephant sculpture inside

Avignon

At the top of the tower!  It was sooo windy!  Avignon is actually known for being windy all the time…I’m pretty sure every girl who wore a dress that day flashed at least 10 people.

The same sculpture outside, trying to be like the elephant! 

Outside the walls of Avignon.

J’espère vous avez une bonne semaine!

So, unfortunately, we had quite the adventure just to get to the bus station.  We all went to our first class, then back to the dorms and left by 11:15 for our 12:30 bus.  I found this map of Tram 1 and 2, or the blue and flower line (because of their colors), online so it’s not so great.  But, we are just off of the Universites des Sciences et Lettres stop on the blue line which is 9 stops from the top left (Mosson).  The bus station is right off of Sabines, 4 stops from the bottom left on the flower line (Saint Jean de Védas Centre).  We thought it would be a breeze to take the blue line and transfer at Gare St Roch to the flower line to get to Sabines.  WRONG.  Turns out  there was some construction on the flower line, so after we transferred, it only went to the next stop, Rondelet, and came back. I guess Minnesota is not the only place where summer is also known as “construction season”.

(blue & flower lines)

After arriving back to Gare St. Roch, we asked a few people and figured out we needed to take bus 7 past the construction to the next working tram stop and take that to Sabines.  Again, easier said than done.  No one seemed to know exactly where to catch the bus.  We were sprinting all around everywhere (and also ran into a lot of street construction!) until we found it only one block over.  There was a bus there, but it was not bus 7.  There were also a couple of taxis, but no drivers!!  It was quite ridiculous, and it was 12 pm, which was the time we were supposed to check-in by.  So, as Emily is calling the bus station to tell them we were running late and making sure we could make it, we asked the bus driver and he took us to the next working tram station.  Besides some traffic, it was pretty smooth the rest of the way, but we only made it to the bus station with 3 minutes to spare!!  After we all got in and settled in our (scattered) seats, we thought it was pretty funny, but never want to do it again.

I had quite the chatty bus buddy.  He was an Indian guy named Faisal, prob early 30s, who has been living in Barcelona for 10 years.  There was a little bit of a language barrier, but he spoke English pretty well.  He also spoke Indian, Spanish,  and a little bit of French.  He was on his way back home after visiting friends in Marseille.  He was really nice and was telling me a lot about Barcelona, things I should see and a lot about the culture.  He really loves it there.  It was fun at first, but then I got tired (you know how I am about sleeping in moving vehicles) and a little car sick from looking over at him.  So, I fell asleep for the next 3 hours, and I think it was as he was still talking…oh well!  Later, about an hour from Barcelona, I wake up and he starts talking again.  It was fine, except then he started asking me to meet him for dinner on Saturday night.  He even offered to sort of be our tour guide and show us all of Barcelona.  I had to have said NO about 50 times, but he kept pushing.  He even gave me his phone number and said I was the first girl he had ever given it to.  I didn’t really care, I just made the best of it because he had me trapped for the next hour.  It was even a little fun because I knew I could say certain things and he wouldn’t understand.  After we got there and off the bus, the other girls didn’t understand what had happened and they asked him to help us find our hostel before I could stop them…AHHH!  It worked out though because they only showed him the first part of the directions we had printed off, not the name or anything. After we figured it was too far to walk, we grabbed cabs and never saw him again.  Haha…

Barcelona is gorgeous!  Our hostel was right in the center of the city and off of the main street called The Ramblas.  There were tons of shops and vedors and weird people who would dress up in various costumes and set-ups. They would be still like human statues until someone would drop some money in their box/hat/whatever and then they would do something funny or they would take a picture with you. 

This is the street our hostel was on (I for some reason did not think to take a picture of it…maybe one of the other girls have one!)

The Rambla

One of the characters.  It was a little weird because when they weren’t “working”, they would just stand beside their display being totally out of character.  Some would even count the money they’ve made right on the street.  Idk, I thought it ruined the magic of each piece, but I suppose it’s no surprise.

Other characters.  OMG, the funniest thing happened with one of these people.   There was one set-up that looked like 5 full black garbage bags lined up in a row with a creepy head sitting on top.  There was a huge crowd around it, so we decided to walk behind to pass through.  As we are walking behind, Pauline bends over it, being silly saying “well, what do we have going on over here?”  At the exact same time, a little boy comes up to the front to drop some money and the head pops out towards the boy with a loud screeching sound.  The boy didn’t even jump, but Pauline screamed bloody murder and crouched down into a standing fetal position!  The ENTIRE crowd just busts out laughing and we all had tears coming down our faces for the next 10 minutes from laughing so hard!  It was hilarious!!!  I wish I had caught that on video…

After grabbing some dinner, delicious pizza and sangria, we got ready and met with a friend of Emily’s who just finished her study abroad program in Barcelona and Friday was her last night.  She took us out to two fun bars.

Ready to go out with fun sunglasses we bought!! (Trudy, me, Emily, Kate, Pauline)

La Rambla at night

Map of the tram routes

All of the little shops on the side streets had grafitti covered doors

Inside the first bar with Emily’s friend, Andrea.  It was fun to go out.  We met a bunch of her friends, most seemed to be from Texas.  I met this guy named Jason who was teaching me how to Salsa!! It was fun, but I was really happy to go back to the hostel and get some sleep.

The next morning, we got up around 10 am and started our crazy long day of sightseeing!  We started just by walking down The Rambla.

At the end of The Rambla, there was this statue with Columbus on top, supposedly pointing to the USA.

Christopher Columbus

Me and the lion.

Rambla de Mar

I love sailboats!

The port with the gondola in the background (we rode on it!!)

Beautiful leather masks

Port Vell

BEACH!

We found lots of sea glass on this beach!

lunch by the beach!

mmm…spinach tortellini and more sangria!

waiting to get on the gondola!

view from the tower…the huge port we walked around

The tree-filled Rambla and the Columbus statue on the right

Coming to an end.  It was about a 10-15 minute ride across.

There was a beautiful garden waiting for us on the other end!

The Sagrada Familia.  It is a HUGE and beautiful Roman Catholic church.  The detail is absolutely amazing!  I could go see it everyday of my life and still notice something new each time.  Especially since it has been under construction since 1882 and is not expected to be completed until 2026.  Seriously, even the post cards have cranes in them.  It is really tall too!  I was kneeling and Emily was laying on the sidewalk just to take this picture…pretty awesome.

It was designed by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi.  Most if it is inspired by nature.  The inside is supposed to resemble palm leaves and the inside of a tree.  So, this is where my camera died until we got back to the hostel, but we went to Park Güell which was also designed by Gaudi.  It was pretty cool too…I’ll get pictures from the other girls later.

Of course, we had to go out for our last night in Barcelona (even though I wanted to chop off my feet because they hurt so bad).  Here’s a nice elevator shot…

Soooo…for our last night, we decided to join a bar crawl!  For 15€, we would go to 5 higher-end clubs and bars with a free shot at each and all you can drink sangria at the last one.  Ya, that didn’t happen.  First, we only went to 3 places; first a bar then 2 clubs.  We only got 2 shots (here is the second one) and they were SMALL!

This is a bad picture at the second place we went to.  It was a pretty fancy club and the dancing was fun!  I don’t know if the tour just kind of ended or if we somehow separated from them, but after the third location, we decided to go off by ourselves (since we had already met some cool people) and go to some clubs by the beach.  It was kind of funny because each of us sort of made friends with different people and we all came together as one group.  I met two guys from Belgium adn the other girls met people from Norway and Australia.  I was too tired to go into a club, so we split up and I went to the beach at 4 am!!!

We had to wait about 20 minutes while they were cleaning the sand…or as I like to call it, sand wars!

There were actually a lot of people at the beach!  You can kind of see them in this picture as we were leaving…the sun was just coming up! I think this is about 6 am. All the bars right off the beach closed at 6am, but there were plenty that were open much later.  The guys from Belgium told me some stay open until noon the next day.  They also told me they were planning to go to a bar that doesn’t even really get busy until 6 or 7am…CRAZY!  I got back to the hostel around 6:30am, slept until 9:30am, packed up my stuff, checked-out at 10am, ate breakfast, did a little more walking on the Rambla, and finally caught a cab to the bus station for our 1 pm bus.  Ah…

Adios Barcelona…that was some crazy fun!

Ready to go out with fun sunglasses we bought!! (Trudy, me, Emily, Kate, Pauline)