Barcelona, Spain, December 2007, Day 1

As u all know I was going to stay with Oscar (OscarBCN, dont bother looking for his profile I cancelled it! NOTE: I did NOT meet him on TB, I was the one who brought him to TB!) during my trip to Barcelona. 1 day before I left he sent me an e-mail saying that suddenly it wasn’t possible without any other explainations. I totally panicked. What was I going to do now? I had never travelled all by myself before and I wasn’t at all prepared for this! I had no other option but to go since I had already gone trough so much trouble to arrange the whole trip. I tried to reach Oscar to get some more information about what was going on but he just didn’t pick up his phone. I might seem like a calm person but if I get angry.

. I really get angry. I could’ve physically attacked him or something at that point. I really didn’t know what to do or where to go I really felt lost. There was just nothing more I could do. Stay home, or just take a chance and go. So that’s what I decided to do. With just half a day left before departure and still having to finish my schoolwork I went to check for people living in Barcelona on TravBuddy. That’s when I found Ted. I had seen his picture a million times before but had never talked to him. I sent him a message with the title: “I need ur help and I need it fast..” Lucky for me Ted is just the sweetest person. He sent me a message back pretty fast with some comforting words, information about a place to stay and his cell phone number. I went to search for other youthhostels on the internet and printed out a few things.

 

In the early morning I went to Eindhoven Aiport feeling very nervous but also excited.

I had to get up at 5 so I had an early start! When I was at the airport waiting at the gate, a guy from Nepal came up to talk to me. He and his friend who is also from Nepal sat next to me on the plane. They are studying in the Netherlands and were going to visit Barcelona for 6 days. Then I knew it would be fine. I also had a lot of help from my friend Oliver from Vienna. He helped me with any question I had, he was so nice he told me to call whenever I needed anything and he told me everything would be fine. I was still so angry with Oscar and was trying to get some answers but still he wouldn’t answer any of my messages. I couldn’t believe he did that to me! After arriving at Girona Airport we got on the bus to Barcelona.

The busride was a little over an hour. I arrived in the city around 12.30. I asked a cabdriver wich from the hostels I found on the internet was closest to the centre. He didn’t know where all of them were but he said the Barcelona Sound Hostel was close so I choose to go there. That was a great decision. The hostel was fine and it was located in a sidestreet from La Rambla so I was very close to the citycentre. The staff was very friendly and I met some great people there. After putting my stuff in the room I went to explore the area around the hostel. Together with the 2 guys from Nepal (Ramesh & Niran) We walked over La Rambla and went to see the harbour. We also went to the market where I made the picture of the unknown stuff! I really dont know what that is.. It was a nice and sunny day and I had a real good time. I heard from Oscar who offered to arrange a flight back home. What good would that do me? This guy is just unbelievable. I was pretty tired so I went back to the hostel to get some sleep. After that I took a shower and I sent Ted an sms to see if he wanted to have dinner or hang out or something and luckily he did. So we met up at Plaza de Catalunya at 8. It was so crowded everywhere. I loved it! Ted was really nice! Very funny, smart and friendly and I really had a good time with him. We went for dinner at some Tapas place where all the food was spread out on the bar. All the different pieces of Tapas had a toothpick in it and u had to keep the toothpicks on ur plate and in the end u just had to pay a certain amount for every toothpick on ur plate. I thought that was a really funny concept. I had never seen that before. It looked very nice all this colourfull food standing on the bar. It was a pretty sight! Ted knows so much about the Spanish culture and he learned me some interesting things. I have been to Spain so many times but still I didn’t know any of that stuff! His Spanish is also great by the way! It was funny to listen to that! :) After dinner we went to have a drink at the Travelbar and we also went to have a drink at another place called Schilling wich was really nice! It looked so pretty! We decided to go “home” after that and on the way back we went inside a church to have a quick look around. It was very pretty! Then we said goodbye and I went back to the hostel to sleep. I almost froze to death that night! It was so cold. I ended up sleeping in 2 sweaters and I was still feeling cold. I wasn’t worried anymore. I had a great first day and I was thinking about what cool things I could do the next day. I realised that what Oscar did wasn’t that bad for me. I was having a good time.