Today was really great so I’m hitting you with the great parts, and unfortunately no pictures today, so this will be a huge wall of text.
Background: the way we were taught to get to school is to take a metro and another train and walk 10 minutes uphill. Needless to say we are all sweaty and gross after that (see day 1). The past few days though I’ve been noticing that there’s a bus stop not too far from the school, aka cuts out a LOT of walking uphill in the heat. Well I googled it and figured out what route to take to use that bus.
The metro usually takes us about 30 minutes, and google said the bus route would take 54 minutes. I was curious though, so after getting 10 hours of sleep last night I allowed myself an hour and 15 minutes to get to school and headed off in that direction by myself (my first solo excursion in Barcelona). The traffic was horrendous and it took me a solid hour to get there (yes, I timed it), but I was able to sit for half an hour straight on the bus waiting through 12 stops and got to see parts of the city I’ve never seen before (since metro is underground) and the place where I waited for the bus had a huge and wonderful complicated to explain fountain/statue/tower thing in the center of the square that I never got around to taking a picture of and Barcelona is just really pretty, and I totally knew exactly where I was going the whole time. I made it to school 10-15 minutes early without incident and distinctly less sweaty, so I enjoyed myself.
Today in class the professor mentioned a shopping night thing on a popular street that was happening tonight (and only once a year) so when I returned to the hotel I googled it and figured out which metro station to use and how to get there and then off I went for solo journey #2.
My trip there was uneventful but I definitely knew where I was going, and then once I got there (9pm) I looked around and it seemed like I was surrounded by main streets and no sign of which direction this event was in. I picked a direction that looked promising and before too long I saw a sign across the street that matched the sign for the event I had found online during aforementioned googling.
I walked towards the sign, and it was in front of a mall that was not very wide or long but had 4 stories, and there was music being played and a few street vendors around. I walked around that mall and inspected whatever shops suited my fancy, every shop had a sale of some sort specifically for tonight (15-30%) and I took as long or short a time as I wanted and it was great. It didn’t take me long to finish walking around the entire mall though, so in search of new shops I picked a direction along the busy street and started walking. There were a lot of people walking in that direction, but after passing by one stand alone clothing store, a Starbucks, and something that sold smelly stuff (perfumes, candles, etc) I decided that couldn’t be the correct direction and turned around to walk the other way.
(It is pretty much dark at this point, 10pm). The other direction looked like it might be promising, but shortly after I passed the first mall I saw that all that side held was big business buildings, and it wasn’t well lit, and I realized that couldn’t be it either, so I turned around to walk back towards the mall. When I reached the mall I turned down a side street, thinking it might be in that direction, but didn’t get far before I realized it wasn’t.
At a lack of any better ideas and with some time to kill (I hadn’t planned on leaving until 11) I decided as a last ditch effort to walk back in the first direction I had tried, knowing that worst case I could always turn back around and go to the metro. It turns out, after you pass the smelly stuff shop and walk another half block it opens up again with live music and street vendors. At about that point was an H&M so I popped in there and after potentially way too much contemplation I bought a necklace in a color and style that I have been wanting for a while now, at 15% off, and it was actually the only thing I bought tonight. (If you factor in the conversion rate to dollars, it’s actually more like a 2% savings from the euro price, but that’s beyond the point)
It was then 10:30 and I knew I should begin to head back to the metro since the metro closes at midnight and I didn’t want to have to take a taxi by myself the considerable distance back to the hotel when the metro would only cost me one euro (due to cool card I have). I’m a bit stubborn though and also I was intrigued, so I walked a bit further away from the metro and found a really huge mall in front of me that I knew from the internet had 170 stores in it and had been the mall I was looking for all along. I knew I couldn’t stay though, so I turned around and got back to the metro before I lost track of time in one of the stores.
I still knew exactly where I was going, and the metro was comfortingly still very much busy at 11 o’clock at night, so I made it back on my own yet again without incident.
I just really really enjoyed myself. As an introvert I need time alone to recharge, I love figuring things out, and I love shopping, even if I don’t buy anything. Today (and especially tonight) I got lots of time to myself, I had to figure out the metro and also the bigger picture of the location of the shopping night thing, and I was completely free to either take way too long figuring out whether I should buy something or not/which of a few similar necklaces to buy, or way too short of a time deciding this was not the store for me. The entire thing had such a fun atmosphere too with the music going and so many people there.
Of course I never got to enter the huge mall, but now I know where it is and how to get there so I will definitely have to return. I’ve been thinking that for my birthday I just want to shop all day, but I have yet to receive any solid plans of anyone else agreeing to come with me. After today I’m thinking that I might enjoy it more if I take myself shopping and don’t have anyone with me anyway.
Before I came to Barcelona I was worried about figuring out how to get places, but with Maike (a leader) telling us which metro stops to use and my discovery of google maps-public transportation I feel certain that I could get anywhere in the city I wanted to go, without just taking a taxi, and it’s only been a week. I have never before been in a city where I didn’t know the language without a guide to tell me exactly where to go, but now that I have figured out Barcelona and have gotten somewhat of a grip on what and where a few of the different neighborhoods are, and I have now taken 3 solo journeys on public transportation without ever feeling lost, I just feel very confident. I still don’t know the language, but I don’t really need to know the language to get around. Today in the mall only one person immediately addressed me with “Hello” instead of “Hola”, and twice people spoke long phrases to me in Spanish (a cop like figure told me, as far as I could tell, that the live music I was trying to get to was a private/ticketed event, and the cashier at H&M just told me to use a different register than the one I had put my stuff at), and I could still figure out what they meant. Also, I feel like that means I’m passing as a local now?
Anyway, I just feel really confident and warm and fuzzy from all of my really fun alone time. Class tomorrow and then we are going to a beach town about 45 minutes south of Barcelona I believe. I will bring my bathing suit but the jury is still out on whether or not I will actually get in or just look at all the cool shops that are supposedly in this town as well. For interested parties the town we will be visiting is called Sitges.
I will only be getting 6 hours of sleep tonight, but oh well. I also walked 4+ miles today.
