Barcelona, hostels, fat tires, metros

My tale continues as I take you on a journey to Barcelona...
So classes finish Friday, and I hurry home to eat some dinner before hoping on the train that night which left around 8pm. Who knew what adventures would be looming around the corner once we departed from Oviedo. Naturally we are all super excited and full of energy so we talked quite a bit before deciding to "sleep". Since we're all college students and not having loads of cash lying around no one spent extra money on a sleeper car. Sooooo for any of you have ever ridden on a train you know that sleep was difficult to find. Well around 6 a.m. we decide it's time for some breakfast. Our long night was only the beginning of our 20 hour train ride that was originally supposed to be 12 hours.

What happened? Well we had wicked winds all day especially in our destination. Several people died that day which was a tragedy. So most of the day we were either stopped or crawling along, but God was looking our for us. Thankfully the 10 of us kept good company and had fun playing card games or just sharing gut busting stories about ourselves. I was thrilled to learn so much about the women I was with and had so many opportunities to hear about where they stand as far as faith. I felt so encouraged and love this opportunity to dive into living life with more unbelievers or believers who have wandered away from their faith for various reasons. I can't thank God enough for this challenge.

I am God's child who is following His lead holding firmly to His hand. Of course I love the fact that His grip will never loosen on me.I was reading Psalm 24 on the train the next morning and came across these verses which I'm sure you'll recognize from a contemporary song.

Psalm 24:7-8 Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. 8Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Alright so finally after much waiting, eating, snacking, taking silly pictures, a bus came to drive us the last hour to Barcelona. Wow where to begin...first off for Spain it was pretty chilly in Barcelona when we arrived. We hopped on the metro which was packed to the brim, seriously, I'm talking getting close and personal. Our hostel was amazing! We had all 10 of us in a room with personal lockers to store our stuff in our already locked room for extra security and had comfy beds, our own bathroom, and breakfast provided in the morning. Hostels don't get much better than that. Now it was time for a night out! So we were using this book and read about this great club so we hopped some metros and started walking around Barcelona after seeing some of the touristy shops. I enjoyed some amazing ice cream, one of the best smoothies ever, and couldn't resist getting a bocadillo which is their universal word for sandwich which consists of a million possibilities.

So we're walking up this crazy hill, they seem to have a lot of those here and see this castle lit up on the hill and after much wandering decide to call it a night. The next day we check out this fat tire bike tour company so we can see the big stuff in only 4 hours and 7 miles on super sweet bikes. I took pictures of everything, but still need a power cord which I should have this week. Here's what I saw:

Plaza Sant Jaume
Plaza del Rei
La Cathedral
Palau de Musica Catalana
Arc del Triomf
Sagrada Familia
Parc de la Ciutadella
Vila Olympic (where the 1992 olympics were held!)
Barceloneta Beach ( I touched the Mediterrean Sea!!!)
Port Vell

Our tour guide, Jordon, was a California guy, who hasn't been a tour guide for FAT TIRE for 5 years now and filled in. He was so passionate and has this ridiculous love for history. He still lives in Barcelona, and I even had a witnessing opportunity with him. We hated giving up our bikes but hopefully will do this when we go to Paris March 27-30. Just before leaving Oviedo I signed up for this trip because who can pass up Paris? The rest of the day was pretty relaxing apart from walking up the steepest hill I've ever met that wasn't a mountain only to get kicked out of a park that was closed for trespassing, scandoulous I know along with the other 40 people and some more ;-) Oh I know what you're thinking, "Carol don't you know Picasso was born in Barcelona?" No worries we all toured the Picasso museum which was pretty cool.

Something I took from the summer out at Snow Mountain Ranch with the Navigators is to pray big things. As we're traveling back I ask God to get us back early. Well we arrived back 10 minutes each which still blew me away. It's good to be home. We didn't have school today in honor our patron saint, St. Thomas. I haven't figured out who is he yet. I enjoyed going on a run with my friend all over the city.

One more story, on Monday I was pretty tired after a long train ride and was just having a rough day especially with relating to my classmates. Sometimes conversations just drift to things that I'm uncomfortable with, and I was having trouble communicating with one of my professors. As I'm walking home I see my close neighbor, B, and decide to strike up conversation with her. She shared about her faith and experience in missions with the church and encouraged me in my internship for the summer with the youth group. My spirit was lifted up because God heard my cry and provided me comfort.

Psalm 27:14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Hasta luego...