Home Stretch

We made it back safely from Barcelona which was a great time to just relax and not have to think about school for a bit. Last Sunday night we fly to Barcelona but the flight was late enough that we had to catch a taxi to our hostel. The name of the hostel was Barcelona Dream Hostel but of course since we had a two bed room it was basically a closet sized room. You had to move out of the way to close the door because the bed was right in front of you when you walked in. It worked out though because breakfast was included and it was super close to a metro stop so we got everywhere very easily. It was about a 10 minute walk to the beach from there but we went to a different one to lay out because the other one was nicer. Monday it was a bit rainy and cloudy so we just explored Barcelona and went to the market. It was amazing to have fairly cheap fresh fruit and vegetables! We did walk down to the beach that was close to our hostel both nights and just played around in the sand and the waves. Of course the water was freezing but we did get in the second day. Tuesday was gorgeous and sunny so we went to another beach and just hung out. It was pretty full with people with quite a few topless women. There were also tons of people walking around offering massages but they were like 5euros so we passed on those... We did take our sun screen so neither of us are lobsters! After laying out for the afternoon we stopped and got paella at a restaurant. The paella wasn't too bad, it had a bunch of mussels and shrimp in it. Then we also got a second plate to go with it but of course neither of us could remember enough Spanish to know what our choices were. Derek got fried fish, literally little fried fish on a plate with a small side salad. Then I got rabbit and snail... :( Derek ate my snails but the rabbit wasn't too bad. Of course I didn't know it was rabbit until we got back and looked it up. O well, that is all part of the experience I guess. Wednesday morning we made an early lunch and headed back to Bangor. We finally made it in late last night about 12:30.
Today has been a day of catching up on things. I turned in my Psychology of Sports Performance paper this morning and both Derek and I are working on our two papers that are due tomorrow. Derek has his macro economics test tomorrow afternoon. Then he has a test next Wednesday and I have one next Friday. A couple of people from the Central group are leaving this weekend so we are heading out tonight and tomorrow with them. Other than that, we are starting to get things packed up and ready to go home. There are plans to climb Snowdon on Saturday with a group of people as long as the weather holds out. The last thing we will be doing is going to Poland with 3 other Central students on June 2-4 to visit Krakow and Auschwitz. It will be a depressing last trip but is when people could go and when the tickets were cheap. We will get back on Wednesday the 4th and then head to the Manchester airport late Friday night, the 6th. So we are down to our last few weeks. As long as the tests go well, it should be a good end to our study abroad experience. But of course until we are home, we will continue to keep you updated on how things are going so keep on checking in!