Spain: Day 5

Playing: Forget My Name-One Night Only
Reading: Elle July 2012

For my last day in Barcelona, I grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast at Fresh 101. My family and I kept on returning there because the food was pretty good and fairly inexpensive. We also had to grab sandwiches for out train ride to Madrid too. Since nobody understood English there, I got a chance to practice my limited Spanish by pointing at what I wanted and saying, "Uno por favor!" We ended up just walking around the city for three hours before leaving for the train.

Truthfully, I love train rides and long car rides because I love looking at the scenery. On the train, I pretty much just listened to my new Billy Idol and Killers CD's that I bought and downloaded onto my ipod, while looking at the countryside. I took these photos just a tad before we passed Calatayud, so I'm not sure which city this is. The countryside is so lovely there, since you'll be looking at fields and out of nowhere, and old castle shows up like one from a movie. Very scenic!

For lunch, I had yet another sandwich from Fresh 101. Only this one was a thing baguette with prosciutto and tomato sauce. The bread was a bit dry for me, but the prosciutto was tasty enough for me to forget that and finish it off. I should've bought more for lunch because two hours later, I was starving.

Once we got off the train, we headed down to our hotel, Hotel Atlantico, to drop off all our stuff. Our room was super adorable and they welcomed us with a basket of fresh fruit, which was great, since I was starving by then. The kiwi quickly disappeared, if you get what I'm saying. I loved how large all the rooms in Spain were compared to the ones in other European countries. Ahem, Ireland, I'm talking about you.

We were up on the eighth floor, so we had a spectacular view from our balcony. Our hotel room actually had two balconies, so I would stand out there, people watching. The height freaked out my mum, so she wouldn't go out. I tried tossing something to my dad's room using the balcony and it didn't work out too well...

After we finished unpacking all of our clothes and stuff, we took a cab to the Museu Del Prado, which I kept on accidentally calling the Museu Del Prada. Whoops, my bad. This museum had a huge selection and tons of famous names and way too much to look at, if you wanted to finish it in a few hours. However, it was kind of confusing to get around. We were looking for a bathroom and my family and I got into a fight about it.
Mom: Just ask someone already.
Dad: The sign says it's over here. (The signs were pointing at each other like this: --> <;--, if you looked at different signs. There was no bathroom in between them, though.)
Audrey: Do you really need to go that badly?
Ted: Oh my god. Really guys. You went five minutes ago.
Oh and it gets better. Once we did find the bathroom, we couldn't find an exit, so we rode the escalators for awhile. It looked like we were choreographing Ok Go's next music video. Anyways, it's worth visiting this museum, if you're into art, but I don't think it's worth more than three hours.

 Our dinner was awful that night. I won't tell you the name of the restaurant, since I forgot it, but here's the basics, I ordered Tagliatelle al Funghi and the pasta came out burnt together and had a similar texture to glue. None of my family members had a good dinner either and the restaurant was hot and stuffy, so we were all grumpy by the end and snapping at each other.

To avoid causing further frustration amongst us, we walked off to the Puerta del Sol, which is a huge plaza with a lot of twenty somethings hanging out. It made me wish I was in my twenty somethings that way I could chill with cool European boys. When I'm in my twenty somethings, I'll probably be hanging out with semi-cool American boys. Anyways, I saw a Topshop there and decided to check it out. I wasn't that impressed with it because a lot of the clothing looked like an H&M met Forever 21. However, I left with this very Beetlejuice backpack. (I'm not as obsessed with the movie as I may appear.) I've been wanting a nice backpack other than the typical Jansport that most high school students carry, so I was quite content buying this. Actually, other than a tube of paprika flavored Pringles, this is the only thing I bought there to bring home. There actually wasn't a lot in Spain that I was dying to buy. Have you ever felt that way during a trip before?