well, i met up with jim and vanessa in montpellier a few days back, ended up meeting them at mcdonalds. the greatest mcdonalds ever, right on this main city square, mcdonalds had outdoor cafe seating, and aparently you could sit there without even buying anything. so i sat there for a few hours, just writing and watching the hustle bustle of the square, until jim and vanessa showed up. i´ve never laughed so hard as when jim showed up wearing the same "swiss army" t-shirt that i had on. it was priceless. aparently after leaving interlaken, we had both figured that another clean shirt would be nice, and by some random twist, ended up with the EXACT same one. hillarious. so we sit there and chat at mcdonalds for some time, talking about where we´d been and such.
the next night they moved outof the hostel that they were staying in there, as it was aparently just crappy. they moved to my little hotel, which was quite nice, with a nice lady running it, and was closer. with the triple room, it brought the price of my room down by almost half, which made me turbo happy. after that, we figured out our plans for getting to barcelona, a 6am train the next morning would get us in around noon, and then we headed off towards the beach. what was a cloudy morning turned into just a fantastic day for the beach, we lounged there for hours. there were topless girls everywhere, and guys selling donuts, and guys that we´re soooo red, and crazy little french kids playing with crabs, it was great. and montpellier has the BEST tram in the world that you have to take to get there. its space age. so very nice. i could just ride it around randomly, its that good.
that night, couldn´t find cheap food anywhere, but we settled on doner kababs, which we bought, and then ate at mcdonalds´ outdoor cafe. they were out of this world. its funny because i´m eating things that i never in a million years would have imagined myself liking even little. tomatoes. lettuce. mushrooms. literally, its shocking to me. but its fantastic.
later that night, we drank our cheap wine, starting off in the hotel room, until at one point some crazy lady yelled at us "HEY AMERICANS! SHUUUUT UUPP!!". aparently they could hear us a few balconies over. whatever. so then off to some fountain to finish off the last bottle of wine, laughing and talking and such. meet up with vanessa´s friend who lived there, and chatted with her for a while in the street until probably like 4am.
needless to say we didn´t quite make it up for the 6am train. we set THREE ALARMS, and none of the three of us woke up until nearly 8. looking back, it was quite funny. at the time, we were sort of freaking out, till vanessa went to the train station to find out that we could take an 11:00 train, so it was all good.
hmmmm... trains to barcelona sucked, for a while we rode on one that was like a subway car. it was horrible. and a billion degrees. but we finally made it here at around 4 or 5 yesterday, and were able to check into the hostel. off the main street, LAS RAMBLAS, by a few blocks, down some quite sketchy street, our hostel was rather interesting. the bunks were these massive steel structures, mine was on top and it was almost like having your own cell. ick. it was a pain. the place was expensive, and the street was scary, and there was no kitchen, so today we´ve moved to a much better place, with a kitchen, for less money. i think this one will be great. with a kitchen, the 3 of us can probably eat for about $1 a day. its the best.
speaking of eating though, we found THE BEST restaurant last night, and "splurged" to eat there. its a "nice" restaurant, or one would think so by the food, or by the place itself, or the location, but not by the prices. $3-4 entrees, OUT OF THIS WORLD. we had wine, apetizers, PAELLA, and dessert, for around $11 or $12 a piece. it was incredible. the paella was one of the best things i´ve eaten so far. and an austrailian girl named alex joined us so we had just a very enjoyable evening.
today who knows whats going on. we´ve got some time, i think we´ll probably stay here for the week. the running of the bulls starts next sunday, and i think there´s talk of heading up for that, so my guess is we´ll just hang out here until then. its a lovely city, with tons to do and explore. and its spanish. i love being able to halfway communicate and understand people.. hurray for españa.