11:00 am: Finally some luck with travel companions. I got into my sleeper compartment on the train last night and there were two college guys my age there from the States. We had a 4 person-berth but there was only three of us so we got to use the extra bunk for our backpacks. We talked for a couple hours and exchanged travel stories. Everyone is always so amazed when they hear I'm traveling alone. I really don't see it as anything spectacular but I guess it is a pretty big deal. We decided to go to sleep around midnight. I had read in all my research that Spanish trains cannot be trusting when it came to staying on scehdule and that was completely accurate. We didn't arrive in Girona until 2 hours later than when we were due to arrive. I don't know how that is possible unless in the middle of the night the drivers took a siesta for a couple hours. I didn'r expect the girls to still be there two hours later so when I got to the train station I started making my way to Nat's place using the directions i had written down from Google maps. I was just getting to the house when they saw me on the street and looked very relieved. Apparently they got to the station 15 minutes later than when I told them to be there and they assumed that I had gotten off and walked to the house. When they didnt find me there, they went back to the station and waited for an hour but since there aren't any updated schedules at the station they had no idea if i had arrived or not. So naturally they thought I was roaming the city lost and alone. Their plan was to get a bunch of paper and write "Pasquale, follow the arrows" and were going to put them up around the city giving me the directions to the house haha. Needless to say, we were all happy to see eachother when I appeared on the street.
It was really awesome seeing them there. It's weird seeing friends and knowing that you are halfway across the world from home. It's going to be awesome traveling with them for this last week of my trip. We're at Nat's place right now. It's nice just to be able to throw my stuff on the floor and not worry about lockers or anything. I've just eaten an entire box of chocolate for breakfast lol. Now we're about to go to the weekend market!
7:00 pm: It has been a great day so far in Girona. We went to the market and walked around exploring while we waited for Nat's friend Brian to arrive from Barcelona (we will be staying at his place while we are there). We decided we were going to have a picnic lunch so we bought watermelon, strawberries, bread, cheese and delicious Fuet sausage (I quickly became addicted...i need to find this when I get home). We went back to the house to cut everything up and then went to the train station to pick up Brian. I didn't know what to expect but he is a really friendly and hilarious guy. It was good to know that the stranger we'll be living with for three days is legit lol. We had a great picnic in the park and then Nat gave us a walking tour of the city. She's been there long enough and knows so much that she should get a part-time job as a tour guide there. Girona is a beuatiful city. It's full of old stone buildings with ancient city walls and churches. The trees here are so cool and there are so many flowers everywhere. The city is really old and full of myths and legends (including kissing the ass of a lion statue). We walked for a while and got some amazing views of the city along the ancient walls. We ended up at a delicious Gelato shop. After that Brian introduced us to what would quickly become a daily tradition in Spain: the Spanish bakeries. We went and got delicious pasteries or what we liked to call "delicious treats". The weather is gorgeous, it sucks that it's supposed to get crappy tomorrow.
We just ran out to the grocery store for some wine. I love Spain lol! We got 4 bottles and 2 boxes of wine for 8 euros!! The boxes were only 50 euro cents each. The quality of this insanely cheap wine will be determined in about 5 minutes. We're going to go out for a tapas dinner around 10. I cannot handle Spanish schedules. Stores close around 1 for lunch and don't open again until 4 (they really take lunch seriously). Dinner doesn't happen until 10 pm but it's common to eat at midnight. Then you start pre-drinking at 1 or 2 (when we usually call it a night back home) and then go to the bar around 3 and stay until 6 am. Crazy! There is no way I can last until 10 for dinner. That is going to have to be dinner number 2. I'm am going to get huge in Spain haha. Anyways, going to start some wine and find some food to hold me off until 10.
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