Amigas. Cheetas. Friends for life.

Barcelona was a trip with lots of ups and downs for me. We flew this time with an airline called Vueling. I slept through the whole flight so I dont' remember anything about it. When we arrived, it didn't take us too long to find our hostel, and then we went to dinner at a Tapas restaurant down the road before calling it a night.

The next day we had arranged for a bike tour of the city, so we spent the majority of our day seeing the city via bike. This included the Sagrada Familia, the zoo, the beach, and a few other stops. We even ate lunch at a restaurant on the beach. When the tour was over, we headed back to the beach for a bit and put our feet in the water. We also went into town and bought tickets to an FC Barcelona game for the next day! We walked back along the beach until we reached the movie theater so we could go see Catching Fire. Wow, such a good movie and we were all so happy we saw it. Thankfully, it was in English and just had Spanish subtitles.

The next day we slept in a little and went to the beach once again. We sat by the water and relaxed for awhile. Our afternoon consisted of another beachside restaurant for lunch and then some souvenir shopping. Then it was time to go the game! We were on our way in the subway, and I was sitting next to Kristen, animatedly telling some story. Well, I guess since this was our last weekend trip, I had let my guard down more than usual. So, when a guy pressed into me to let people pass behind him, I was completely unaware when he stole my phone out of my pocket. I didn't noticed until we got off and my pockets were empty. I screamed "my phone!" and turned around to get back on, only to have the doors close right in my face. I have good friends though, and they calmed me down and made a few calls to the subway system. I had pretty much figured it out though, and knew there was no way I was getting my phone back. We continued to the game, and I called my dad in tears on the way. He put things in perspective for me since he was in Gifford cleaning up tornado damage for people who had lost a lot more than a phone.

The game was still fun, nonetheless, and we went out for dinner afterwards. To be honest, the food wasn't that great, our server wasn't exceptional, nothing about the place was too exciting. But this dinner, was probably my favorite of the whole trip. It's crazy the difference not having a phone can make. We sat and talked for over three hours at dinner, laughing and crying and sharing stories. As we left, someone pointed out there was a "free wifi" sign outside the door, and yet not one of us had pulled out phones the entire time. That was honestly unheard of for us because we jumped on every opportunity for wifi we could get.

There was a huge (like the size of a room) vending machine in the subway stop right by our hostel, and every time we walked by, I always stopped and looked at it saying how good the sunny D and chips ahoy looked because I hadn't had them in months. My friends, who are the sweetest, knew I was upset about losing my phone, and when I wasn't looking bought me both of those things from the giant vending machine and surprised me that night with them. They're the best.

I had suggested that before our flight the next morning, we should try to go see the sunrise on the beach. We woke up bright and early and raced to the beach, afraid we were gonna miss it. Well, we didn't miss it, but the sky was covered with clouds so we couldn't see anything anways. It was a bittersweet moment because we knew it was our last travel weekend of the semester. We got to the airport on time, and headed home. This weekend made me realize how great each and every person on this trip is, and I'm so blessed to have had these once in a lifetime experiences with all of them.