Paris/Barcelona: Days 1 and 2

This will also be brief because I'm just waiting for Donnie to get out of the shower so we can leave (oh no! he just came out! where does the time go?!) to explore Barcelona.  But, several highlights:

1) Our hostel room in our Paris Hostel was lovely and comfy and on the 6th floor, no elevator.  I have sore quads now but it's good that we got that work out in because it prepared us for ....

2) Our massive sprint in Barcelona.  Last night, we got in to Barcelona rather late and after chasing our couchsurfing host "S" from place to place (Plaza de Catalunya, the Green line stop, the movie theatre where we ended up waiting across the street for 2 hours while S saw Precious and we ate a pizza with yummy veggies including eggplant and mushrooms which I magically eat now).  Then, after S's movie, we met up with her and some of her former couchsurfers hailing from Portland.  We talked for a little too long and then had to make a mad dash to the bus stop for the night bus that left at 1:27 am.  We got there, panting, red-faced, and sweaty, at 1:29.  Missed it.  So we had to wait 58 minutes in the cold dark night of Barcelona with S, exchanging stories.  S was a journalist and then a truck driver for four years and she then traveled throughout the world (New Zealand, Canada, New York, China, etc) for two years, mostly couchsurfing.  Way cool.

3) There are cats at S's apartment, as well as two other couchsurfers. They are nice enough, though one of them told me that "life is about having expectations and then those expectations are never met."  Not so sure about that one...

4) S has an oven!  So for lunch today, Donnie and I made toasted sandwiches with butter and cheese and red peppers and spinach.  SO GOOD.  We're trying to make the most of having an oven for these few days because then we'll go home to a serious lack of oven for another 2 1/2 months.

5) Donnie and I went grocery shopping for the rest of our time in Barcelona.  Cereal and soy milk for breakfast, cheese and bread for portable lunches, some veggies and pasta for dinners -- 14€17, which we payed for with a 5 euro bill and the rest in coins.  BOOYAH.

Now we're going to explore La Rambla which is known for being touristy and thus a tourist trap full of pick-pockets and prostitutes (thanks, Wikipedia).  But it's supposed to be lovely.  The Spanish poet Federico García Lorca once said that La Rambla was "the only street in the world which I wish would never end".  (Thanks again, Wikipedia™.)

BYE!