Today was a day of two cities with a beautiful bus ride in between.
We started the morning in Barcelona, with a quick trip to the market for breakfast/lunch. We had some more juices (I had coconut & Dragonfruit and pure coconut) as well as a meat-filled corn roll similar to a tamale. It was a great way to start the morning.
We then began to walk through the city to the bus station. We saw some awesome sights along the way, from the magnificent Catedral De Barcelona, to some extremely talented break-dancers, to a street performer working with bubbles, to the Arc De Triumph, to a Spanish Pug named Benito.
After all that excitement, we managed to reach the bus station. We rode for nearly four hours from Barcelona to Zaragoza. It was a brilliantly beautiful drive. We saw the landscape change from beaches, to green pastures and farmland, to mountains, to the sparse desert. The sun set as a rainstorm created a pillar of water and light far in the distance. We finally reached Zaragoza as evening descended on the city.
We then, by a stroke of luck, ran directly into Melanie, our host, within a minute of getting off the bus. We had arranged a meeting point but it ended up not being needed. The three of us caught a bus to the center of Zaragoza and headed up to Melanie's apartment. Zaragoza was a really cool town to see at night, with lots of Spaniards ambling about and snippets of Spanish conversations flying through the air. We made a quick stop at the grocery and then headed to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Dinner was a type of tapas that consisted of various toppings on miniature baguettes. They were cheap, fun, and delicious!
After all of that adventuring, we made our way back to the apartment where we chatted until we fell asleep. It was fun to reflect back on all of our Grinnell adventures and it was so fun to get to meet up with Melanie in Spain. She had been my student advisor during my first semester of first year, so it was awesome to get to hang out again, especially in Spain.