Hello!

We hopped aboard the 4:30am bus to get to the airport in Rome for our flight to Barcelona. Everything went over smoothly and we got through security and on the plane just fine. RyanAir does their seating first come, first serve and even though we were basically the last few on the plane, we landing front row seats! Well, basically right after we took off, I fell asleep. I have become a pro at falling asleep on any kind of mass transit over this trip...trains, planes, buses, cars...you name it, I am probably asleep. I do the whole bobble head thing and all...and Mallory takes pictures. Well I slept for the whole plane ride and I think Mal was able to sleep for a lot of it too. When we got in, we got our bags and headed to the buses, which we took from the airport into Barcelona. Surprise, surprise..I basically slept the entire way on that too. Mallory and I decided we only wanted to spend the day in Barcelona because we were ready to get back to London and be in one place for a while. Since we were not staying the night in Barcelona, we locked our bags in a locker at the bus station. That worked out really well because we would have to go back to the bus station to take a bus back to the airport. Mallory had a map of Barcelona that showed restaurants that had really good Tapas (which Erica really recommended). We walked around and onto a pier and eventually found it, but it was closed. It wasn't going to open for another couple of hours, so we decided to go somewhere else. We found a little spot on the way to the beach and got some food to hold us over until later. We asked the waitress about Tapas but she didn't seem to understand us. While we were eating, a man that must have overheard our conversation came over and told us about a great place for Tapas and beer. He joted down the name and pointed it out on the map. We love finding genereous people like that...and we have been lucky to find quite a few. Mallory had a friend that was staying in Barcelona for the summer and told her a good beach to go to. We walked a little ways and eventually found it. Barcelona was really pretty with all of the palm trees, ports, and beaches. We heard such bad things from so many people about muggings in broad daylight. Fortunately, I felt safe the entire time and we didn't encounter any problems. When we got to the beach, we got some chairs because we didn't have any towels with us. It was so nice to be able to relax on the beach after such a busy week and a half in so many different countries. The water was pretty decent, so we went for a swim and took pictures with my camera. We attempted an underwater one, but only got me in the frame. While we were laying out, we noticed a trend among the European women..and that is..to go topless on the beach. It was super normal there and we seemed to be the only ones who noticed. Well this trip is about trying new things and Mal and I wanted to fit in...so we decided to go European style....topless. We only did it for a short while and didn't want to get burnt much worse than we already were.

After a while, Mallory was getting fried and I was getting burnt too, so we decided to go find the tapas and beer place that the guy recommended. We found it and went in to the little hole in the wall. It was a really cute place with only enough room for a bar type thing, bar stools, and a few tables. The waiters didn't speak english and we didn't really understand the menu, so we just ordered a couple beers while we decided what to do. Really the only thing we could understand on the menu was Calmari. We decided to get that to be on the safe side. We also got these potato things with a spicy sauce and mayo (which they serve with everything over here). I don't mind mayo, but on my fries...not my favorite. The food was really good and when we were finishing up and having some beer a man sat down next to us that could speak english. He was really nice and had lived in LA for a while. He was telling us about the tapas he ordered and what the things around us were and we decided we probably got the worst thing on the menu compared to everything he was showing us! He was nice enough to let us try some of his too. We sat and talked to him for a while. We talked about America and politics and all sorts of things. He and Mal argued about some things, which I thought was pretty entertaining. haha. After a while, we had to go to get back to the bus station. We hopped on the bus, I fell asleep for the entire ride, and we arrived at the airport really early before our flight. We decided to get some ice cream to cool our 500 degree bodies down and hung out at the airport until we could start to check in.

After we checked in and got to our gate, we sat around, got in line and right as we thought we were about board...people started rushing to another gate like mad-men. It was crazy how much everyone freaked out about being the first in line to get on the plane! Eventually we were able to get on...the plane took off...and I fell asleep. I woke up when we were over what we think was France and Mallory showed me how she could see fireworks our the window. We are assuming we were over France, who would have been celebrating their Bastille Day. After we landed, got the normal UK customs interegation, and picked up my bag, we got tickets to get a bus to Green Park in London. We stood next to the orange EasyBus that had no driver waiting for him to come outside to take us into London and when the bus was set to leave in 3 minutes he still wasn't there. Luckily, Mallory walked by a man that asked her where she was going and he kindly pointed us to the large bus next to us that we were supposed to be on. We got on just in time and left for London. I fell asleep again for some of it...mainly because it was so late and we had been traveling and at the beach all day. The bus driver was on the phone and missed our stop at Green Park and took us straight to Victoria Station. When we got off, we told him...he said oops and put us on another bus that was empty. Our new bus driver was really nice and let us off really close to the Park Lane Hotel...where we left our other suitcases at.

Ok, I am going to finish this later! I am only up because I have a ton of laundry to do before I leave for Oxford tomorrow morning. I will update all of you on my London adventures as soon as I can!

Oh and PS....that whole topless thing was a joke...I can't believe you would all believe that! ha ha ha. I was going to wait until tomorrow to let you all know that I was kidding, but I thought I would give some of you a heart attack....so there you go...hold your horses.

Love and miss you all!

Sarah