technology FAIL

okay so i ran out of time on that internet session, but managed to post what i had written so far before it logged me out. this keyboard certainly does decrease my wpm...

the biking tour continued... we rode all over barcelona and got to see everything from the bull fighting arena to where they held the 1992 olympics to the beach to the estatua colon and the stairs that christopher columbus ascended to tell queen isabella of his discovery of the new world. pretty cool, not going to lie. our guide was hilarious and found a way to pepper all the information he was throwing at us with jokes and random facts i do not think i would have found in my national geographic guide books. for example. did you know that in spain it is completely legal to walk around stark naked, but if you put a shirt on you can be arrested? yup, that´s right. completely in your birthday suit is just fine but a shirt and no pants no es permite. spain sure is an interesting place. the fashions here are also quite diferente... i do not know if i am going to embrace the whole eurotrash bleached mohawk look or the unitard like pantsuits i see people wearing. i don´t know if davidson is ready for that yet, although some of the boys in our group are determined to try. i also absolutely LOVE getting to use my spanish. i am now BFF with our hotel concierge here in madrid after our hour long conversation last night while i was waiting for the pay phone. he wanted to know all about the huge group of american kids that had invaded his hotel and we also talked about everything from the cultural differences you encounter in different regions of spain, to michael jackson, to his visit to montana, to american accents to cadiz. i felt so proud having that conversation... yet i feel so american being excited about that... oh well.

i´m getting ahead of myself. not done with barcelona yet. on our third day there we actually went on an excursion to montserrat, a monastery nestled up in the mountains about an hour train ride away from barcelon. it was amazing. we rode a gondola (ferocaril in spanish, which sounds way cooler) up there and hiked all over the place after wandering through the cathedral and sampling cheeses and honeys made by the monks. amy and anna and i went on a pretty legit hike to a little monastery called santa cava which was so peaceful. and also had funny little chairs the monks use to kneel on during prayer. we took pictures in them. we are 2.

that night we embrked on a paella adventure armed only with a vague recommendation from the concierge and the knowledge of which direction the water was in. but we found a great restaurant, la barceloneta, and dined on seafood paella. and we´re talking seafood paella here. it had crawfish and shrimp staring at us out of it. we named them, made some new friends... and then devoured it. so delicious. then in the morning we all wrestled our suitcases shut (well at least i did, i didn´t even buy anything in barcelona. i think my stuff just grew. i got another bruise. joy) we were on the bus pretty much all day minus a stop in the medieval city of sirguenza which we hit at the awkward siesta hour where pretty much everything is closed and it looked like the spanish version of those ghost towns you see in old western movies. i will honestly never forget spending my 19th birthday there. haha.

uh oh!! desafortunadamente i am about to be tarde para la cena (late for dinner). but maybe i´ll finish this up later. i just love pounding away on this keyboard anyway. i look like i´m seriously angry at someone, it´s rather funny. ¡¡¡hasta luego!!! i love upside down exclamation points.