Day 3 - June 15th

1032am - Last night, we set TWO alarms for morning. We planned on waking up at 845 to be downstairs at 10 for breakfast. Either all three of us slept through both or they didn´t go off, but all three of us woke up to a tap on the door at 1008...so much for showers this morning. We all got ready really quickly and made it down in time to get some breakfast.

731pm - Hoy, we went to see un catedral, on a tour at Palau de la Musica Catalana, y a Museo Picasso. The Catedral was very interesting,a s was the concert hall and museo. Nos almuerzo era muy bien. We had tapas. I had meatballs and recommended we share calamari rings. The were delicioso! - definitely the best I´ve ever had.  I also tried cuttlefish and prauns. Now, we are eating dinner (after some shopping).  I had a sanwhich they called a bikini (really it´s basically grilled ham and cheese).  Although we´ve done a lot of interesting things today, the most interesting happened while we were on our own. After el museo, we were allowed to go off on our own until 900 for shopping/supper/exploring.  We were about to leave on shop when we heard yelling. I asked the shop keeper, and through lots of broken Spanglish, she was able to explain that there was a strike against the government that occured every day. We waited for it to calm down and then followed them in the direction of our meeting place. They congragated around a government building of some sort, chanted loudly, and sang songs.  After asking many people, ¨¿Que pasa?¨, a nice older woman tried explaining it to me - all in Spanish, but I actually understood her very well.  Like our government (and basically everywhere else in the world), they have been having troubles with their economy. Recently, a bunch of healthcare and other programs/funds were cut, and these protests have been happening every day since May 15th - one month today! She compared the political unrest to the middle east while explaining that protests like this were all over Spain, not only in Barcelona, and also in many other countires.  She also explained that although the protestors were young, they represented the entire country.  It was a really beautiful explanatin.  Today, this particular protest was against the police. Bobbi remembers seeing police attacking rioters on the news yesterday, so we think she was talking about that - it sounded like she sad something about a police stampede. It sounded like they were trying to remove the cheif of police ( I think that´s what ¨El Jefe¨ means..). She was very happy to explain it all to me, and it was very interesting. She said it was no longer interesting to them, which is very understandable. We talked about problems in America, as well. Finally, we had to leave to find dinner, which was disappointing. This experience may very well be the highlight of my trip.

1029pm - One the way back to our meeting place on La Rambla, we got lost. We found the street no problem, but we weren´t sure what direction to go.  We tried both ways, but nothing looked familiar. Finally, we decided to ask where H&M was because it´s a big, well known shop a few blocks from our meeting place. We heard a woman working (I think she was advertising for a pretty sketchy shop) on the street speaking very good English.  She was very nice and pointed us in the right direction.  35 minutes after beginning our search...we found the group. Now, we´re back safe and sound at the hotel. It has been a very busy/exciting day, so I´m excited for bed.