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| The monastery at Montserrat was a highlight of our stay in Barcelona |
| Erin's Barcelona Journals 6-3-02 Most of the internet bars in Barcelona didn't let anyone have access to their hard drives, but we'd found one that did. In fact, they touted that as their specialty! So we packed our gear, checked out of the hostel, and left our bags in their tv room for the day before heading to this internet spot. We hooked up and downloaded about 100 pictures, then I resized and uploaded them while Glenn went to find a self-service laundry (rare in Barcelona). After my task on the hard drive was done, I signed out and went over to the Easy Everything internet cafe, as we had a week pass to use up and it was much cheaper for plain internet work. I met Glenn there after an hour or so of web work, and we went to lunch at McDonald's to save time. One thing we are a little irked at on busy days is the amount of time it takes to get a meal in Europe! After lunch, I went back to doing web work, while Glenn went to the main Barcelona train station to check out our way to Sevilla for that night. He met back with me around 5pm, with limited options on trains. For the first time of the trip, he'd found that all the trains going to Sevilla were booked out for the next 3 days! Dismayed, he asked for options and was told that we could take a train to Madrid, then catch a slightly later connection on to Sevilla. It cost a little more for the reservation fees and we'd have to change train stations in Madrid (there are 3 major ones there!), but it only arrived about 2 hours later than the direct train. Reservation fees are the 'loophole' for getting money out of travelers with Eurorail passes. Yes, you've paid to have your tickets already, but you must reserve seats to get on the train, and the service of reserving those seats will cost you anywhere from 3 Euros up to 40 or more, depending on the type of train (sleeper cars add an extra 60 or more, we found!). Anyway, he'd reserved us the late train going to Madrid and the connection to Sevilla the following morning, so we did a few more journals and web pages, then walked back toward the hostel around 7 to get our bags. We found a tapas dinner to share, then picked up our bags & headed for the train station around 8:30. We waited for the 10pm train to Madrid (overnite), and once aboard we talked with the 3 other people in our 6 person cabin until it got late enough to sleep. |