hey people. sorry i couldn't update from venice... i hated that fucking place. well, ok, hate might be a strong word, but basically, getting around venice was a pain in the ASS. basically, it's a maze of narrow alleyways and bridges, and if you miss one turn or cross the wrong bridge, you are FUCKED; there are no cars, hence no taxis as a last resort! so i didn't even try looking for an internet cafe there.
so let's see.. after florence, we took that three hour train ride to venice. the first day, we took a tour of a neighboring mini-island murano, where they have all these glass-blowing shops. we shopped there for FIVE HOURS, which was totally boring, and then after dinner, it took us an hour to walk half a mile because we got lost in the maze.
the next day, i just slept in and ditched the group. i woke up once to get some pizza, took a nap, and woke up again to grab some gelato. yeah, i know it was sort of a waste of my stay, but i just didn't want to get lost. for dinner, though, i rejoined the group, and somewhere in between there we went to the san marco plaza to watch the people play classical music.
anyways, yesterday was a mini-waste because it was spent flying from venice to naples and then from naples to barcelona. barcelona is a rather large city; i was hoping it was small and quaint like florence.
after flying in last night, we went out to get some tapas. i ordered this thing called a "spice bomb" which turned out to be a deep-fried breaded meatball in some chipotle-like sauce. anyways, i think the people i was with didn't know what tapas were, so we got way too little food. oh well.
afterwards, we went in search of the cathedral, and after getting lost and asking like four separate people where it was, we finally found it. i felt bad and disrespectful by wearing shorts, but i went in anyway.
today, we went to see some buildings by gaudi (some famous architect of yore), visited the mediterranean sea, the beach (i saw TOPLESS women! but only one decent set of breasts, the others were either fat and saggy or old), and the olympic village.
europeans eat late. it's 10 o'clock here, and we just finished dinner at the hotel. after i finish typing this up, i'm gonna go head up to go to sleep.
so in between italy and spain, 3 of the party left for the states. so now it's down to 5 people, and despite what i said earlier, the group is growing on me. so i'm happy. *cheer*
but, i'm still homesick. i have another week here. :( tomorrow we fly out for madrid. until then, toodles!