Playing Tourist

I got home on Wednesday and didn’t do anything much, mostly just relaxed because I was starting to feel like I was getting a cold. Thursday Erin and I played tourist in Geneva because we didn’t feel like starting on our papers and hadn’t explored Geneva yet. We met up with Orlando for a lunch of Chinese food then went to the Musee Ariana, museum of ceramics and pottery. They had a cool temporary exhibition known as the forêt du verre, forest of glass with trees and schools of fish and sculptures all made of glass. Took the train home and had dinner, which I think was sauerkraut traditionally eaten with a peace of smoked ham and a piece not smoked.

Friday morning I went into Geneva and found Beza, who had left her camera at a restaurant the night before and was back to get it. Didn’t do much else that day, mostly stayed at the library to send emails and catch up on TV shows. Beza and I had a delicious kebab lunch, and I went back to the library some more. We did buy our tickets to London, and will be there Thanksgiving weekend! I’m excited because I’ll get to see a friend from GW and my best friend from Texas, who I haven’t seen in years and who will be visiting the same weekend.

Saturday Orlando, Beza, and I left for Barcelona! Once we got off the train and were walking into the airport we came upon a group of people standing around and a policeman, and he suddenly (quickly) said something to the effect of “Cover your ears!” and everyone covered their ears and cringed, and it was really scary because we had no idea what was going on. Beza dropped her stuff and ran into the nearest shoe store, and Orlando and I froze and covered our ears, then we heard a quick gunshot-like noise. Afterwards we were waiting to see what happened and Orlando was quick to go to the front and see what happened, but Beza and I stayed behind until we knew it was safe. Turns out someone had left an unattended suitcase, so they roped off the area and shot at the bag in case it was a bomb. I didn’t really understand how shooting at a possible bomb was a good idea, but I guess it’s somewhat controlled, even though you don’t know how strong the explosion could be. We again learned the wonders of having a US passport, as people would look at it and know to talk to us in English, and we had to wait while officers looked more closely at Orlando’s Costa Rican one. Flying sick is never a good idea, and my ears failed to pop after landing until two days later.

We got into Barcelona around 5:00pm, and took a bus from the airport to the center of the city. Our hostel was located off of Las Ramblas, a big pedestrian walkway with stores and vendors and trees covering the whole thing like a canopy. We found a place for dinner after settling in and got paella and sangria, which was delicious but apparently somewhat touristy, since all the restaurants off of Las Ramblas had “Menus Turisticas” of paella and sangria for a combined price. Then we walked to the beach and walked along the Mediterranean Sea, but it was nighttime by then so there wasn’t much to see beyond the beach.