Sun 30- Arrival in Barcelona

[above is what it looks like walking out of the front door of my building]


Today, I woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel and then caught a cab with Mom and Tom to the Amsterdam Centraal train station. We took the next train to Schippol airport where I boarded my flight to Barcelona, Spain. Mom and Tom took a train to another part of Belgium.

My flight was 2hrs from The Netherlands to Barcelona. Once I got here, Dan and Jennifer were waiting for me after baggage claim. I ran into a slight issue with withdrawing the whole amount of euros from the ATM that I needed for the remainder of my apartment rent, but I will have that problem taken care of by tomorrow.

Dan, Jennifer, and I took a taxi to where our apartment is located and when the driver asked if it was the right place, we shrugged our shoulders and got out.... It did look familiar from the street-level view on google maps that we had seen earlier. The leasing agent met us soon after and we got the keys. Most of the little shops on our block were closed down for Sunday and we learned that they will remain so for tomorrow because it is a holiday on Monday.

Two other guys from IU met us at our apartment and we decided to get something to eat. We stopped by a church called the Sagrada Familia on our walk. The Sagrada Familia is a famous tourist attraction and it is only one block from our apartment. The church has been under construction for over 100 years and its architect was Antoni Gaudí. It is amazingly detailed and unbelievably gigantic. I only took a picture of one side, the other side is older and even more interesting...new pictures in the days to come!

After passing numerous closed shops, we ended up going to the beach for dinner. It was a nice, sunny day and there were hundreds of people on the beach. It was nice to have our first dinner together in Barcelona.

On our way back to the apartment, we stopped by a little grocery and bought some water and food for the morning. I'm going to wait until the larger retailer opens back up to stock up on supplies.

Tomorrow, I will try to get a local cell number and then actually spend some time on the beach since school is closed until Tuesday for the holiday :). The forecast for tomorrow is 77° and sunny! Perfect.