Hi everyone! I am sorry I have been such a slacker with this whole blog business! We are in Nice, France this morning (Day 7 of our trip) but I wanted to update you on the past few days. This is what my trusty little moleskin journal holds so far:

3/12
It is 9:30 am here in Barcelona, Spain, and we have another 1/2 hour before we can go check if the airport has brought my bag was lost in London-thank you, British Airways :) We left San Antonio on March 10th, traveled through Houston and London and landed in Barcelona at noon yesterday. We forced ourselves to stay awake last night until 8:30 pm. I think the last time I went to bad that early was around 1992. And even then... Anway, we slept until 8 this morning, and we are still fighting jet lag but feeling much better. It is still hard to believe that I am really, finally here. It is strange to think that we are completely in charge of what we do all day every day. No parents or professors or group leaders telling us what to do or where to go. It is incredibly freeing and exciting-though a bit scary. I'm praying that God will protect us and give us his peace. I trust that He will do as He has promised.

...3/12 continued...

My bag finally came yesterday afternoon! Yay! Our travel clothes were disgusting so we were excited to change into something cleaner and more Euro-skinny jeans, orange tanktop, grey sweater, brown boots. After getting ready and chatting it up with our new French friend Nassim, who was ridiculously fun and kind to us, we headed out for a day filled to the brim with sightseeing. We started out at Parca Guell (Gaudi's park) and enjoyed an amazing view of thecity and a picnic lunch. While walking down from the park, we got super lost and finally ended up at Sagrada Familia--an incredible cathedral that has been under construction since the 1880s. We got the audio headset and looked goofy, but we were so glad we did. Brit and I agreed that we could have simply stared at the ornate detailing for days. It was so so cool. It made me feel reverent and and filled with awe--like we were standing somewhere that really mattered. It was history in the making.

After thatwe wandered back to what we thought was our hostel, but we actually ended up at the Arc de Triof, which was similar to the one in Paris. It was fun to see and we were glad to have stumbled upon it. We were so tired that we ended up just eating gelato for dinner and hung out at the hostel listening to a great live Spanish band in the lounge.

3/13
Today we overslept until almost 11 am, and our French dorm mates had already moved out of the room. We began theday by heading to the covered market outside La Rambla and bought fruit and bread for lunch. We took our picnic to the end beach at the end of La Rambla and saw the Port de Barcelona, the maritime museum, the aquarium, and the funicular that leads to Monjuic Park (Olympic Village). Honestly, between spotting Sephora and Mc Donald's and the gigantic harbor, it looked a lot like San Diego. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting by the fountain by the millions of pigeons at Placa Catalunya reading and sunbathing.

Then we took a couple hours or so back at the hostel (we had to kill time before the late Spanish eaters would serve us dinner) and learned more French from Nassim. He taught us phrases like "when chickens fly," "it's raining strings," the days of the week, how to count to 20, and how to tell someone our age...je ven deux sant... Later we went out for a typical Spanish dinner (Ryan, we looked for your restaurant and couldn't find it...)

Barcelona is:
-people with down coats and scarves in 75 degree weather...seriously?
-Paella/sangria/tapas on EVERY menu
-many foreigners/tourists
-diff. from Mexico in every way, even though on the train leaving Spain I woke up from an accidental nap asking Brittney if we were still in Mexico
-friendly
-bright at night
-restaurants don't fill up until 9 or 10 pm
-a conglomerate of memories of San Francisco, San Diego and LA
-very expensive stores
-one very frightening pickpocketer
-many unlabeled streets
-amazing architecture
-a jillion motorbikes
-1 word: pigeons
-a tangled, beautiful mess of underground transport, which we almost got used to
-colorful, tiled
-funky hairdos and baggy pants on girls
-Euromullet

3/15 Avignon, France

Today was a conjunction of old world and new. We awoke this morning in our tiny hotel room with its tinier bathroom (think airplane with a bathtub). With Britt's ipod we checked our e-mail/train times and ate a breakfast of orange juice, strong coffee and crossaints (we love France!) Then we headed to the Pope's Palace in old town Avignon, which is surrounded by castle walls. Built in the1400s, the palace was grey, cavernous and sparse. The audio tour was AWFUL. Seriously, so boring! But we had fun looking around, and the view from the top was gorgeous. We walked the palace grounds a while before finding lunch and buying some postcards. Apparently Sunday is not the day to be in Avignon because pretty much everything but the palace was closed. It was fun to see, but we are excited to be heading to Nice tonight.

Avignon is:
-old
-cheerful and sunny
-French postcards
-croque monsiuer and quiche lorraine
-7 popes and 1 palace
-a bridge built only halfway across thewater
-a view of the Rhone River
-a hotel room for 2 after a hostel room for 12
-our French sucks...Britt keeps trying to speak Spanish to everyone :)