May 18, 2012

 Today we met outside the hotel at 8.00 in the morning.  I was struggling to get out of bed this morning, from lack of sleep.  We went to the train station and hopped on a train that took us about an hour and a half out of Barcelona.  We arrived in the coastal town of Tarragona, Spain and got off the train.  The first thing we did was visit an ancient stadium.  It was very similar to the coliseum, except much smaller of course.  It was amazing to see such a structure still standing after so many years.  Next we walked up the hill in the center of the city and visited an architectural museum that used to be a castle of some sort.  Again, it is incredible to see such old structures still standing today.  After the museum, we all went and got lunch and then headed back down to the train station.  I had a 'sausage' sandwich that I'm not sure was really sausage, needless to say I haven't had much luck with food here in Espana.  We could have made the 2.25 train back to Barcelona, but not everyone was there so we had to catch the 3.25 train allowing us to wait around for an hour.  We got back and I went and took a shower and walked down the street and did some laundry.  After doing laundry I came back to the hotel and worked on my blog for a little bit.  A group of us decided to go to a Nike store we saw during our bike tour a couple of days prior.  We got there and of course it looked like any other Nike store back in the states.  We decided to go to a restaurant for dinner that was highly recommended by Anoop and Dr. Kramer.  So everyone except Cameron, Anoop, Kramer, Brady, and Sumner went to La Fonda.  It was an awesome dinner.  Alex, Dave, Jordan, and I split an enormous dish of seafood paella.  Paella is a rice dish and, in this case, with various seafood in it such as calamari, shrimp, and some sort of craw fish.  It was amazing.  The restaurant was really nice but actually pretty cheap.  After an amazing meal and about six bottles of wine (not all mine) the meal came out to be 14 euros per person.  Over here they will not split up a check so they total it and average it out so everyone pays the same thing.  It is beneficial for some and not so much for someone, especially if they are not drinking.  After dinner I came back to the hotel, worked on the blog a little more, packed up my bags, and hit the sack.  We have an EARLY morning tomorrow.


T