Just me and San Miguel

I made it to Barcelona and managed to find my hotel via metro. The block my place is located on isn't fabulous (neither was my block in Madrid now that I think about it) but the location seems pretty great. I'm around the corner from a market, near the university, walking/running distance from a nice park, and walking distance from many of the museums and sites. There also seem to be a bunch of yoga studios around according to the internet so, after I run, the 1st order of business will be to try to find one with some english/bilingual classes. 2nd: get some fruit at the market. 3rd: figure out if I might want to go SCUBA diving in the Mediterranean.

I'm also 1/2 a block from La Rambla which is the main tourist drag of Barcelona. Aside from the restaurants and souvenir shops (and museum of erotica), the place is literally a freak show. There are street performers everywhere crazier than I've ever seen. People sell these horrible noise makers (worse than vuvuzelas) and fling these neon things 25 feet into the sky and let them land wherever. Someone is going to lose an eye...and probably their wallet. Tons of pick-pocketing here.

Other than finding my hotel, nothing went right today. I found out about a week long 4 hour per day intensive Spanish language course. Called them and because I missed today, I can't take it.

Tried to buy my overnight train ticket to Paris for Friday/Saturday and the super super slow internet at the hotel wouldn't load the page right and neither would my phone. Then I couldn't get wireless so I couldn't call anyone (read: Mom) to buy the ticket. Argh.

I showered, regrouped, found 3 internet cafes and went walking. Sadly, none of the internet cafes seem to exist. Came back to the hotel and Manuel the receptionist was nice enough to restart the router for me. Ticket purchased thanks to Mom.

I decided at that point it was 10:30 p.m. and I should just quit. I walked around the corner, got a chorizo and cheese baguette and a can of beer (San Miguel) and came back to crash. I did get invited to a party at the beach with a ton of German teens on a field trip. I passed but maybe tomorrow?

Hopefully tomorrow goes a little smoother. Right now San Miguel has me nice and sleepy so I'm off to bed.