Adios Barcelona....Bonjour Paris

We left Barcelona on Wednesday afternoon. After checking out of our hotel at noon (which just happens to be right after we woke up), all 5 of us lugged our very large backpacks around the sweltering city for about an hour looking for our long awaited destination: The Chocolate Factory!!!

The people were very nice there and let us set our heavy bags behind the counter while we walked around the ,useu, drooling at the HUGE chocolate sculptures, pictures, and various other creations sculpted and made by Barcelona's most talented bakers and chocolate sculptors. Plus, great thing...I finally found ,y life's calling: to be a professional chocolate sculptor!! How great would that be?? Anyway, the museum was pretty great, but too much drooling was happening so we all ,ade a group decision that it was time to leave and eat our humble lunches (Mary & mine being tuna, saltines, and an apple :)).

We set up picnic by Barcelona's own Arc de Triumphe...and you thought Paris was the only city special enough to have an arc...not the case at all. It was; by this ti,e the heat of the day and sweltering HOT outside, so another group decision was made to take the earlier bus to the airport for our RyanAir flight to Paris. Another 'quick' walk to the bus station and we showed up just in time to catch the 3:30 bus to the Barcelona airport about 1.3 hours away from downtown Barcelona.

We finally boarded our plane around 6:20 p.m., both glad for the change of scenery that was coming in Paris and fearing for our lives at the same time. Why?? you ask?? Well let me tell you: one of the boys on our trip had a very vivid dream a few nights previous to our trip...one so vivid that he couldn't fall back asleep after he woke up. Well, to make a long story short, he scared the heebe-jeebes out of all of us when he told us that we were going to die in a plane crash on the way to Paris if he sat next to a man with spiky hair who, according to him was going to bomb the plane; So please understand our frightened state when we boarded the plane and he had an empty seat next to him...a man did sit next to him eventually but the man did not have spiky hair and obviously did not bomb the plane since I am still here and typing this post for you :)

Our arrival in Paris was filled with confusion at the Metro system...which eventually led to a group split where Peter and Todd rode the metro to our hotel while Zan, Mary, and I stood on a street corner in the ,iddle of Paris making every attempt to flag down a taxi so we could sleep on matresses that night rather than the street corner. It eventually worked and 11 euro later, we were in our hotel (notice that I said hotel and not hostel...we went high class here--but not really because we just got cheap rates b/c the hotel is under construction) and ,y head was on the pillow faster than likkidy-split :)