Travel day

The last two days of San Sebastián have been very social and very rainy!! We spent most of these days catching up with Laura's friends and hanging around the city. We have discovered my newest passion (besides bullfighting) which is darts! I could play for hours with laura and indigo, but they always make me join them in pool after about 5 rounds of darts (whoops!) We have also spent a good amount of time at a local irish pub called Molly Malone. Everyone seems to meet up there and socialize for hours! It's so much fun and very good for my Spanish! (Especially considering that a Spanish toddler could have a better conversation than me) my grandpa always says "the closest thing between two people is a smile" and his words couldn't be more true on this trip.. The language barrier is tough but a smile really goes a long ways when meeting new people. The highlight of the last few days in San Se may have been Mr. Antonanas homemade paella. It was AWESOME! Words can't describe it so I included a picture below. (There is also jamon.. With is basically really thin slices of raw pig meat. Surprisingly one of my favorite appetizers in Spain)

However, the real adventure began on midnight Friday, the 24th. We took a midnight bus (we keep singing Journeys "Don't stop believing" because of the 'midnight train' reference) for SEVEN HOURS from San Se to Barcelona. I practically overdosed on Benadryl to sleep and it took a few hours to kick in. Especially for laura. She interrupted ,m y half-sleep whispering loudly. "DUDE. THIS IS TERRIBLE!!" My lack of sleep threw me into a fit of laughter as I listened to Laurita complain about everything that was uncomfortable and annoying on the bus. I will never forget that 3 AM belly laugh. 

We finally got to the middle of Barcelona,Spain at 7:30 in the morning. We faced two big problems: we were NOWHERE near the airport and we had 8 hours until our flight to Milan. Desperate for a couch, we took subway after subway (with a 20 kilo bag on my shoulder) to go to Placa Cataluna. We grabbed breakfast and lugged around our heavy bags though the middle of the city looking for that couch we had been dreaming about for 8 hours. With grungy clothes, greasy hair, and bags over our shoulders.. We looked like 20 year old hobos. At one point I ran into a hotel offering to pay to hang out in their lobby for an hour or two!! I guess we looked worse than we thought because we were denied instantly. (Sorry dad, you raised a pathetic daughter)

We finally caved and headed to the airport via bus. From there, we waited almost 6 hours for our flight to Milan. Laurita was literally laying on the floor of the airport with hundreds of people walking by and sleeping like a baby. I stayed awake and watched everyone look strangely at this creature next to me that was sprawled out on the floor... After she woke up we finally boarded the plane and slept like babies. We landed and woke up in a fit of giggles. Everything we were saying to each other was hysterical. (I blame sleep deprivation) We decided that we should NEVER travel with our future husbands because they will divorce us immediately. 

The real adventure began once we got to Milan. We needed to get to Milano Centrale train station and find our train to Bellinzona, Switzerland. In our lack of attention to detail, we didn't realize that it was an hour by bus to the train station and we had an hour and a half until our train left!! We got to the station 20 minutes early and began running like chickens with our heads cut off! Neither of us knew any Italian and we were being sent ALL OVER the train station. All we needed to do was print out our pre-purchased tickets! With 3 minutes until the train left, a man started helping laura and I with the machine to get our tickets printed. We did it successfully and he started pointing to his hand for what I assumed was money... He was homeless! I would have avoided him if I had noticed earlier, but god bless him because he saved us a lot of time! (I gave him some change.. We were so thankful!)

Our tired bodies made it to the seats of the train where I was thrown into another random fit of the giggles. Sadly, the people across from us barely spoke English so they gave us some crazy looks! We traveled through northern Italy and were thrown into Switzerland... It was unbelievably beautiful. We rode through the mountains alongside Lake Lucarno that was simply breathtaking. Houses were built along the mountains to our left, and the snow filled mountains fed into a lake that was on our right. One of the most beautiful places I have ever seem in my life.. Laura and I were speechless. 

Bellinzona was about an hour and a half north of Milan and we were greeted by my cousin Monica. (whom I had never met!) She took us to her home, fed us, introduced us to her husband and surprised us with a hotel room! Her english is slightly broken but very very good for never practicing it. We discussed our plans for the weekend, and it looks like I will be able to see several of my family members that I have yet to meet. Laura and I are simply in awe of this area and can't wait for tomorrow to come already! (We will post pictures tomorrow.. We couldn't take many from the train)