Spain has come and gone...

I'm back from my vacation! It was a great time had by all, and I really enjoyed the culture and thought the comparisons to Egypt were interesting. But anyway, here is a detailed account:

First of all, Wendy, Erin and I flew out of Cairo at 4:30 in the morning, which was just fun in itself. It seems like half the flights out of Cairo are at ridiculous hours, but I digress. As another example of how backwards Egypt can be, they had security before you check in for your flight, which makes absolutely no sense. As we walked though security, we had to hand over our passports so they could check to make sure we were authorized to leave. You see, if you are married to an Egyptian, you need permission from your husband to leave. So they checked us against what I assume is some sort of master list of marriage licenses. While the three of us waited, it seemed like ten men walked through with no problem what so ever. It was a bit frustrating. Besides that, there wasn't really anything exciting about our flight. We got into Madrid a bit late, and got lost on the Metro on our way to Erin's cousin's place. After a lot of confusion, we managed to get to Laura's apartment, and proceeded to sleep through most of the day after a quick dinner/lunch. Laura, by the way, has a dog named Sasha that is ridiculously cute. We spent a lot of time in Madrid playing with the dog.
The next few days we borrowed a tour book from Laura to just tour the city on our own. Erin had an interview that was impossible to get to without a lot of help from random Spaniards. But we had much more sucess with our self tours of the city. We saw, just to name a few, the Royal Palace, Prado Museum, Plaza de Toros, Temple of Debod, Plaza Mayor and a bunch more. Food wise, we did pretty well with our Tapas meals. We don't get pork products in Egypt, so we all jumped at the chance to get some ham, chirzo sausage and bacon. I think i ate more ham in the last few days than I have in the last several years. When we first got to Spain, the three of us were all about finding Sangria as well. We were disappointed to find that it is more of a summer drink, so many restaurants didn't have it. But we managed to search hard enough to get a few pitchers on our trip.
Our last night in Madrid we went out with Laura to see some Flamenco dancing and then out to her boyfriend's place for a party he was having. It was nice meeting some locals, and a lot of them knew English well enough for me to converse with them. I felt bad about not knowing any Spanish, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I also broke my camera this night by dropping it. I had to buy a disposable one the next day. I'll have to buy a new one here in Egypt.
The day after the party, Wendy, Erin and I went to Barcelona by bus. It was a long ride, and they showed two movies - 'The Italian Job' and 'National Treasure'. Unfortunately, they were dubbed over in Spanish, but I've seen them both several times so I just watched it while listening to my iPod while I dozed in and out. The hostel we stayed at was a lot nice than I had been expecting. There were lockers for everyone and free breakfast! The room we stayed in was for 20 people, so it was a bit hard to sleep sometimes. It was still very good for the price we paid (13 euros a night), so i wasn't one to complain.
Our first day in Barcelona, we bought tickets for a tour bus since we didn't have our handy book like we did in Madrid. It was a great idea, for it was one of those buses that let you get on and off whenever you wanted. We were able to spend the whole day just touring major sights, and being able to drive past some that we didn't feel like getting out for. One of our first big stops was Sagrada Familia which is Gaudi's dream church. We didn't go in, but we did hang around outside of it for a long time and then went and got hot chocolate and churros (which were delicious). It was a bit cold and rainy, we stayed inside until we were dry and warm enough to get back on the bus. After that, we went to Park Guell, which is another Gaudi artistic area, but this time its a park designed by him. We walked around for a long time and then sat at the top (its built into a hill) of the park in a cafe and had another pitcher of Sangria. The rest of the day was just riding around and then going out that night. The next day we ventured over to the Picasso museum which was really interesting. I absolutely enjoyed it there and even bought a print of my new favorite Picasso! We tried to go to the Chocolate Museum next, but unfortunately it was closed. We walked around for a long time before we had to collect our luggage and head to our overnight train back. The train was interesting because though we had been told we would get sleeper cars with beds, they had us in chairs - eight to a room. Though I slept( I apparently have a new found talent for sleeping anywhere), the other girls did not. we got back with no problems to Laura's place, where we slept some more and then did a little bit more touring before packing and heading out by ten the next morning.
Our flights were crap on the way home (and really showed us why Alitalia went bankrupt), but we did have a seven hour layover in Rome that we took full advantage of. Erin's friend of the family Jim Pratt is a Jesuit priest that lives at the vatican. He picked us up from the airport and took us to the Vatican for the time in between. It was pretty cool walking around and getting a bit of a behind the scenes tour of where he works and lives. He even opened a bottle of wine in his office and we all sat having a glass before we had to get back to the airport. One really cool thing is that my great uncle Dick is a Jesuit monk, and Jim Pratt was able to look him up in a book that he had that lists all of the Jesuits in the US. I was excited.
But now I'm back in Egypt where I have to unpack and do laundry all day. Fun! It was a great trip, and I hope to have pictures up soon!