Day One

(written last night)

Day One in Barcelona welcomed hot hot hot sun, patchy sunburn on my elbows, thinghs and feet! and a lot of naked boobs, old man penis, and naked flesh in general. One guy was actually walking along the beach completely starkers and had a tattooed bottom - just a complete black, shaded arse - one of the oddest things I´ve seen in my years. Despite regularly attending Glade and Amsterdam visits, and generally living in Brighton.
We started the day off nicely with a ripe sangira hangover, first night in hostel disorientation, free breakfast of some form of oat cereal and warm milk, and went about our day. Staying in a room with 6 other people who change on a daily basis - when we first arrived, we were sharing with 2 american girls who had lengthy drunken discussions about Lady Gaga and The Hills with. Tonight, it was politics and Obama with a strange guy named Alex from Florida. There´s what we think to be a Russian guy, sleeping in the bed above Charlie.. he has lots of tattooes and kind of looks like an escaped convict. Doesn´t speak a word of English (or maybe he does¿!?!). Weirdest thing was today at the beach, amongst all the naked sunbathers, a group of English lads rocked up next to us and guess where they were from? Of all the cities and countries in the world they were from Brighton lol. Here to enjoy the football, lads on tour behaviour, and get drunk in the sun and shag some birds. Charlie hated them but they seemed pretty nice.
Anyways, so began our day wandering aimlessly in what we beleived to be the right direction, towards the Gaudi cathedral, turns out we were wrong but redeemed ourselves! and after much confusion and losing the cathedral once or twice, made it and OH MY GOD. Breathtaking. Sunch intricate detail and sublime structure. I won´t ramble on and bore you with emotional details but fuck me, you´ve never seen anything like it. We went inside and I just wanted to cry. Stunning and a real shame that it´s under construction but I think it´s good that they´re continuing his work.

After the cahtedral and being continuously told not to sit there, and could you please move over there, we hoped on the metro and headed for the beach. AMAZING! Crystal, glitter water, golden sand, and far too many attractive naked sunbathers sprawled everywhere but of course me and Charlie went and joined them! Can safely say I celebrated my coming of age after much "go on i dare you, i will if you will", publicly sunbathing topless haha (stopped immediately as soon as Brighton lads arrived!!) No sunburnt nipples - yes Mum, am using suncream - factor 25). Went fro lunch on a gorgeous terrace stretch right along the beach which reminded me of Tel Aviv in Israel. Tasted my first proper Spanish paella and God was it good (but Charlie did have to decapitate the prawns for me as they came whole and it was a bit too much to handle). Had a beautiful cheesecake and chocolate brownie (me and Whiz did half an half), then we headed on to check out La Ramblas. Busy! But really cool and totally reminded me of a European Brighton. All good except for the freaky life statues and lots of birds kept in cages - not a fan and got really scared that I was going to see a puppy or a kitten and have to leave Spain forever. Brought a 2euro brclet from the market and have decided going to buy a cheap one every place I go ¨) We got the metro back and Whiz brought a Dunkin Doughnut. Back at the hostel and had a quick one hour sleepy - you forget how much the sun drains you! Sitting in hostel bar now, enjoying one endless jug of sangria. Completely blessed by all the facebook love I recieved on my birthday - thank you all, means so much and was really touched by it! So far only thing I´m missing from England is people and Newsagents (you can´t find them anywhere!) and speaking to mum and Phoebe! So brilliant and really enjoying not having a phone but do promise to sort one once I get to Valencia and stay with Fern. Can´t think of anything more to say apart from I miss England but not that much :p and am really, really happy here! Hope everyone´s OK, love and misses xx