Day 7: Barcelona, Spain and Carcassonne, France (Thursday, August 14th)

Well, our plan this morning was to be ready for the day and down at breakfast by 8:30 so when I woke up at 8:20 and we were all dead asleep I knew that wasn't going to happen! We were only a few minutes late so we didn't waste too much time and after such an early start the day before we definitely needed the rest. Breakfast was provided by the hostel and wasn't too terrible. I'll say this: Our hostel was decent enough but I'm glad we were only there one night. I'm ready to move on!

Update on the "drunken bed thiefs", as my mom called them: It actually wasn't a big deal at all! Maybe because they didn't come back to the room until 6:00am this morning? I vaguely heard them talking but they didn't make a huge fuss about it and they were still sleeping by the time we left. Thank goodness! I kinda sensed a fight coming on!

We checked out of our hostel at 10 o'clock and took a taxi to pick up our rental car, which we will have for the rest of our trip. It will be so nice having the car! We'll be driving quite a bit but our car for the next ten days only cost us right around $300. Such a steal! Here she is!

Logan describes her as "a happy car that's smiling at us!"

We definitely couldn't visit Barcelona without going to the beach so that was our next stop! 

I'm typically a wuss when it comes to actually swimming in the water (I prefer to just lay on the beach) but the water was quite warm so we all got in and swam for a bit. 

By the time we finished at the beach it was time to get on the road and head to Marseille so we made a quick pitstop at the nicest McDonald's I've ever seen! I sent a bunch of pictures of it to my brother, who works for McDonald's Corp, and he loved hearing about it. One funny fact: They call the drive thru the McAuto. We should totally do that in the states!

**Funny Story**: As we were driving we came across several tolls where you pick a ticket up at one toll and then put it in the machine at the next toll and depending on how far you drove that's how much you have to pay. We had driven pretty far on one of the tickets so the total was €14.20 which is $18.98 but for some reason the machine wouldn't accept any of Tom's credit cards or take cash and on top of that, the toll people didn't speak any English. A big line started to form behind us but we didn't know what to do and after a couple minutes the guy behind us ran up to our car and we expected some sort of reprimand because he was pretty heated but he just shoved his card in and said: "Go!" Haha...thanks, Frenchman! We're guessing he had no clue how much it cost otherwise he wouldn't have paid that much. Oh well! We've decided we'll try to pay it forward somehow this trip. 

Marseille is about 5 hours from Barcelona but Tom had heard about a neat little city in France called Carcassonne that's halfway there so we decided to make a quick stop and I'm so glad we did! It actually wasn't as quick as we thought because we were in love with this place!

At first we thought you could just walk around the wall but inside that castle is an actual little town! The castle is called the Château Comtal and it's one of the neatest things I've ever seen. 

Thanks for the photo bomb, Tom!

We may or may not have spent like $15 on this candy and we don't regret it one bit! It was delicious!

The little town in this castle was filled with sweet shops, gift shops, restaurants, and quaint little streets like this one. 

Views from the outside:

And here are some pictures from our walk back through the main city, Carcassonne. The streets and shops were so quaint, I loved it. 

As we were walking back to our car we ran in to two sister missionaries and had a fun chat with them. One of the sisters was from Finland and the other was from Sweden but they spoke perfect English and when we told them we're from Salt Lake they were so excited! I love that the church makes the world so small!

By the time we left Carcassonne it was around 8:30 and we still hadn't had dinner so we found a little pizza shop that took a ton of our time because they spoke no English so by the time we started heading for Marseille it was around 9:30 and we still had three hours to go. Luckily the pizza was yummy!

Also on our way to Marseille was a Roman colosseum Tom heard was worth seeing so we stopped off in a TINY city called Arles to check it out. I'm pretty sure Arles has the world's smallest streets! It's a good thing we have a really small car otherwise we never would have made it out of there. Logan is convinced he could have touched each building that lined the streets at the same time. Fortunately we got a quick view of the Arles Arena, which was actually pretty neat, and then we found our way out and headed, once again, toward Marseille. 

We're still on the road so I'm going to have to update about our hostel in Marseille in tomorrow's post because we won't get there until after 1am and I'm already exhausted. We were supposed to spend tomorrow seeing Nice but we'll have to split it up and see Marseille and Nice tomorrow. Despite making it to our destination much later than we anticipated, I loved today! Going to the beach and seeing that cute little town were both so much fun! Here's to tomorrow!

Weather Today:

Perfect weather followed us wherever we were today! The weather in Barcelona was great for the beach and it was nice and cool as we walked through Carcassonne. We have had great luck with the weather so far!

Tomorrow: Marseille & Nice, France

I'm excited to see more of France tomorrow! From what I've heard and seen it's such a cute/romantic country. We'll see tomorrow!

Day 6: Barcelona, Spain (Wednesday, August 13th)

Wow. What a morning! You know those days when your hair won't cooperate or do ANYTHING at all? Yep, that was mine this morning. Problem is we were supposed to leave for the airport by 4:30 and I slept through my alarm until 4:15 so I only had 15 minutes to get ready and pack. Lovely. Getting ready to leave in the dark because 15 other people are still sleeping makes it tough to check for all your stuff. I sure hope I didn't leave anything behind in London! 

Our departure ended up being crazy but okay and we happened to make every bus and train we needed to in order to get to the airport with time to spare. We're all sleep deprived but we made it!

We quickly realized that the language barrier will definitely be an issue at times. We weren't sure how to get to the trains in the airport and just about everyone we talked to was super grumpy. Maybe because we only spoke English to them? I'm sure not everyone here is like that!

We took a train and then a quick taxi to our hostel which looks fairly decent. There are only four other people in here with us so that's a plus. On the downside, when we checked in this morning we dropped our bags on the beds we're using and when we came back tonight all of my stuff had been moved to a new bed because apparently someone else wanted it. We talked to the front desk and made sure there aren't assigned beds and they gave us the okay to move my stuff back. Unfortunately there is also an alcohol bottle in the garbage so I'm sure we'll have a real pleasant conversation with them when they come back tonight!

We ate lunch at a little sandwich shop called Pans which I thought was decent enough. I enjoyed it but probably wouldn't care to go back again. 

After eating lunch and dropping our bags we took a train into the city and did a bit of sightseeing. I'm so sad we don't have more time here--we found some really neat things! 

Random, I know, but we thought this massive vending machine was pretty cool!

As we walked out of the subway station, this is the view we had. So cool!

This building below is the National Museum of Art. We took a ton of pictures and spent quite a bit of time here. 

Isn't this an amazing view from near the museum?  So pretty! I sent this picture to my brother, Paul, who seved a mission in Spain. I think he was a bit jealous!

The rest of the pictures are from the amazing Sagrada Família. We were told this is the number one thing we had to do in Barcelona, especially given how little time we have here and it didn't disappoint! It has been under construction for a long time and will be for quite a few more years but it was still incredible. These pictures are neat but they definitely don't do it justice. 

What a cool experience we had there! I told Logan we definitely have to go back when it's finished--in 2026. Haha. After the Sagrada Familia we found a little Asian restaurant for dinner called Wok Show. The food tasted pretty good but the portions were tiny for how much we paid. By this point it was quite late so we made our way back to the hostel and called it a night. 

Aside from a few minor glitches, our first day here in Barcelona was great! I'm sad we'll be in and out so quick but look forward to the little time we have tomorrow to see a few more things. Buenas Noches!

Weather Today:

The weather today was fantastic! It was cold in London this morning so I wore jeans and a light sweater and just about melted when we touched down in the 90 degree heat! I'd rather be hot than cold any day, though, so I definitely won't complain!

Tomorrow: Marseille, France

The only thing I know about Marseille is that it was one of the destinations on the Bachelorette this past season (yes, I watch it) and it's beautiful!

Day 5: London, England (Tuesday, August 12th)

What a great last full day in London! First on the docket this morning was the Tower of London. We met my dad there and briefly saw some of his group before joining him for a tour. The Tower of London is super neat and the Crown Jewels are amazing! I could have looked at the Crown Jewels forever. Pictures of the jewels aren't allowed but I was able to get some pictures of the tower. The tour guide we had was pretty funny and loved making fun of Americans. 

Following the Tower of London we walked across the Tower Bridge and caught a taxi to visit St. Paul's Cathedral--another thing I had heard great things about! 

We made it to the cathedral just in time to watch the communion for The Church of England. It's so interesting to learn how other people around the world worship and pray to God. I don't think this lady was too enthused:

I had only gotten a couple pictures inside the cathedral before being asked not to take any more and there isn't a great spot outside to get a picture of the whole thing because it's so big. 

We enjoyed lunch at a restaurant called Garfunkle's and then split up from Tom because he wasn't feeling well and needed to lie down back at the hostel. Chelsie and I are avid Harry Potter fans so we really wanted to make it to King's Cross station while we're here and fortunately Logan and my dad were game so the four of us took a taxi through parts of the city we hadn't seen yet before slipping a little further into my Harry Potter dreams!

The Harry Potter shop was awesome! They had anything you could possibly imagine from t-shirts to wall hangings to wands to any other replica item you can imagine from the books. I would love to one day have a library in our home and fill it with everything we saw from that store! Chelsie and I got matching shirts and my cute dad bought me three HP books; The Tales of Beetle the Bard, Quidditch Through the Ages, and Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. He's so good to me!

See this trolley? The main reason we went to King's Cross was to take a picture of us holding on to that but the line was at least an hour wait and we just didn't have that kind of time. We have to come back one day to take that picture and go to the WB Harry Potter Studio. 

We still had a bit of time after King's Cross so we went to Harrod's--the world's largest department store!  I had heard it was massive but there's no way to truly understand how massive until you see it for yourself. And to think I thought the Mall of America is huge! The crazy thing about Harrod's is that it's not even a mall, just one giant, EXPENSIVE store.  Here are a few pictures of one of the candy "rooms".  II don't think the pictures really do it justice but trust me, this candy looked like it should be on display forever and never be eaten!  What a crazy experience!

And here we are next to a fancy Harrod's bear:

After Harrod's we went back to our hostel to meet up with Tom and find something for a late dinner. There is a small pizza place across the street from where we're staying called Pizza da Vinci so we got food from there and ended up staying in the rest of the night. We have another early morning tomorrow so we want to be sure we get a decent sleep tonight. Goodnight, London!

Weather Today:

Like the last couple days, the weather was quite nice today!  It was a little windier, which made it a bit chilly at times, but we were never caught in the rain so that was really nice.  Considering what we were told the weather could be like, I'm really pleased with how much sun we had while we were here!

London has been amazing!  It's sad to think our time here is already up. We've had so much fun the past two and a half days and I couldn't have hoped for anything better. While I'm bummed we have to leave, I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Tomorrow: Barcelona, Spain

I can't wait to get to Spain!  Both my brother and brother-in-law served their missions in Spain so we're excited to see where they spent two years of their lives. Vamonos!