Josie and Emily's Adventures Abroad!

Oh dear, oh dear. I continue to be approximately two and a half months behind, which is stressful for me and perhaps frustrating for you (if there are still people even checking my poor neglected blog...) since it means I don't remember many of the good little anecdotes that make blogs actually interesting to follow. Ack! I apologize. But at least I haven't given up entirely!

As a little aside and glimpse into my life at the current moment, everyone and their mom (except me) is done with their teaching contract and leaving within the next week and it's semi-traumatizing. Who knew 7 months in France would just fly by? Oh wait, everyone. And there ARE actually several other people who prolonged their contracts too and are still working and several others who are done working but are staying to bum around. PLUS, I have finally succeeded in finding French friends and of course they're all still here too. So never fear, my social life here probably won't suffer too much after everyone leaves, but it's still sad. :( And my roommate is leaving on Monday morning, abandoning me in our apartment alone for the entire month of May. It just so happens that NO ONE is coming to visit to take advantage of my amazing luck at having an awesome 2-bedroom apartment all to myself for an entire month! Poor planning on your part... ;)

Anyway, back to the task at hand. Soooooooooooo. JOSIE!!!! A couple hours after my parents left on Saturday, February 20th (and after several mishaps at the train station at Charles de Gaulle airport because those Parisians just aren't helpful at all), Josie and I met up at the Lyon Part Dieu train station. YAY!!!!!! We hugged, speed chatted for an hour, ate some pastries, and promptly fell asleep on my couch for what was probably 4 hours. Feeling a little more lively on Sunday and because Josie brought gorgeous spring weather with her, we did a mini tour of Lyon and then took bikes and went to the park.

The next day, we were off to Barcelona!!! Smooth sailing on Easyjet from Lyon to Barcelona, where we easily found our cute little hostel, Mambo Tango, and were off exploring by early Monday afternoon. We hiked a huge hill to this big park right behind our hostel and wandered around the old Olympic stadium area. Then, just as we reached the peak overlooking the marina, the threatening rain clouds disappeared and the sun came out and it was spring in February!

After a quick nap at the hostel to refresh, we went off in search of a restaurant with some sort of vegetarian option for Josie. The few listed in our guidebook were all randomly closed (apparently Spain is like France in that everything is closed on Mondays), but then we stumbled on this adorable "locals" place where we miraculously deciphered the half-Spanish and half-Catalan menu and ended up with delicious salads and amazing little panini-type sandwiches. The one euro beers were an even better surprise! We took a midnight stroll to see the still unfinished Sagrada Familia lit up at night (Gaudi was awesome but CRAZY) and headed back to the hostel.

Tuesday was sunny and beautiful, so we headed downtown along Las Ramblas toward the beach. We walked along the length of the beach collecting shells, startling the lone naked sunbather (an old man who really should have kept his clothes on...), and wading in the cold but refreshing Mediterranean Sea. 

After getting harassed by some Spaniards one too many times, we headed back to town for an interesting if not entirely satisfying lunch of paella. Josie liked her veggie version, but my seafood paella was almost too intense for me with all sorts of unidentifiable seafood goodies hidden under the rice... :)

More wandering in the afternoon through the cutest little back streets where we found an awesome and very affordable jewelry shop to buy ourselves Barcelona mementos before touring the Picasso Museum and heading back to the hostel before dinner. We were a little early for dinner because we wanted to get to a bar to watch the Barcelona soccer team play, but we ended up at this amazing tapas place on Las Ramblas with perhaps the best sangria I have ever had. 

We eventually found a bar to watch the game, and then moved on to an Irish pub where the night degenerated a bit after we met some Brits who took it upon themselves to keep our glasses full. Unfortunately for you, I have decided that Barcelona is much like Vegas: What happens in Barcelona, stays in Barcelona. ;) Suffice it to say, the night was hilarious and long and neither of us moved from our beds until about noon the next day...

We slowly motivated our way to Park Guell, which is full of Gaudi buildings and sculptures, and with the hot summer weather, it was heaven lying in the grass soaking up the sun and listening to the hundreds of random musicians stationed all around the park.

Rounded out the day (and the trip) with one of the most amazing dinners I have ever eaten at a little hole-in-the-wall tapas place mentioned in our guidebook. The tapas were original and so beautifully presented that I almost didn't want to eat them. But I did, don't worry! 

Back to our hostel to go to bed early since we were still worn out from the previous night's escapades... Unfortunately, apparently the 11pm quiet hour at the hostel didn't apply to the hostel workers themselves because they had a huge dinner with 18,000 of their closest friends that BEGAN at 11:30pm in the lobby right below our first floor room. Awesome. Thanks a pantload, as my dad would say. Although, all in all, the hostel was really nice as far as hostels go, with linen included along with a really nice breakfast. 

But due to a poor night's sleep, I was not in a very good mood when we got to the airport the next morning to find out that French air traffic controllers were on strike for some reason or another meaning that the flights going into, out of, and over France were severely diminished and our flight was going to be delayed. First, it was two hours. Then it was three hours. Then it was just to be determined. Finally, at 3:30, they let us board the plane that was supposed to leave at 11:00am because if we were all boarded then perhaps we would get a sooner take-off time. No such luck. We sat in the plane on the runway until 5:30 without having eaten since the hostel breakfast at 8. Oh, good times.

But, like the troopers we are, we got back to Lyon, dropped our stuff off at my apartment, and headed off to meet up with my friends since most people were back from their vacation travel and I wanted Josie to meet everyone. Since we had brought the nice weather back with us, Josie got a taste of a typical Lyon night out with drinking beers outside on Place des Terreaux. The good weather stuck around the next day for our more thorough tour of Lyon and a walk along the river. Then on Saturday, we headed off to Grenoble and the Alps with Patrick and Ruth. Although it was beautiful and sunny in Lyon, the mountains around Grenoble had apparently trapped cold air and clouds around the city so the views weren't quite as amazing as they could have been. 

But the city was quaint, and the hike up to the old fort was awesome. There were little workout stations along the way to do pull-ups, sit-ups, etc., and of course we stopped at each of them. :) 

It was super windy at the top so we took the obligatory pictures, peered off in the direction of Mont Blanc to see if we could make out its outline (we couldn't) and then headed to these little caves for shelter.

We had brought a picnic lunch, and because it was so cold and windy, we were forced to drink a little more wine than we had planned on to keep warm. 

Probably good since the wine distracted us enough to not notice as much that pieces of the rock ceiling above us kept falling into our drinks and food, perhaps indicating that our little perch wasn't quite as stable as it looked... 

We took the little gondola balls down--a little disturbing since the wind was shaking them and the doors were kind of old and crusty and didn't even shut all the way! Stopped for some quick shopping and then caught the train back to Lyon in time to make an appearance at an apèro at Sara's house where Josie got to meet most of the rest of my crew here.

A bit more wandering and stuffing our faces with good food on Sunday before Josie left on Monday morning and I pulled myself together to go back to work.