On Friday, my friends and I decided to meet up in Barcelona for a fun weekend after a long week of classes. Chelsey came from Andorra with a ride from a teacher from her school, Erin lives just outside of Barcelona and was able to take a bus and a metro, and I decided to take the train up there.
So I did my research and took my two buses to get to the train station. I got off the bus at El Serallo, or the port of Tarragona. I walked around where I thought I had to get to the train, but there was no indication of the train station being at the port. I pulled up the Maps app on my phone and got the directions to the correct area. I was a 20 minute walk from the train station.
Almost as soon as I had pulled up the directions, the lightning that I had seen when I got off the bus proved to be a precursor to a huge downpour of rain. Just before I left, I had perfected my curled hair and flawless make up. All that effort had been ruined in about a minute. I was pulling my suitcase along as I was getting drenched down to the core. I walked through giant puddles in suede shoes. My suitcase kept rolling all over the place because of the cobblestones. I was definitely not in a great part of the city because the rain was making the streets smell as all the dirt was being washed away.
Finally, twenty minutes before the train was set to depart, I had found the train station. I went to the kiosk to buy the ticket, but my hands were too wet for the computer screen to recognize my touch. I rubbed my hands up and down on my soaked jeans, trying to make them at least a little drier. Finally, I had some success and purchased my ticket for the 6:32 PM train to Barcelona.
I didn’t want to miss the train, so instead of going to the bathroom and changing my clothes, I decided to try to find the correct platform to the train. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a train before, and definitely not one by myself in a foreign country. I found out my train was coming onto platform 4 and I made my way that way. I was confused when a train came onto the platform, hoping it wasn’t the train for Barcelona. I heard the familiar sounds of English being spoken, and better yet, with the Generalized American Accent. I went up to the two girls and asked if they were taking the train to Barcelona, too. They were. 🙂
We started talking to pass the time. They are studying abroad in Barcelona for a semester and decided to come down to Tarragona for a day trip. The time had hit 6:32 and there was no indication of a train coming. Minutes kept passing by, but no train came. After sprinting to the bathroom and sprinting back because I heard a train coming into the station, only for it to not be the wrong train, the train finally came at 7:20, almost an hour after the scheduled departure time.
I texted my friends in Barcelona saying I’d be an hour later than I had initially planned on being there. Luckily, Chelsey had gotten delayed, too, due to the storms in the mountains. I arrived into Barcelona just after 8:30. I walked up out of the train station onto the Passeig de Gràcia to the beautiful sight of the Casa Batlló lit up in the dark of the night, one of my favorite buildings in Barcelona. The atmosphere was incredible. It was dark outside, but the streets were alive. Finally, I made my way to my friends at a little restaurant where we had some tapas and wine (only to be surprised later with a 60 Euro bill).
So after my initial drama, I made it safely to Barcelona with my friends. We walked around the city, going from the center of the city, to the port, the Gothic Quarter, and who knows where else. I had a great night out on the town, too, where we ended up on the beach along the Mediterranean until 5 in the morning when it started to rain. My trip back down to Tarragona still had a little drama, when I got to the train station 5 minutes before the train was departing and I ran around the train station like a chicken with its head cut off to ensure I was on the right side of the platform. Although I was initially scared I had gotten on the wrong train, I made it back to Tarragona safely.
Hopefully, I’ll make a much less dramatic trip back up to Barcelona at the end of the month!
