We're in Barcelona

Hello, everyone.

Just a short update, I'm too tired for anything substantial.

We've made it safely back to Barcelona, and turned in awful, awful car. I guess the car wasn't that awful, but I didn't like it much. Maybe it was because of the confusing Spanish signage, the difficulty of driving a stick shift, or the daunting prospect of attempting to navigate even a small accident in an acquired language, but I feel that I will enjoy the trip much more now that the stress of the car is behind us.

Especially after Rachel accidentally shifted into second instead of fourth when we were going about fifty miles per hour, causing my sunglasses to literally fly off of my face.

Okay, that was actually pretty funny, but I'm still glad to go by train and bus from now on.

We spent the first part of the day trying to find Pepe and Pili, Brandon's host family when he was living in Pamplona. We got so close - so close! - but alas, we did not find them. We had to ask directions from several people, and then when we finally thought we had the right building, we knocked... only to have a completely random stranger answer the door. He was very nice though, and offered to look up where we were going on the internet. After he showed us the Google maps street view, we found the right square... but the address given to us was not adequate to allow us to figure out what actual building they lived in. After walking around the square for about half an hour, trying to peek into doors to see names on mail slots and asking several other residents, we finally gave up and headed back to the hostel to get our stuff.

Well, we're here. And tomorrow we head out into Barcelona, for what is one of my most anticipated sights: the architecture of Gaudi.