I'm...dancing...(said in Garth voice) (May 8th)

Hola!...just showing off my master of the Spanish language.

So, it's impossible to sleep late in a hostel. This one in particular is basically just a giant room with 5 separate "rooms." These "rooms" all have walls in between them, but there's 2 feet of space between the end of the wall and the ceiling...all of this means that if one person is snoring 3 rooms over, you hear it.

Not very refreshed, I planned on walking up to see the Olympic Stadium and any other cool things along the way. I got lost a bit, but that's the nice part about visiting a foreign land with no real agenda.

I wandered, I wandered...stopped for a swinging brake...Wandering, wandering.

Finally I got to the stadium and was amazed that they let you walk around in the stands for free. I was suprised, it looked a lot smaller then Jack Trice, but apparently it holds 55,000 in the possiblity to expand it to 77,000 for big events....like the Olympics. Very small looking though, but a beautifully designed stadium.

Wandering, wandering....stopped for some gelato (up 6 now!)...wandering, wandering.

I had made plans to met up with the Detroit girls at Mercat Boqueria, which was a huge open air market with fresh fruits, meats and vegetables. It was complete sensory overload...I wanted everything! They had really cheap bing cherries, so I'll definitely be back tomorrow.

I tried to save money, so I went and bought some bread, ketchup, chips and HOTDOGS!!! I miss Iowa and summer food.

After my delicious hotdog dinner, the Cornell girls, a guy named Matt, and I went out on the town. We got to a bar and had Sangria, which is another specialty of the region. I was having a good time, but I then spied the ugliest thing I've ever seen...the Hawkeye logo. Ugh!

But it was on a shirt worn by a guy from University of Iowa, so I decided to shake off the rivalry and talk to him. It's nice to talk to people who have actually heard of the town you're from. I've been generically saying Iowa when asked about where I'm from...much like when you ask someone where they're from in Iowa, they reply with a corner of the state, not the town. But Cody, I think his name was, was from Dubuque, so we had a nice little chat about the good ole state of Iowa.

After that we went dancing at a discoteque, which was a lot of fun. I was hoping to dance some Salsa since I had mastered it in France, but alas it was just like dancing back in the states. Guys grinding on girls listening to overly bassed up remixed Pop music. All in all though, it was pretty fun. Knowing I would never see anybody from here again, I cut loose and unleashed my "moves." By the end of the night my pockets were full of the phone numbers of every girl at the bar...they INSISTED that I have them, which who could blame them....I'm a REALLY good dancer.

Spanish guys kept on wrangling Kim away from the pack and "dancin' up on her." (I have to put things like that in quotes cause I can't even TYPE like a "G") We all offered her rescuing, but she stuck with it for a bit. She eventually got outta there safely and we headed back to the hostel, sweaty and tired.

Matt, from Canada, got us all singing the Star Spangled Banner on the way home, which was very funny. An odd variety of music was sang after that, from Don't Stop Believing to A Whole New World...which just wasn't the same without Places Productions rocking it out.

Tone deaf and tired, I hit then bed and was out.