So far several adventures have taken place, a fantastic feat all things considered (we aren't even halfway through our travel week!). Each regards our actual traveling, and as I am sure you will see, each is quite spectacular in its own right.
RyanAir is a great company. They offer ticket prices for a fraction of the cost of what most airline tickets go for. But. Yes, there is the but. But they are a wee bit loose in their terminology regarding which airports the various flights go out of. And so it was a stroke of genius on Rainey's part to have our group take the earliest train to Munich (where our flight to Barcelona would depart from) that would allow us almost four hours between arriving and departing. When we arrived at the Munich airport, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from our success in arriving so early, we were informed that our flight would be departing from a much smaller airport about an hour and a half away. Understand that at this point, it was about two hours from the actual departure time and just over an hour and a half from the time the gate closed (we still don't know what this means). The nice German ladies told us to take a taxi or a train, and that we may have time to make the flight. And so, lugging all of our gear, we frantically trotted towards the area where all of cabs were milling about and managed to secure a taxi-van-thing that we would all fit in. It took us a total of seventy-five minutes to drive from one airport to the other, on the autobahn. Yes, that's right, we got to ride on the freakin' autobahn! In a taxi-van-thing driven by a man who looked strangely similar to Liev Schreiber. Once at the airport it took all of us a matter of ten minutes to get checked in and to make it through security, even with Lindsey getting run through security three times.
Barcelona is beautiful, by the way. When planning out our trip I was perfectly fine with us only staying one day; I was rather concerned about pick-pocketing and I figured the less time, the better. I really really wish we had been able to stay another night or two because goodness is Barcelona gorgeous. I just... wow. I can't get over it. One of the things that I've noticed a lot since being in Europe is the almost flawless melding of discomforts and joys. It's a rather wonderful way to live, in my opinion, and it was particularly prevalent in Spain (as it was also prevalent in Rome- connection? maybe? yes, I think so); it allows for a greater and deeper appreciation of both sides of life.
Getting out of Barcelona and to Nice was... interesting. For those of you who don't know, France is a tad bit peculiar in their train systems and it makes getting into and out of France difficult for those of us using EUrail passes. We were able to book our train out of Spain just fine, because it was, well, out of Spain. However, we weren't able to book any of our other trains because they originated in France. The plan was to reserve seats for each train in the train station when we arrived, a plan quickly obliterated by the total desolation of the first train station we were to do this in. This is where Alice, Beck, and Dave popped up- three Australian backpackers that were absolutely hilarious and wonderful. The six of us, together with another man who's name I've forgotten and who acted as the quintessential obnoxious American, banded together and found out that we could basically beg the conductor to let us on the train. So, when the train arrived, we befriended this extremely sassy and very helpful willowy woman, who not only let us on the train but gave us a discounted price because of our group. Essentially the same thing happened with the night train, though at this point the obnoxious one had opted out of traveling for the rest of the night because he didn't want to pay the price for a night train ticket, and so it was just the six of us.
En route to Nice, Alice and I talked and talked about the differences between American and Australian societies. Learning about how their universities and educational system are set up was incredibly interesting (why the heck do we not have gap years?!). She and I ended up talking about politics and our respective countries' roles in world affairs. and somehow we wound up talking about racial issues. We spoke of how the "racial problem" as we called it is so huge and the real issue with it. That is, that the solutions often make it worse. For instance, the whole minority scholarship thing. It's a great idea, but there are many who believe it should have been discontinued a couple of generations down from the civil rights movement. Now, if someone petitions to eradicate such programs, they end up being labeled as "racist." Things like that make it so incredibly difficult to address the issue, and without addressing it the whole problem could continue to feed on itself. We also talked about the Aboriginal population in Australia and how much they've been abused. I've read a little bit about it over the years, but not much at all. Learning about the... oh goodness, I can't remember the word; anyways, learning about how a couple of decades ago, children were taken from their families and put into foster care to be "assimilated" into white Australian society, and how they more often than not ended up being abused and basically put into slavery... that horrified me. And it horrified me that I had never really taken the initiative to learn much about Australian history and life and culture. I find myself so often letting my vision be focused on me and who is around me that I don't really think about the world and the people of other countries. There's so much to learn about other cultures and other people that it's a waste of time to continue on with this silly introspective habit. After talking to Alice, I definitely want to travel to Australia and a few Asian countries- China, Japan, Thailand- to get a more level impression of humanity. There's so much to see, and I've only just grazed the surface.
Nice was our breather. Virginia, Kate, and I were incredibly worn down by the time fall break started; we all agreed that Nice was going to be our time of relaxation. It is such a lovely city, right on the coast and very hilly. Our hostel was absolutely fantastic, and that in combination with the no-stress public transportation and the mild weather made for a very calm three days. Once again, I would love to go back.
