Donde estas, ahora

Jacob Redding — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 12:43:00 +0000

Last saturday Jenson and I left Marseille at 1am. We took a night train from Marseille to Barcelona and arrived in Barcelona at 9:30am. Fortunately we purchased a sleeper car so we were well rested for the day. After arriving in Barcelona we purchased tickets from Barcelona to Madrid(34 euros)and Madrid to Salamanca(14 euros), the train?to Madrid left at 10pm that evening. That left us 12 hours in Barcelona.

We grabbed a tourist map of Barcelona and set out on foot to see as many sites as we could in the 12 hour period. We walked about 8 miles that day and saw a very large chunk of Barcelona. I?ll upload the pictures as soon as I can. Barcelona is a very nice town but I wouldn?t want to stay there for very long, much too touristy for me.

At 10pm we caught the train to Barcelona and arrived in Madrid at 7am, the next train to Salamanca arrived at 8:45 am and arrived at 12:00. We were picked up at the train station by the manager of the apartment we were renting, which we rented through the school. The apartment is absolutely amazing. It is old and things are nowhere near modern but, as this is huge, the view from our balcony is absolutely amazing. It is honestly just like a postcard. I?ll upload pictures as soon as I can.. but just trust me, it is amazing.

Ok I have to get, I don?t want to be on a computer on a day like this (27-28 degrees).

Off to Spain

Jacob Redding — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 09:09:00 +0000

Today Jenson and I head off for Barcelona, Spain. It was quite an interesting story when we went to purchase the tickets. Jenson is fluent in French and I know absolutely nothing except for my numbers and a few choice words. Alright so Jenson and I go to the train station and we wait in line for about two hours until we finally get to the counter. Jenson talks to the girl on the other side of the counter for 30 minutes trying to get a reservation to Salamanca, Spain. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, she says that she can not reserve a ticket all the way to Salamanca, she can only get us to Barcelona. It has something to do with the RENFE, Spain's rail system. Since we can't reserve all the way to Salamanca we had no choice but to go to Barcelona, so we ask to reserve our tickets.

Unfortunatley because she kept trying to reserve the tickets to Salamanca the transaction had been completely screwed up and it would take a while to fix but since she was close to clocking out for the day she told us to go to another window. Fun. So we went to another window and talked to this gentleman who was really nice and helped us out right away. He asked how many tickets and our ages. Since I am 25 I get a discount and my tickets was 40 euros and Jenson's was 55. He then asked if we wanted a sleeper car. Jenson asked me about five times if I wanted one and I told him that I didn't mind sleeping in a seat, but after the fifth I finally caved and said ya whatever. The guy rang us up and handed us our bills, 61 for Jenson and 62 for me. hhmmm.. something isn't right.

We asked the guy what was up (ok Jenson asked the guy, I just stared at them both) and he apologized for flipping our bills around I paid for Jenson's and Jenson paid for mine. That would still make my bill 61 from 40. The little thing he forgot to mention was that Spain doesn't recognize the youth discount on sleepers...Fun. Eh oh well, I could have exchanged it but I didn't care much, besides a sleeper is worth it. Except......

After stepping away from the ticket counter we looked at the particulars of our tickets, just to be sure everything was correct. That's when we discovered that we have to change trains at 6:30am at the border. Fun.

Again, whatever. We'll live and it'll be fine for the length of time we get the sleeper.

Ok so now we have our tickets and we're all set to go. This morning we headed to campus and took our final. It only took about two hours or so and was 4 essay questions in length. I handwrote about 6 pages to complete the final, nothing big. After completing the final Jenson and I headed to the computer lab and worked on our Business project for a few hours (which is where I am now). I just looked up sites in Barcelona and research the trains to Salamanca. So for those of you who are interested here's the cost breakdown on getting from Marseille, France to Salamanca, Spain by train.

Marseille --> Barcelona 40 euros (youth <=25) 61 with a sleeper, 55 adults 62/sleeper
Barcelona --> Madrid 33.50 euro for a night train 59 for a non-night train
Madrid --> Salamanca 14 euros

We haven't purchased the train tickets yet so we may get on a fast train. I'll update ya on the actual price once we get them, but for now that's what you get. The RENFE.es website reservation system sucks (as we've discovered).

Ok I'm done for now, I'll post again when I'm in Spain.

barcelona

Donde estas, ahora

Off to Spain