Aye - ¡que pobrecita!

Joder.

Exhaustion nearly made me sick in Valencia. We waited for our flight in an impeccably clean airport. True to Barcelona tradition, our gate was full of people dressed to impress. I immediately felt inferior. Scott and I were so tired we were basically communicating in grunts at this time; peppered with a few, "I'm sooo tired." We got lazy quickly and our Spanish turned into Spanglish and finally English.

Being on Spanish time is taking some getting used to. For example, for a 10:55 flight we started boarding at 10:49. Scott and I joked that the plane would be the size of a private jet, possibly with two prop engines. We weren't far off. As soon as I sat down, I passed out. We got to Barcelona and I was instantly relieved. Almost there...

False.

I promise I am not exaggerating when I say that from Valencia, we took a plane, a bus, a train, a subway and then walked a to our apartments. And, of course, it was 987927343 degrees. The bus took us to a train station. Apparently one train comes every couple hours because we were so packed on this train my nose is permanently damaged from the BO and I was sure I'd be pick-pocketed clean. I took all my euro and my month-metro pass out of my purse and stuffed them in my bra. It seemed like a great idea at the time... but so do most ideas. There was luggage everywhere, and people sitting, standing, breathing everywhere near us. At this point, we had been up for 26 hours straight and we were becoming delirious.

We got off and had to switch to the metro. I have a 25 lbs backpack on and a 55 lb suitcase behind me. Scott has two suitcases. We were faced with several sets of stairs and we walked into the metro. At first, we found the fact that there were no escalators comical. Scott and I have never had the best of luck. Pretty soon, the comedy wore off and we were downright dreading the rest of the trip. Up a flight, down a flight, up two flights, onto a metro, get off the metro, up a flight, down a flight, connect to the next metro. By the end I was dragging my suitcase down the stairs, hitting every single step with a giant BANG. Believe me, this earned me some awesome looks from the locals. When my suitcase got stuck in the turn-table at the next stop, I contemplated giving up leaving it... until some local guy grabbed it with both hands and tossed it over for me. I gave him a sheepish smile. What a tourist. We got to the last stop, La Sagrada Familia, and we were almost home free...

As we walked toward the exit, we could see there was a flight of stairs, going UP, just around the corner. Maybe about 15 steps in total. "Joder," I said to Scott. (The most local way of cursing the steps). He laughed in disbelief. As we rounded the corner, we both stopped short. It wasn't just 15 steps. It was 15 steps to a landing... that lead to about another 25 steps. I looked at Scott and burst into a fit of laughter. All I could say was "No way. Nooo way." He laid into the steps with force but I took a different approach. We were going on 29 hours without sleep now and I had had it. I tried to drag my suitcase up but this was obviously expending the most energy. So I had to lift the suitcase, one step at a time, up all 40 steps. About half way through Scott already reached the top and I was giggling like a crazy person. I looked up, realized I was never going to make it, and stood there laughing and crying all at the same time - very crazy. That's when some local woman came up behind me and said, "Ay! Que pobrecita!" (Oh you poor little thing!) Grabbed my suitcase, and brought it up the stairs. She probably thought I was a psycho because I was crying while thanking her HAHA! Even retelling the story makes me laugh. Scott and I got to our apartments, met everyone we're living with and literally passed out.

It's 10pm here and the woman in my apartment, Lita, is stepping out the door to go dancing. She's a character. I just woke up for a 4 hour nap to field a phone call from Scott who is desperately trying to find an adapter to fit his computer. Tragic. I'm going to give the sleeping another go - we have an early class in the morning. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to enjoy this beautiful city. A hellish trip here certainly won't ruin the next month! Besitos!