Dramarama.

When we got back to San Sebastian, we walked across the city to the train station and attempted, unsuccessfully, to get a train to Barcelona.  Knowing how the trains work, I figured if we could get a little closer, we could probably catch a train to BCN further down the line, so we got reservations on the train to Pamplona (you know, the city where they have the infamous "Running of the Bulls).  I figured, even if we couldn't catch a train to BCN, Pamplona is touristy enough that we wouldn't have any trouble finding a place to stay near the station, then we could go on to BCN in the morning.

We got to Pamplona around 7:00 PM and still couldn't catch a train to BCN.  Frustrating, but not the end of the world.  Ben was still in a lousy mood, and I decided I would just go along with whatever he wanted to do and let him make the decisions to see if that would help.  He decided we should try going to the bus station and take a bus to Zaragoza to see if we could get there faster and catch a train from there.  We hopped on a bus and rode across Pamplona (cute city...I would totally hang out there--a definite mix of old and new) to the bus station, which was HUGE and, interestingly, underground.  We bought tickets on the next bus to Zaragoza, and were confused when it wasn't in the spot where it was supposed to be.  Because luck was on our side, some Spanish folks went looking for it and must have found our bus, because some lady came over and started shouting at us and motioning for us to run to the other side of the station...so we did.  We ended up CHASING our bus out of the station, and just managed to catch up with it.  *sigh*  Oh, the adventures.

We arrived in Zaragoza around 9:30ish, and at that point Ben decided he didn't want to continue on to BCN and arrive there super late.  We walked outside the train station and he looked at me and said, "What do we do now?" 

I said, "Well, if you don't want to keep going, then I suggest we find a place to stay." 

"Okay, how do we do that?"

Really??  "We need to find a hotel and see if they have any vacancies, just like we did in Lourdes.  You know how to do this." 

"Okay, I'll follow your lead."

Wait...what??  SERIOUSLY???  After he was the one who got us into this?  Oh geez....  "Ummm....we just need to walk around and find a place."  Mind you, Zaragoza is a big city, not a tourist town, and did I mention that Ben was the one with the guidebook and map, NOT me?  Holy crow.  I have to admit, I was more than a little frustrated at this point.

After about 20 minutes of walking, I finally spotted an internet cafe, so I suggested we go in and see if we could find something online.

I looked for a little while and couldn't find anything that met both criteria of a)being within Ben's price range and b)having a vacancy that night.  Since my search was turning out to be fruitless, I decided to research Barcelona, and found numerous places with vacancies for two nights.  I told Ben (who was checking his e-mail, not helping find anything) what I was finding and suggested we go back to the train station and head on to BCN.

"Well," he said, "I've decided maybe I should just listen to you, since you know what you're doing, and I'm the one who got us into this mess in the first place."  Well, at least he realized that!

So we booked the hostel in BCN, wrote down directions to get there when we arrived in BCN, and headed back to the train station.

When we got there, we quickly realized the ticket windows had closed about 2 minutes earlier and we couldn't get a ticket to Barcelona for any of the late trains that night.  Argh.  We saw there were busses leaving about every hour for Barcelona, so decided to try for a bus.  We found the next bus that was leaving for BCN, but the driver told us we had to buy a ticket from a ticket window (from a person, not a machine--that's what we finally got from him).  Oi.  Here we go again.  We finally found an open ticket window, and managed to miss the bus by about two minutes.  Yay.  So we bought tickets for the 1:01 AM bus.  

By now it was after midnight, which made it Ben's birthday.  And let me tell you, he was NOT happy.  I tried to buy us ice cream from a vending machine to smooth things over, but to no avail.  I finally managed to get a couple KitKat Bars, so I gave him one as a birthday present (hoping to cheer him up and chill him out a bit).  I pulled out my journal and settled in to wait the hour until our bus would arrive.

Ben sat down and said, "I hate this."

"Well," I replied, "this is part of traveling.  It's an adventure, and sometimes things don't work out exactly as you planned.  You just have to be okay with it and go with it.  This is what traveling is about."

"Well if this is traveling, then I don't like traveling."  

I sighed.  "You know, it's all a part of your attitude.  You can be all upset and bummed out and frustrated, or you can just accept that it's part of the adventure.  It's your choice."

He thought about that for awhile and said, "You know, it wasn't hard to be away from my girlfriend because even though we're apart, I was having lots of fun, so I wasn't missing her that much.  But this isn't fun, and that's making it a lot harder because now I'm really missing her."  

"I get that," I said.  "And I miss Erik, too.  But this will be a memory and an experience and everything's going to be fine.  We're safe, we have a place to stay when we get to Barcelona in a few hours, and things could be WAY worse than they are right now.  It's not a big deal."

I wrote in my journal for a little bit to let that sink in, and then I looked at him.  "You have been in a rotten mood all day, buddy.  I don't know if it's because you're worried about your farm thing or what, but you need to calm down and let yourself have fun."

He said, "Well, I thought you were in a bad mood, but I realized that it was probably just your reaction to me and how I've been freaking out all day, so I think it's my fault."

Right about then the security guards came and asked us to move so the sweepers could clean where we were sitting, then it was time to get on our bus.  When the bus driver didn't want to let us on the bus, the security guards were definitely our friends, and they helped us get it all figured out...and as soon as the bus driver figured out we were from the US, he switched to English and became our new best friend, as he used to have a girlfriend from Miami Beach.  :)

The trip was relatively uneventful, just trying to sleep (without sleeping through our stop!).  We arrived in Barcelona about 3:45 AM (ugh!!), but luckily they let us off at the train station (very near our hostel) instead of the bus station (nowhere near our hostel).  Ben wanted to be in charge of directions by following his map instead of following the directions I had written down from the hostel's website, but I was too tired to argue.  After about 20 minutes of aimless wandering, he got very excited when he found the street our hostel was on.  I looked up and saw the giant sign with the name of our hostel, so I was perplexed when he turned the corner and went halfway down the block.  I walked a few feet after him, then said, "Where are you going?"  He replied, "It should be right around here somewhere..."  I sighed and said, "Like maybe RIGHT HERE WHERE THE GIANT SIGN WITH THE NAME OF OUR HOSTEL IS?"  (Okay, maybe I just thought it in all caps...I didn't say it that way...I said, "It's right here.")  Apparently when they say guys follow street signs and girls follow landmarks, it's the truth!!

We stumbled up the stairs, checked in, and fell into our beds as quickly as possible, trying hard not to wake the nice Brazilian gentleman already sleeping in one of the beds.  Gotta love hostels!