Barcelona, Spain - Shelby

Hello everyone!
We´ve had really spotty internet - very expensive in Amsterdam, really slow in Sweden, and now here in Barcelona we have a handy internet cafe close to our hotel! Having a wonderful time exploring the city and I would love to come back when I have more time - there are amazing buildings/sculptures by Gaudi, great food, and a beautiful Gothic quarter with narrow streets and slanted buildings.
In the respect of my limited time I´m going to repost some emails I sent to my parents, so family, you can disregard the following, or of course re-enjoy! haha.

Aug 5
Greetings from Holland! I'm having a wonderful time, and sorry I haven't been on the internet at all because it's pretty pricey and not very accessible, so I decided to send an email to all of you at once. :)
We got in safe to Amsterdam, and were blessed with a new Swedish friend''s offer to drive us all the way here from Sweden (he was at the vacation home on Oland too!). He happened to be driving to Brussels with an empty car, and didn´t mind if we tagged along. He even works for Ikea - how swedish! :)
We embarked last Thursday - first Dish and I caught a ride off the island and a little south with some other friends of the family, and from their we took a train to the south west of sweden to a small city and met up with Eric, who we had met a day before on Oland. We stayed at his parents and his house there for the night, and left at 8 the next morning - we drove a little through sweden, then took a train to Denmark, and drove through Denmark, through Germany, and into Holland where he dropped us off at a train station around 10:15, and luckily we were able to catch the last train to the city, which caught at 10:22! It was about an hour ride away from Amsterdam.
The train left us off in the heart of the city, and luckily Anders had some sort of idea where our hostel was since he had been here before, but unbeknownst to us we happened to arrive during the city's Gay Pride Festival, which lasted all weekend long! It was awesome, but Dish has to reassure me that our entire time here wouldn't be as crazy and full of people - (and also we were scrambling around gay parades and dance parties in the street, with our huge turtle shell backpacks in the heart of the red light district at midnight on a Friday!), it was all a pretty funny scene. The festival culminated on Saturday with a parade of decorated float boats though the canals of the city - it was amazing! Dancing and singing drag queens everywhere!! Since sunday, though, the city has quieted down a lot and I've been able to see the city how it is at normal capacity -we've spent most of our time walking around thinking we're going in the right direction, only to realize we're back somewhere else (the city is shaped like a giant clamshells, and unlike at home where our streets are a grid system, if you take a wrong turn here you often end up back where you started, a bit perplexed). In these meanderings we''ve accidentally come across prostitutes in their windows, which makes me jump like a little kid everytime (I can only compare it to when you walk by a store and see a mannequin in the store window you never expect it to move but could imagine if it could, but here she comes to life and catcalls you, and that catches me off guard!). Overall it's been really fun, and today we're heading to Spain to meet back up with Kathy and Roy. our flight is at 6, so we're going to go now to buy our train tickets and spend or last few hours in the city.
p.s. Thank you for all the birthday wishes - they mean a lot! I had a great relaxing birthday in Oland, and the culminating experience was when 80 Swedes sang Happy Birthday to me in their own way. They were standing around me and gave a loud group cheers and shot at the end!

Aug 7
Found an internet cafe in Valencia, Spain. We got into Benidorm two days ago, and spent one full day there yesterday - it is a pretty crazy town that is pretty much a bunch of british people who moved down to spain and built some fish and chip stands and sleazy karaoke bars, but there was a beautiful white sand beach (the mediteranean) and we smam in it for hours. We took a 1.5 hour bus ride this morning to Valencia, which is a really cool old Spanish city, it´s a lot more historical and architectually beautiful. We´re only here for one night though, as it´s our half way stop to Barcelona. I was going to tell you how hot it was here (35.C), but it sounds like you could dwarf that number by comparison!! Hopefully there will be some rain this week for you, I can only imagine how hot it must get working out in that all day.
Love you so much, and I look forward to seeing you soon! Within the month! :)
XXXOOO
Shelby