The following is a guest post from Emilie, who is currently studying abroad in Europe and having more fun than you are this summer. In this post, Emilie tells the study of her first solo weekend trip to Barcelona, and how she learned about the complications of public transit the hard way.

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The funny thing about studying abroad is that you learn more about yourself then you do from the classes you are taking. Before this trip I was scared of public transportation (I live in Atlanta, come on who wouldn’t be?), I had no sense of direction, I was a huge flirt (this gets you in trouble in other countries), and I was addicted to the Internet.

Well some things have changed in the past couple of months. I figured this out in our first real trip where we were the ones planning everything and we had to figure it our by ourselves.

So Cessie (my best friend) and I set out for Barcelona to meet up with two of our friends who were studying there. We had the flight, we had our bags and a phone- what more could we need? If that isn’t the biggest joke, I’m not sure what is.

The trip starts off with the adventure of getting to the airport. OF COURSE we choose the airport that happens to be farthest away from us. So we walk to the train station, get our tickets, get to the right platform, and you would think that would be all…well, changing trains ends up being a nightmare. After about five minutes of looking at the map, looking at the ticket, and looking at the map again, a nice lady points us in the right direction. This Tube takes us to another station to get on another train – four hours later we have made it to the airport.

We find our flight information and proceed to the gate. Now these flights are different than the ones at home. No, your ticket does not have your seat number; in fact there are no seat numbers. It is a free for all, purely madness!

We find seats and excitedly make our way to Barcelona. Here is where the real fun begins. We booked the airport that was an hour and a half from Barcelona (great planning, right!), so as we are getting off the plane, Cessie tries to call our friends and guess what! The phone does not work. We have no idea where we are going or how to get there and we have no idea how to call them. We find a pay phone outside of customs, yet we don’t know Spanish enough to actually use it. The nice man at the information desk probably thinks we are just dumb blonds because we kept going up to him asking him millions of questions.

We finally get a hold of our friends and discover we have to get on a bus to Barcelona and then get on the metro to find them. We walk outside, look for the buses -  there is only one. We kindly ask for the bus to Barcelona, well this is it only there is a MASSIVE line and apparently this is the only bus for four hours. We pray that we are able to get on this bus because the British couple in front of us tells us that it is 250 euros for a cab – umm NO! We make the bus, make the metro, and find our friends just in time to make it out to the bar. Good thing Barcelona is a city that likes to stay up late.

The next day we spent the whole day sleeping on the beach and recovering from the night before. Sunday we walked around the city to look at some of the architecture and sights (everything was closed). We had the whole day because we had the last flight out that night. Little did we know that this was the worst decision we could have made.

After we say our goodbyes and make our way back to the airport that seems forever away, we are running a little late. We rush through security, run to the gate, enter into the queue, and wait. An announcement comes on the intercom, in Spanish of course, and after a few moments the man behind us curses. This can’t be good.

The flight was delayed two hours. That means that we would not make it back to London till midnight, and we still had a three-hour journey home. Oh, and have I mentioned that we have a test at 9 am the next day? Perfect! When we finally make it back to London, we wait in what has to be the longest queue for the customs in history. It takes us one hour and forty-five minutes to get our passport stamped (that is my most cherished stamp yet!), and we make it out…well almost.

You see, the trains stop running at 1:30, meaning we have to take a bus into London, only the buses running to London are going to the wrong coach stop, and the tube closed at one am. Our only option is to take a taxi, which is not cheap. So we find the taxi company, but they are packed because all of those people who were in the passport queue with us are now in this queue too! After another hour of waiting we make it in to a cab and make our way home. It is not until 5am that morning that I am pulling the covers over me, not even changing because that would waste precious sleep time. I only got two and a half hours of sleep that night, it was the only night I really cursed myself for having an eight am class.