Holiday's in Spain

Yesterday I booked my plane ticket from Paris, France to Barcelona, Spain. I will be leaving Thursday, December 18th aboard an EasyJet flight. The plan is, although as you know I have no real plans and anything can change at any moment, to work my way around Spain for Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, and whatever other holidays are being celebrated during this time of the year. I won't divulge the details of my plan, because then where would be the anticipation for my future posts?!

This means however I will now be spending a total of close to three weeks in Paris. When I first told my generous hosts that I would be spending one to two weeks more in Paris than I originally anticipated, they looked at me like I was crazy. Crazy for even thinking that it would not be O.K. and crazy for even thinking that one week in Paris was going to be enough time. So I am becoming a temporary member of Paris. I have mastered the Metro, and even started to get a bit of a grasp of my way around the city. In my first week I have visited more than enough places that would satisfy the average tourist, but luckily I am having the opportunity to experience much more than that! From strolling around the various parks and side streets to spending a night enjoying a few drinks and playing pool with some local people.

My only qualm with this beautiful city has been the endless amount of people trying to get money from me. In Italy there were gypsies and others asking for money, but with generally little harassment. Here there have been multiple times were people have physically grabbed me to try to donate money to them or purchase something from them. It is quite frustrating as I try to walk around the streets, and has therefore lead me to avoid the touristy areas even more! However, this has been on a relatively small scale compared to the general population. Unlike what I have heard from some people, I have found most French people to be very kind and friendly!

According to Google I have been receiving many more views of my blog than I thought I would. Either there are several people constantly clicking to check for updates, or I have some more people reading than I thought. I did learn I have a couple of international readers. So this is a shout out to anyone reading this, I hope I am keeping you entertained enough to continue to do so! I want to thank everyone who has been continually emailing me, and people like my dad, Aubree, my Aunt Carol, and others who have been continually posting in the comments section.

One final request, out of curiosity, I wish to see how many people are actually reading this blog... and of those people how many get this far down in the post.... So if you have the time and are willing to put in the little effort to write a comment in the section below AND/OR send an email to travelingstu@yahoo.com I would greatly appreciate it. It can be anything, thoughts, ideas, criticisms, I want to hear it all and have my curiosity satisfied!