I am determined to finish catching up today....

So the rest of the weekend. Anikó and I decided to go to Lleida. A small city a couple hours away from Reus by train, towards the center of spain....by which I mean farther away from the coast (this specification will become clear in a moment). We managed to get to Lleida around 10 in the morning with no real plan except to see the different cathedrals and old buildings there. As the train moved closer and closer to our destination...it kept getting foggier and foggier...this did not bode well. It turned out that we really weren't prepared for the weather because we didn't think about the fact that it would be much colder farther from the coast. hm....so we got off the train in our skirts and stepped out into the cold and thought maybe it would be a short day in Lleida and we would leave soon...ofcourse this is far from what happened.
As we were making our way to the Seu Vella, a large cathedral that turned out to be very beautiful, we passed a banner for a wine festival...that started at 11 that day! What luck!! So we visited the cathedral...where were able to climb to the very top of the tallest tower, over 200 steps and wander around a very beautiful and amazing courtyard. (My pictures are now on facebook because I ran out of space on photosite without paying and everyone has access to facebook now...here is the url: http://drexel.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036997&l=f2a60&id=10500847) So after the cathedral we headed to the wine festival. Luckily for us the day had warmed up a little, not much, we still had all our layers on...but we figured the wine would help. We had only to pay 6 € and we got plates with toast, sausage, cheese, booklets about all the vineyards, wine glasses, a little bag, and great wine! there were about 8-10 tables with 3 or 4 different types of wine at each one! During all the festivity we ended up meeting a group of people from Slovakia (who could actually speak slovakian, hungarian, spanish, and a pinch of english) which was great becase in case i haven't mentioned or you haven't been following or keeping track of everyone, I was travelling with Anikó and she is hungarian. So it was really fun for her to have people to talk to. After we had all had enough wine we went to a little coffee shop and talked and exchanged info and had a great time. Afterward one of they guys, Milan (yes, like the Italian city), hung out with Anikó and I and showed us a little bit more around, but there wasn't much else to see.
At this point Anikó and I had decided to stay an hour later...leaving at 6 instead of 5...it was a cheaper train and we had someone to hang out with, so why not? Little did we imagine the troubles in store for us. For one reason or another, which i don't recall, we managed to get the train station and buy out tickets with absolutely no time to spare. Once we got our tickets Anikó and I literally ran all the way to the train, which was leaving in less than 3 minutes...haha! but we made it. Turns out there was a reason it was cheaper. We weren't going straight to Reus, we would have to change trains partway through journey, oh well, no big deal we thought. But we were both really exhausted and the sun had gone down, so about an hour later when we jumped off the train into the dark seemingly abandoned train station we were more than ready to be on the next train. After waiting 30 minutes in the cold...we started to get worried, especially since it was supposed to have arrived at 7 and the other train dropped us of 5 minutes after 7. But we thought, no, it would have to wait for us...Renfe (the train company) couldn't just drop us off in the middle of nowhere without another train. But we got really worried when one guy started saying, "this happened last week, the train never showed up"...but no one else looked that worried and no one was going any where, so we kept waiting. I think one guy called the train station, but i am not sure...as it was late and i was tired and this was all taking place in spanish. at one point i asked someone if there was a bus station in town where we could get a bus to tarragona or reus, no they responded, there is nothing here...great we thought. anyway, the train eventually came, travelling in the wrong direction, but we got on anyway hoping it would go back the way it came and if not, it would be better than waiting where were. Luckily for us it went in the right direction and we made it home.
When we got back to Reus we celebrated with freshly roasted chestnuts over an open fire. November 1st here is a holiday, the castanyada, and people set up fires in metal trashcans and roast chestnuts and sell them on the street, they were excellent!!