I once was lost....and so were my keys

Today I was excited to have a little more time to explore Barcelona.  Andrea and I had talked last night and decided to meet at her house around 11 am.  I would walk to her place because I knew how to get to the area, and it wouldn't be a bad walk. so, at promptly 11:15 i left my house to meet andrea for a little bit of shopping. i was pretty impressed with myself when I got to la plaza universitat, where andrea lives, but soon after less impressed when i realized i didn't actually know where she lives, aka, here address. so i walked around looking at house numbers, relieved to see the right street name, but as i walked around the block realized the street numbers skip...while i stood there wondering why one side had houses 1-4 and the next side 61-58 it occurred to me that its probably because they are different streets....okay so i'm clearly not a city girl...anyways, after 40 minutes of walking back and forth, up, down and around (a couple of times), i decided to sit on one of the benches near the plaza. basically on the verge of tears, wondering if i should just return home or how the heck i was going to find my friend, i noticed the street across from me was Plaza universitat also...i walked closer to the street and sure enough, saw andrea walking towards me. so i basically sprinted over to her, excited to see a familiar face after circling around like the sad little lost american girl that i was.  we laughed a little about the situation and she presently showed me exactly where she lived, for next time. fast forward through a little shopping, chatting with a few students from the UB and another 2 hours of orientation to walking home from the hotel with andrea.  I'm definitely getting more confident with directions, so we make a good pair, i'm the navigator and she just talks to people. anyways, we found our way from the hotel to andrea's place and decided to walk to my house so she could see where I was staying.  all was well and good until we got to my house. i had andrea wait downstairs because we're really not supposed to bring people over, and i went inside to drop off a few things and see what the plan for the night was. when i finally figured out how to open the door, i let myself in and realized  no one was home.  so i dropped all my stuff off in my room and went back down to andrea.  then, horrified, i realized that when i dropped all my stuff off, i really dropped all my stuff off, including the keys to my house. so now, i was locked out of the house, had no number to reach Maria at and no cell phone to call a number as it was.  luckily we had bought a phone for andrea earlier so i called the CIEE office helpline for dumb american students who do dumb things like this. after a frustrating chat with the receptionist there, only frustrating because she couldnt understand my name, i finally got Maria's number, called her from andreas phone, and left a message explaining the situation.  by that time, we had taken the metro (my first ride) back to andreas house, stopped at the cell phone store and bought a sim card for the phone that Maria had given me yesterday.  as we sat in the plaza, on the same bench i had been sitting as a lost little girl earlier today, Maria called back to say she was home and that it wasnt a big deal. so i took the metro back to my place.  all i could think was "at least i have some good stories for today's post..." :) tomorrow i start my first class here, and intensive writing class from 10-2 everyday for the next 2 weeks...should be interesting. i'll let you know how it goes, and maybe have a couple more stories for you all tomorrow. hasta manana!

PS. am i writing too much? i'm new to this whole blogging thing and i have a problem with telling really long stories...lo siento.