Locked Out

For the third day running now, I´m locked out of my flat. At the moment we only have one set of keys between three of us which is proving pretty problematic! So I´ve wondered up to an internet cafe in La Latina (the bar I wanted to check out wasn´t open yet - Madrid time again) and gained a fresh perspective on where things are by coming a slightly different way. Its wierd how your first impressions of a place are so hard to shake. I´d decided in my head where certain places were in relation to others but got it a bit wrong because of subtly curving streets and so on but as I walk around more its all becoming a bit clearer.

I´ve spent the day unsucessfully trying to hitchhike to Barcelona to see some of my old housemates from Uni. I´d decided to hitch it after having a bit of a worry about money, and realised I´d not worry about the weekend as much if I didn´t spend 50 Euro on a coach (also after the journey to Madrid I wasn´t that keen on getting on another coach for 8 hours). But a couple of drinks last night turned into a couple more and then a couple more than that, and I ended up only setting off at about 1pm. Its a 6 hour drive to Barcelona and I didn´t want to get a lift after about 3.30 in case I ended up getting stuck in the middle of nowhere come nightfall, and by the time I´d got myself into a good position to get picked up, it was too late really. So I´m setting off early tomorrow to try again, now knowing exactly where to go, although I´m a bit worried I´ve lost my hitching mojo - thats the second time in a row (and ever) that I´ve not managed to get a lift (the other one was London to Paris). I got a good tip on where to go to get out of Madrid from Hitch Wiki (http://hitchwiki.org/), which has some good advice on hitching out of cities which is notoriously difficult. No doubt I´ll have some interesting stories for you after tomorrow though, and some thoughts on Barcelona after the weekend.