Barcelona Bound

New weekend....New Adventure!!!

This weekend the girls and I set off on an epic journey to the land of bullfights, flamanco dancers and arroz con pollo!!!!

This was the first time we had to fly to get somewhere. Not gonna lie, I was a little nervous about flying a discount airline- but whoa! It was awesome! The plane was incredibly clean, the people friendly and there was plenty of leg room. Not only that, but it hosted the cleanest bathroom Ive seen in Europe yet (aside from mine that is). It actually smelled like lemons! Easy Jet- you impressed me!

Anywho...we arrived in Barcelona that night. After landing we took the train and a few subways before making it within a few blocks of our hostel. The hostel was for the most part clean. Not the nicest we'd been to by any means, but it got the job done. Emily had friends staying there, so we met up with them for a while and then went to bed to rest up before the long day ahead of us.

The next morning we woke up early, got some breakfast downstairs and headed toward the center of town. Its always a pleasant surprise to arrive somewhere at night and then wake up and see it is a million times more amazing and beautiful then it was 10 hours ago. Barcelona was no different. The streets were lined in palm trees and the ocean is visible from most of the town. We decided to take a bus tour of the city, since that would allow us to see the most. So we bought our tickets and hopped on the bus. First time on a double-decker: it was really cool! You can see so much from up there. We had a great time.

Our first stop was La Sagrada Familia Church. The church was designed by Gaudi in the 1800's and still to this day is not finished. After his death in the early 1900's, the funding for the project came solely out of donations by private investors. Its completion is expected to take at least an additional 50 years. Gaudi spent a lot of time outside during his childhood and found nature to be the inspiration for most of his work, including the LSF church. The LSF church was designed to look like a forest, boasting a plaster cieling made to look like the canopy of a forest with holes in it for the sunlight to shine through. There are four facades of the church. The first one showcases the 14 stations of the cross in statues, ending with Christ ascending into heaven at the top of the building. Its really cool how he did it and the amount of emotion present on the sculptures.

We ate lunch at a charming little outdoor cafe across the street from the church. And I had.....arroz con pollo!!! It was actually really good- spicy but very tasty. I mean, my dad has talked about it all these years, I had to try it. =)

After that we walked around a little bit and hopped back on the bus. Our next stop was Parc Guell: a park designed by Gaudi, also where he lived. It was a beautiful day, 70 degrees and sunny, so walking around the park was a lot of fun. There was music being performed in various parts of the park, which made our time spent there all that much more enjoyable. Nothin like a little spanish guitar to put a cherry on the top of your evening. =)

As the sun began to set we made our way back to the bus stop only to discover that one of the girls had lost her ticket. We tried to get on the first bus that came but had to get off because they wouldnt let her on. While we waited for the next bus we began to plan out how we were going to get everyone on the bus: passback? throw a ticket down from the top? hmmmmm.....

The second bus didnt start out any better, but eventually the woman let us on with the stipulation that we get off when the line changed (which was our original plan). So we rode to the stop where we could catch the blue line, only to discover we were a good 3 hours away from our hostel by foot, it was dark out and had no idea where we were...oh ya, and the bus had stopped running. ugh.

So we tried to ask for directions from the guy at starbucks but he put up his hands and said no and walked away. Ive never met someone that rude in Starbucks before. I was astounded!!! We dug out the map and tried to figure out where we were going as we walked. We finally figured out that we had to take a bus and so when we found the bus, Trish and I ran across 3 lanes of traffic to get to it thinking we could just bang on the door, pay and get to our hostel. Not so much. Just as we got to the bus, the bus driver looked at us, and then at the recently green light and hit the gas pedal. We had to run to get out of the way onto the tram tracks and then dodge the tram...gah...not a good time. But we made it. We nixed that idea and continued on. Stopped for "dinner" along the way. I wasnt too hungry so I just had some flan. It was really good and rich, except that you could taste the egg. After resting for a bit we started walking again, stopped in a liquor store for some 2E bottles of wine and finished our journey. We were planning on going out to a few bars that night but knew the drinks there would be pricy, so we decided to help our wallets out and drink the cheap way.

We eventually made it back to the hostel and crashed for a little bit before getting ready to go out. The directory said to go to Las Ramblas, a street near the hostel and that that was the place to go bar-hopping. So with our makeup freshened, and our clothes changed, we hit the streets once again.

Well, the hostel lied.

Las ramblas has bars on it- but not our kinda bars. Turns out the hostel sent us into the equivalent of a mini red light district. Thank you, hostel peeps! There were a lot of guys standing around offering us beer and they all looked really creepy. Rebecca was convinced there were strings attatched- like sexual favors or drugs or something. It was terrible. After wandering around for about 2 hours, we decided that since it was now 4 in the morning and things would start closing in 2 hours, there was no point in staying out. So we headed back to the hostel completely sober and disappointed.

The next day we took nice and easy. We slept through breakfast, which ended up being a blessing because we went to the giant outdoor market instead. And it was incredible!!! The food was so fresh and there was so much of it. We were in heaven within a few mintues. Fresh fruit, fresh squeezed fruit juice and a pastry constituted our breakfast. It was delicious. We grabbed some food for a late lunch and headed to the beach. We walked around town a little bit before finding it- but once we did it was perfect. We lined up on the sand, wrapped our bags around us and then fell asleep in the sun to the sound of the waves. It was sooo peaceful and so perfect, minus the creepy Indian guys coming up to us saying "Cerveza? Cerveza? Bob Marley? Coconut? Massage?" as they tried to sell us various objects and services. After we woke up I took a stroll down the beach and did some beach-combing. And I found the motherload of sea glass! It was sooo cool! Ive never found that much before in my entire life. I think I had only found maybe one or two pieces in all the times Id gone beach-combing before this. I was in heaven.

We eventually had to leave the beach and head back to the hostel. We stopped by the market again to pick some stuff up for dinner and then went back to change and get ready to go out. Emily, Lauren and I met in the lobby and walked to Olypmic Parc. We made it just in time for the fountain show and it was incredible (see video above). We then walked around a little bit before heading back. Tonight going out would be successful!

So we took a nap, woke up at midnight, showered and got ready and were out the door by 3. We got to the club around 3:30 and had to wait in line for a while. Once we got inside...whoa. It was intense. The club was huge- had 5 giant rooms, each with a different genre playing. We stayed in the main room which held like 3000 people and danced the night away. Err, morning away. We had an absolute blast.

We had an early flight that morning so we went back to the hostel, slept for two hours and got on the bus to catch our flight. When we got to the airport we met up with some other kids from our Verona group that had gone to Barcelona the same weekend. One of them had fallen asleep on the train and woke up to discover he had been robbed of every object on him. Thankfully he still had his passport so he could go home. It was awful.

We had an absolutely wonderful experience in Barcelona. I wish we had more time to explore the city (its huge!) and get a taste of the local flavor. Two days just wasnt enough! =)