Barcelona

BARCELONA:
Day 1----
----- We woke up this day quite early to grab the metro and get to the airport. I was slightly unsure if we were gonna make it because the check in was really, really long. However, we did make it and found our hostel just fine after wandering around for a bit. Once we got to our hostel, we were able to receive a map of Barcelona (courtesy of Corte Ingles). We dropped off our bags and headed out to la sagrada familia while Tucker waited for Keene to arrive. My first glance of La Sagrada Familia wasn’t too impressive, but each time I came back I fell more and more in love with it. Now I consider the church to be my favorite and probably the best church in the entire world. It’s just a great blend of old style with new in Gaudi’s style of course.
-----When we were done we met up with the other two and grabbed a taxi to Parc Guell, Gaudi’s upscale neighborhood turned park. It was really phenomenal. When walking into the park it is really imperative that you think about the park as a neighborhood. It would be amazing to live there. There are some amazing walkways, and actually quite plain roads, but I think they were plain only because the houses Gaudi was going to build were going to be magnificent and colorful. The entrance buildings were so colorful I could not consider it any other way. I would continue talking about this, but it is pointless. I have no way to express in short terms how awesome it really was. It would probably take me 4 paragraphs or more to describe in detail, therefore I suggest looking at pictures on Picasa once they are up. We were on our way out of the park when we spotted a really cool poster maker that was Chinese. His style was Chinese too, but he used weird tools to finish his paintings. Since it was 3 € for a sign with a name on it, Amanda bought a Barcelona poster for her room. After we walked all the way back (downhill on the way that’s why we walked it) we decided it was time for a nap
-----When we woke up, we cooked pasta with hor d’ouvres of bread, cheese, tomatoes, and olive oil. For desert we ate kiwi and watermelon. At the end of dinner we met up with some Aussies that were pretty cool, although could be obnoxious. It was strange because they seemed like jocks, but were well educated. I liked listening to one of them, but I couldn’t really agree with him. After almost getting kicked out of the hostel for being too loud, we made our way to this club that a guy at the hostel got us onto the list for. He said we’d get in for free, but that ended up being completely false and we’re not sure why. Either way we left a little mad and went to find another place only to find out it was like the blind leading the blind. Amanda was sick of it and I didn’t care either way, so we went off on our own. We found La Rambla, walked down to the port and sat around until we got too cold. On our way back to the hostel we saw the cathedral at night, which was cool, but nothing compared to the Sagrada Familia. After the long walk we were ready for bed and that was the end of day one.

Day 2----

----- When we woke up the next day at 11 or 12, we decided to go out to la Sagrada Familia for lunch. Yesterday was beautiful, but the next three days were supposed to be poor weather, like raining all day. However, in usual Spanish style, the weather was just chubascos or intermittent showers and overcast, but they dramatized it. We were able to avoid the rain for the most part. When we went to la Sagrada Familia we ate at this place called Friss. It was pretty good and I was glad to be eating meat. I had a bacon and cheese sandwich and orange juice. The orange juice was literally oranges squeezed to make about 10 ounces of juice. Delicious. Next we walked down the street to the port. It was kind of a lazy walk and we weren’t too interested in making sure we saw every sight. I liked that kind of weekend much better. It was a relaxed weekend, not a go go go weekend. On our walk we almost got soaked, saw one of the corrida de toros and walked a bit along the beach, which was really cold. Originally I wanted to go into the water, but I didn’t have my swimsuit and did I mention it was cold? Maybe next time.
----- We were tired again, so went back to the hostel to nap. This was a really great trip because there were things planned, but it didn’t matter if we took a few hours in the afternoon to go to sleep. When we woke up it was dinnertime and rather than spend an hour searching for a place to eat and spend a bunch of money on a meal, we settled on McDonalds. It was obviously not the best food I could have found, but it was good nonetheless. After that we went to La Rambla to find a place to go out. Our failure was that we assumed we could just talk to promoters. This ended up being awful because we found one, who sent us to a creepy bar where the drink specials were not that great, and then it started raining. Basically the epitome of what our going out experiences were in Barcelona. I’m sure there is a great scene there, but we just didn’t find it. We did however meet up with this guy named Brandon and his friend Joel. Brandon was fine, but Joel was a bit weird. We found a small place on la Rambla to eat and have wine, but the wine was worth about 2 € and we paid 9. Not a great way to end the day, but I can’t complain about being in Barcelona.

Day 3----
----- This morning we went to buy a jersey over by La Rambla first thing. It had to be an authentic jersey for Amanda’s cousin, so we decided to go to the F.C. Barcelona shop we saw on the bus the previous day. I was expecting the jersey to cost about 65 €, but it was on sale for 50! What a deal! However, I did not want to buy one of those for that price, so I did not. They were also selling tickets for that day’s game, but the tickets were also 50 a pop. Since we declined the tickets, the next thing to do was to get breakfast (around noon of course). We headed down la Rambla to a Dunkin Donuts. It was ok, but I wasn’t too impressed. Of course we saw la Boqueria right next to Dunkin Donuts, but we waited to go to it after we got food. Once we went in the Boqueria we immediately regretted our decision, to eat Dunkin Donuts that is. La Boqueria was a phenomenal fresh food market that had everything. First thing we saw was fresh watermelon cut up that came with a fork for only 2€. From there it just got better, our mouths were watering, but we weren’t hungry anymore. We did however, purchase some bread since it looked soooo good.
----- Once we made our way through the market, we traveled by metro to the legendary Camp Nou. It is the home of F.C. Barcelona and is one of the largest stadiums in the world. The capacity is somewhere around 90,000 people, maybe 100,000. We didn’t stick around long though and took a bus back to the center of town to see another of Gaudi’s works, Casa Mila. The line was about an hour long and we didn’t really want to wait, but I wanted to look at one of Gaudi’s homes. We luckily got a student discount, but I was still not extremely impressed. One of the coolest apartment complexes I’ve seen for sure. Actually people still live there too. The top apartment is on display as well as the attic and roof. The attic was really interesting and so was the roof, but I didn’t like the apartment so much. I could see Gaudi’s architecture in the apartment, but I was hoping to see his decorating too. However, all we saw was a 1910 era middle class apartment. The other problem was that it was cold and drizzling on the roof, so we couldn’t stay and enjoy it completely.
----- Trying to recover from the cold, we walked all the way back to La Sagrada Familia. We weren’t going in, just going to buy a jersey for Amanda. These jerseys were a year old in a Souvenir shop, but they were still trying to be sold to us for 45 €. After some hard bargaining, like this guy told us yesterday it was 25, we got him down to 30, which I thought was reasonable. It was an authentic jersey, so I was impressed and Amanda loved it, so it turned out pretty well. After another nap we got ready to eat.
----- This night was very chill compared to the others. Rather than trying to go out again I thought I would just go to sleep. I was tired and not feeling up to trying to find something to entertain me. In that case we ate, watched the end of the Barcelona game and went to bed ready to go to mass in the morning… or so we thought.

Day 4----
----- Right before we went to bed the night before, we were told by Lauren that there were no masses at La Sagrada Familia. Disappointed we went to bed thinking we would just get up around 9 and check out. Once we checked out in the morning I checked the Internet and the website for La Sagrada Familia, because I was really sure of what I saw the day before. After a quick check it was as I thought, but now we had missed the Spanish mass. We couldn’t wait around until the 11:45 mass because our flight left at 4 and we had to catch a bus at 1:00. So we had to quickly head out to mass at 10:30 and we arrived 15 minutes late. I felt bad, but it was better that we got there than not at all. I absolutely loved it. That’s all I really have to say about that. If I could ever figure out what is wrong with my photo-uploading program you could see some pics, but as of now I will just say that it was beautiful. Also at the end of mass the priest invited all the different languages to come up to the microphone and say Happy Easter in their language. I think we heard about 15 different languages, but by far the best was when a little Argentinean girl went up and said Happy Easter after someone had already said it in Spanish. La Sagrada Familia is now my favorite church in the world.
----- We headed back to the hostel immediately after the mass, picking up some bocadillos on the way. When we arrived back at the hostel we quickly snatched our bags and walked to the bus station. We were just strolling when Amanda decided to check the flight plan. Our plane left at 3:05. That gives us 2 hours. Needless to say I started to get nervous. We had to catch a bus that took an hour to get to the airport and then check in. It was already 12:40. The busses left every 15 minutes, but still… we had to make a trip in an hour. We got to the bus station at 12:43 and walked down to the platforms when we saw our bus going away. That meant we had to wait 15 more minutes and take the next one. I was getting pretty nervous, but I was telling myself there was nothing I could do at this point except try, so that was exactly what I did. We got there with 20 minutes to spare before they closed check in for the flight. I didn’t think we’d get through the line, but we had to so we waited. Lauren looked at some self-check in machines and I was like good luck. You can only do that if you are an EU citizen. While Lauren was pushing buttons, Amanda and I were moving about 5 feet every 5 minutes. Lauren started walking back and I looked incredulously at her because she had a ticket in her hand. I was absolutely shocked, and unsure if it would work, but I was thought this was our best chance at getting on the plane. Sure enough, it worked and we placed another day on our lives because we weren’t worried anymore! Great flight home and a great trip!