Barcelona

Barcelona was an AMAZING city, which can probably be reflected by the lack of sleep that I got while there. The traveling to and from the airport were a bit of a mess, but while we are in the city, it was fantastic! 


We arrived late Thursday night to our hostel, which was quite a bit farther from the city center than we expected and since it was after midnight, we had to take a night bus, I'm surprised we figured it out as quickly as we did. Anyway we made it to our hostel around 2am and went straight to bed. 


Friday morning we woke up lazily around 11 and headed off to Barcelonetta, which was a man made beach made for the 1992 Olympics. The beach was beautiful, nice and sunny! We learned quite quickly that Barcelona doesn't have public nudity laws on beaches, so we had some very tanned, very naked neighbors while sun-bathing! We learned later from a free-walking tour we did the next day that it is legal to be completely naked around the beach area, they just ask you to wear  shoes when walking on the roads and side-walks. After the beach we walked around Barcelonetta and ate at a Tapas bar. We shared patatas bravas( fried potatoes with special sauces), Bombas( fried potato ball with ham and a spicy sauce on top), and tortillas( which are actually similar to omelets, not like mexican style tortillas). We headed home for our siesta ( I've really been enjoying my siestas in Italy and Spain, it will definitely be something that will continue to do until I have to get a real job!) That night we went down to Las Ramblas, which is a very busy street for some dinner and a bar crawl. I shared a paella with one of my roommates, which was delicious, the seafood is so fresh in Barcelona! We then went on a bar crawl that our hostel recommended, personally I thought it was a bit of a waste of money, but it did help us figure out where the good bars were in the area. We ended at a club, which was a lot of fun, not like anything at home that I have ever been to. Something different that we learned about Spain was that they do everything much later, they don't eat dinner until 9:30ish and the clubs are empty until about 3am. We made it to just about 5am, before we were completely exhausted and had to return to the hostel for some much needed sleep!

 Cammie and I by the beach

my first paella!

Saturday was by far my favorite day! We took the metro to Las Ramblas, which is a completely different place in the day time, and went exploring. We saw a free walking tour advertised at our hostel( 2 of us had been on the one in Budapest, which was great, so we wanted to check it out) It was so worth it, we learned all about the city, visited the gothic district, the jewish quarter, the Roman ruins (not quite like the ones in Rome, but still very cool to see), learned about the spanish inquisition,and we saw some artwork by Picasso, Gaudi, and Dali. Aparently Dali liked to sleep in huge Papier-mâché eggs and in the morning, burst out of them, we saw some of these designs outside the Dali museum.We ended at the beach and found the most amazing sandwich shop! It was called Bo de B's ( If you go to Barcelona, it is a MUST!) After the tour, and with very full tummy's we walked to La Rambia, which was a really neat street with all sorts of crafts and homemade goods, foods, bags, etc. As the sun went down, it started to get a little chilly, so we headed back to the hostel for our nap and to get ready for the nights festivities! It seems like everywhere in the world celebrates St. Patrick's Day, at least for the drinking! We did our own pub crawl, which was a lot more fun ( and a lot cheaper). We met some very interesting characters, it was very entertaining to say the least! After the pub crawl we wanted to go down to some of the clubs by the beach, so we headed down there, but then we realized that we had forgotten our ID's! We didn't even think about it because in  Rome no one ever checks. So it was a bit of a let down for the evening, but we got home safely and had a good nights sleep.

some of the beautiful gothic-style architecture

cathedral in barcelona

 amazing fruit market!

Brazilian street fighter/dancers

if you look closely, there is an inscription to remember the communist past. It seems like most countries in Europe were touched or affected with a connection to communism.

Dali sculpture

the pathway to the Roman ruins

Christopher Columbus, who is supposedly pointing west, but is actually pointing to Libya!

As it was our last day, and the weather was extremely warm, we wanted to go to the beach again, So we spent most of the day lying around on the beach relaxing. After that we headed over to Sagrada Familia, which is Gaudi's famous unfinished cathedral. On our walking tour we learned that it is estimated to take another 30-80 years to finish. Another interesting Gaudi fact was that he was killed by one of the train systems that he designed. The story goes that as he was walking he got hit by a train, and lay by the tracks with no one to help him. Apparently he had a very long beard and wore "unique" clothing, so the people mistakenly thought he was a homeless man, how sad!  Anyway, La Sagrada Familia is fantastic, it is immense and so interesting, you could spend hours looking at all of the detail! I hope it is finished in my lifetime, so I can go back to see it when it is completed! 
One of my roommates and I had a very early flight in the morning, and because we had to catch public transport, we thought we would go to a bar until it closed and then head to the airport to check in to our flight. We found an Irish pub that was open until 2, so we got a drink and talked with the bar tender who told us about a very local place that is open until 5 am and that we should definitely check it out before we leave. So we headed down to the little bar/restaurant, where we met the sweetest old men working in the shop! They didn't speak a word of English, and my Spanish is horrific, so understanding was a bit difficult. We ordered what we thought was going to be a small plate of cheese and salami, but ended up being large platters of breads, olives, cheeses, salamis,and potato chips( keep in mind this is 3 in the morning) We were obviously not THAT hungry, so we ate a bit of it and the old men laughed at us and didn't charge us the full amount! As we were about to leave one of them grabbed our hands and motioned for us to come back into the bar, he poured us a very strange liquor, I have no idea what he said it was, I don't even know what it tasted like, it was a yellowish/green viscous liquid, So if anyone could identify this for me or had any guesses of what it was,that would be greatly appreciated! After that experience, we headed to the airport for our flight back to Rome. 
We're home safe and sound, but very very tired. Off to Sicily tomorrow bright and early! 

our 3 am Spanish feast!