If you don't feel like reading everything, I've separated out videos that show the fun stuff, but should you feel like living moment by moment with me in Barcelona, read on. :) It's quite a trip.
Friday, the 21st, after school I repacked my bag to make sure everything that I'd need would fit in my backpack. I successfully packed my journal, one set of jammies, a bajillion pairs of underwear, three pairs of pants, a few shirts and a pair of shoes. I crammed in a washcloth and some snacks for emergency reasons.
At 8:00 on the dot everyone showed up at our apartment and we grabbed two cabs to head to the airport, which was mildly pricy. At 8:30 we got to the gate and waited thirty minutes to board. We ran into a few students from our CEA group and chatted them up about how they were going to Oktoberfest and we were going to Barcelona. I bought a magazine that clearly showed Kate Midletons chesticals, and Lindsay Lohans vag... they really don't censor here... at all. Like, nothing.
After we boarded the plane we found that they don't supply complementary airline food like they do in the US, but they do play awesome music during take off and landing.
On the plane we ran into two girls who work for "Bus2Alps" and they helped us get to our hostel and got us oriented to where we were in the center of the city. They told us about their many trips and how to intern with them and get a job after college.
For people who know how RA jobs work, it's like that, but you take people on tours. As an intern all you have to do is shadow a tour leader and live here for free... I've officially found my after college job. :)
When we started off towards our hostel we passed the Gothic Cathedral which was lit up pink, like Cinderellas Castle! It was so awesome. There was a concert happening for the Mercé festival which was pretty legit. Thanks to R for finding that wonderful gem.
We arrived at the hostel at 12:30pm ish and got our key to get into the room. At 1:00 we left on an adventure to find ICE BARcelona.... which was about an hour walk away from our hostel. We figured it'd be worth the walk to get into a bar made COMPLETELY out of ice, however, we were severely under dressed and about an hour late for our reservation... so we decided to get Shawarma instead, which was a terrible terrible idea. But I guess we've been spoiled by our Arab friends in Granada who really know how to cook it.
So we tried a more direct route on the way back and got into the hostel around 3, finally sleeping around 3:30 or 4. The hostel really wasn't too bad, but the room smelt like strait up sex, 'smells like romance' is what all the condom advertisements say. It was a big room with lofts with curtains that reminded me of Hook, where all the lost boys live, with double rooms underneath all of the lofts. Thankfully I knew the girl in the double with me, ugh, that could have been awkward.
Saturday, the 22nd.
The next morning everyone got up at 8 to get free breakfast, meet up with A's friends and get started on our Gaudi walking tour.The supplied breakfast was Cereal, which is a delicacy around these parts, and coffee which is sacred.
We tried walking to Sagrada Familia, over by where A's friend lived, but ended up getting lost, surprise and asked a stranger how to work the Metro. Bless his heart.
When we got out of the Metro, we looked up directly at Sagrada Familia. Ho-Lee-Crap.
It's so BIG! and Beautiful!
It's really the opposite of "The White House Effect" the whole, 'I thought it'd be bigger' thing? Nope. Not at all. It was perfect.
We met up with A's friends and dropped off all of our stuff and then worked our way back to the city centro to get to our Walking Tour.
We met up in the main plaza and had this tour guide from Ireland that kept asking us if "that was okay".... Jesus she was obnoxious. But she took us where we wanted to go, and we saw a lot of Gaudi things. I fan girled out. Don't judge
We saw Palau Güell, Casa Batlló, Casa Milà ("La Pedrera"), and the Parque de Gaudi. It was SO amazing! Everything that I'd seen in pictures was literally right in front of me! I really felt like a child in Disney World for the first time. It was so great.
After the tour we ventured off to find somewhere to eat lunch, and ended at the worst place ever. The pictures made everything look amazing, however, when I ordered the hamburger I pictured the massive chunk of meat that was pictured, and what I got was a slab of spam shoved between two massive buns with a slice of lettuce and a teeeeny amount of mayo. What. In. The. World. Word to the wise, don't eat at Chinese places in Granada. They don't look Chinese, but if the people working there are Asian, don't go. Sorry I'm not sorry.
When lunch was over we found a little piece of grass to sit on and we stayed there for about an hour and a half, until 4:00pm or so. (Tour was from 11-1, we were at the park for like, 2 hours.) We ventured off yet again to the main area of the city closer to our hostel to see the parade that was going to happen at 7. However, by this time everyone was hungry again. So after walking around for about two hours we found a place to get lunch that seemed promising from the outside. Come to find out, upon entering, it was a Tarantino restaurant. They had posters of all of his movies, photos from his shoots, and place mats that said Tarantino. The food was AMAZING, and I ordered my first Cosmo. I expected the fruity drink that I've sampled multiple times.... But apparently in most places they use the cheap-o vodka and in Spain they use TOP SHELF so I took a sip, tasted some cranberry and then my throat and stomach were burning from the alcohol. My jaw tightened with EVERY sip. I asked the extremely nice waitress to make it a little less fuerte. She laughed a little and fixed it. Much better.
We finished dinner just in time to make it to the prime picture taking spot for the parade. It lasted for about an hour or two.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFcEbGQxaHE
After that we headed back to the main plaza for a light show. Which we weren't totally expecting, but when more than 1000 Spaniards gather around for something, you normally want to be there.
When I say that they dubstepped the building, I don't mean that it had crazy music playing out of it, I mean the light show made the building look like it was moving and disappearing . These kids know what they're doing. It was so legit. Here's the video link if you don't believe me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXaeLQ-jCFI&NR=1&feature=endscreen
After that we helped A back to her friends place, and we met up with the guys were supposed to couch surf with. (It's now midnight-ish). They told us that they were with a friend not far from A's friends house so it really worked out quite well, so we thought.
When we met up with him he told us that we were going to a party with him before we were going to head back to sleep. We weren't too thrilled about it, just because we'd been walking all day, and we now had out backpacks with us.
As the party came to a close we gathered our things and headed downstairs to meet them to find out how we were getting home. That's when we were told that two of us would have to stay out and keep partying, because they didn't have room for us, and we'd have to come home later with other friends... Um, No. (It's now 2:45/3:00ish)
So we called A again and asked if it was possible to sleep on her friends floor, which it wasn't. We told him not worry about it, and walked around to find a hostel close by or a hotel with room. We really weren't worried about the cost, we just wanted to not sleep on the street.
After walking around for about thirty minutes we found a hotel and asked him for a room, which he didn't have. But he told us to use the computers to find a place to stay. After 30 more minutes of looking we FINALLY found a Holiday Inn. THANKS BE TO JESUS! And the wonderful man at the reception desk took pity on us and gave us a room with two singles in it. We were in no condition to turn that down. Seriously. No. Condition.
So we slept like kinds for 20E that night, and got to take a shower, with clean towels, and soap, and slept on clean sheets, and had air conditioning.... I really felt like a princess. "You don't know what you got till it's gone." Truer words have never been spoken.We finally got to sleep that night at 4:30 am, maybe 5:00 and woke up at 9:00 to make it in time for Breakfast, check out, and the Human Towers back in the main plaza.
Sunday, 23rd.
We four ate like Princesses, K, A, K2, and I. By princesses I mean, we ate three croissants each with yummy jelly on them and drank like, two cups of coffee each and got purified water for our bottles. It was really nice. We left around 9:45 to get to the Metro to catch a ride back to the hostel we'd stayed in the day before. Checked in an hour early, and left our bags in the luggage room, which was a life saver. And homeboy working the reception desk was ATTRACTIVE, no lie. Super hipster, super cute.
After finishing up with Mr.Sexy Pants, we headed to the big plaza, where we saw the dubstep light show, to see the Torres Humanos, which consist of about fifty people forming a base, with rows of either 2-6 people stacked 5-9 people tall with a small child of 3 to 5 years old climbing to the top of said tower, climbing over, and shimmying down. My 'mothers heart' broke every time they climbed higher than three people. It really broke when one tower fell and the little baby kid just feel strait down the center of the human tower... pobrecita.
Here's some footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUzyUcHjBcM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ACPS7E708U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEiFHwiubFc
After the three hours of human tower adventures, around 3pm, we realized we were all starving and decided to hit up a place that the girls we met on the plane recommended called "La Flauta". We left the plaza for our thirty so minute walk and ran into some of the best back streets of Barcelona that we'd encountered. There was a small market set up that consisted of about six or seven tents. One was all meat, one cheese, one chocolate, one honey, one soap, and a few other misc ones. The chocolate one was of course my favorite. There was a guy sitting there rolling out chocolate dough things, and rolling them into truffles and then covering them with coco. They were 1E each, so we shared them and Holy Crap on a Cracker, they were amazing. The coco exploded in my mouth, and the chocolate was so rich, and so sweet, but it was just the right amount of bitter than I didn't need a whole lot of water afterwards... (We stopped there on the way back and bought bars of chocolate... yeah, I have a sweet tooth, whatever.)
After our sweet spot stop, we kept walking and ran into 'Happy Pills' a store that sells candy with prescriptions on it reading things like "for grey skies', 'for better sex', 'for that time of the month', 'for mean girls' etc. they were funny.
When we finally got to La Flauta we saw that it was closed, and for some reason they didn't have their time table up, but then we realized it was Sunday, and it kind of made sense. Some of our group wanted to walk all the way back to where our hotel was, but we saw a place that was open, and full of Spaniards, which normally means it's good, with a Menu that was only 14E. I still think it was a sign that we landed there, because it was fantastic.
We sat down, ordered two bottles of wine and a bottle of water, and got started with our menu. The appetizer was more than satisfactory, and I honestly would have been happy with just that, but then they took the plates away, gave us about thirty minutes to chill, and brought out the second plate. That day I felt like a real Spaniard because not only did I finish everything, but it took me three hours to do so, and it was completely acceptable. COMPLETELY ACCEPTABLE! :) After that we were given a choices of desserts and I got this flan thing that was SO GOOD. All of this was 14E. WINE INCLUDED! WHY IS THIS NOT A THING IN THE US?!
When we left lunch, around 5:00 we realized that we hadn't gone to the Picasso museum, which was free on Sundays, so we had to! With our sleep comas threatening to take over we hurried over to the museum and experienced Picasso's transformation from his early years, to his blue period, to his cubist movements. It really was quite an experience. I love Picasso, so it was really a great learning experience, seeing as how all I really know about him is his cubist work. He had a 'Las Meninas' fetish.
After the museum we all were feeling the food coma hitting full effect so we walked back to the hostel and A headed out to meet her friends. We said our goodbyes outside on the corner because there was a parade going on and wanted to see it before parting ways. However, while we were waiting a huge gust of wind came out of nowhere and R's dress flew STRAIT UP. Marilyn Monroe stile. It was quite a spectacle, but what made it even funnier was the fact that a seven year old boy and his family say. The mother walked by wiping under her eyes to symbolize tears of laughter and the father just kind of looked and shook his head, the son however was shyly hiding behind his mother smiling ear to ear, looking over his shoulder in hopes of catching another glimpse. After, K2 tried to make her feel better by saying "At least you weren't wearing a thong," to which R replied "Oh no, I am..." which caused the lot of us to erupt in a fit of laughter. I'm talking, bent over at the waist, welling up with tears. Gosh it was great.
When A finally said her goodbyes and we recovered from the side splitting event we entered our room to find a guy pulling a towel up quickly around his waste and a girl bursting into a fit of laughter. I dropped my bag, and headed to the bathroom to let them recover while my friends stayed in there to set up our cots.
When I re entered the room, I regretted ever leaving because homeboy looked like a young, scruffy, Australian, Billy Zane with a body like Ryan Gosling and hair like a god. THEY DON'T MAKE THOSE IN THE STATES. We sat and talked for a while instead of taking a nap and they told us about how they hate Americans, and we agreed wholeheartedly. For the most part anyway. They told us that they hated all of the traveling Australians because they act like they do at home, just worse. They also told us about a dragon parade happening that night, which R had been DYING to see, so we of course planned to go.
At 9:00 we left our room and went to witness an amazing spectacle. Everyone had scarves wrapped around their face as though they were walking through the desert, or from an old Western, with hoodies on and long pants... It was about 80º outside, so I realized how serious this dragon thing was when I got there. These men started walking down the street with huge sparklers that were swinging around on poles spraying the crowed with embers. I have a burn mark on my hand, a small price to pay for the amazing experience really.
People were running in the streets to play in the fire and spraying sparklers and were chased by people dressed as devils with fire suits on. It was really awesome!! The pictures I have don't do it justice, so here's a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gzpgS2Q_2M
At 10:30 we realized we only had 30 minutes to get to Sagrada Familia to see the light show, so we hopped on the Metro, which was packed tighter than a jar of pickles. It was quite terrible. But we knew we were getting to Sagrada without walking, so it was fine.
The four of us landed at the stop and met up with A to go see the show and find places to eat tapas. We found a not so prime spot to see the light show, but it was still really cool. Halfway through the show I seriously thought to myself "There's no way that they're going to dubstep a Cathedral right? Isn't that like, sacrelig?" ... Oh no, They did it.
They DUBSTEPPED SAGRADA FAMILIA!
I freaking LOVE Spaniards.
Here's the Link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS9NBwQ3fO4
After the amazing show, we got some Chupa Chups, those great two flavor lollipops. The design of which was created by Salvador Dalí, betcha didn't know that, well, I didn't.
We then went on an adventure to find Dow Jones Bar, which is a Stock Market bar designed to look like Wall Street. They did a really good job of it too! We landed there around 2am or so, right as the stock market crashed! So I got a Pink Mojito, which did not come close to being as good as the one in Granada, but it was only 3E, pretty good deal really. After I gulped that down I got a shot called "Pink Taco", which was terrible, I mean, terrible. It was supposed to be Banana something, which I thought would be good because I've come to like them, but no, not at all. But I guess it did the job, because I didn't feel stupid doing the figure 8. (that's our drunk test, thanks to R)
After that we hopped on the Metro with A to ride back with her to Sagrada, then got back on a went back to our hostel. We got back at about 3 or 4, and EVERYONE was asleep by then. I felt bad going in and leaving because the door squeaked so much, but it's not my fault I can't see in the dark, so whatever. After we settled in R and I shared a bed to stay warm, because Barca is SO cold at night, cuddling is nice. When we laid down the Ausie boy woke up and left to go to the bathroom... in his boxer briefs, and K2 got a full show because she ran into him in the hallway, but when he opened the door I got a full side view of strait abs, bed head, amazing biceps, and just, amazingness. K2 came in and said "Got those fit him good." HAHA. I was so freaking jelly.
The next morning, we again woke up with the sun at 8am to get breakfast and to get to Sagrada Familia before the rush. We made it there at 9 and thankfully the line was super short. Tickets were fairly cheap to get in so I wasn't too upset. We walked in and it's really breath taking even from the outside, it was funny to see how much they can change the face of it with lights when there's so much there. There's so much detail in it, that it's almost unbelievable. The inside is filled with stained glass and the sun was jut hitting them when we went in, so there were streaks of color all over the place. It was quite a sight to behold. Here's the virtual tour.
http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/docs_instit/vvirtual.php?vv=1
Click the tabs at the top to see everything. You're welcome.
After about two hours in the Cathedral we headed over to Camp Nou because K wanted to see where Barca played. It was really cool. They had Iniesta posters everywhere. (he's the best player in the world, it's a real title.)
When we were finished seeing the outside of the area we went back to the perfect restaurant again. The menu changed unfortunately, but it was cheaper this time, so that was fantastic. Again, we got excellent service, with excellent food. No complaints, tons of recommendations.
When lunch was over we wandered back home taking our time, but moving quick enough to get back in time to catch the bus to the airport.
We stopped and bought post cards, misc things, and I got a coffee mug for half price. One more for the collection. It's great :)
I really want to get one from every place I visit. Start a collection of them, kind of like shot glasses, but more expensive, and takes up more space. I really need space bags.
After that we picked up our bags, caught the bus and got to the airport to get home. At the airport security took literally five seconds and we were greeted by three women dancing and handing out perfume samples. Like, legitimately dancing, it was pretty weird.
The flight home was kind of rough, but we survived.
We hopped the bus to get to the city then made it home.
Over all the weekend was really amazing, and I really hope that I get to go back some day.
Wouldn't change at thing about it. :)
Sorry this was so lengthy
<3
Buenas Noches
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