European Tour: Barcelona, Spain

The Barcelona trip was a "non sponsored" trip. Meaning we had to figure everything out on our own.  We quickly figured out that Europe has an airline called Ryan Air. You can fly on it for practically nothing, and the only you can take with you is a carry-on. We booked our flights on that, and booked a hostel and were on our way to Barcelona.

The only qualm I have with Ryan Air is that it doesn't fly into the major airports (cuts down on their costs). But it adds to my cost, as well as the travel time when I have to take a train to the outlying airports. After taking 3 hours just to get to the airport (walk to train station in Capalago, take train to transfer point, take train to airport station), we checked in and were ready for Spain. I was half expecting to have to kick start the plane Fred Flinstone style, but we were actually on a HUGE plane, the one that has 3 rows of 3 seats. It was an uneventful ride until the lady sitting next to me, looked @ me and in Spanish asked me to hold her baby. At least, I think that's what she said because I didn't have any time to think about it before a 6 month old was being pushed into my lap. Good thing that baby was golden because she was in my lap for a good hour. When it came to the landing, that wasn't so smooth. We landed and it was almost like the pilot overshot the turn where we were supposed to go because he WHIPPED the plane so suddenly I thought I had whip-lash.

After we were safely on the ground, we unloaded from the back (so smart) and got on a bus (another outlying airport) that would take us into the city. After walking around for a bit, trying to find the hostel we finally found it. We freshened up a bit, and then went out to find dinner. We called it an early night so we could be ready for sight-seeing the next day.

City Park in Barcelona

The first day of the trip is completely lost, at least in pictures. First, we stopped by Barcelona's Arc De Triomf, which looks very similar to the one in Paris. Then we made our way over to the city park where we waited for about 2 hours while our friend Megan tried to rendezvous with her friend Anne-Marie. After finally meeting her, we walked around the park some more.  We found a beautiful sculpture/waterfall that had us all boggled. We had never seen such a thing at any park in the US. On our way out of the park, we stopped by the zoo but decided against it when admission was $20. We walked down towards the beach, where we stopped for lunch. I had a "Bikini" it's the Spanish version of a ham and cheese panini and it's SO good.

First up on our agenda for the day was Bodegas Güell. It's a "city" that was designed by the famous artist Gaudi. It has a lot of crazy architectural designs, and a lot of the mosaics that Gaudi was famous for. He has a "park" where there are mosaic benches that overlook the city, he has a couple of different houses and a "town center" where the business of the town would be conducted. The city was never brought fully into fruition, so you can really only see bits and pieces of the dream Gaudi had for the artistic city.

We then decided to walk from Bodegas Güell to the Sagrada Familia. It's another one of Gaudi's famous projects that was started in the 1800's and isn't supposed to be completed until 2026. It's definitely a sight to look at, even a little creepy with the combination of the Gothic architecture and the texture of the materials used. There is a lot of intricate figure work as well...and the figures themselves give off kind of a creepy vibe. It was hard to take a nice looking picture because of all the construction going on and all the cranes and equipment hanging around. So we settled for a group shot...

After stopping in a local cafe for lunch, we headed back to the hostel to take a nap and get ready for dinner/going out that night.

2 of our group (Molly and Katie) stayed at a different hostel. So the water fountain in the middle of Barcelona became our meeting spot since it was 1/2 between our hostels as well as being near everything. The first picture is us waiting for Molly and Katie, and taking pictures in front of the fountain. We walked down Las Ramblas (the main street in Barcelona) and picked a restaurant that looked good yet wasn't too crowded. From what I remember, it was excellent food...again, hard to mess up food when you're in Spain. After dinner, we started walking down Las Ramblas again, we were handed flyers for bars that had drink specials. One of the bars was right near where we were at the time, so we decided to head over there and try out their special. It was free Tequila Sunsets. I had never had one, but one was plenty...it wasn't very good. We stayed there for awhile and then decided to find some other night life. As we walked down Las Ramblas and then over the bridge, we were handed all kinds of flyers that had drink specials on them.

The first up was another Irish Pub, where we had drinks, sang Karaoke and ended up dancing on the couches. After that we went to a nearby "dance club" but after a few minutes we realized there weren't that many people there and it wasn't really our kind of crowd. We moved onto another "club" where things were a bit more "hopping" and the crowd started filing in around midnight.

Around 2 am, Megan and I decided to take one of our friends home...she had had enough partying for one night. The crazy thing was that people were JUST getting to the Club then, everyone would be like "Where are you going?" as we passed them, leaving. I don't know how they all do it, maybe it's the siestas, but they are literally out until 6 o'clock in the morning.

The next day started off a little bit later than the first day. We once again, waited for Molly and Katie at the Water Fountain and then made our way back down Las Ramblas. The street performers were out and we took our time strolling in and out of shops and stopping to watch them. We stopped by a local church that had just let out, all the people had gone straight from the church to a little square and their were people playing music and dancing all around. We took some time out to hang out there and watch everyone.

We slowly but surely made our way to the beach, where we lounged on the chairs (until we were told you had to pay for them) and then lounged on the sand. It was awesome to be able to go the beach, and be completely warm in late October. After sitting on the beach for awhile, we started making our way back down Las Ramblas. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed back to the hostel to pack up and get ready for our VERY early flight the next morning.

Barcelona was definitely one of my favorite cities that I went to while I was in Europe. It had the beach, the big city yet it was laid back. Also, since I had taken 7 years of Spanish...I could understand a little bit of what they were saying. I say a little bit because they speak Catalan Spanish which is different than the Spanish I learned throughout school. Barcelona is on my list of places I want to go back to someday.

To be continued...Next Up: European Tour: Sorrento