Te quiero, Barcelona

This weekend was our independent trip to Barcelona. Not only did we plan it all (hostel, trains, etc.) ourselves, but we had to navigate a city where half the people don't even speak Spanish, but speak Catalan (the northeastern language of Spain) and have crazy lisps when they do speak Spanish. Overall, Barcelona was a lot friendlier than Madrid, and we ended up having a great time.

Because we have Eurail passes, my friend Sarah and I traveled by train, while our other five friends traveled by plane to Barcelona. We ended up sleeping through our alarms on Friday morning (even after a relatively quiet Thursday night), but eventually made it to the train station. After grabbing some Coca-Cola Light, sandwiches and Pringles at the train station, we were en route to Barcelona.

We arrived around 2 pm, and made our way to the hostel, which was all the way at the end of a Metro line in an area of town called Badalona. As it turned out, we were 8 blocks from the beach, and we could feel the breeze off the Mediterranean as soon as we got out of the Metro. When we got to our hostel, they told us that it was full, although we had reservations. Sarah and I ended up getting a room in a storage closet for the night (remember that scene in Best in Show?... it's kind of like that) and were told we would be moved to another (real) room on Saturday afternoon. It was a little obnoxious, but at least we had a place to sleep.

We met up with our friends, and decided to split up for the afternoon. Sarah, Lauren, Kayla and I wanted to go see some sights around Barcelona, while the others wanted to take a bike tour around the city. We navigated the subway system in search of Park Güell, a park mostly designed by Gaudi. We got to the park (after hiking a kilometer up a super-steep hill...think San Francisco) and we treated to awesome views of the beach, Sagrada Familia, and the city of Barcelona (which is HUGE). We walked around the park for a while, discovering awesome mosaic buildings (which were kind of Seuss-ian) and a cool breeze off the beach.

We had heard that a great place to go was Las Ramblas, kind of Barcelona's big tourist trap. We Metro-ed over there, and walked around, seeing street performers (people dressed up in crazy costumes... our favorite was Edward Scissorhands) and watching out for ladrones (thieves). We found a market, La Boqueria, and checked out how the Spanish do their grocery shopping. Most of the fruit stands at the market had fruit smoothies pre-made for 1 Euro, so we all grabbed one and tried out all of the flavors. I got strawberry-pineapple, while others got mango-peach, coconut-banana, and other odd combinations. They were a great snack for the afternoon.

On the way back to the hostel, we grabbed some cheap Spanish wine (as always) and got ready to go out for the night. We drank while everyone got ready, saw a restaurant out the window, and decided to go. I had read that some restaurants in Barcelona let you set a fixed price for everyone, and will bring you never-ending sangria, tapas, and bread. I negotiated with the manager (in Spanish!) and for 15 Euro, we ended up having potatoes with calamari, prawn, asparagus, bread, croquetes, salads, and sangria. It was great!

Because we were so close to the beach, we decided to find a beach bar and drink by the beach (it was about 1 AM). We went down and found a small shack, got drinks and watched the surf. I "fell asleep" for about fifteen minutes, and when I woke up, most of our group was in the water, so I decided to join them. I ended up kind of falling into the Mediterranean at first, but it was a great night.

The next morning, we split up again and Lauren, Kayla and I went in search of Sagrada Familia... a giant church that has been under construction since the 1860s. We went inside, and the place is HUGE... and it's not even half-finished. All of the walls are hand-carved with statues of Christ and the story of his life. It was really cool to be in such an awesome place. After Sagrada Familia, there was a Domino's across the street... so of course we had to get our first American pizza of the entire summer. It was amazing... and almost exactly like American Domino's (but better... absence really does make the heart grow fonder).

We made our way to the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter) to find the Picasso Museum. We went in, and saw a lot of Picasso's art. Turns out, the Picasso we all know really isn't the bulk of his work: he painted a lot of boring stuff before his cubist period. We slowly made our way through the streets of Barcelona, and headed back to the hostel to go to the beach.

We got to the beach around 2 PM, with fafafel pitas in tow that we had picked up along the way. The water was really clear, and there weren't very many people out. We found a great spot on the beach, and went into the Mediterranean. This time, I ended up staying in the water for about 3 hours, and swam around. Lauren and I ended up being in the water the most, as we swam down the coast to check out a busier beach... we maybe swam 2 km in total.

After the beach, we were in search of a Mexican restaurant. We found one, and had a half-hour Metro ride to get there. It was okay, but the girls all had pretty gross margaritas... I just stuck to beer, and it was not only cheaper, but better tasting. We then made our way to a 150 year-old bar near Las Ramblas that sells absinthe... just to try it. The bar was in a sketchy part of town, but it was really awesome (and EXTREMELY HOT). We got our absinthe...that stuff is FOUL. We still downed it, though, in hopes of chilling with the green fairy. It didn't exactly work, and Sarah and I went back to our hostel, while the others had to catch a bus to the airport to fly home.

In the morning, we walked around the city for a while, and found a place to grab paella, another testament to the laziness of the Spaniards (oh, let's just put everything in a skillet and cook it). It was good, and being satisfied, we made our way back to the train station, and eventually, to Toledo.

This week I have a lot of papers to write for school, but after that, we are off the the southern coast of Spain, and on Saturday, I'll be in Morocco!

¡Hasta luego!
Will