Barcelona

At the beginning of March, I went to Barcelona with my American friend Vicky who was in Europe on a 2 week trip. She was visiting family in Cyprus and a friend in Rome, and wanted to make it over to Switzerland since we had seen each other since we met - in Australia (ahhh, the start of my abroad living experiences <3....I miss Aussie dearly). After fondu and meeting my Geneva friends for a night at Mulligan's, we awoke early Saturday morning for our flight to Barcelona. I don't think we stopped talking from the minute I picked her up at the airport to the time our Easyjet flight landed in Barcelona. We reminisced about old times at DLC (our living quarters in Sydney), and discussing the current stresses and celebrations of our lives. Despite our excitement at just being reunited, we didn't fail to notice the gloomy gray skies when we landed. We weren't thrilled to see sagging, dripping palm trees as we made our way to the subway to our hostel, but our spirits were still high and we decided to focus on one of the our most beloved interest - food.

Our hostel was recommended by my friends for it's good location, cool building, and fun pub crawl. We were enthusiastically greeted by the female employee behind the desk, "hi beautiful!" This was our first interaction with anyone from the city, and that friendly vibe seemed to be the way of the Barcelona people. Since it was raining we figured we would find ourselves a restaurant with anything Spanish - and a pitcher of sangria. Our hostel girl gave us directions to a popular place, but with her speed of English (and sloppy writing), combined with our lack of Spanish - we ended up getting off at a subway stop that only sounded like the correct one....so we wandered in the rain in an area that wasn't exactly a restuarant hub....and had to settle on Mexican - but at least we got sangria...and mojitos, and guacamole.

Right down the street from our hostel was a house, Casa Batllo, designed by Antoni Gaudi (famous for his rounded, organic architecture in Barcelona). Normally, I wouldn't pay 18euros for a tour....but it was raining, we weren't too far from our hostel, and the 2 hours we spent in Casa Batllo turned out to be more interesting and beautiful than most museums I've been to. Maybe it was because we were actually walking, climbing and touching his art rather than viewing it from behind glass.

For dinner, Vicky said we HAD to have Paella (rice and seafood dish), so we headed to Placa de Catalunya, and found a place on the square. There were two open tables, and the waiter lead us to the worse of the two. It was next to two typically Spanish men who literally would not stop staring - oh, we gave them dirty looks....yes we did. Vicky even said something to them, but they were so obnoxious. We did our best to ignore them. Sangria, again, was a wonderful accompaniment to our Spanish meal. We were raving the whole way back to our hostel about how good our meal was. We didn't have time for dessert because we had to make it back by 10pm for the start of our pub crawl.

Earlier in the day we met two Quebecian girls (I could hear the difference in their French immidiately - it was so much harsher - like a German person trying to speak French), Anne-Marie and Benedicte, who were sharing our 16 person dorm at the hostel. I think our connection came when the four of us shared the same opinion of the other travelers rooming with us - they were strange. I'm sorry to be so blatant, but napping in the middle of the day and cutting each other's hair with electric sheers in the hostel bathroom are just not common practices when you're on vacation. Plus they spoke some unidentifiable language (possibly Russian?), and were not very courteous at 7am the next day when we were just entering REM sleep...

The four of us ended up being the only ones to convene in the lobby for the meeting time of the pub crawl. Luckily our hostess brought us to a pub where we met up with people from another hostel. We went to 4 bars and 1 club with a free shot or drink at each one...and somehow we usually ended up with more than that. Our leaders, Jamie and Patrizia, were lots of fun, and we all had a great time. At some of the bars, there seemed to be tons of "kids" younger than me. I noted from a trip to the ladies room what funky style the Spanish teenagers have. The club we ended at was super packed. Benedicte wasn't feeling so great by this point, and she and Anne-Marie headed back to the hostel. Vicky and I were having a great time, but it was so crowded that we couldn't really dance - we felt more like sardines. We really had no idea where any of the places that we were taken were located - but somehow we navigated our way home without a map!

We'd heard that the rain from the previous day was unseasonable for Barcelona, and as promised a sunny day was in store for Sunday. We started out with some refreshing salads fo brunch.

Vicky had done a hop-on-hop-off bus tour in Rome, and we thought it would be a good way to soak up some rays, relax a bit, and cover the most ground in this city as well. I don't know how we would have seen all of the sights on foot. I've heard others recommend a bike tour, which I could see reasonable, but we were in relax mode. We hopped off at Park Guell, to get a great panoramic view of the city. We also saw the Olympic Stadium, beach, and many parts of the city. We got off at Autoritat Portuaria (the port) where there was a flea market and people walking around the harbor. There were dogs playing, people napping by the docks and sailboats backed by endless blue sky. At the market, I picked out an adorable pair of red espadrille shoes for Victoire. They are honestly one of my favorite European purchases.

We had yet to visit a Tapas restaurant, so before checking out of the hostel, we popped across the street to "Tapa Tapa." THIS was my favorite food experience of the trip. When the waitress took my order, she thought I was ordering for both of us! HAHA - fat Americans :) Vicky and I each devoured about 5 tapas plates of various veggie, meat, seafood, and pasta combinations. We took an Airport Express shuttle-bus from Placa Catalunya where we took in our final observations of Barcelona.