Barcelona

Two weekends ago Chris and I went to Barcelona. We originally thought that we had Thursday-Sunday there, but after the people at the hotel mentioned we had one more night there before we left, we had to look over the itinerary and sure enough, we were leaving the next day, Friday. That Thursday instead, we dedicated to exploring Florence. It ended up being a pretty nice day! :)

We left for the airport around 11:15 on Friday, and once we got there and waited in line to check in, the lady at the Lufthansa desk mentioned that our flight was about 45 minutes late, and that it was necessary to book a later connecting flight from Munich to Barcelona. We were a bit bummed because we then had a long layover of about 3-4 hours (the flight from Munich to Barcelona was scheduled to leave around 7:00 PM) but we accepted it. Well, once we got to the terminal, our flight appeared to be completely on time. We were very confused, and were determined to switch our connecting flight back to the original time. Once we got into Munich, we hustled to the Lufthansa service desk, and practically begged them to switch us back to our original flight plans. They mentioned this was very difficult to do, but with much persistence we were able to change it back just in the nick of time.

We didn’t end up getting into Barcelona until late afternoon/evening and then we had to take a metro train to our hotel which was located pretty far from the airport. Our hotel was very, very nice though. We decided to stay in a nicer place just because it was a special weekend for both of us. We stayed at Vincci Maritimo , which ended up being a pretty nice location to the city’s hot spots. That evening we took a taxi into the part of town where my friends Georgina and Jessie were staying. We met for some happy hour drinks. and then we took the metro train again to the waterfront where a lot of the famous restaurants were located. We had some red wine, Chris and I split some fried Calamari (oddly it is the only seafood I’ll eat pretty much) and we all split some chicken and vegetable Paella (very authentic Spanish food). It was delicious! That evening we walked around the town and encountered all the hot spots of the nightlife in Barcelona. We went into a few clubs and bars and had a great evening.

he next day, Chris and I slept in because we were exhausted from the busy night before. Once we were off for the day, there was no stopping us! We knew we pretty much only had today to explore the city and see all the sights, so we wasted no time. Once we hoped on the metro train (we used this a lot while we were there), the first thing we did was have tapas at this local restaurant near the Picasso Museum. We split these sausages, spicy tomato sauce fries, beer, and bread with a tomato sauce. It was super yummy! Once we were finished, we went to the Picasso museum. It was pretty cool, but kind of small. I didn’t mind though- I’ m not much of a museum goer, but I felt it was necessary to go to this museum while I was there!

After the museum, we went to a souvenir shop and I got some postcards, and Chris got a little bull figurine. We asked the man that worked there for directions to the city Cathedral, and we were on our way. We were pretty close to the cathedral, so we ended up just walking there. On the way to the church, I ran into a Starbucks and I was ecstatic. I definitely miss Starbucks from the states; although it is even more expensive in Europe, it is totally worth going to because they are non existent here in Italy. As we were walking over to the church, we noticed some talented street performers and we sat and watched them while I sipped my coffee. Anyways, the church was super cool, but like many things that weekend, it was under construction on the outside. The inside was very beautiful though.

After our short visit to the church, we took the metro train to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia Church. Before we entered the building, Chris and I spotted a place across the street to get hot dogs, and I haven't had a hot dog since I left the states, so I was ecstatic. They even had ketchup! :) Anyways, after our little snack, I couldn't help but notice the outside of the church was simply breathtaking and had very interesting architecture. This famous structure is currently unfinished. According to Trivia-library.comthe shell of a church, one of the landmarks of Barcelona, Spain, occupied architect Antonio Gaudi throughout his career. He inherited the project from the original architect, Francisco del Villar, in 1883, one year after construction had begun, and transformed the conventional Gothic-style cathedral into a surrealistic forest of imaginative shapes resembling natural objects. After 1910 he abandoned almost all other work, secluding himself on the church site. His work, described as the three-dimensional dreams of a madman, contains bulging facades, swaying pillars, and weird protuberances. In 1926 Gaudi, 73, was run over by a Barcelona streetcar. Only one of the 13 planned tubular towers and one transept of the church were completed when he died five days later. Although the church was brutally damaged during the Spanish Civil War, Gaudi's assistants, friends, and concerned citizens have kept the work going. Although Chris and I were a bit unimpressed with the inside of the church, we began to appreciate the structure after learning about the history and the historical significance. My favorite part about the building was the optional elevator lift that took us to the top of the Church unto a balcony. It was here that we had an amazing view of the city. We definitely took lots of pictures up here.

When we were done looking inside the church, we had a quick snack (again) at KFC. It is nothing like the states though; they didn't even have popcorn chicken! Anyways, we took the subway to the stop where "La Pedrera" was located. I am not quite sure the significance of this building, but it looks really cool and I knew I wanted to see it. We didn't go inside or anything (I think it might even be an apartment complex?) but it looked super neat. I know the building was also designed by Gaudi.

We took the metro train once again back to our hotel, freshened up, and met Jessie and Georgina again for a buffet dinner. It was all you can eat for 9.50 euro, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but most of the food was terrible. The salad bar with the cold pasta salads was really good, but the hot foods looked and tasted stale. It was almost as if they were sitting out all day... gross. I guess that's what you get for eating a buffet, right? haha. That evening we were looking for two famous bars in particular; a "shots cafe" and a "Stock-exchange bar". We got lost trying to find the shot cafe, and apparently it is a very Americanized bar, so none of the Barcelona natives knew where it was, or even had heard of it. Bummer... but we did end up finding the Stock-exchange bar. It was pretty much out in the middle of no where, and the concept behind it was there is menu that contains all the of drinks and next to it, much like stocks, are the current prices of the drink. Every 10 minutes or so, they are adjusted based on the "market" and drinks either go up or down based on their popularity. There even were "stock-market crashes" much like the real world. It was a cool idea, but the bar was so crowded and really smoky. We had one drink, and had to leave. We ended up going to a bar close to the girls' hostel, and it turned out to be pretty fun. We hung out in the basement of the bar, and there were two British men that decided to sit next to us and chat. They were very friendly! Apparently they were both teaching English to the Spanish people; I was curious how long they have been speaking Spanish, and the man replied... "oh only about 9 months or so!" I was completely shocked; I wondered how in the world are these people teaching English if they are not even fluent in Spanish?! The man said that they pretty much speak only English to them, even from day one. Wow, things are so different in Europe!

We ended up staying until the bar closed, and then we went to bed. The next day, Chris and I had a quick Breakfast and then we headed to the metro station one last time to get to the airport. We thought things were fine and dandy, but the man at the train station gave us the wrong train to take to the airport, so we were just riding along, and after awhile, we noticed things were looking pretty strange. There were cows and other various farm animals on either side of us... and we were just thinking something didn't feel right. Sure enough, we were heading in the wrong direction, so we got off at the next stop and waited until the train was going the opposite direction. We figured out which stop to get off to transfer to the real airport line, but at that point, we were super pressed for time. It was so stressful; once we finally got to the airport, we had about 15 minutes until our flight left! We booked it with our bags to the Lufthansa check in, explained our situation, and luckily we arrived just in the nick of time as the flight was boarding. We were sweating though!! The rest of the day went pretty smoothly and I was mainly consumed for studying for my Operations test the next day. It is so hard to study with your boyfriend there, believe me!

Whew! What a recap... hope I didn't bore you guys to tears! I am currently in the process of posting all my Barcelona trip pictures on face book. Feel free to have a look! :)

Ciao buddies!