Tapas, cocaine dealers, paella, statues, scaffolding, stray dogs, street performers, and sangria; BARCELONA

DAY I
As a great start to our trip, Alan saw us off in Piazza Italia where we got the bus to the airport. AND he brought us CHEDDAR CHEEEESE! From Ireland! We snacked on it while waiting for our flight! And so, I took my first RyanAir flight to Barcelona- RyanAir has a RyanAir song that they play during take off and landing. Haaahaha. We arrived in Barcelona at 6:30 and took an hour bus ride to the center. To find our hostel, instead of taking the metro like the website suggested, we decided to be bold and walk and find it ourselves. After an hour of circles and turn arounds, we found it! After getting settled in the hostel we went out in search for food- at this point, it was after 11:00, which is normal time for dinner in Spain—and we found tapas. Oh my gosh, tapas. We got a kind of friend potato with a garlic sauce, a couple kinds of meat kebabs including sesame seasoned chicken and seafood paella (which, despite it being seafood, was okay) and some amazing Spanish style bruscetta bread. And of course, I had my first ever Sangria. Uhhum, yummy.
Then we wandered and found a Hagen Daaz- real ice cream! As much as I love gelato, it was so great to have real ice cream.

Day II
Woke up to pouring rain- it seems to follow us wherever we go! But again, we didn’t let it stop us. First we caved and got some Starbucks for breakfast- I felt majorly guilty but my white chocolate mocha and blueberry muffin were so deliciousss. I tried to order in Spanish … That has been the most difficult and frustrating part of Barcelona so far. I can’t remember ANY of my Spanish. It’s all getting mixed up with Italian in my head. Like, it felt weird to be greeting people with “hola” and not “ciao”. It has made me realize, though, how much Italian I really know. But I really did forget the basics! Just hello/goodbye/thanks/excuse me/please/I’m sorry/counting has taken me a sec to process. I just want to speak Italian all the time. So anyways, we walked for a while- 40 minutes maybe-down to the central areas with AWESOME architecture and shopping. I just loved all the buildings there. Where we were reminded me of the Los Angeles Promenade that I saw this summer, Gothic style. And there were tons of vendors with cool crafts. There I did the majority of my Barcelona purchases- I got a super bold necklace that I can’t wait to try to wear without looking like an idiot, a new wallet (finally), a shrug, and some gifts for some peeps. Yeah, for you. We also found the Port of Barcelona and saw the ocean.

The most memorable part of my day- when it was lightly raining and we were shopping along the center, we were standing near a homeless man sitting on the ground. And Elisha saw him and went over to him and offered him her umbrella. It was so simple and kind and I was so inspired by it, first it made me sad that doing that didn’t even occur to me. But it has also now put that thought in my head and I will always remember it and next time, I hope it will occur to me. She said “my holy spirit spoke to me and said,
‘give that man your umbrella’ and I said ‘no, I need it’ and then I thought, ‘no, I don’t’”.

In the evening, Amanda, Sarah, and I got an extra scenic view of the city while we got turned around looking for the metro … for 45 minutes. For dinner, we went down to the bay and got Sangria that was better than the night before and Elisha and I split a huge pan of meat paella. The restaurant was a great choice- the staff and waiters were super nice, the guys from Madrid sitting next to us offered us some of their appetizer (mussels- which I tasted! Be proud!), and the Austrian men sitting on the other side of us struck up a conversation as well! Oh, and be proud of me again- I also tasted some of the other girls’ seafood paella. We even took pictures with the waiter guys, and one of them gave me his cell phone on which to listen to Bollywood music, which he sings, apparently. He said that everyone “at home” (India) says that he is the spitting image of some famous Bollywood star? Funny dude. Afterwards, we wandered over to the beach and took pictures on the bay and beach! But we had to leave after dipping our feet in the water and just enjoying ourselves because we were in freakin Spain! because some sketchy guys tried to sell Sarah drugs when she was waiting for us on the boardwalk. And that was our cue to get out of there. We got free passes on the street from a club on the bay called Catwalk- we went in for 15 minutes. Went to a club in Barcelona- check. It was crazy cool inside, but just a little intense for us after our long day. The rest of the bay was fun to walk around, though- there were some super cool buildings and a strip of real hoity toity (yeah, I said it, Andrea Mel and Maren, I hope you read that with Jack Kelly’s accent) guest-list-only clubs.

Day III
Today we toured the Gothic center! We went inside the Cathedral of Barcelona, although we didn’t get to see the outside of the Cathedral because it was under tons of scaffolding =( Boo. But outside the cathedral was a band of older men playing instruments (not very well …. Haha) and a few groups of people folk dancing in a circle in the square!! Yay! Afterwards we just did tons more walking around the Gothic center and shopping center and took tons of pics. On the way back to the hostel we watched a group of 4 funny guys put on a hip hop street dancing show. Then everyone else went to see the Sagrada Famiglia cathedral but my stupid knee sent me back to the hostel to sit down and ice. Arghh.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant called QuQu where I got some delicious chicken and (yes, Andrea) profiterol! Funny that my first profiterol was in Spain …. It was okay but I was just excited to have some of it! Then we had a couple drinks at a bar near our hostel where we had a chance to talk to some girls from California who were staying at our hostel as well.

Day IV
We took the metro and climbed the HUGE hill up to Parque Guell where there was an amazing amazing amazing panoramic view of the entire city, facing the water (the bay where we were the day before). I didn’t realize how enormous Barcelona is- it looked bigger than Manhattan to me! And it was cool because we could see where we had walked, and I’d say we covered a good third of it by foot in our 3 days. Go us!

Side story 1: When at the highest most point at Parque Guell (a big cross made of stone up on a hill thing … yeah, descriptive, I know), some Italians were up there with us, about my age, a little older. I overheard them talking Italian. I was standing next to one when he wanted his photo taken, and I somehow made eye contact with his friend who motioned for me to get in the photo with him. I laughed and said okay, why not, hahaha, and then he asked me if I spoke English. I answered him Italian, “yes, but I speak a little Italian” so I talked to them for a few minutes all in Italian! And they were speaking normal speed (I think) and I understood it all! I think it was the highlight of my day. The rest of Parque Guell was so cool! There are a couple more of Gaudi’s works there, plus a huge open square with local artists, and tile designs on benches and a really beautiful, colorful place all together. We walked slowly back towards the hostel because we had nothing else to do- we (me, Carly, Elisha, and Jess) stopped in The Tea Shop, and had fun sampling and smelling the millionsss of kinds of teas they had. I really do like tea!

Back to the hostel to get our stuff, took the very crowded metro to the bus station, bus to the airport, and got into the air to LONDON! So one country on my list- Spain: check.


The beautiful city! , me & Carly at the Port of Barcelona on our rainy first day.


Paella & sangria on the bay, Cartwheeling at Park Guell!