It was just Nick and I on this trip, but I found we made a good team together. Our plane left at 6:30 last Saturday, so I figured I would stay up all night and sleep on the bus, on the plane, and on the bus again from Girona to Barcelona. Unfortunately, we didn't quite make it to the airport in time, and had to have our flight rescheduled. Goodbye 50 pounds :( Oh well, can't dwell on that.
Besides that, everything about our trip was absolutely amazing. We got into Barcelona around midday, if my memory still serves me correctly. Our first site was Barcelona's Arc de Triomf:
Starting to get a little sick of Arc's, heh. Anyways, that was on our way to check in to the hostel. But then we found out we couldn't go back to the hostel until 2 I think, so we had some time to kill. We took our first walk down La Rambla (or Las Ramblas, I'm still not really sure what the proper name to call it is.) La Rambla is the place where all the tourists go, and all the crazy street performers are. Throughout our walks down La Rambla, we saw the Devil, Atlas and his globe, some guy that played a mini piano with a puppet somehow, scary monsters inside boxes, and a bunch more that were less memorable. I liked this little street sign thing:
But my favorite part about La Rambla is la Boqueria, just off to the side:
Inside you can buy any food you can imagine; fresh fruit, fish, and meat:
Doesn't get much fresher than that! We came back a few times for the juices, which were phenomenal. They probably use all the overripe fruits that can't be sold anymore, but it doesn't matter. Kiwi juice, strawberry coconut, kiwi coconut (my favorite), papaya mango something. Only 1 euro each, and they were all incredible.
Afterwards we walked the rest of La Rambla up to Placa de Catalunya. The c in placa is supposed to have a curly thing underneath it, but I'm too lazy to figure out how to do that...the plaza was nice though:
There's a lot of pigeons there, and the statues don't have much to defend themselves. The result: a lot of poopy statues. I think the only place I've ever seen as much pigeons was in Dam square in Amsterdam. While we're on the subject of pigeons, I should mention that me and Vidar had an argument about them. He didn't think they could fly - after a lengthy argument, he realized he had confused pigeons for penguins. Which, to be fair, can't fly. Crazy Norwegian.
Afterwards, we were ready to head to the hostel and check in. The hostel was better then the one I stayed in at Amsterdam, but certain things about it angered me. We had to pay for sheets and Nick bought a towel, and the workers were very rude. And even though we were practically right on La Rambla, they didn't stop anyone who walked in, so it was practically like there was no security. But on the bright side, there were only six people to a room (it wasn't always full during the weekdays either), and we had our own bathroom with shower, which had semi-consistently hot water. Also there was free internet, so it wasn't all bad.
We took a well earned siesta. Once refreshed, we took a walk to a statue of Christopher Columbus:
That picture was actually from later in the trip. When we walked there it was already night, and our pictures didn't turn out. From there, we walked down the harbourside. Many sailships were there, preparing to embark on a journey around the globe. We also stood and watched some crazy show designed to promote tourism to Zaragoza. There were drummers, guitarists, crazy performers, balancers:
Not the best picture, but you get the idea. Unfortunately, the ad campaign didn't work on us. We didn't make it to Zaragoza.
To kill time, we went to a sports bar and watched Barcelona get romped on by some other football team 2-0. Ronaldinho is supposed to be amazing, but I was unimpressed.
By this point we had decided we would power through our jet lag and go out clubbing. Our friends from Bristol recommended a club called Razzmatazz. But since we arrived on Saturday night, and Razzmatazz is only open on Fridays and Saturdays, we didn't have much choice of when we could go. It also turns out that Razz doesn't open til 1 am, and closes at around 6:30. Must be nice to only work 11 hours a week. Crazy Spaniards!
So we got ourselves some cheap wine (only 3 euro per bottle I think?) and drank at the hostel with some random Canadians we had met. Apparently they went to the beach and went swimming - It was about 50 degrees out during the day I would say. What's that all aboot? Crazy Canadians.
It was a hike to and from Razzmatazz, but well worth it. It was kind of like Oceana here, with 5 or 6 clubs in one, but about 10 times bigger. Razz used to be a warehouse before it was renovated. It even has an outdoors section to get some fresh air. We drank overpriced beers and danced the night away with two lovely Spanish ladies who's names we never got. The bartender taught me the name for shots in Spanish, but I don't remember it anymore. I'm pretty sure we didn't get back to the hostel until 7 in the morning.
We were woken up at 1 by room service. I noticed that there was gum in my bed, and all over my boxers. Apparently someone left me a nice little present, which I hadn't noticed when coming back in the dark. I told the guy what had happened (in pretty good Spanish, I may add: "Esta chicle en mi cama!") At first he accused me of doing it. When I told him that wasn't the case, he shrugged and said, "Not my problem." Great, thanks. A nice lady came 15 minutes later, and she kindly changed my sheets for me.
Sunday we walked to Montjuic, which I later learned is Catalan for "Mountain of the Jews." I should mention that Barcelona is the capital of a special section of Spain called Catalonia, where they speak their own language. It seemed like a mixture of Spanish and French to me; or at least it had some characteristics of both, especially Spanish. Luckily most people in Barcelona can speak Spanish and English, so we got by pretty easily. I got to flex my Spanish speaking muscles a little bit. My very small, flimsy Spanish speaking muscles.
On the way, we stopped and got cheese and bread. We ate at a pretty cool park called "Parc de les Tres Xemeneies" (Park of the three chimneys):
It was one of the less touristy places we went to, which was a nice break. It was kind of like a skater hangout, and there was a lot of awesome graffiti artwork:
Click, and notice the Barceloca in the top right corner.
Pretty sure that's an evil Bender in the top right. Refreshed, we continued to Montjuic. It was a bit of a hike up, but well worth it. On the way, there was a ping-pong table in the middle of nowhere, which we found pretty funny. We ended up seeing two or three, and one time there were people playing outside. I guess the Spanish like their ping-pong.
I was going to stop here and go to bed, but as I was brushing my teeth, I realized I don't have class tomorrow. My Calc seminar is cancelled, and my tutor rescheduled with me for Tuesday. So I think I will stay up and finish while I'm still in the writing mood.
After a bit of climbing, we found a nice little park which had a good view of the city. While we were up there, I noticed a man who happened to be wearing two articles of clothing that I owned. Naturally I took a picture:
The green coat is the one Dali lent me, and the brown one he's holding I bought in Amsterdam! I was nervous for a second that he had gotten into my locker back at the hostel somehow, but then I remembered that I left that coat back in Bristol and relaxed a little.
In the first park we walked in were some trees with really crazy trunks:
From there, we walked around until we could find the castle at the top. Along the way were many beautiful parks and monuments. Apparently during Medieval times, whoever controlled the castle generally had control over Barcelona. Now it's a beautiful place, complete with lots of cannons and Howitzer guns:
Note the garbage in the end of the gun.
We took turns shooting down a few planes and boats. A commanding view of the Mediterranean can be had on the top of Montjuic:
Afterwards, we headed downwards toward the Olympic stadium:
We originally intended to just snap a couple photos on our walk by, but when we saw all the people lined up to go to a football game, we decided to go for it! It was RCD Espanyol versus Athletic. RCD put on a great show, beating their rivals 2-1 in the last minute. Here's some footage of the first goal:
Can't get it on here for some reason. I'll try harder tomorrow.
As you can see, Nick bought himself a nifty RCD scarf. After the game, we headed back towards the hostel, but not before snapping this picture:
Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so good because the camera isn't so good with night-mode, but it was amazing. We headed to the hostel, and drank again with our Canadian friends, joined with a couple of American girls. One was from Chicago and one was from Denver. It was nice to meet some people from America, because I haven't had contact with many besides my flatmates and our trip to Amsterdam.
We had a couple San Miguels and played a drinking game, and then headed over to the sports bar to watch the Giants play the Cowboys. Nice little taste of home. As usual, the Giants lost to the Cowboys in miserable fashion. Oh well. That game didn't end til 1am in Barcelona, and afterwards we were quite ready for bed.
Boy did we walk the next day! My feet are still sore. First stop was the Cathedral, which was only a few short blocks away:
Beautiful. So yeah, the Cathedral was under renovation, which kinda sucked. The inside, however, was breathtaking. And in the courtyard, for some reason or other, there were many plump geese:
So that was nice. Afterwards we headed over to Torre Agbar, the big phallic symbol for all of Barcelona:
I wasn't really that impressed, but apparently it's much better at night. They light it up all nice and pretty.
After, we headed for the Temple de la Sagrada Familia. This is a crazy cathedral designed by Gaudi, a famous architect of Barcelona. It was the first of many of Gaudi's creations we would see, and probably the most impressive. It's under constant construction, and apparently is nowhere near completion:
We went on. Next was Parc Guell. Parc Guell was another invention of Gaudi, originally intended as a high class community of sorts. Funding for the park died, and Gaudi himself died before he could finish it.
On the walk up, we found this little intellectual quip:
Good luck with that, whoever you are. We ended up entering Parc Guell from a different direction then the common, touristy direction. Where Montjuic had many well trimmed and proper gardens, Parc Guell had paths full of unrefined wilderness. Here are just a couple pictures:
I jumped off of a rock at some point and hurt the heel of my foot. Still hurts a little to walk on - I should probably see someone about that. Eventually we found our way to the more touristy parts of the park. The longest park bench in the world can be found, which is made of broken porcelain pieces. A few more pictures:
Here's some of the park bench. It's not all of it, because it's the longest park bench in the world, and that's not so easy to get in one camera shot. Sorry, but you're going to have to deal with it. According to Nick, this park bench is part of a Tony Hawk level based on Spain. Naturally, if you grind the entire thing you get a bonus.
A nice lady we met from New Jersey took this picture for us, since we did the same for her and her husband.
Sorry there's so many pictures - but everything was so beautiful, I felt bad not including any one of them!
Afterwards we headed up to Les Tres Crues (The Three Crosses), which had a beautiful view of the city:
Once again, there was a beautiful view over the city. We got a crazy French guy on top to take a picture of us. Apparently he was a professional photographer - he spent about 5 minutes it seemed checking the lighting, camera angle, etc., and all for this:
On the way up, we found a real gem:
Naturally we took pictures of it, a natural tourist reaction, just to piss them off even more. You may have to click it to read it properly.
Finally we were ready to head home. Nothing very interesting happened on the way, except for seeing a really gross runover rat. It was still rather early by the time we got back. But on the way, we noticed a nice little restaurant that was offering 50% off sangria for happy hour! We couldn't resist a well earned rest with a couple jugs of cheap (but delicious) sangria. It was a nice and buzzed walk back to the hostel.
At the hostel we laid around a little bit before heading out for dinner. In Barcelona (and I think most of Spain and Mediterranean cultures), you can't eat dinner before 8, and really 9 is more acceptable. We find a really nice cheap place to serve us a couple appetizers and Paella. The shrimp wasn't...husked? I'm not sure what you would call it. It was a complete shrimp, unlike what we Americans are used to. But it wasn't too difficult to work out on your own, even if it was a little gross. For dessert we had Creme de Catalan (Hope I spelled that at least slightly correct), which is kind of like a runny flan. Delish. We had another early night that night, because it was such a long day.
On Tuesday we didn't work too hard. We hit up La Boqueria again for sandwiches and juice. Afterwards we took pictures of the bridge on the riverside:
Of course Nick told me that this was in the Tony Hawk level as well. Nothing like getting your cultural education from a skateboarding game. Think Tony could handle this bridge? I think he'd have some troubles. Some other waterside attractions:
No one has any idea what this thing is. Least of all the person who made it.
Rock Lobster! One of my favorites.
and went on to see a couple Gaudi Houses. The one closest to us was closed for renovations, but the other two were real sites to see:
Casa Lleo Morera. From what I hear, it's supposed to represent the patron saint of Barcelona slaying the dragon. The roof definitely looks like dragon scales.
La Pedrera. No straight lines in his later works - no straight lines in nature, I believe his explanation was. We went on. We decided to take a short break at a coffee shop, and then headed into the Picasso Museum, which was really nice. There weren't any of his most famous works, like Guernica, Guitarrista, or Demoiselles d'Avignon, but it was still cool. I liked seeing his works get progressively wierder and wierder, until they eventually ceased to make any sense. Apparently Picasso had a dirty side though: there was a whole room devoted to disgusting pictures he drew. There was a class trip of French students in the room, and one of them said a dirty word that I recognized from my time with the French guys. I thought that was funny.
We went on. Back to the hostel to relax, where we met our roommate Aiden. He's from Boston, and studies in Scotland for the next couple years. He's a rich preppy kid, and a compulsive liar. He would always have to top our stories with ones that were even better, and over the top. That being said, he kept us pretty good company, kept us interested, and was an overall pretty good guy.
We were going to go out for tapas, but Aiden recommended a place called La Champagneria. As the name suggests, they only serve Champagne, but it's really cheap - about 3 euro's a bottle I think. You can't drink unless you get a snack with it, so we had a few snacks. It was a great place - packed shoulder to shoulder with people, no one behind the bar spoke English, and it was just the greasiest most delicious food. First I had "Pimientos, cebollas, queso, and bacon" - peppers, onions, cheese, bacon. The second time, I asked the guy behind the bar what his favorite was. "La sorpresa." "Alright, give me la sorpresa," I said. And what a sorpresa it was. It was a steak and thick ham sandwich, with cheese on top! So ridiculous. He told me if I didn't like it, he would eat it, but I ate the whole thing like a man. When Nick burped, the guy told him he wasn't allowed to burp. He made a motion of getting your throat slit. Then he said only I could burp, because I was eating la sorpresa. That was a great time.
We went on. Took a couple of San Miguel's up to a park on Montjuic. After a while I got sick of Aiden and his lies. When he tried to tell us his dad met Hunter S. Thompson and Hunter told him that he lied in some part of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I told him I didn't believe him, and I think that got him to stop a little bit.
Wednesday we had to leave, but not until 6 or so, so we still had time. I had to buy Mai-lys 30 euro's worth of rolling tobacco because it's a lot cheaper in Spain then in the U.K. (Mai-lys, if you're reading this, you still owe me...just kidding, no rush) We went to the Parc de la Ciutadella, which had a really nice fountain, a wolly mammoth, and the Parliament building (how's that for an odd combo):
More renovations going on at the fountain. We kind of came to Barcelona on an off-peak tourism time, which explains all the renovation going on.
Afterwards we went to "Museu de la Xocolata" (Chocolate Museum). We got to see the Gaudi House that was under renovations in the form of a chocolate model, which was rewarding. There were a bunch of other exhibits - bullfighting, Don Quixote, etc. The end was the best part though, because you get to
drink chocolate. Not like hot chocolate or anything, but straight up chocolate. I got a croissant to dip in as well:
Crazy! It was a little too much actually. Can't be drinking that much chocolate. Especially since we decided we had to go to Champagneria again for lunch. I don't think I could burn the calories I ate in that 12 hour period in the next year:
It was still crowded during the middle of the day, which is a good sign for any restaurant. After a couple more sandwiches and champagne, we headed over to the bus station to begin the long journey back to Bristol. We were very content with our stay in Barcelona.
Mom did me the kindness of bringing ping pong balls, so we were able to host beer pong! No one had ever played it before; so us American's had to teach. If any of my Brick friends are reading this, just know that we ran house. Some of the British guys played it for 3 days straight after that. I think it's really catching on.
We made 120 in all and feasted all night. We still have a few leftover if you want some.
Not a whole lot else to report I don't think. Mai-lys and I made a huge apple pie for thanksgiving today, and it looks great. I'll post a picture when I can. We're having turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, veggies, cranberry sauce - the works. And we're expecting about 20 people to eat. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone! Sorry I couldn't spend it with you...
