Oh my, where to begin!
The 12 of us landed in Barcelona on Friday at 7am. It was really complicated trying to figure out the different metro lines when we were all delirious from lack of sleep and need of nutrition, but we found our hostel, Kabul, at about 9:30am. It ended up being super amazing, with a great view, but unfortunately we couldn’t check in until 12 because they didn’t have enough beds for us. So they locked up our luggage for us and we decided to suck it up, explore the town, and sleep after check-in.
So we found a place to have breakfast, bought a map, and started walking. I really liked the city, it is really gorgeous and it reminded me of Catares, the first place we stayed in Spain. It was a big city, but it wasn’t nearly as metropolitan as Madrid. I poorly compared them as the difference between LA and San Diego.
We walked everywhere, fed some pigeons, and this really cool basilica called the Sagrada Familia which it is HUGE and has been under construction forever. We also saw a bunch of random stuff throughout the city.
As we were wandering around we also saw these two Spanish guys playing basketball, and one of the people in our group suggested we go play with them. So they boys went over and asked if they wanted to play a game. So we did!! It was pretty awesome. Totally random, but the Spanish guys seemed to have a good time. There were like of our 6 boys so there were two teams of four, I forget who won. But it was awesome.
Anyway, once we made it back to the hostel I feel asleep for about 3 hours, then woke up and my friend Matt and I were the only people who were up so we walked around the city and tried to find our way around. I went to bed early but the rest of the people who managed to sleep went out and didn’t come back until later.
Satarday- Woke up and had breakfast at 9, once again Matt and I were the only ones awake, so we busted out the map and figured out where we wanted to go. We headed up to the Park Güell to see the Gaudi Museum. Antoni Gaudi was this amazing architect and I really love his style. It was AMAZING! We hung out at the park, I took tons of pictures, then we relaxed on this hill overlooking Barcelona for a while. Then we weren’t sure what to do, but we saw this crazy looking thing on a mountain, and our map it said it was a science museum. So we decided to try and figure out how to get there. We asked a lot of people and most told us to walk! People are nice in Barcelona… a lot nicer than the Madridians, but they didn’t know what they were talking about. So we walked… and walked…and walked.
*above is what they used as the runway on the last ANTM!
We finally found a trolley, waited for about 20 minutes, then hopped on. However, it took us up the mountain, and around the corner about 200ft. Then the line ended. Grand. So we just walked to look for the train up the mountain. So we walked… and walked… and walked…. And there was no train. So we kept walking. We decided we had walked so far we might as well continue to the very top of this mountain. We wanted to see, what we determined wasn’t a science museum, but a big satellite tower that happened to be near a cool cathedral. So the cathedral was our new destination. We got fed up with the long switchbacks and found a straight path up the mountain, so we followed it and ended up in the backyard of some house, then we found a road, hiked up that and finally reached the top… 2 hours later.
But the view from the top was spectacular, not to mention there was also an amusement park at the top, which, had it been opened, would have been really cool to go into. But we met some cool American kids studying in Barcelona and took the bus back down to the city with them (yes, it turns out there was a bus!!) They invited us to go out with them later, but we never made it. Oh well! We got back into Barcelona, hit up a cool vegan smoothie place and I bought a piece of baklava! Then we headed back the hostel, went out to eat, then hung out around town and ended up in bed at about 1am. Our flight was at 10am and we weren’t totally sure how to get to the airport, so to be safe we took off at 7am.
Got back to Madrid safe and sound. Exploring Barcelona was so cool, this may sound strange, but for the first time I really felt like I was in a foreign country. It is still not totally real that I am in Spain, and I didn’t think it will really click until I got back home, so I am glad I feel it now. But I had such a great time. We have a break from traveling this weekend, but the next weekend we are going to Granada, Spain then the weekend after that we are going to Cadiz, Spain. I am excited about Granada, but Cadiz is going to be AMAZING, we are going for Carnival. It is the third largest carnival in the WORLD! First is Rio, then Jamaica, then CADIZ! I am super stoked, there are tons of Suffolk people going and it is MANDATORY that you dress up! I am stoked!
<3 Until next time… Chau
