03/18/11
When I woke up Friday, while I was tired, I was eager for the week ahead of me and had no trouble waking up! Our flight left at 9:30 and was getting into Barcelona at 11:35 so we hopped on the train to the airport around 6:30 just to ensure we had enough time to get there. Every time we had previously taken the train and bought tickets to the airport, we hadn’t been checked, so we decided not to purchase tickets this time. Of course, the one time we didn’t buy them they checked, just my luck. Fortunately, the conductor was nice and just let us buy them on the train rather than fining us. As we checked in, it was the first time some people were checking bags since getting here. There were two suitcases between four girls, while Gina and I packed in backpacks as we were returning to Rome earlier. As usual with girls, both bags were overweight and there was quite a bit of rearrangement before we were checked in and through security. As we went through security, I actually ran into my cousin’s cousin, Sara. Such a small world! She had a connecting flight in Rome and we happened to be there at the same time. I of course slept the entire plane ride to Barcelona. When we got to Rome, we hurried over to meet our two friends, Kelly and Ali, who had flown into Barcelona from Chicago to meet us! I felt bad as their flight had gotten in at 8 in the morning and they had been waiting for about 4 hours for us, but they were in good spirits!
|
Flying into Barcelona |
From the airport, we headed out to the apartment we had rented for the next four nights. As we got there, we realized how lucky we were in terms of location. We were located directly next to a metra stop that could bring us to touristic sites, a ten minute walk from the beach, and a ten minute walk from all the places to go out at night. The apartment was very nice, but as usual, we fit eight girls in a six-person apartment. With all of our luggage taking up the ground, the place felt immediately smaller. It was the perfect place though and we never had any problems, just took turns sharing beds.
|
View from our apartment |
Within a half an hour of getting to our apartment, our three guy friends studying in Barcelona this semester picked us up from our apartment to take us to lunch and head to the beach. We ate at a kebab place (which I hate to admit, but we liked it so much that we had it three times within two days!). Hey, you can’t resist when it’s that good and inexpensive. From lunch, we wandered over to the beach and sat it a sunny spot from which we didn’t move for nearly 6 hours.
|
A view down the beaches of Barcelona |
|
Hanging out on the beach! |
We decided to have a relaxing first day of spring break, leaving the remaining days for site seeing, and spend the first catching up with friends on the beach while sipping on a few beers. I couldn’t have asked for a better start. Come about 6 p.m. everyone headed back home for a nap before going out for the night. Originally, we planned to take an hour nap, but that quickly turned into a two and a half hour nap. Because of sleeping later and only having one shower for eight girls, we weren’t even ready to go get dinner until about midnight. However, in Barcelona, people don’t typically go out until about 2 or 3 in the morning, so it wasn’t a big deal. Because we were pushing for time, we walked over for kebab number two of the trip.
|
Kebab |
After dinner, we went to a bar called Dow Jones. It is modeled after the stock market in that the prices of drinks fluctuate in price based off demand. Therefore, if a specific drink is in high demand, the price increases. Meanwhile, those not in demands go down in price. All the while this is happening, there is a screen monitoring prices so that everyone is aware of what’s going on in the “market.” Not to mention, every so often, the market crashes and all drinks are cheap! This was one of my favorite bars I’ve ever been to. From Dow Jones, we met our guy friends at a club called Ocsuim where we stayed out until 5:30 in the morning! Talk about a late night!
|
Dow Jones "Market" Screen | | |
|
03/19/11
We got a later start than intended on day two, as can be imagined considering what time we went to bed at. Our goal for the day was to try and get FC Barcelona soccer game tickets for the game that night, only to find it was already sold out. Hearing this, we stopped for lunch along the beach where I had the chance to try some Spanish specialties. We all split an appetizer of calamari, an enormous platter of seafood paella, and all of this was complemented by a glass of sangria. The paella was fantastic and reminded me a little bit of gumbo from New Orleans, only better…if possible! The restaurant we ate at was right along the ocean, making for a beautiful view.
|
View from our lunch table |
|
|
Sangria |
|
Seafood Paella |
By the time we finished lunch it was about 4 and everything was still closed from “siesta” time in Spain. We decided to go back to our apartment, shower and get ready, as we planned to head to the soccer stadium for the game at 7 in hopes of buying tickets off someone there. Unfortunately, this attempt was unsuccessful, but we did randomly run into two boys from our program, as well as our guy friends studying in Barcelona and a group of our other guy friends who were visiting them. It was so good to see everyone!
|
Some of the girls at Catwalk |
Because we didn’t have tickets to the game, but the boys did, we decided to walk around and see the city at nighttime before heading back to the apartment to get ready before meeting back up with everyone later. That night, we went to a club called Catwalk. The club wasn’t that crowded, but we still had a great time being with friends who we haven’t seen in over two months. I also happened to run into a friend from high school who is studying abroad in Florence at this club. Ironically, this is the third city I’ve randomly run into her while abroad! Come 6 a.m., we decided it was about time to head home and get to bed so we could accomplish everything we wanted the following day.
03/20/11
Somehow, we all managed to get up at a much more reasonable hour this morning and headed out to grab a quick bite for lunch before heading to the church La Sagrada Familia. For lunch, I ate eggs with ham and potatoes. The sun was shining extra bright during lunch and I’m pretty sure I got burnt as several people mentioned that freckles were starting to appear on my nose.
|
Ali & I at lunch |
|
Eggs, Ham, & Potatoes |
From lunch, we headed over to La Sagrada Familia, which has a very gothic appearance and was designed by Antoni Gaudi. Construction of the church began in 1882, yet to this day it is still incomplete. It is said that it will not be fully completed until 2027. I didn’t think it was possible to take that long to build one church, but it combines many different architectural styles and is beautiful. We walked around a bit inside, but were unable to go to the top as tickets for the day were already sold out.
|
In front of La Sagrada Familia |
|
Closer to the church |
|
|
Inside the church |
|
View of the ceiling |
After going here, we headed over to Park Guell, also designed by Gaudi, as are the majority of sites around Barcelona. We walked around the gardens and took pictures at the top, giving a panoramic view of the city of Barcelona in it’s entirety. Because these two sites were the farthest from our apartment, it took quite a bit of time to go to both and we called it a day after a lot of walking and headed back home.
|
Going into Park Guell |
|
Overlooking the view from Park Guell
|
We had plans to meet the boys at one of their favorite sandwich places for dinner called Bo de B. When we walked up to the restaurant, we could tell it was going to be good given the long wait. By the time we all got our sandwiches, we had waited over an hour (granted, there were 15 of us so that in itself takes awhile!). The sandwich was well worth the wait. I got a chicken sandwich and then you pick whichever fresh ingredients you want on it. It is the closest thing I’ve eaten to a Chipotle burrito since coming abroad so it definitely hit the spot.
|
Bo de B |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Waiting for our sandwiches! |
Considering it was a Sunday, there wasn’t much going on regarding nightlife according to the boys and the Illinois/Kansas basketball game was on way later. We just decided to go to an Irish pub to hang out and watch whatever part of the game we could before the bar closed due to the time difference. Because the start time was delayed, the game didn’t start until 2 a.m. and the bar closed at 2:30 so we only got to watch a brief bit of it. I figured I didn’t have to worry about finding out who won as I was sure that if Illinois lost, I would quickly find the outcome from Sam. I was right and woke up to a facebook post from him saying, “Too bad for the Illini.” I had to laugh a bit. While I was upset I couldn’t watch the whole game, it was a good reason to go to bed at a much more reasonable time for once.
|
At the pub for the Illini game |
03/21/11
With our night coming to a halt much earlier than the previous nights, we were able to be much more productive the following day. We started out by going back to Bo de B for another sandwich and this time sat inside. While I liked my sandwich the night before a lot, I decided to switch it up and get a smoked salmon sandwich. I didn’t put as much on this one and it tasted very fresh. There’s no way to compare the two sandwiches, but I thoroughly enjoyed them both.
Then we began on our journey for the rest of the day. We met up with a couple of our guy friends visiting from home and walked down the famous street in Barcelona called La Rambla where there’s numerous shops and people dressed in costumes to try and get money. It was a very entertaining walk. This walk led us directly to our next destination, La Boqueria market. This is a famous fresh market in Barcelona where you can buy just about any form of fresh food you want, including aisles and aisles of candy, which automatically drew my attention to it!
|
View down La Rambla |
|
Entrance to La Boqueria |
|
Lots and lots of candy! |
The last major site we wanted to see before we left was the Casa Batllo, another Gaudi creation. We had seen it on multiple postcards and thought it looked really cool and wanted to see it in person. It wasn’t a far walk so we headed there and snapped a couple photos. After a lot of walking, we were pretty far from our apartment so we hopped on the metra and took it back to us. Before going back to our apartment though, we walked over to the beach for one last view of it and hung out in the sand for about a half an hour.
|
All the girls at Placa Catalunya |
|
Me and the visitors |
|
Casa Batllo |
|
|
|
|
|
One last stop at the beach |
Realizing we still had to pack everything up and get ready before meeting the boys for dinner, we walked back to our apartment. We met them at Rosa Negra, a Mexican restaurant where we celebrated three of our friends there 21st birthdays that were all within a matter of a week. The set plate came with a mass quantity of food including nachos, chips and guacamole, taquitos, fried jalapeños, quesadillas, burritos, and a margherita. Following dinner, we said our goodbyes and headed back home and were in bed a little after midnight, knowing we had to be up at 4 a.m. to get to the airport in time for our 6:15 flight to Amsterdam!
|
One side of the table at dinner |
|
|
|
Other side of the table |
No comments:
Post a Comment