Travel on Monday, March 31st was generally uneventful, especially after all the excitement of the day before. Because we found the prison/insane-asylum like hostel with its barred windows and solo, silent visitors rather creepy, Laura and I decided to get up as soon as they started serving breakfast- 7:30 AM. Since I had basically slept in the night before´s clothes, minus the pants and shoes, it took no time to get dressed and ready. A quiet breakfast among zombie-like visitors, and we were out of there. We quickly retraced out steps from the previous night (thankfully dry and in daylight) and were probably at the train station by 8:45. And then we waiting. Eventually our train was assigned a platform number and we went down, only to find it had been delayed 20 minutes. So we waited some more. got on, watched the French coast speed by, heard a guy shaving himself on the train, stretched out as we had the entire car to ourselves (definitely not as busy on a Monday as on a Sunday), had out passports checked at Cerbrere and made it to Port Bou station. There we waited, got on another train, had more space to ourselves, watched the antsy guy get up to smoke at all stops and made it to Barcelona! We got on the metro and found our hostel without much trouble. Got some tapas for dinner and then met up with our friend Amanda to have a Barcelonan night out. We probably got back to the hostel at 3 AM or so (early for most Spaniards) and crashed.
We woke up the next morning and had to change hostels. So we checked out and got to Mambo Tango around 11, checked in there and made our way to Sagrada Familia- the unfinished Gaudi (Barcelona´s god of an architect) church. It was really interesting to go in and see all the plaster molds of the church and the sketches of the plans. It will be amazing once finished and I just hope I´m still alive to see it. After Sagrada Familia, Laura and I split up and I just went on a massive walking tour. Originally I planned to shop, but didn´t really end up doing up doing any of that. I eventually made it to Montjuic park and went up there to get some good views. I wanted to go see the Olympic Stadium but the park was too large and I was too tired so I made it back to the hostel. Laura and I did dinner at this great tapas place where you pay by the toothpick. It was very seafoody but delicious- kind of like sushi on bread. Yummy. We then shared a banana split that Ogus had recommended for dessert on La Rambla and back to the hostel, asleep by midnight.
The next day started out pretty leisurely. We woke up at a decent h our, had some breakfast and started our day. We continued our Gaudi tour of Barcelona by going to Casa Mila first thing first. He designed this apartment building and even though the art noveau apartment that you got to walk through wasnt that interesting (yet, I did find it amusing that none of the rooms were rectangular), the attic and rooftop terrace were really cool. I liked all the ice cream like structures you could wander through- it was like you were in some sort of magical candy land in the clouds. And it had some great views of Barcelona (although, Barcelona isnt really that pretty of a city from the top, in my opinion). After Casa Mila, we hopped on the bus (sadly a less exciting and fun journey than the metro) and headed to Parc Guell- another area of the city with Gaudi designed structures. We first hiked up to the top to check out some more views, then found the area where there was the season finale of one of the cycles of Americas Next Top Model and we imitated Caridee´s crazy wedding dress walk. We wandered around the structures soe more and headed back down to Plaza Catalunya, at the top of La Ramblas for lunch. We grabbed oranges from La Boqueria market and bocadillos and enjoyed some quality people watching time. It was about 3 Pm by this time and as we were sitting around, I was reading Rick Steves (who is starting to look a little worn down) and I found this recommended chocolate place right by where we were. So we did some shopping for an hour and then headed over for some churros con chocolata. Absolutely amazing, probably the best pastry like thing I´ve had on this trip, which is saying something. A teacup full of think melted chocolate and hot, greasy, sugary, delicious churros to dip in it. After coming out of our sugar induced-coma, Laura and I made it back to the hostel to digest. We then met up with Amanda for dinner at 9- more wonderful tapas and sangria (oh how I love the Spanish way of eating) and back to the room at like 11:30. I ended up going to bed at about 12:30...looking forward to a 3:30 AM wake up call for our 6 AM flight to Madrid!
Reflection on Barcelona: Amazing, amazing city and I wish I had more time to explore it. There was just so much more that I wanted to see! Oh well, I guess that means I´ll just have to go back. I loved the food- its a good thing we walk so much on these trips otherwise I would be so fat. Also, seeing Amanda was great and she was a wonderful hostess. Downsides, the city was just too big! Especially for basically 2 days of sightseeing. Also, the Spanish men were the sketchiest of all Europeans so far and even though that´s part of their culture, I still find it annoying. But I still loved the city, and I am thoroughly enjoying Spain.
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