Oh Barcelona

Bus left at 24.00 Thursday night. For the first time in our travels, we had decent seats and we slept nearly all of the 8 hours to Barcelona. We arrived at 8:30 and started searching for our hostel. We started off the day tired and cranky. There were some arguments over directions and it took over an hour to make our way to the hostel which should have been a twenty minute walk. We checked in and were a little surprised with the accomodations. Our room had two bunk beds with extremely thin mattresses and had not been cleaned by the maid yet, so there were bottles of booze from the previous guests along with the rest of their trash. We but our stuff in the lockers and headed out to see some sights.

Arc of Triumph- one of the many things we passed on the walk to the hostel. Along with the Picasso Museum and the Chocolate Museum.

We had expected grey skies and rain, as the forecast had predicted, but we were very, very lucky to start our weekend off with the bluest of skies. It was sunny and about 75-80 all weekend. Our first stop was to go back to a guitar store that we had passed earlier on our walk to the hostel. Alex missed his guitar and decided to by a cheap acoustic guitar to serenade us with and possibly pick up a few bucks playing it on the subway some day. He put down 85E and we had our own personal musician all weekend.

Next we headed out to La Rambla, the oldest part of the city and most touristic. It's a long strip with stores and restraunts and stands with all sorts of things. There was a floral section, a pet shop section, and all different people standing outside trying to make a buck. The people would paint themselves like statues do little skits and routines. There were some really creative ones. We continued to the end of the street where we all met up again and decided on what to do with the day. There was a group of kids coming from Italy and they were trying to make their way from the airport to the city. Meghan was staying in their hostel rather than ours and needed to catch up with them. When they finally called, our group split and Matt, Alex and I were off on our own once again. We decided to get a bite to eat and then finally hopped on the tourist bus. Excellent decision i must add.

Matt and I at the Port of Barcelona

One of the "statues" in La Rambla

Two comments on this one:
1. Mom, you would have died
2. Doesn't this kids mother know about bird flu?

The bus brought us all around the city to all the different important stops. First of which was some Gaudi architecture. There was a lot of it, including the Cathedral, apartment building and park. His style was completely different and I absolutely loved it.

Apartment building:

Cathedral

Parc Guell:

l'Auberge Espagnole- this one was taken in your honor, Michelle

After the park we hopped back on the bus and were going to head down to the Olympic staduim, but it was getting late and we weren't sure if we would have the time. We stayed on the bus and just rode the lower loop taking in the sights. This would have been a little more fun had we not gotten stuck in a ton of traffic and took over an hour to get home. When we got back we went to a little shop by the hostel and got some food and wine and went back up to the room. On the way out though, we ran into two kids that live in White Plains, NY that were on the same floor as us in the hotel we were in in Sevilla. It's a small, small world. So they came and hung out in our room for awhile and they gave us some tips for celebrating Alex's birthday in Salamanca next weekend. We were going to go out, but after my shower, I was so exhausted and I had had a horrible stomach ache all day and my allergies were acting up, I just crawled under the covers and listened to the conversations going on around me and Alex's guitar playing.



The next morning we woke up to more sun. We had our complimentary breakfast of stale toast and coffee and headed to the bus station to drop off our bags. We had to check out of the hostel at 11:00. After that, the day was ours to explore the city. We decided to head to the beach. We had gotten our site seeing in the day before and we felt it would be an incomplete trip to Barcelona without visiting the beach. Plus it was a gorgeous day. In our travels, we came across an absolutely beautiful city park. I thought Retiro was nice, but this was breathtaking. We took our time passing through, taking photos along the way. Now that I look through my pictures though, I did a really poor job at capturing the experience. I also am not sure that it was really possible to do so.

Alex- being a tourist

Some monuments in the park

THE BEACH!!!!!

My feet finally touched the Mediterranean!

We went for a walk and Matt got to collect all the beach glass he could ever dream of- or at least a sandwich bag full. Alex and Carla turned into lobsters while Matt and I wondered why we hardly got any color at all.

The wind started to pick up and the sun wasn't as strong. After five hours of laying out on the beack, we decided it was time to head back to the city. We walked around, had a bite to eat and headed back to the bus station. We got there extremely early, so we were goofing around with the lockers and listening to music. We lost track of time and nearly missed our bus. Fortunately we made it and got on the bus exhausted and ready to sleep. The bus left Barcelona Saturday night at 24:00 and we arrived in Madrid around 8:00. We came home, showered and headed out to the Rastro...a big open-air flea market. I wandered around for about an hour, but I was so tired I had to come home and crash.

This was at a bar in Barcelona- another one for you Michelle.
Actually, this bar was absolutely amazing...It was called the fairy's den or something along those lines...it was decorated like a forest and was dimly lit...so awesome, definitely have to go back there next time I'm in Barcelona (which will be soon)

The biggest vending machine I've ever seen.

Lockers:

Matt and I tried to share

I had a party of my own.

Alex serenading us

So now I'm exhausted...