Just kidding, I won't upload ALL of them. A lot of them are on my Facebook so feel free to take a look there too for some more pictures.
I am going to break this up into 2 different posts just to make things a little easier. :)
Sunday February 24th my friends and I embarked on our big journey to Barcelona and Paris. We took a bus to the airport and took a plane to Barcelona!
I had no shame in not knowing any Spanish whatsoever. It was interesting having to put a trip like this together all by ourselves. I am used to my mom planning everything (Thank you, mom. I realize how hard this is and you're a champ for always planning our trips!)
Travel buddy, Karlee and I on the train in Spain.
We wondered around Barcelona a little bit that night to get our bearings and see what we could. We only had three days so there is only so much one can do! We wanted to make sure we made the most of our time there.
I think I experienced more culture shock in Barcelona than in Aix. I was so used to living in Aix which is such a small town that Barcelona caught me off guard.
That night we hung out at the hostel and made some friends from Canada and England. As for my first night staying in a hostel, my ears were overwhelmed by sound. The person sleep next to me had their ipod turned all the way AND they were snoring. So, not only could I listen to their music with them, but I got to listen to the dude snore as well. Lovely.
Our hostel served us free breakfast which was awesome. We were laughing about the guy snoring next to me when someone sat down next to us to eat their breakfast. Their breakfast was a crab sitting on a plate. I kid you not. I wish I could have seen the looks on all of our faces.
Monday we set out with a full agenda. We walked to the Sagrada Familia which is the the work of the famous architect Antoni Guadi. It is also the most visited place in Spain, I believe. The basilica was absolutely stunning and still under construction. The completion is planned for 2026.
We did not go inside. The line was probably a two hour wait or more and we had more things to do that day, but I have seen pictures of the inside and it is gorgeous!
We hopped on the metro and headed to Park Güell which is a garden complex with architectural elements situated on the hill of El Carmel. The park was designed by Antoni Guadi and is one of the largest architectural works in south Europe.
The views were great and we had all sorts of fun dancing (literally) around the park. From the top you could see everything. The basilica, which looked even more massive towering above everything around it.
Sight seeing is a full time job in Spain, and therefore can be very tiring.
Beautiful mosaics at Park Güell
It was about time for some kind of snack which leads me to a very important aspect of my trip in Barcelona: I went through France withdrawals. I didn't eat a baguette for three days and cafés were scarce. We did happen to find a café for some coffee, it just took a long time.
We went to the port along the water in the evening, which was gorgeous. The sun was setting and it was incredibly picturesque.
A popular dish in Spain, is a tapa. Now, we'd seen the word "tapa" at every restaurant but we had no idea what it was. We stumbled upon a reasonably priced restaurant that evening to try these tapas and see what all of the hype was about.
Folks, I left the restaurant being more confused about what a tapa was then before I walked in. A very nice gentleman at the restaurant explained it to us but he had a very thick, obscure accent so I didn't really catch anything he said even though it was in English.
After a few days of mulling over "tapas" we came to the conclusion that it was an appetizer sort of dish that was served with drinks at a bar and eventually just became somewhat of an appetizer.
After our tapa dinner, we grabbed a couple friends from the hostel and went to an ice bar on the beach! It was pretty cold in Barcelona but the ice bar was freezing. Literally. They provided us with coats and mittens which made helped keep us warm, a little bit!
The icebar pretty much wraps up our adventures for Monday!
On Tuesday we went to a market on La Rambla where there was a huge market! The food at this market was unreal. There were so many different kinds of fish, meat, candy, fruit, and cheeses!
On Tuesday we went to a market on La Rambla where there was a huge market! The food at this market was unreal. There were so many different kinds of fish, meat, candy, fruit, and cheeses!
These shrimp and lobsters were crawling around on the ice still alive!
I didn't know you could eat cactus flower!
After we had our fill of looking around this market we headed down to the beach to take a look at what a typical beach in Barcelona was like. Also the sun was out and it was really warm so the beach was a perfect place to go.
After we stopped at the beach we went back our hostel, checked out, and headed to Montjuic. The views from atop Montjuic were especially exceptional!!
Yoga in Spain is healthy. Apparently this fountain is super awesome, too bad is wasn't even on!
After exploring Montjuic we headed to Camp Nou for the Barcelona vs. Real Madrid soccer game! Most likely the biggest soccer game in the world. I watched the game and ate dinner at a bar with one of my friends. The atmosphere around the stadium was unlike anything I had ever seen before. There were TONS of people flooding into the stadium and even more people hanging around at restaurants right next to the stadium. Even though they lost it was still fun to be there to in Spain for such a huge game!
After the game we headed straight to the airport for a very early 6am flight to Paris! Our time in Barcelona was great but I knew Paris was going to be the greatest few days of my life. We slept (and danced) in the airport Tuesday night instead of waking up really early and trying to navigate our way to the airport half asleep.
I will try to post Part Two about Paris sometime tomorrow! So don't forget to check back in : )
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