Barca weekend

Mmk… let me just start this post out by saying I LOVE BARCELONA! Mmk, now that is confirmed, I’ll get back to it.

Last Thursday, Lauren, Jamie, and I left on a bus headed to Barca at 9 pm from the bus station here in Santander. And it was just a 9 hr 45 min ride, no biggie. Ewww. Not so lucky for me, some chica that I will dub “Afro girl” was sitting in my window seat, so I had to kick her out. I’d normally take aisle no prob, but aisle=no resting place for my head. So naturally, this was absolutely necessary. Afro girl just looked at me all innocently, and it took her a few seconds to get the picture. Afro girl, in response, was not happy. Not in an overt, I’m going to speak my mind, kinda way. Noooo… all night she opted to kick my arm off of the armrest whenever I used it, and then proceeded to replace my elbow with her own. To take it a little further, she put her elbow so far over the armrest that she elbowed me toda la noche. At one point, she completely leaned on me. As if I wasn’t smothered enough already. I not so secretly rejoiced when she got off two hours before we got to Barcelona.

Alright, well… got that out of my system. Back to the real story. We got to Barca at 6:30 the next morning. Howeverrr, we got off at the wrong bus station in Barcelona, so we took the metro to La Rambla, pretty close to our hostel. But let’s just say that we didn’t realize this and it took another hour and a half to find it. Two first impressions were as follows: a) What the flip language is this? But really, I kinda already knew, thanks to Pablo, my advanced linguistics/history of the language professor from last semester. They speak Catalan, which is a type of Spanish that has evolved over time very differently than the Spanish of most of Spain, which is Castellano. B) There is a STARBUCKS here. Needless to say, I paid 4.90 in euros to get my caffeine fix. And it was worth everyyyy penny. When we went to our hostel, we weren’t allowed to check in yet, but were able to leave some of our stuff in the locker of Jamie’s friend, who had already stayed for a night. We ate an early lunch, explored the city a bit, and walked to La Sagrada Familia aka the most beautiful church EVER. Of course, Antoni Gaudi designed it. They started constructing it in 1882, but it’s not expected to be done until 2026. Holy crap. How could it not be great? I could have stayed outside looking at it in all of its massive detail for hours. So if you check out my pictures on Facebook, I just have to say I’m sorry for the large quantity of photos from LSF. But I did you all a favor, and left some, only about 100, out. I also recommend you check out all the symbolism that this church’s architecture holds- I could write 5 pages on that alone. When we were inside, there were cranes and work crews just chipping away for another 16 years of their lives. The ceiling is massively high, and the stained glass windows are unbelievable. After checking out the ground floor, we paid an extra 2.50 euros to take an elevator to the top of one of the towers. HOLYYY MOLY. Have a mentioned I’m afraid of heights? I didn’t (hardly) even care. You could see miles and miles of Barcelona, as well as all the intricate detail of the upper parts of LSF. So freaking beautiful I cannot even do it justice with words. And my pictures may not be very good, as I was about to pee my pants. After crossing the towers on the newer part, called the Passion Façade of the church, we could see the towers of the beautiful older part, the Nativity Façade (see pics… it all makes sense.) The old and new parts blend together so magnificently, it’s such a wonder to see. So remember how I said we were at the top of the tower? Welp, you’ve got to get down somehow. Enter… 5 million steps down. Skinny steps. Spiral steps. Without a railing on one side. The side with a view ALL the way down. I’m scared of heights, right? Let’s just say I held onto my camera and that one railing for dear life. But it was SO worth it. Alllll the way down. I loved it to pieces. Let’s just say that if you ever go to Barcelona, La Sagrada Familia cannot be missed.

After LSF, we went back to our hostel to meet up with a friend of Jamie's and Lauren’s. When she got there, we headed to the beach in search of a good bar. It was a looooong walk there, but the bar we found was perfect. A little piece of paradise, for sure. It was right on the sand, and we drank yummy sangria while watching the sun set. If you couldn’t tell, I live a rough life here in Spain… ☺ Later that night, we walked the boardwalk in search of IceBarcelona, an ice bar where everything, including the shot glasses and couch, are made of ice. They give you warm gear to wear, and you go at it. When we got there, we saw it was 15 euro, or about 20 dollars, to get in. Dang it. Moving on...We kept walking down the beach, saw the casino, and headed back for the bars off of La Rambla. La Rambla is known for it’s street vendors, performers, and pickpocketing. The performers are OUTRAGEOUS… some are super funny and others keep crazily still like statues. We ended up at a bar near our hostel where we got free shots from the bartender (yay Spain!) and a wasted middle aged English guy talking our ears off. By 1 am, Jamie and I headed back early to our hostel to get some sleep, seeing as how we hadn’t slept the night before.

The next morning, we went to the Boqueria, a fresh food market on La Rambla. Such an awesome thing to see! We bought smoothies that were so goooood, and headed over to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. We then took the Metro to Parque Guell, a park designed by Gaudi. He intended for this park to be a private village for living, but it has ended up being a municipal garden for everyone to enjoy. Lucky us ☺ A tunnel inside the park is designed to look like the inside of a wave. It does! And the intricate, colorful tiling throughout the park is remarkable. Only two houses were ever built there- one that Gaudi lived in later in his life, and another that is now used as a souvenir store. Both very sweet pieces of architecture. We left the park on the hill, and headed back to the hostel before heading out again for what turned out to be a crazy, fun night in Barcelona. We headed back in the direction of the beach, with the intention of buying cheap bottles of wine and drinking on the sand. We stopped at a bar on the bay for tapas and drinks. The tapas were delicious, and we watched the cruise ships leave at night. As we continued our journey, we ran into some Germans and ended up hanging out with them for a good part of the night. They took us to another club with a 15 euro entrance fee (what the flip, Barca?) , and Lauren, Jamie, and I decided to find a bar where we could buy multiple drinks for 5 euro, leaving their two friends to hang out with the Germans for the night. We ended up at Cheers, a Irish pub with live music. GREAT choice, We met two different groups of guys from England, both in Barca for stag nights/weekends (bachelor parties). They were all so much fun, and I got tooooons to drink for free. Could the night get any better? Free drinks and great drunken convos with new friends. ☺ Perfection. We got home at 4 that morning, which is still considered early by Spanish standards. But the night was a success.
I had to wake up at 7:30 to get ready for the ride home. No fun. Our bus left Barca at 10:15 am, and we returned to Santander at 8:30 pm. I don’t want to see another bus for a long, long time. Luckily, I’m in Spain, which meant that the scenery included the mountains, ocean, and miles upon miles of vineyards. I can hardly believe you can have that many grape plants in one region. Geeeeez… wine much? ☺
I got home veryyyy hungry last night to Concha and Manola gone, but when they got home, I feasted and caught up with them, and all was good. ☺ Only three more days of school until I leave for Malaga with some great friends! Good week ahead ☺ Hope you all are doing well… thanks for keeping up with my posts!

Abrazos y besos (y mucho amor),
ME