Barcelona

Barcelona... what can I say? It’s a city with a lot of everything: beaches, museums, parks, architecture, food. Definitely worth a trip; definitely spend more than 2 days there.

At the airport, I found an adorable book right at my reading level :)

My flight was super delayed getting in, so it landed around 21.00 instead of 19.30, which meant everything was closed. Unfortunately that included the tourism office where I was supposed to pick up my transit card, the bank where I needed to break my €100 bill into something smaller (since the ticket machines don’t accept bills that large and the stores where I could also try to break my large bill.

So, the result is that I got to the train station to go into the city without a real plan about how exactly to buy the ticket. I was about to head back to the main station to look again for somewhere to break my 100€ when a man with his two small daughters asked me if I could buy an extra ticket from them. I explained to him that I would if I could, but I only had about €0.80 of usable money. He very generously gave me the ticket and even showed me the directions and train path to navigate to my hostel. I am so thankful for his kindness and very touched that he was willing to help me while having his two daughters to look after. What a beautiful family. He’s a former pro soccer player and was giving me all kinds of advice on where to go and what to eat in Barcelona (and Valencia if I ever make it there). People like him give me more faith in humanity.

Anyway I finally made it to my hostel, and was planning to go right to sleep. Instead I got a quick snack for dinner, then played Euchre late into the night with some Canadians staying in the hostel.

Pick pocketing is a huge problem in Barcelona, so much so that I was advised to take a picture of my passport and only carry my phone plus some cash and maybe a credit card, but not even a purse if I could avoid it. Fortunately I wore some pants with a secret zipper pocket I could put some cash in, and just keep a close eye on my phone (translation: hold it the whole time). It was really nice to travel so lightly, with no bag or anything to carry.

Friday morning I went on a horse tour of the mountains overlooking Barcelona. It was awesome. I hadn’t ridden a horse in a really long time, but would definitely say I did the best out of our small group. One of the other girls was scared her horse would walk off a cliff and screamed every time it went to the edge to nibble on some weeds. We got some great views of the city and surrounding area, but I didn’t take any pictures because I had my hands full riding my horse. I was surprised about how much the mountain landscape varied from side to side. It was really weird to only hear birds on one side, but they only live in one part of the mountain because of the kind of vegetation that grows there.

  

Our guide was super awesome, and I really enjoyed his honesty. The company that hosts the tours is also a competitive horse training school/training facility. I was asking about how popular horse showing is, and he flat out told us that it’s a sport for very rich people. A good competition horse can cost €100,000 on the low end or more than €2 million on the high end. Even if you win the competitions, there is no way to make back your money. The only way to be able to train and show horses is to come from a rich family, like our guide does. I didn’t realize just how rich his family was, though, until he casually was telling us that his father is personally financing the construction of a new road up to the horse school so that they can drive normal cars to it instead of off road vehicles. It’s not a small road, and I don’t imagine it was cheap. Sometimes the amount of money people have is too difficult to understand, and for me this took it to a new level.

After the horse tour, I went to the Sagrada Familia for my scheduled audio tour (you have to reserve it in advance). It’s the only museum-type thing I actually went in, but it was totally worth it. Gaudi has a very unique style, and the cathedral has so many amazing details.

After that I went down to the Olympic park to look around, then headed to the Magic Fountain for the nightly show. I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I would be, but maybe that’s just because it was still pretty light during the show. It was cool, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know if I would go back now that I’ve seen it once.

That night I made friends with my hostel roommates, and we went on a late night gelato run then had a riveting philosophy discussion. And, because I haven't given up being a child, I got some dinosaur cookies that miraculously looked just like the pictures on the box. I'm growing more and more adamant that the term American should be dropped and replaced with something that sounds less like we're the only inhabitants of this hemisphere. Hostels are great because even if you’re traveling alone, you meet a bunch of other people who are also traveling alone, and then you can hang out and have adventures together.

The next day I went on another self-guided tour guided by me, but this time I was a bit more in the know about what I was seeing. I went to the Gothic Quarter and saw a bunch of cathedrals, but I didn’t go in any because I kind of feel like I’ve been to enough Gothic cathedrals to know what they look like (unless it’s a special one like Sagrada Familia). The streets were super narrow and fun to weave around. 

 

  

Then I ran into a huge protest that seemed to be growing to take up most of the Gothic Quarter main streets. They were protesting some kind of pension, and fortunately it was a peaceful rally, just chanting and waking and holding signs.

My last stop was the beach, because how can I go to Barcelona and not at least have a look at it? The sand was much darker than I’m used to seeing at beaches and had a bit of a different texture to me. It wasn't very sunny, so it did not look terribly inviting to me, but everyone there seemed to be having a wonderful time. At the beach, I got some paella as a final meal. I couldn’t define paella for you except that it’s a delicious rice dish. It’s the thing to eat if you’re ever in Barcelona.

Then as I was heading out, I was too enamored by the liquid nitrogen ice cream to pass it up. I’ve never actually had it before, and it really does have a much smoother texture than normal ice cream—much smoother. To make it, you just take the liquid ice cream and dump liquid nitrogen on it, then the ice cream freezes and you’re good to go. It’s just like a magic show!

Taking a two week intense German class and then going to a Spanish speaking country is kind of rough. Much less English is spoken here, which further complicated things. Then, to make it even MORE fun, I totally lost my voice on Saturday, so I couldn’t even speak in English in hopes they understand. It was quite literally pointing and nodding for most of the day. I got a sandwich from a bakery and I'm afraid the baker thought I was actually incapable of speaking because he gave me a free chocolate croissant. No worries, though, my voice came back toward the end of the day.

Surprise, surprise, my flight back was late as well. I’m 6 for 6 on late flights, so if you think your budget European air travel is going to be on time, I would reconsider.

Weekend #2 on the books.. I’d absolutely go back to see more of the city. But for now, I’m absolutely exhausted and need a break :)