The Rain In Spain...

(this is going to be another long one.... sorry!)

Bright and early (3:30 am) Tuesday morning Alex and I said our sad goodbyes to Mary Ellen and then an hour later also headed off to the train station to get to the airport. Eventually we made it to Barcelona and then to our absolutely wonderful hostel called Mambo Tango. We were warmly welcomed by the owners, Toti and Marina, and shown our beds after meeting a few of the other people staying at the hostel who would all become quick friends in just a few days.

After we unpacked and settled in a little, we were off on a 10 minute walk from our hostel to La Ramblas and the Mercat Boqueria, the famous food market! I was super thrilled to actually get to see the market after hearing so much abuot it and seeing it on tv and stuff, it was so cooooool! I got a delicious strawberry-coconut smoothie thing right away and drank it as we walked around the tons of sellers showing off the fish and skinned lambs heads and fresh fruits and all kinds of crazy foods. After that we walked around the Ramblas in the freezing cold pouring rain which was honestly a little defeating and put a damper on things for a while. But we overcame! We wandered and took in the sights on the unusually empty street before heading back to the hostel to rest a little bit.

Once at the hostel we rested a tiny bit and then headed downstairs into the common room-ish area where we met tons of wonderful people. We also met some girl from Park Ridge and other things that make you realize how weirdly connected things are. Alex and I were talking to one new friend Steve, when we met some other new friends, Maggie and Sarah, also Americans, and Andy from England as well. As the basement got more crowded we met more and more new people, it was great. Steve then suggested we all go out to eat at this place he discovered in his guide book called "Foodball". Haha!! Sounded mildly suspicious to me but who was I to say no, it sounded like a ton of fun! So Me, Alex, Steve, Maggie, Sara, Andy, and other new friend Robin decided to venture back into the pouring rain to find Foodball. After getting to La Ramblas and searcing for a while without luck, we discovered Foodball had been shut down (not enough business...) and so we all headed in to this authentic Catalan place instead. It was a really bizarre and new and fun experience for all of us, I think. All of our food was raw, and it wasn't really what anyone expected but it was pretty good.... Alex literally just got a plate covered in Spanish salami but it was DELICIOUS. After that fun we got some Gelato at some place and went back to the hostel to hang out and watch a movie. Great first night in Barcelona!


Day 2 in Barcelona was also rainy but nice. Alex and I headed over to Parc Guell, the gorgeous nature-y park designed by Gaudi. It was really nice to just wander around it and explore for a few hours. And the sun actually came out at the end! Oh, and there is a kid's elementary school or kindergarten or something literally INSIDE THE PARK! How lucky are they? It was really cute to see the kids playing soccer and having fun in the middle of such an inspiring environment. After the park and getting a very quick lunch, Alex and I took our time and eventually got to the MACBA, the Museum of Contemporary art in Barcelona. Before we got there though we found the world's most amazing bookstore. Well maybe not the world's most amazing but it was really great and we maybe spent something like 2 hours in there haha it was just massive and had an amazing collection of books. Anyway, after that was the museum; the building itself is really impressive and pretty and modern looking, and it's crazy because outside it there is a huge pavement space...courtyard....something, and there are literally about 45 skateboarders there ALL THE TIME! Poor old ladies probably never get to go to the museum becuause they'll probably get run down and killed just trying to get to the door of the place. But heyyy it was cool. The exhbits were nice albeit a little repetitive for my tastes. But it was really cool, Alex and I walked in an installation that you neded to sign a release form to go in because it was a really narrow maze made out of things like wire fences and fish tanks and sheets of clear glass suspended from the ceiling and get this, the floor was made of somethig like 2 tons of crushed broken glass. I was so excited to go in but then once I set foot I was like "oh my goddddd i need to get out of here I'm going to die", soooo I went through that one pretty fast. I think that night was spent watching F.C. Barcelona (whose logo you literally see about 300 times a day in Barcelona, no joke!) and hanging out in the common room meeting more fun people (and fellow Chicagoans!) before calling it a night.

Day 3 was really fun, though still rainy. After breakfast Alex and I joined Maggie and Sarah on a trip to the Barcelona Cathedral which was spectacular! Really ornate inside and filled with gorgeous opulent golden dioramas and altars and stuff. Super cool. Even better was the cloyster outside. It was really lush and green and unexpected. There were white ducks and fish and turtles swimming around, plam trees and orange trees everywhere, old fancy fountains, and more gold leaf and hand painted stuff. When the church closed for siesta the four of us headed right outside to the Gothic marekt filled with tons of antique treasures. I got a pretty little pendant thing for 2 euros and spent way too much time gushing over the old comic books, FC Barca memorabilia, old Spanish crests and pins, and just about everything else you could imagine. After that we headed back to the hostel where we were going to meet two new friends Sean and Jim for lunch, but they were late and didn't show up so me, Alex, Andy, Sarah, and Maggie went out instead and went to a place Sarah saw earlier that had 6 euro paella. DELICIOUS. It was really nice and fun. After that we all walked over to that great big book store and poured over books for a while longer. After that we all walked around more together and then visited El Ingenio, the most wonderul store EVER, filled with circus things and paper mache masks and confetti and just everything that makes you happy. Such a fun place. Then we continued wandering in the rain and walked around Placa Reial and then down La Ramblas to the pier and stuff. Thennn we split and Alex and Sarah and I decided to go stock up on some chocolate and Kinder stuff from the supermarket before heading back to the hostel to meet back up with Maggie and Andy where we spent the rest of the night hanging out and watching Superbad and talking and having a good time before they all continued their journeys and left Barcelona the next morning.


Day 4 WAS SUNNY! Alex and I headed over to the Bullfighting museum bright and early where we admired the super detailed and amazing bullfighting outfit things and looked at the taxidermied earless bull heads on the wall and learned all about the history of Barcelona bullfighting. Fascinating stuff! From there we walked to the Sagrada Familia and of course we stopped in a local bakery on the way and ate some yummy doughnut like thingies. The Sagrada Familia was hugeeeeeee, way bigger than I ever expected, but it was under construction and had about a ten billion hour long line to pay a ton of money to see construction soooo we skipped it and just walked around it from the outside. After that we went back to the Ramblas area and walked down to the pier and walked all along the pier and stuff for a long time. Then we explored a little and found a really nice shopping area and did that for a while before finding el Corte Ingles which had a supermarket inside Filled with those cookies Alex and I are obsessed with with the chocolate and milk and stuff, YUM. After that we headed back to the hostel where we got ready to go on the "nice night walk" that the hostel owner, Toti does for people who want to go on it. The hostel is right by the park Montjuic, a hugeeeee mountain with tons of stuff to do on it. Alex and I along with friends Caroline, Brian, Jim, Tyler, Matt, Anya, and a few other people went to join Toti on the night walk and it was one of the highlights of the trip! We trekked up the mountain guided by Toti who knew the best ways to go and the best sights to see. At one point he told us all to stand side by side in a line, hold hands, walk sideways, and told us that we could only look straight ahead and that if we looked behind us he'd do us in. So we all walked sideways holding hands very confused until he told us all to stop and said "on the count of three, turn around and say "wow!" hahahha. So we all counded to three and did as he said and behind us was just the most incredible and breathtaking view of Barcelona just as the sun was setting! PERFECT. The we kept walking and finding more amazing views and listening to Toti tell us all about Barcelona and answer our questions and he even told us interesting facts like that his grandmother had all her hair cut off because she was heard spaking Catalan on the street. As we climbed further up the mountain we found a cool old castle and all kinds of other fun things. We made it back to the hostel tired and exhausted a few hours later and then Me, Caroline, Matt, Tyler, and Brian went out for the typical 11pm Spanish dinner which was fun!




Day 5 Alex and I went to Passeig de Gracia and Avenue Diagonal to look at all the Gaudi houses and things. We first saw Casa Battlo which was really fantastical and kinda creepy in a cool way. Then we went to Casa Mila/La Pedrera. We got to go in and walk up it and see one of the apartments that was kept as if it was how it would have been back in the early 1900s, which was cool. There was also a mini gaudi museum in it. But the best part was the roof!!!!!! The roof is incredibleeeeeeee!!! We spent way too much time just walking around the maze of the place but it is just TOO COOL!!! It's so fun and crazy and fantastical and gaudy of course! It was great and had really nice views too. Then we went back to El Corte Ingles to buy more cookies heh hehheh. Theeeen we went to the Spanish Arc de Triomf and walked along that nice street until we got to the absolutely gorgeous Park de la Ciutadella. That park is so picture perfect, a huge beautiful fountain, lakes with boats, a giant wolly mammoth statue, tons of green grass and palm trees, people relaxing everywhere, it was great! We spent quite some time there before heading back to the hostel to watch the Barcelona v. Valladolid game and then Real Madrid game with some other new hostel friends. Then Alex and I went out to find food with Caroline at the wee hours of the morning which showed us an entirely new side of Barcelona haha.

Day 6 was our last day. After breakfast we walked along las Ramblas, went to the huge fountain and musum place on Monujuic, went back to La Ramblas and explored and did some more shopping, ate one last heavenly Churros con Chocolate, stumbled upon a Palm Sunday procession on La Ramblas, and just had a nice day before heading back to the hostel to get our luggage. We were leaving at the same time as a few friends so we ended up taking the metro to the train to the airport with them which was a nice little goodbye to Barcelona. Only thing I really regret not having the time to do was visiting Camp Nou where FC Barca plays... you can go on a tour where you get to go in to the dressing rooms and walk through the tunnel into the stadium on the field... ughhh i wish i could have done it. I guess that just means I'll have to do Anfield instead :D hehehe.

Anyway, Barcelona was a great fun trip and I already miss the place and the people a lot. Overall at the hostel we got to know something like 35 different people from 14 different countries. Pretty awesome opportunity, I'd say! Aww and it was nice, one of our friends told Alex and I before he left that we were some of the nicest people he'd met on his whole trip around Europe so far. AWWWW Heartwarming, isn't it? Damnnnnnn I loved staying at that hostel, Barcelona wonldn't have been half as fun without it. HASTA LUEGO, BARCA!

Lots lots lots more pictures here.