This past weekend was spent in Barcelona. We arrived in Spain mid-morning on Friday, and headed straight for our accommodations in a safe area of the city. We stayed in a fabulous apartment-style hotel that came fully equipped with anything we could ever need (including but not limited to a microwave, dishwasher, bottle opener, panini maker, juicer...).
Stopping off in a bakery en route to downtown Barcelona, we discovered that neither our English nor our Spanish was going to get us very far, since the baker could not understand that all we wanted were a few pastries. Barcelona's official language is Catalan, a hybridization of Spanish and French, with a lot of 'x's thrown in for good measure.
We then got two day tickets for a hop-on hop-off bus tour of the city. On Friday we did the tour route that covered the southern half of Barcelona, and provided us with views of the ocean. We got off at the National Gallery, which is a converted palace. Inside the gallery we saw more depictions of Jesus than I have ever seen in one place. The gallery had quite a few Carrachi, Velasquez, Picasso, and Miro paintings, as well as many locally famous Catalan artists.
Back on the tour, we saw the 1992 Olympic Stadium, scenic views of the city, the zoo, and the aquarium. We got off the tour in the Gothic area of the city, and went to see Gaudi's famous music venue (Palau de la Musica), as well as the city's famed Cathedral. The Cathedral dates back to the 1300s and is extraordinary inside. After touring the interior of the Cathedral we grabbed some dinner and headed home for a nap. We woke up, Spanish-style, at 11pm and headed out to bars. Our first stop was Chupitos (= "shots" in Spanish), a tiny bar that is very popular with American students because it features 524 varieties of shots. Their flaming shots are particularly extraordinary (e.g. The Boy Scout: They light a section of the bar on fire, give you a marshmallow on a stick to roast over the fire, then you dip the marshmallow in the shot glass, eat the alcohol soaked marshmallow, and THEN you take the shot). We picked a few, non-pyro friendly shots from the list and headed onwards. We then went to the Dow Jones, another themed bar. The concept for the bar is that all of the prices for the drinks are posted on screens (a la the stock market), and the prices adjust to reflect supply and demand. If a lot of people were to order a single type of drink then the prices will rise and vice versa. Every hour there is a stock market crash and there is a mad dash for the bar to get drinks at rock-bottom prices. We headed home early (compared to the Spaniards), since we were exhausted from 24 hours of traveling and touring.
On Saturday morning, we grabbed breakfast and caffeinated before heading to the bus tour. We departed the bus at La Segrada Familia, a church that is Gaudi's grandest achievement. The Church is still under construction, nearly 100 years later, and is paid for my anonymous donations. Every aspect of the church initially looks completely out of the ordinary, until you realize that all of the shapes and designs have been taken directly from nature, like helixes, waves, and flowers. The building is absolutely enormous and breathtaking, my pictures don't do the architecture justice.
Upon leaving the gated area of the building, we stopped to take a picture. While I was distancing myself from my friends, they were accosted by two girls who forced a petition upon them to sign for deaf people. The girls were very aggressive and in order to get them to leave them alone, my friends signed the document. The girls then demanded donations from them and more girls arrived and surrounded my friends threateningly and again in order to get the girls to leave, my friends gave them a couple euros. After taking the pictures, we were walking away from the park, when one of the young girls runs over, hands my friend her wallet and disappears. Fortunately, the girls had only stolen the 30 euro that my friend had in her wallet and had returned all of the credit cards and Irish immigration card. We were very shaken up and headed straight to an Irish pub for Bailey's coffee and a breather. Pick-pocketing is a huge problem in Barcelona, and the people who do it are professionals (there is even a pickpocketing school in Rome!). The entire weekend my anxiety levels were through the roof, because I'm so protective of my camera and other belongings, but fortunately we didn't run into any other troubles.
We then headed over to Park Guell, another one of Gaudi's masterpieces. It was a nice, relaxing way to spend the afternoon. On our way back to the bus, I was actually in the middle of saying to my friends that I was surprised that I hadn't yet run into someone I knew when we came upon some American friends from our business school. We finished up the tour, then grabbed an early tapas dinner. We napped and headed out to the bars with the girls we had run into earlier, but it was kind of a bust of an evening. However, since it was Carneval and we were staying near all of the gay bars, we saw the most incredible costumes and tons of drag. We were heading out the next morning when we saw a couple of guys in matching bright pink tulle dresses, tiaras, and stilettos stumbling home from the bar.
We met my friend Patty, who is from Tufts and studying in Barcelona for lunch near the waterfront. The food was delicious and the menus were on the sides of wine bottles which was a nice creative touch. Patty showed us around the port, waterfront, and beach areas. She also showed us this great bar called the Forest of the Fairies, which had trees growing all over inside and has a "thunder storm" every hour. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for my budget), the shops were all closed since it was Sunday, a snag that we hadn't planned on. Nonetheless, we grabbed some crepes and pizza for dinner and had Cava Sangria (delicious champagne-based sangria). We then headed over to the airport, and discovered that our flight was nearly an hour late, which is very unusual for Europe.
Over all, it was a great weekend spent in a beautiful city.
Love, Erin
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