Barcelona!!!!!

WOW! Where do I even begin?! Barcelona was so awesome... Probably one of my favorite trips ever. There are so many things to do there, I don't think I would ever be bored. The city itself was pretty easy to navigate, with metro stops everywhere you would ever want to go. I'm so happy that I got to explore the sights with Nicole, we had an awesome time together. I kept thinking "we are in SPAIN right now, that is so CRAZY!" It was nice to have a little taste of home too :)

Day 1: Got in to Barcelona at 7:30 am after a 10 hour BUS ride. Yes, I took a bus for 10 hours. The worst part was that the worst smelling human being ever sat right behind me the entire time. Honestly thinking back I don't know how I did it. After I got there I took the metro to Nicole's apartment and we slept for another 3 hours which was nice considering I didn't sleep much because of mister smelly behind me. The first thing we did was go to lunch at this place called the "Champagne-aria"? (I spelled it how it sounds because I have no idea how it is spelled). It was PACKED full of people. You could hardly move, and it was standing room only. As you can tell by the name they serve bottles of champagne but they also have amazing food. I got a sandwich with bell pepper, cheese, bacon, and some other type of meat... hah. And we all shared a bottle of champagne. This place had TONS of those little napkins on the floor that I talked about in my previous blog so I knew the food would be good. That meal was probably my favorite meal the whole weekend.

After lunch we took the metro to Parc Guell which is this amazing park that Gaudi designed. There are a ton of things to see that Gaudi designed but I think that this was my favorite that I saw. Basically it is a park with a bunch of different elements designed by Gaudi, but not actually finished until after his death. The buildings were so strange, one of them supposedly designed after Hansel and Gretel's house. The mosaics that he uses in all of his designs are so cool. I have never seen anything like his designs before. The walk up to the park is pretty steep, and that made for a really cool view of the entire city.

After a long day of walking all over the city (we walked to lunch and saw Las Ramblas as well as the port of Barcelona) we needed a nap so we didn't make it out that night until about 1 in the morning which actually isn't that unusual for Spain! Its so crazy that there are tons of people out at 1 in the morning! And its not just people going to bars or discotecas, people just sit at a cafe and drink coffee. That night was really fun, we went out to a bar that Nicole normally goes to and met up with a bunch of her friends.

Ummm... a random mime outside the bar telling people to be quiet. I thought he was

quite hilarious so I had to take a picture.

Day 2: So after not much sleep Nicole and I finally made it out of the apartment by noon with a long day ahead of us! It was nice being able to plan where I wanted to go and do the things that I wanted to do instead of traveling in a big group of 50 people. I had a guide book that I was looking up things to do in and the first place that we went was the Barri Gotic, one of the oldest sections of Barcelona. It is an old Roman city with a maze of narrow streets, all leading to the Catedral de la Santa Creu. The Cathedral is under construction currently but was amazing to see anyway. We actually went in time to see part of the mass that was going on in Latin! The surroundings of the Cathedral had tons of tourists, street performers, and small shops.

Drinking the water from the Fountain of Youth!!! I found it! No just kidding...

they say it's good luck to drink from this fountain, so I did!

From here we went to Parc de la Ciutadella which is in "La Ribera" and this was probably my favorite part of the trip. The street that we walked down had hardly any tourists but it was beautiful, you would never find anything like that in the states. We decided to take a picnic lunch and people watch. The park is giant with tons of fountains, a big pond, a zoo, courtyards, etc. It was just very relaxing and it was nice to do something in the fresh air with not a lot of tourists. This park was the sight of the 1888 Universal Exposition (random fact for you from my guidebook).

I really like posing by myself....

From the park we went to the Museu Picasso. We got into a long line to wait to go into the museum and then when we got up there they told us it was free! Awesome start already. My favorite part was the Las Meninas series. Coincidentally, this was also my favorite painting by Velasquez at the Prado Museum. The museum itself was in a huge old mansion, so even the architecture was cool to look at.

After walking around all day we were exhausted so we came home and.... yup you guessed it, took a siesta! Then that night we went out to a bar that had Karaoke, it was AWESOME. Probably about 90% of the people there spoke english and so all the songs were American songs that I knew. It was still fun despite the lack of Spanish culture.

Day 3: It had been a pretty exhausting weekend with not much sleep so we didn't make it out until about 2 this day. First we went to see La Sagrada Familia. This Cathedral, also designed by Gaudi is still a work in progress. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. It was cool to see but I wouldn't ever describe it as "beautiful". I think the best adjective to describe it would be strange. Plain and simple. But of course I can appreciate the thought and the work that has gone into it. It is still an ongoing project with many different architects and sculptors have been working on it for over 100 years. The original architect, Gaudi, died before he could finish the Cathedral. Its actually a pretty awful story- he got hit by a bus when he was walking on the street!

We decided to get some lunch after that and went over to La Rambla (no pictures for this portion, my camera died). I was on alert the whole time because apparently this is where pick pocketers make their fortune, off of tourists.

Then it was off to the 10 hour bus ride. No smelly people this time, but I still didn't get much sleep anyway.

As you can see, it was an exhausting weekend but it was so amazing! I'm happy to be back in my little town of Valladolid where I feel safe walking around by myself though and don't have to constantly be on alert for people trying to steal my purse. Hopefully while I'm here I can visit Barcelona at least one more time.

Love you guys!

P.s. write me comments so I know someone is reading my blog!!!