Barcelona

Where to begin? This weekend was amazing from start to finish. So I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Saturday October 30, 2010

Our bus left at about 6am on Saturday morning, and the drive there was supposed to take about 6-7 hours. We drove along the Mediterranean for a while, and we got to see a lot of charming cities situated on the coast. It was really surprising how much the landscape differed from France to Spain once we crossed the border. It was very mountainey in Spain--and gorgeous!

So we got to Barcelona at about noon, and we headed over to our hostel, which was right up Les Ramblas, one of the main roads in Barcelona. It took a little bit to get everyone from our group situated, but we finally got everyone settled in. From there, Bri and I went to grab some lunch and see some of the city. She had bought a Barcelona guide book, so we ended up doing a lot of walking to see the main sights. Luck seemed to be against us because we kept getting to the churches only to find out they were closed. Not everything went wrong, though. The weather was gorgeous, and we found the main market in the city almost right away: La Boqueria!

The market was awesome. It was huge, for one thing. And for another, I bought some delicious chocolate candies. And you know that makes me happy. So we walked around for a while, getting a feel for the city. At some point, we were looking for a map, and an English man asked us if we were trying to find tickets for the soccer game that night. Bri and I looked at each other and asked how much the tickets were. We were really, really tempted (that's a huge understatement) to buy them and go, but we decided they were too expensive.

Anyway! That night we decided to eat real Spanish food, so we ended up getting Paella, Sangria, and Tappas. From there, we decided to take the metro to check out the city's Magic Fountains, which are these fountains that have a choreographed light and music show every night from 7 to 9 pm. Again, luck was against us, because we got there only to find out that the fountains are currently under construction. Bummer! We ended up just sitting by the empty fountains and enjoying the great view of the city while a Spanish guitarist serenaded us. (There is a video of that I'll be putting up.) We took the metro back to near our hotel and decided to walk along the boardwalk at night, just to see what it was like. It was gorgeous. We sat on the docks and listened to the water and the night for a while. It was a really nice and relaxing. From there we headed back to the hostel to sleep in our dorm bunk beds.

Sunday October 31, 2010

Because we wanted to get a headstart on seeing the city on Sunday, we decided to wake up early. Except we didn't know how early we had actually gotten up. Apparently, Europe has daylight savings time too, and it was this weekend. So we ate breakfast at the hostel--definitely not the best thing I've ever eaten. Then we headed out to see the sights again after a short pitstop to get some Starbucks while we could. We went to the churches again to see if they were open. One of them wasn't, so we went to the cathedral instead to find out what times Mass were for the day. A really nice little Spanish lady helped me, and we decided to come back later that night for one of the evening Masses.

We headed to the beach after that, which was beautiful! According to National Geographic, it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It was completely redone for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and they've kept it up ever since. Bri and I rolled up our jeans so we could get our feet wet, but we ended up getting our jeans completely soaked anyway because the waves kept coming in bigger than we expected.

The rest of the day was a little slower. We went to Mass at the Cathedral in Catalan, and then we just walked around the city for a while enjoying all the Halloween costumes. We found out this weekend that Halloween is a lot bigger in Spain than it is in France. The costumes were really, really good! We actually ended up getting a Spanish specialty on La Rambla that night: churros and chocolate. It was so good!

Monday November 1, 2010

We woke up extra early on Monday to get to La Sagrada Familia before it opened. We ended up getting there right at 9 o'clock, so we still had a pretty substantial line, but it wasn't terrible. The church is so beautiful on the inside! We had already seen the outside of the church the day before with our group, but we hadn't gone in yet. The inside was absolutely incredible. The church has been under construction since 1882, and it's still not scheduled to be finished for another 30 years. The inside of the church is designed to have a foresty feel to it, and it definitely does. It's surprising how much light is in the church--everything is really brightly lit with natural light. Even the stained glass windows have a brighter feel to them than normal church windows. I really liked it, but I had to leave a little early to get to Mass for All Saints Day in the smaller chapel of the church.

After I got done with Mass, we hustled over to the aquarium. We were told that it is "the biggest aquarium in the world". That information is incorrect. We paid a hefty entrance fee, which we thought was worth it for the biggest aquarium in the world, but we were a little disappointed. We got to see a lot of cool fish--lots of sharks, and there was an underwater tunnel we got to go through, but that was about it in the aquarium. So after that, we took it slow, bought some Cuban cigars as gifts for people Bri knows, and got on the bus to come home.

I'll be getting pictures posted soon; they're actually uploading right now!

Edit: Photos are now available on the right!