Maddie, Colby, Dave, Will, and Joey all left for Barcelona on a plane on Friday afternoon, so they spent Friday night in Barcelona. Tyler and I took the train to Barcelona over night and arrived in the city in the morning. Our journey was long, but I already paid for the Eurail pass so why waste the money on a plane ticket? Plus I really don't mind trains at all.
We had to go through Milan to get to Barcelona. On the train ride down to Milan there was a big debacle with our seats. It seemed as though our seats were double booked with someone else. After about 15 minutes of complete confusion and language barriers, we realized that the lady booked our seats for MAY not February. Really? How is that even logical when the rest of our tickets are for February? Regardless, we found free seats and didn't have to stand for 2 hours, plus we got a refund, so it wasn't the end of the world.
Our train from Milan to Barcelona was long, about 12 hours, but we got to stay in the sleeper cars, where there were fold down beds! I thought it was going to be difficult for me to fall asleep, but around 11pm out was out and didn't wake up again until about 7:30am! When we arrived in Barcelona we headed towards the hostel where everyone else was already at to drop our bags off and wake up the crew. Everyone seemed to have a long night and were super tired when we got there, but we yanked them out of bed to start the day!
After getting breakfast/lunch and getting to check into our room, we all headed out to venture through the streets of Barcelona. We decided that we wanted to go on a bike ride through the city so we searched for a long time trying to find the rental shop. Finally we found it and then headed out into the streets, and headed towards La Sagrada Familia, one of the most famous sites in Barcelona.
La Sagrada Familia is simple stunning. It is a work of art by the architect/artist Gaudi, and in true Gaudi fashion, was never completed. There are still people working on it today, and it is said that the last brick won't be laid until 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death. La Sagrada Familia is the most visited construction site in the world.
We saw a lot of cool stuff on our bike ride, but because I was on a bike it was quite difficult to take pictures of everything. Plus it wasn't really anything significant, just really colorful and interesting architecture.
After returning our bikes (way past their due date, but with no late fee!) we headed back to the hostel to get changed/rest/eat, whatever people wanted to do. Something that is interesting about Barcelona is that on the busiest street, Las Ramblas, there are a ton of street performers that just line up on the sides of the middle walking area, waiting for people to give them change and take pictures. Here are some of my favorites:
The hostel that we stayed at served dinner if we wanted it, but Maddie, Kelsey, and I were not wanting to eat pizza or tuna pasta while we were in Spain. So we headed out to find a place to get some paella! We finally found a little restaurant and I ordered seafood paella, and it was pretty delicious. We also had this custard/flan dish, I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I must have liked it because I eat the whole thing!
When we got back we got to watch the rest of the FC Barcelona game vs. Mallorca. All of the goals by Barca were beautiful! To bad we couldn't have actually gone to the game :( We also played some rounds of pool and talked about what to do for the night. Everyone was keen on going to this club called Razzmatazz that had 5 huge rooms with different types of music and it holds thousands of people. We weren't even going to leave until 1:45am to go with this huge group from the hostel. I wasn't to excited about the idea, because that really isn't my scene, and I warned everyone that I probably would want to leave about an hour into it, but they convinced me to still go since no one else in our group was staying behind. The club was definitely something I had never, and probably will never experience again. There were a ton of people there, but so many that there was no room to dance and you had to squeeze through people to get by. About an hour and a half into it I was ready to leave, and luckily so was Maddie. So we caught the metro back to the hostel to pass out, since it was about 5am when we got back.
The next day we had planned to do this tour called GoCars where you drive around these little yellow cars and they are a GPS/guided tour and tell you where to go and the history of certain things. We all had to check out by 10am and Tyler and I had to check in to our other hostel, because we were staying one more night since we couldn't get a train until Monday. The rest had to fly out at 5pm that day. Since the rest of the group didn't get into until way late...or I guess early, I made sure that everyone was up so that we didn't have to miss out on our GoCar tour! Luckily everyone was packed, checked out, and had eaten about 9:45am and we were headed out the door! We arrived at the GoCar place around 10:30am, and they almost weren't able to rent us cars, but they moved some stuff around and we got a spot! It was two people per car, and there were eight of us, so basic math would say that would be four cars :)
After lots of paperwork, having to take 300 Euros out of the bank for a safety deposit, and an instructional video, we were off on our way. The two main places that we wanted to see were Parc Guell and the FC Barcelona stadium. Tyler and I led the way in our little GoCar for two reasons: our car was the only one that was talking to us and telling us where to go and we're both really good with a map and figuring out where to go. Maddie kept telling us that we need to be on the show "The Amazing Race" together. Haha
We passed a lot of neat buildings, and it was nice having the guided tour so we knew what things were that we were passing. We stopped at Parc Guell, which is a park that was created by Gaudi, and again, was never fully finished. He was an interesting man for sure. Everything was so elaborate and "gaudy" (clearly where that term came from). The longest bench in the world is at this park and it's made of small tiles. There was also a gorgeous view of Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea from there.
After leaving Parc Guell we had to go off course from where the GoCar was taking us because we had to get Colby, Maddie, Dave, and Will back to the GoCar place so that they could run back to the hostel, grab their stuff, and catch a bus to the airport. We all really wanted to see the FC Barcelona stadium (especially me) so Tyler and I resorted to the map to find a quick route to the stadium. Let me just say...we knew exactly what streets we were supposed to be taking, but Spain has minimal street signs so it was hard to actually turn onto the streets we needed to be on. There was a lot of zig-zaging and U-turns in our tiny little obnoxious yellow cars but we finally made it to the stadium. My next trip to Barcelona will consist of me actually going in the stadium and watching a game!
After quickly taking pictures of the stadium we had to make our way all the way across town, we were on a mission. But what do you know, mine and Tyler's car started have troubles, and would start to shake if it went over a certain speed. So we told everyone else to go ahead of us and just make it back there, we knew where we were going and would just meet them there. Slowly but surely we made it back to the shop...before everyone else? That confused us since we were going slow, but in the end everyone showed up and the four that had to leave had to run back to get their stuff to make it to the hostel.
Riley, Joey, Tyler, and I went back to our new hostel to check in and relax for a little bit. Then we headed out to explore parts of the city we hadn't seen yet, mainly the pier. We stopped at a little seafood place and munched on some fish and chips and drank delicious sangria. Then we just walked around town for awhile. We headed back to the hostel and played a bunch of card games, then Riley and Joey headed to the airport to figure out some stuff that was wrong with their flights for the next day. Tyler and I were then on a mission for gelato, and I really wanted one of these waffle pieces drizzled with chocolate that I had seen a bunch. We finally found some and then went to a park to munch. We walked around a bunch more until we got cold and head back to the hostel to play some more cards and go to bed.
The next day we woke up, took showers, ate breakfast, checked out, and headed out into the city. Joey and Riley had already headed to the airport, so Tyler and I were on our own. Our first stop was the Gaudi Cathedral. We had passed it the night before, but neither of us had our cameras so we made sure to stop and take pictures. This was the first church that I've been to in Europe that I could take pictures inside of! I was very happy about that because it was beautiful.
We wanted to see the Olympic Park before heading to the train station, luckily they were in the same direction! I'm glad we went to the Olympic Park because it was so beautiful, and had great views of the city. Luckily there were escalators to the top because we were so tired of walking at this point. Especially since we had our bags with us.
I think Tyler and I walked about 15-20 miles that day. We literally crossed from one end of the city to the other, and then walked around a bunch. We were happy to start our journey home. No sleeper trains this time, but I never think train rides are that bad. We took four different trains, and our third one (to Geneva, Switzerland) was delayed an hour because there was an accident on a street going across the tracks. When we got to Geneva we caught the very last train to Brig and arrived around 1am.
It was a long weekend, but it was really fun. I'm glad the weather worked in our favor and that we got to see SO MUCH of the city!
As always, many more pictures can be seen on my Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=331209&id=672975663&l=66bdf77b2c
-Love-
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