While I was doing preliminary work on my Spring Break plans I had no desire to go to Spain, mostly because my Spanish consisted of "donde esta el bagno" and I didn't know what there was to see there. Fortunately I forgot about all that and went anyways. Barcelona has been one of my favorite cities I've visited thus far.
We got to Barcelona at noon on Monday the 19th and found the shuttle bus from the airport that would drop us off near our hostel. When we got off the bus we must have looked a tad confused becasue a nice girl from New York about our age came up to us all cheerful and helped us find where we were and where we needed to go. She was going the same direction as our hostel so she walked us pretty much the whole way there. After checking into the hostel we asked the nice girl at the desk if she had any suggestions about where to eat. She gave us directions to a restaurant which was very good and inexpensive! We had a three course lunch for 9euro. I had a delicious grilled asparagus appetizer, a big piece of grilled tuna (never had that before! Believe it or not, it was better than out of the can, although it could've used a little mayo haha). For dessert we had a little helping of ice cream to top off a pleasent lunch.
After lunch we went to Parc Guell by Gaudi. This place was amazing. There were a ton of people there near the entrance which was a little annoying, but as we walked further into the park there were less and less people. The forms and mosaics that covered the structures in the park were unreal. Again, we were asking ourselves how the construction documents were drafted and what contractor was crazy enough to take on such a bizarre project. We spent an hour and a half or so at the park and then headed back to the hostel to take a shower and meet up with Jena, Caroline, and Naihao for dinner. Jena was staying in our hostel that night too so after she got checked in we headed out for some tapas (a tapa is like a small plate at Hoolihans. You can usually get 3 for yourself but the best way to do it is for everyone to share eachothers so you get to try lots of different dishes)! The girl at the front desk told us about a good place to go for tapas which was another major success. Naihao decided to get something else for dinner so it was us 5 girls for a lovely dinner together. We got a lage pitcher of Sangria and each chose 1 tapas to share. Once we finished the first round we were still a little hungry so we chose two more. After dinner we walked down the street and got some delicious gelato before going back to the hostel to go to bed.
Our Tapas:
Grilled peppers
A traditional spicy Potato dish
Chicken wings with sweet and sour sauce
Eggplant with Honey (by far the best thing I've eaten this whole trip!)
Warm goat cheese with honey, pine nuts, and raisins
Bread with some traditional tomato paste spread stuff on top
The next morning we went up to the Olympic Park where the 1992 Summer Olympics were hosted. This is the second olympic park I've been to, the first was in Montreal when I was in 7th grade. It was amazing to imagine all the spectators and athletes being in in the vast park, but without all the people there it was a little eerie. However, there were people using it as a dog park and as a place to exercise so it wasn't completely empty.
Our next stop was the Botanical Gardens which Jena suggested. She said that even though everything wasn't in bloom yet, the park was very well designed with some modern features that could inspire ideas for our own projects. She was right. The park featured paths which followed clean lines and large cor-ten steel retaining walls which formed pocket seating areas and created places for some plants to drape over creating a soft/hard edge to the planting areas. The park was organinzed by world regions including places in Africa, the Mediterranean, Asia, etc. Not all the secitons had been planted yet because the redeisgn of the park was so recent. There were some plants though that were blooming and most of them were plants that I had never seen before! I gave Katie my iPhone to take some of her own pictures bc of the camera mishap at the Louvre which she really appreciated because it's hard to be in such a beautiful place and not take home some photos to remember it.
After the Botanical Gardens we walked to the Mies Van Der Rohe Pavilion. It was the Greman Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona. It's known for its simple form and beautiful materials. I was impressed by the simplicity of the space, but I wish it was bigger or had more to look at. After a quick visit there we went to the metro to go to Cataluna square and walk down the famous Ramblas Street with lots of shops and restaurants, like a less fancy version of the Champs Elysees. As we got onto the metro Katie went to give me back my iPhone and it wasn't in her purse. She ran off the metro just as the doors were closing so Ashley and I rode to the station where we said we were getting off to wait for Katie. When the next train pulled up Katie was in tears, she had been pickpocketed again. This time it was my phone and her passport......
We got out of the Metro to start making a plan for what to do. I was upset for her, but understandable kinda pissed bc she had lost my phone and Ashley was not about to sit with Katie at the police station for 3 hours again. We helped Katie find the police station and then went to get some lunch and told Katie to call us when she knew what she had to do. In them iddle of this we were also on the lookout for Jena who we were meeting for lunch. We filled her in on the issues, but said we would just put that behind us for a while and go get some lunch. We got some delicious Kebabs (I don't know if I've told you about these, but they are like burritos made with meat thats roasted on a giant vertical spit and shaved off and topped with picante sauce, veggies, french fries, and plain yogurt. We have a Kebab place in Orvieto that the boys are obsessed with mostly because it's a lot of food for only 3.50) The Kebab in Barcelona was awesome. It had some pico type stuff on it too that was delicious. As we continued down the Ramblas we stumbled upon this huge market with everything from fruit to chocolate to meat, fish, and eggs! Most of the fruit boots were selling these fresh fruit juices with a million flavors. I got one that was raspberry and banana. It was one of like 6 more that I would get before we left Barcelona. We caught back up with Katie who needed to go to the Embassy to get a temporary passport which was going to take a while so she borrowed some money and went off by herself (she had a phone to call us if anything went wrong). Jena, Ashley, and I went to a chocolate museum ('CH' in Catalan, the language they speak in Barcelona is spelled with an 'X' so the abbreviation of the museum was MX...took us a while to figure that one out haha). It was pretty cool and we got to learn about how chocolate goes from tree to shelf. Our ticket was a little bar of chocolate, definitely the most delicious ticket I've bought so far! At the end of the museum we got a small cup of hot chocolate which is as thick as Hershey's syrup but hot and tastes 100 times better. After the museum I headed back to the hostel and Ashley went to meet up with Katie where they were going to pick up our tickets for the Barcelona-Granada soccer game that night!! We were a little worried we wouldn't get them becasue Katie was the one who bought them and she had lost all her ID to prove she was the one who purchased them. Turns out everything went fine and we got the tickets. When they got back to the hostel we went out to dinner at a cute american style diner to get a burger and fries. After dinner we headed to the stadium. We weren't sure where to go, but we stalked a group of girls wearing Barcelona jerseys. Another issue with the game was that our seats were not all together, but luckily the stadium was not full because it was cold and rainy. We wouldn't let that ruin our time there though! The game was amazing Barcelona won and Messi, their best player, broke the record for most goals scored ever...232. The score was 5-3. As you can imagine, after the game was pretty crazy. The streets were packed with people but cars and motorcycles were still trying to get by! The metro was also crazy. The train wasn't as squished as I expected, but getting into the tunnel was near impossible. I could've probably picked up my feet and just rode down the stairs because I was so squished between people! Needless to say, we made it back to the hostel and went straight to bed. It had been a long day. I hadn't been too mad about not having my phone during the day, but without my music to put me to sleep I had a hard time falling asleep bc a couple people in our room snored. Oh well, my headphones were only 50% anyways, one of the earbuds had blown out a couple days before.
Wednesday started out with a quick breakfast treat and coffe at a place similar to Bread co without the lunch menu. We took it to go as we walked to see Casa Mila and La Pedrera buildings by Gaudi. They were pretty expensive to go in, but we got the main gist by seeing the facade which were very bizarre. It was kind of hard to get a good photo of them but you should look them up on Google. Next on our Gaudi tour was La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral. Holy Guacamole, this building was crazy!! I cannot even begin to explain it. Gaudi was obsessed with forms found in nature and wanted to reflect them into the structure of the cathedral. You have to look this place up too.
After an awe inspring time in the cathedral we went to El Poble Espanyol. This Art and Crafts Village is an architectural museum build for the 1929 International Exhibition which now features workshops and retailers which sell traditional arts and crafts from the region including pottery, glass, and textiles. I loved walking around the car-free streets and going into shops. It was similar to Murano except there was a wide range of crafts which were all equally amazing. We stopped for lunch in a small restaurant and guess what I ate...a fried calamari sandwich! Katie's boyfriend went to Spain last year and told us we had to try it at least once so we did. It was actaully pretty good, but the texture was a bit bizarre. Luckily we had some french fries to wash it down and we were glad we were inside because it started pouring down rain outside. We were sitting next to a table of like 8 old men who were eating lunch together. Turns out they were some of the craftsmen and I bought a glass ring from one of the guys while he was making glass roosters in his shop.
Next we went back to the Ramblas so Katie could see it and we wanted to get more juice. This time I decided to branch out and get a different one. A lot of the vendors had dragon fruit which was bright pink so I decided to try a juice that was dragonfruti and coconut...it was hot pink which should've been the first warning. The juice tasted like stinky feet and vomit aftertaste...Bluck! I washed it down with another, less exotic Strawberry Kiwi juice. I don't really remember what we did that night but I'm sure we were exhausted and went out to dinner then back to the hostel to go to sleep.
Thursday was our last day in Barcelona but we weren't leaving till 10pm so we had all day to hang out. We went back to the market for breakfast which was delicious. We went to the bread lady in the middle of the market and I had a apple tart thing that was amazing. Next we went to the Barcelona cathedral (different than Sagrada Familia, more traditional and beautiful. Outside of the cathedral was an antique market which we mosied through.
Our next destination was the port because I wanted to see where my ferry to Rome was going to leave from. We got to the port just as the sun was coming out so we found a bench on a pier to sit in a soak up some Vitamin D which was very relaxing. I found the building where I needed to be before we caught the bus to the boat and got my boarding pass. We then walked to the triumphal arch which had a beautiful park with nice benches under some amazing sculpted light fixtures. We sat for a while in a sunbeam and watched the people and dogs go by. Eventually we had to leave to get our stuff at the hostel and we still had a little souvenir shopping we wanted to get done. I bought a 'touristy' Barcelona bag to carry all my stuff home so I didn't have to wear 5 shirts on the boat. Plus I said I'd bring home some of the girls stuff so they didn't have to pack it. Turns out it was a great purchase bc I've used it a bunch of times since the trip and it's Purple :) Katie and Ashley were taking a night train to Madrid and I was coming home to Orvieto on an over night Ferry/day cruise. I made it to the port easy peasy and waited around for direction on getting to the boat which was to leave at 10:15pm. I didn't really know who to expect on the boat, I had read that it was just a bunch of truckers and I assumed there would be small groups of travelers looking for a n easy way to get from Spain to Italy. Turns out there were big groups of teenagers. A couple Italian, A couple Spanish, and an American group. We had to take a bus to the boat and as I was standing in line I met a girl name Patrice. We were both equally as excited that we spoke english. She is from Australia and traveling around Europe and then Canada by herself. We met another kid on the boat named Ben who was from Canada. He was a bit weird and had stinky feet, but he was very nice. Turns out that Patrice had a 4 bed cabin to herself and Ben and I were in the Pullman seat room which was pretty gross. The seats were old and beat up and there were a bunch of Indian men in there too. Not sure I wanted to be the only female in that whole room. Patrice let us stay in her room which was very very nice of her. The boat got to Civitavecchia, the port outside of Rome, at 6:45pm on Friday. We took the train to Rome which was about an hour and then had some McDonald's for dinner. I had to catch the train back to Orvieto at 9:43 so I said goodbye to Patrice and invited her to come to Orvieto to visit! The train back to Orvieto was brutal. I wanted to sleep so bad, but didn't want to miss my stop. I made it back to the apartment and crashed as soon as I got in the door.
It was an amazing trip. I could've done without the pickpocket episodes, but we made the best of every situation and had a great time.
Park Guell by Antonio Gaudi.
Olympic Torch at the 1992 Olympic Park
Small amphitheater at the Botanic Gardens
The entrance to the market. One of my favorite places in Barcelona.
Fruit display at the market. The sign says to not touch the fruit haha.
View from our seats at the soccer game!
The ceiling of Sagrada Familia! WOW
The Triumphal Arch. You can see some of the beautiful lamp posts to the left of the arch.
In the middle of nowhere on the boat. I took the Grimaldi Lines Ferry between Barcelona and Civitavecchia. The cruise goes every day between the two cities which I though was amazing. The boat was huge and nowhere near capacity. we were the only people in the huge lounge most of the time.
Patrice and I after our boat ride!
YAY!! I'm done blogging about spring break! It's only 2 weeks late, but I hope it was worth it.
Cliff Hanger: Blog about mom and dad coming to Orvieto and one about Easter week/weekend!
Chow : D
