So, as many of you know from my Facebook, I finally got to go on my first real trip this weekend to Barcelona! It was sooo nice to finally go to Spain because the culture is so different from that of Paris. In Barcelona it feels a bit more relaxed and it was a bit warmer, which was nice.
Anyway, Elise and I arrived Friday evening and our wonderful friend, David (who lives near Barcelona but was in our French class in Paris for a few weeks) and his girlfriend Berta were so extremely kind as to pick us up from the airport and take us all the way to our Hostel! Seriously if they hadn't been so generous we definitely would have gotten lost! Once we finally found the hostel, the Garden House (a Feet-up hostel, really clean and friendly and beautiful!) we got settled in and they helped us find a restaurant nearby. David and Berta even skipped their surely delicious home-cooked meal waiting for them at home to eat with us. We had a sandwich with some typical kind of Spanish meat, I think it was Lom (pork) and some patatas bravas, which are basically french fries cut in cubes with a slightly spicy kind-of mayonnaise sauce on top? Anyway that and our Estrella beers made us very happy. Haha
The next day we got a T-10 metro pass and headed to Park Güell de Antoni Gaudí. We had to climb up pretty far, but we got a great workout and at the top we had an incredible view of Barcelona from the Northeast corner of the city! We could see all the way to the ocean shore and the surrounding mountains from up there! As we worked our way down the other side of the huge hill/mountain we found a local musician playing some kind of Marimba or something (we split a cd for 5 euro lol) and found a great jewelry artist (had to stop there too, haha) and at the bottom we found the incredible buildings and railings and tile work that Gaudí made this park famous with. So beautiful! Next we headed into town to La Rambla, which is a famous street in downtown with a lot of shopping and restaurants, to just wander for a while. We peeked into differernt tapas resturants and Spanish clothing stores. We also tried to see some other landmarks in the city, but then we heard from our other friend who got into Barcelona later, Emily, and we met up with her and her boyfriend for a snack. I tried a seafood salad because I figured sonce Barcelona is right on the ocean they are pretty good with seafood. We met up with some of Emily's other friends who were studying abroad in Barcelona later that night and then Elise and I headed back to our hostel to sleep.
Our second full day, Saturday, we were hoping to meet up with David and Berta again to do some sightseeing, but they were unavailable so we did some of our own. We had a few parks in mind and knew we wanted to find the beach, so we just got off the metro on the south end of Rambla hoping to find our way from there. Right when we got off the metro there was a craft market happening, of course, and I found some cool jewelry and possibly some Christmas gifts... Anyway after we got our fill of the market we walked along the shore for a little while (and of course we ran into 2 more markets) until we found a beach! Sitting on the shore, seeing all the people, listening to the waves, and feeling the warmth of the sun was just what we had hoped for :) After we felt relaxed we headed to Montjuic Park in the South western corner of Barcelona because it has been said that Montjuic Park is to Barcelona as Central Park is to New York City. We didn't have a ton of time to walk around the whole park, but we at least climbed all of the stairs to get a great view of the city from a different perspective, have some croquettes for a snack (sooooo goooood) and get some nice pictures. Then it was back on the metro to head back to the hostel. We had heard word they were serving homemade Paella and Sangria for 6 euros, so we were definitely excited about that! Spanish food, and homemade nonetheless! The food was great and we met some really interesting people at the hostel. There was one lady who claimed she was a Senior, though she seemed much younger, and she was a yoga instructor traveling alone before she met up with friends to do a 500 mile hike along the northern shore of spain for 5 weeks! We also met a girl who was in Barcelona going to a circus school (she was in the hostel because she hadn't found a permanent place yet). All the people who worked there were so nice and helpful and we enjoyed the whole trip...
...except when we had to get up really early the next morning to take the metro and a train to the airport before our 8:45 am flight. That did end up being easier than we thought it would be and our early flight got us back to Paris with enough time to go to the market to restock on food, relax, study some French and (try to) go to bed early.
Great trip overall! Can't wait for more! (I am working on a day trip to Brussels, going to the south of France for my break to visit my Aunt Kristi, doing a weekend in London, and a weekend tour of the Ireland countryside!) Plus my lovely roommate Amy is coming to visit me for almost a week near Thanksgiving! I had a bad day getting lost in the metro system because of the strike, but today I am feeling like I truly have so much to be thankful for and so much to be excited about! A big thanks to my parents and the big man upstairs for making this all possible for me!
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