We landed in Barcelona, yipppeee, and found our bus to take us into the center of Barcelona. During the 1.5 hour bus ride I got to know a fellow named Francesco. He grew up in Rome, goes to school in Perugia, but is studying abroad in Barcelona. He knows three languages fluently and I struggle with just one, ha. He then helped us navigate the metro (thank God he was there to help us) and we found our hostel. It is called Centric Point hostel and it’s right in the middle of the city. Perfect location! It’s seven stories high and has a common room for breakfast and a bar and internet and TV. It is so cool! We got our room, which we shared with 10 other guys. They were all from Scotland and we in town for the big football (soccer) game the next day. They slept in till like 3pm and smelled bad and slept in their boxers which was REAL awkward in the morning when we had to walk by them while they were sleeping. Ew. But anywho, Amanda and I settled in and then went out to roam the streets and get our first plate of paella. We found a great restaurant, Ba-ba-Reba, that had tables set outside and we got to sit beneath the city lights and eat dinner. We had our first plate of paella (a Spanish rice dish) which was so friggin good and an avocado and chicken salad- yum! After a long day of traveling we went back to our hostel and slept.
March 4th
The next day we walked down the main streets and found some really great shopping places. I got two new shirts, a sweater and hairclips, obvi all are adorable. Then, while looking around in a store we saw a woman had a Starbucks in her hand! We immediately freaked and dove outside in search of Starbucks. It wasn’t a block before we found it! So precious and tucked in between two other adorable clothing stores. We walked in only to be greeted by the heavenly smell of roasting coffee and Americanized merchandise. Don’t get me wrong, I love Italian café’s, but there’s just something about a to-go cup of Starbucks that just warms my heart! I got an extra shot vanilla latte and a blueberry muffin (I can’t remember the last time I had a muffin) and we sat down to enjoy our much deserved cup of coffee. That night we went to a Tapas restaurant and indulged in about 6 different dishes (fish, chicken, vegetables, potatoes, shrimp, etc.) and a cute little cup of chocolate mousse for dessert. Then we went back to Ba-ba-Reba to visit our waiter-friend and watch the soccer game on TV with a nice pitcher of sangria. Perfection.
We woke up to clanging beer bottles and smells of drunkenness at 5am when the Scottish boys finally stumbled in and flicked on the lights after drinking away their sorrows of losing the big game. I thought they smelled bad after just sleeping in the same room with them, but add on the intense liquor breath and you’ve entered into a whole other side of stink. I threw the blankets over my head and slept for another couple hours until Amanda woke me up for breakfast.
The fairies on La Rambla
March 5th
After a hearty breakfast of cereal and tea, we made our way down La Rambla towards the sea. The streets were filled with gift shops for tourists and people dressing up in crazy costumes to make a few dimes. Then we arrived at the Christopher Columbus statue! It’s a big monument where he is actually pointing in the direction of America. Barcelona, according to the website, is home to Europe’s largest aquarium. So we just had to go! We saw lots of fish, penguins, sharks, octopi, eels, and sting rays. It was pretty fun, it’s been a while since I’ve been to an aquarium. It was also located right on the Mediterranean Sea and we had lunch at a nice Asian restaurant overlooking the pier.
My new pengium friend, Bubba.
Lots of fishies!
We made our way back towards our hostel and grabbed another cup from Starbucks and then headed back for a quick nap. Once rested we went to the Bones house, a building constructed by the famous architect Gaudi. It was interesting to see the house from the inside since his architecture is all over Barcelona. He focused on incorporating a lot of nature’s shapes into his designs. He is also famous for constructing the Sagrada Familia so we hiked across town to find it, but we too late because by the time we got there it was closed. Bummer. We found a really good restaurant though and had dinner there. We were sitting next to these girls who were speaking English and it was so weird! I haven’t been around people who speak English in public in such a long time that it caught me off guard! We had a delicious dinner though, I had corn on the cob and grilled chicken. Then we went to bed because we had to wake up early the next morning to catch our plane for Brussels!
I’ll write more for our stay in Brussels…
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