Barcelona

[20.2.2010 Photo links are fixed for those without Facebook!]

Oh my Barcelona. My friend Ugur warned us that Barcelona would be our favorite city. He was so right. There is a magic about Barcelona that is simply indescribable until you see it. Since it was such a fun trip I will start at the very beginning.

In order to travel cheaply to Barcelona, we had to fly out of Bratislava. Vienna and Bratislava are the two closest national capitals in the world at only 30km apart. In order to get to the airport on time and because we had never done the trip, we left pretty early to on the U-bahn to catch first a train to Bratislava then a bus from the train station to the airport. First leg down and we had four hours to burn before our flight would depart. Well, we thought.

The other thing to know about this trip is that we were flying RyanAir--notorious for their horrible delays. Unfortunately we fell prey to one of these oh so delightful delays. The killer is that both of us forgot--in our infinite wisdom to bring a book, or chrocheting, or even an iPod. This was dull. Probably the dullest four hours of my life. One of my favorite things about myself, however, is that when I get really, really bored--I get resourceful. At this point, a couple of Slovakian guys had been talking in English in the row behind us. I finally got bored and just turned around and jumped in the conversation. Being especially bold, after running to the bathroom, I plopped my butt onto the seat next to these guys and started a conversation. One of the guys had a book called "Vulgerisms in any language" and thus we began to learn bad words/sayings in Slovakian. Unfortunately, I have forgotten all of them but it was a nice way to pass the time. The other fun part was meeting Ugur from Turkey--he was the reason the Slovakian guys had been speaking English. Ugur and I started discussing traveling, the delay, music, etc. He was a really cool guy. When we were all getting tired, he got out his mp3 player and I got out my notebook. At his goading I wrote a really, really bad poem about how much Ryanair sucks for abandoning us for six hours in the airport. I then gave it to him as a present and in exchange he gave me 5 Turkish Liras--I made a joke about it being my first and only payed poem ever. It was pretty fun.

We finally boarded and took off at around 1 am--which meant Adrienne and I had spent 12 hours in the Bratislava airport. On the plane we ended up sitting next to a really boisterous/friendly Austrian girl (they do exist!) named Anna. She was fun to talk to and gave me a few recommendations for places to go/see. I didn't get her information which was a shame but it was like 4am when we got in and I had no social skills left to me.

The problem with arriving in a foreign country where you don't speak the language at 4am in the morning, is that no buses are running and you have no notion of how to call a cab. Rather than deal with it, we just reneged on our Girona reservation and took the bus straight to Barcelona. We finally dragged our travel worn bodies into our hostel in Barcelona at 5 am. The guy at the front desk just looked at us and said "we'll do payment in the morning--just go sleep." It sucked that it cost us some extra money but not having to navigate the street of Girona at 5 am was worth the extra 20 Euro. Still--that was one of those growing up moments where you realize that you have to decide what is safest for you and your travel mate in an unforeseen situation. It was especially sobering since my travel mate is completely useless when she is sleepy/hungry/has to pee. I discovered this over the course of the trip but that night I was fine just taking control--I wanted sleep!

Our hostel was totally cute. It was the main floor of two back to back buildings with a courtyard in the middle perfect for soaking up the afternoon sun. We had rooms across the courtyard, directly outside. Everything was painted that deep orangey/yellow color and teal. It was so charming. I completely forgot to take pictures of it but there are pictures at their website here.
After dragging our tired bodies out of bed on Sunday, we decided the sunny weather meant nothing but beach. And that's exactly what we did.

Our hotel was right off of La Rambla, the main drag down to the beach. We came out onto harbor and there was Christopher Columbus, just chilling on his pedestal. The air was warm and the beaches were beautiful. I stuck my toes into the Mediterranean!!!! A bit chilly but a lot of fun! The best part is that everyone in the city was out that day. The weather hadn't been very warm for a while so everyone was out with their dogs, riding bikes, building sand castles, strolling along the beach, and doing my absolute favorite thing: busking!!! We sat down and watched this one band for a good hour. They were super quirky with a string bass, accordion, flute, alto and bari sax, tuba, and vocals. It was the perfect way to spend a day relaxing.

Unfortunately, the next two days were rainy. :( Still tired, and rather culture shocked from our quick and late night transition from German to Spanish, we took it easy the next day. We got up around 11 and headed over to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's unfinished cathedral. It was really spectacular with a lot of really amazing detail. The way the decorations are molded and the shape of the towers makes it look like a sand castle that is being rained on. The statues were really intricate and wonderful too look at. I was a big fan of the manger scene especially with the pigeon sitting on the Shepherd's head. The outside was interesting but over all, I found the whole thing just too overwhelming. The architecture on it's own is so fabulous, the excessive detail seems to take away from the structure rather than add to it. The inside, despite being a complete construction zone was still pretty magnificent. (For more information about the sight, the tourist website in English is here.)

I'm going to have to finish Day 3-5 tomorrow. I desperately need sleep. I went to another ball last night I didn't get home until 6am. That's a whole other story to tell... :D

Happy Adventuring!