BARCELONA - Days 2 & 3

Day 2 (27 March 2008) – Barcelona, SPAIN

After a night’s sleep with cars continually roaring outside, when the alarm went off at 9:45 am, neither I nor Lucy wanted to get out of bed! We finally rolled out by about 10:15ish and took some showers, got some toast for breakfast and finally got out of the apartment by 12:30! The best part about the morning, apart from sleeping in of course, was that when I got out of the shower Lucy had blown up balloons and put a little “Happy Birthday” banner up on the wall. She also got me a card which she had signed in eyeliner because she had forgotten a pen. It was great! The whole thing made me really happy. Its really strange to be in a different country for my birthday, especially my 21^st, seeing as how I’ve been in Europe for the past 7 months and buying alcohol (in moderation, of course!) for the entire time! Haha.

Anyway, we made it out by about 12:30 and started walking toward this church/temple thing called The Sagrada Familia. (Church of the Sacred Family). It’s Antoni Gaudi’s (an famous architect who designed seemingly everything in Barcelona) ambitions project that was left unfinished with his death in the early 1900’s. Since then, other architects have taken up the arduous task of finishing the project, though the end seems to be in the distant future at best. Anyway, the part of the building that is finished is incredibly detailed and impressive. The finished project is to have 12 pillars representative of the apostles, 4 more representing the writers of the gospels, another for the Virgin Mary, and finishing off the structure is the massive tower/pillar in the center representing Jesus rising an impressive and imposing 170 meters into the air. Each face of the temple (or façade) tells Jesus’ story also, one side depicting the nativity, the opposite depicting the Passion/Crucifixion, and another depicting the Resurrection & subsequent glory.

Gaudi is quite famous for his work in Barcelona. We saw two other houses by him which were also very cool but we didn’t get to go inside. The remainder of the day was spent walking through this street called La Rambla which has little touristy shops and such around it and also a little covered market in which I found some small chiles! I bought a couple and tried to roast them in the oven back at the flat but I only somewhat succeeded. I put the one chile that I managed not to burn on my pizza that night and it was lovely! Lucy was laughing at me.

Anyway, today has been rather uneventful but because of all the walking, Lu and I were both quite pooped. Tomorrow is our last day in Barcelona so we’re going to try to make the most of it. Lucy said there’s this really cool fountain on the other side of the city that I think we might check out tomorrow night. It’s supposed to be quite impressive.

So we finished off today by trying to find somewhere to eat. After polishing off the last of the pizza we weren’t too hungry, so we went in search of a not too sketchy looking bar/pub/restaurant. What we ended up finding and going to was an Irish Rock Pub. I know, we’re in Spain and we go to an Irish Pub…. Haha I’m sorry. But it was cool because the had some live jazzy/bluesy acoustic music, and the chick who was singing actually sounded pretty good. I got my beer on my 21^st so I was happy.

Day 3 (28 March 2008) – Barcelona, SPAIN

Well, the good news is that Lu and I managed to sleep really good through the traffic last night, but the bad news is that we were awoken this morning by some guy using a jack hammer outside (all morning, I might add) directly in front of our building. Talk about unpleasant. Oh well. We slept in again this morning so maybe we deserved it. Being in Barcelona, we didn’t really have a ton of stuff we wanted to see, so we’ve been sleeping in a bit and then walking around all afternoon. It’s been nice. Plus, we didn’t make t back to the room til late last night, having stayed at the pub.

On the agenda today was to go to El Poble Espanya, which is a small village type thing of old Spanish buildings that have since been converted to shops and restaurants, but it shows off old architecture in a compact space. It was a bit away from where we were staying though, but as we didn’t have much else to do today and as the metro was going to be slightly expensive, we walked! It really is incredible how much walking we’ve done since we got here. But the weather was decent and we were able to stop in a Spanish book store and get some food along the way.

We made it to El Poble Espanya by about 5pm and spent the next two hours wandering around in and out of shops and galleries some of which were adorable and others very interesting, like the glass blowing workshop, or the modern art exhibition where we were able to see some of Picasso’s (lesser known but still original) work.

By about 7pm, the sun was threatening to set so we began walking to this massive fountain in front of the art museum. We amused ourselves by sitting down and watching the fountain do an impressive light show (complete with loud music) from the steps. With all the colors of the lights and the shooting water and the music it truly was spectacular. Both Lu and I were quite mesmerized, along with a few thousand other people all crowded around the museum and the fountain.

There’s quite a few tourists here. It’s interesting walking around on the streets because you can hear a variety of different languages and see countless numbers of people holding maps, guide books, and cameras all looking confused. Oh to be a tourist… there really is nothing like it! Its also interesting to see and experience a different culture, though, and to notice the little things that are different. For instance, you can buy beer in McDonalds, or a sandwich at Starbucks! Fortunately for Lu and I, the language barrier in Spain isn’t as large as it could be. I think both of us are a little nervous to go to Rome, though, because neither of us speak Italian!

Well, being tired from all our walking, we started to head back to the hostel but stopped at The Happy Bar & Grill for dinner. It was tasty, and it reminded me of a Chile’s or an Applebee’s. After dinner we came back, quite tired but happy for our final day in Barcelona, and trying to get ready to head to ROME tomorrow.