Barcelona: the bigger picture

So this post has been a long time coming, but its been so go-go-go here for the past week that I've hardly had time to really sit back and record anything. I'll try to get it down now before I forget any more stuff.

We are basically caught up through to Monday. After a crazy night on the town (refer to previous post) Daniel and I woke up feeling less than great but eager to start seeing the city. Headed up to the Sagrada Familia first thing, a really cool but weird cathedral that has been under construction since the late 19th century. Both Daniel and I agreed it was weird in the sense that they couldn't make up their mind how they wanted to go about using the space. The outside under construction is both a mix of old culture and new architecture, while the inside looks more like a cool art gallery than any type of religious building. After a nice look at the building we decided to head back to the hostel for a little afternoon nap. What started out as a half hour nap though soon turned into a 4 hour REM session, which looks like a waste of time in Barcelona but was actually really great considering how much Daniel and I agreed we love napping.

Woke up for our 2 euro dinner at the hostel consisting of pasta and pesto. There around the table we met fellow travelers from all over the world at our hostel--Australia, England, Colombia. Turkey, Germany, and the US. Moments like these, exchanging culture and travel stories, is my favorite part about traveling and staying in hostels. Up until this point Daniel and I had decided to be old farts and take a night off by staying inside (mainly to conserve money) but as soon as we met up with these guys the game plan changed. Suited up and headed out with Colombia, Germany, and England to a bar to meet up with some girls from Sweden. Finally meet up with these girls and they are GORGEOUS as only Scandanavian girls can be (kicking my ancestors the entire time for ever leaving). We stay there for a few hours, having a few drinks and just getting to know one another. A guy at the bar had a ukulele, so I went over and chatted with him while playing a few songs. After the bar we headed out to the girls' favorite night club which ended up being pretty lame so Daniel and I left early.

Courtyard off of La Rambla

Lucky for us neither of us were very pissed, so we took a rather leisurely walk back to the hostel. Stopped right around the corner for a nice little chat, when a sketch looking spaniard walks up to us and starts asking if we want to buy a variety of assorted goods and (naturally) drugs. After telling him no to weed and cocaine, he finally responds with "sex for cocaine?" As if he thought that would be the selling point. No, no thank you crazy.

The next morning we packed up and headed out to our new hostel right on the beach. We decided before coming that we wanted to split our stay here up between two locations to get two different experiences of Barcelona: city and beach. We headed out to our hostel by way of La Rambla, stopping along the way for a much needed starbucks (seriously, what do you expect from us washingtonians?) and discovered that it was the Spanish holiday of Sant Jordi.

So basically, once upon a time there lived a princess who was locked away and guarded by a ferocious dragon. The prince who then went to save her slew the dragon, and the blood that spilled forth turned into red roses which he then gave to the princess. Now, every year on April 23rd men give their women a red rose and in return the women buy their men books. I'm not sure where the book deal comes from but I couldn't help from dissecting the gendered narratives :P

Because Daniel is a gentleman and a romantic he first ended up buying me this:

Spanish meat roses

Which was brilliant because as anyone knows, the way to my heart is through my stomach. Spanish meat or jamon is also DELICIOUS, definitely a highlight of this trip.

After starbucks and jamon, we then continued to walk around La Rambla and explore, looking to kill a couple of hours before we could check into our next hostel. It was a hot day, and since we were carrying all of our stuff we were really interested in finding a little parc we could just chill in to pass the time.

Ha ha, neener neener neener...

Finally we found a cute little courtyard, complete with a fountain and overhanging orange trees to hang out in for a couple of hours. We were also attracted to it because of the oversized chess and checker games in the courtyard, which we immediately proceeded to play. I'm not a super competitive person when it comes to most things, but when it comes to games...I lose it. I was so ready to win, the adrenaline pumping. And after a long and difficult game, which many spaniards and tourists stopped to watch, finally I got the check mate. Which was probably for the best since I'm not a good sport about losing and didn't want to make a scene in public.

Pretty good, eh?

After the high of winning we parked it close by and decided to indulge our artistic qualities. Daniel has been drawing for as long as I've known him and is really great at it. Since I brought my ukulele along as well to Europe we decided to play off of each other's art and draw/play the afternoon away. So I serenaded Daniel while he sketched me playing, which ended up working out great: a nice way to spend a long hot afternoon. We sat, watched the little puppies running around, and drank in the beautiful architecture and fragrance from the trees. In my opinion, his drawing was far superior to my playing/singing but we were a good tag team inspiring each other to go on.

I was spoiled

In this time many men were passing selling red roses for Sant Jordi, which Daniel finally indulged me in. Seriously: this guy knows how to woo a woman. Pictures in the park, roses in the street, speaking spanish in the cafes, taking care of my sad drunk ass. The package ladies.

We reluctantly left the park after our relaxed afternoon to set off to our hotel and rid ourselves of our bags. After more confusion and aimless wandering (I really need to get my ish together and start writing down directions to hostels), we finally found it and got rid of our things. The hostel was cute, literally right across from the beach with free breakfast included.

Next stop was to satisfy my craving/need for some authentic catalan food: paella. Basically its spiced rice with an assortment of sea food deliciousness. Being right on the sea I was expecting to eat sea food at least once while in Barcelona. I'd first heard about paella from my friend at the embassy Brittany who had it when she went to Spain. Decided on a spot down the strip from our hostel right near the beach and went to town. It was expensive, but it was worth it.

For our final adventure of the day we headed out to Montjuic Park up on the hill to overlook Barcelona at sunset. Little did we know that it is THE MOST CONFUSING HILL EVER so we ended up walking all over trying to figure out exactly how to get to the top castle part for the best view. It was crazy, because in Hawaii it gets dark so early and the last time I was in Europe it was the same. But this time of year it doesn't get dark until like 8:30-9, so we actually had more time to get to the top than I thought we did. With like 15 minutes left to spare before the castle closed and the sun set we made it to the top.

The long walk up was ultimately worth it, especially since at this time we basically had the park to ourselves as everyone else was heading out. When I say to ourselves, I mean except for the 456786567 gay and lesbian couples who went up for the romantic view as well. Seriously, Barcelona has got to be one of the most progressive cities for that kind of thing. We saw two lesbian couples up there and 4 gay couples on the way up. Attention LGBTQ people of America: head to Barcelona. Forget about San Fran.

On the way out we stopped to chat with this guy who was playing the coolest little instrument. Turned out he was from Afghanistan and the instrument was the citar, which he graciously played for us on the way down. Even though the guys' english was broken at best, you could tell he just had a hard life but a genuine heart. Walked down the hill and discovered a little zip line which we played on for a bit until it started to get a little too dark and sketchy for me. Heard a group of guys' talking and a woman scream out, at which point I grabbed Daniel who was trying to play hero and got us the hell out of there. Turns out they were just joking around, but even so.

After a long day of walking we just wanted to veg, so we went back to the hostel and watched Silver Linings Playbook. Next morning we got up, I did laundry and showered and packed and cleaned while Daniel tried for 2 hours to get his ass out of bed. After many tries, he finally did and we set out to cycle Barcelona. Having now walked, taken public transport, and biked I would definitely say that biking is the best bet for getting around here. And only 9 euros for 11 hours! Very affordable. So we picked up two bikes and headed off to ride both along the beach and into town. First road all along the docks up by Paral-lel before weaving back around to crash at the beach.

Barceloneta beach

While it wasn't the warmest weather, it was perfect for just lounging. At this point crazy Daniel decided he wanted to go for a dip in the Mediterranean. Now I'm all for living life to the fullest, but I was far from agreeing to go in after him. So I ate a few snacks left over from the previous night's veg session and waited for him to get back before we continued biking. We also ended up seeing another lesbian couple kissing and tanning topless on the beach which is ANOTHER thing you would never see in the states. (Seriously, gays. Get over here. This is your motherland.)

The most awesome fountain

Which brings me to one of my favorite parts about this trip: Parc de la Ciutadel. We really came upon it accidentally after giving up riding to Sagrada Familia (since it was up a hill), and it was GORGEOUS. Located right next to the Barcelona zoo, it has the most gorgeous fountain you ever did see as well as a whole bunch of really cool ancient and modern sculptures. Lounged some more in the grass to take a break from all of our riding and then headed on out again to visit the Arc de Triomf (which apparently are all over Europe because I was confused too).


Rode down the strip to the Arc de Triomf and back towards the city. At this point both of our asses were hurting something fierce from all of our riding so we decided to go and turn them in and try to find something to eat. No, not anything to eat. Colombian food. Since Daniel is Colombian and far from any type of homemade colombian cooking it was paramount that we find a place to eat at. We had been asking out entire trip if anyone knew where a good Colombian place was, but none did. At this point it seemed like a conspiracy: there had to be some food somewhere. And Daniel was determined to find it.

Consummation at last.

We headed back to the area around our last hostel to scope out a recommendation we had finally gotten from a woman at the money exchange place. As is tradition here in Barcelona, we got lost yet again and  had to ask people again and again for directions. I was trying to be supportive of Daniel's mission (which took him into hyper alert mode walking at least 10-20 paces in front of me, like a rabid dog on the hunt), but I was also hungry and nearly doubled over from laughing at Daniel's earnestness. At least we reached the Colombian place and feasted on some damn delicious food. My favorite were the empanadas, but I'm not sure you could get a favorite out of Daniel. He was emotionally orgasming from the entire experience, a wealth of knowledge filling me in on all things Colombian. The owner of the restaurant I think was so proud of himself for bringing Daniel such joy that he gave us a massive discount. Only ended up being 20 euro for the shit ton of food we got.


Our last day in Barcelona was very lazy, as it was the first overcast/rainy day we had had in Barcelona thus far. Walked a little bit more around Gotica, spending a good amount of the afternoon at the Traveler's Bar trying to motivate ourselves to keep walking. We returned back to the Colombian restaurant for our last supper (not even 24 hours since our last visit) for some more delicious food. With all of my luggage in tow moving to the next hostel, and Daniel's to return back to Sicily we parted ways at the Catalunya metro stop which was sad. This was my first time travelling with someone in a long time and Daniel was a great travelling partner, not to mention a great friend.

Today was weird being back on my own, but also lovely. Went to Gaudi park more on the outside of the city to see some of his famous artwork/architecture. The artist Gaudi got a lot of his inspiration from shapes in nature, so it was beautiful to see that all getting played out in this space. It was also set up on a hill that overlooked Barcelona, so there was that added wow factor. Didn't stay for too long as the weather was crap and I was quite tired, so I headed back to find the metro. That's my one biggest complaint about Barcelona, is that their metro system is so spread out. It's so easy to get lost/walk forever until you find the next metro stop. So I ended up doing a lot of unnecessary walking, but I'm back at the hostel and all is well.

Barcelona has been great thus far, but I'm definitely ready for my next leg of the journey. Barcelona is one of those cities you can see in 4 days, so being here 9 is kind of superfluous. And if this rainy weather keeps up much longer I might just end up vegging these next few days, playing my uke and avoiding spending any more money (Daniel and I went so far out of budget). Can't wait to hit up Morocco next week and hook up with Julie and Zach!