the rest of Barcelona

Pictures: 1) Lies and me with our new hostel friends puttiing on sunscreen, 2) chillin in the Gaudi park, 3) Lies in me in the Gaudi park, 4) the famous iguana at the Park Guell, 5) with the Sagrada Familia, 6) Lies and me on the roof of a different Gaudi house thing





On Tuesday Lieselotte and I left Casteldefells beach since Tamer, our host, was going to Egypt. We got a hostel on La Rambla Street, the main street of Barcelona. It was a lot of fun in that we met a bunch of cool people, but it was somewhat sketchy as it wasn’t legal yet and therefore we had to sneak around in the stairwells. I’m actually a bit worried to say too much in my blog, so we’ll leave it at “sketch.”

That first day we went to the grocery store and got food for the 4 days - for only 29 euros between us. What a deal! We hung out at the hostel the rest of the day and talked to other people there (all of whom were CSers). Three people arrived who we became friends with and hung out with the rest of the time. Their names were Katie, Phil, and Mike and all went to Clarkson Univ. in upstate NY (this is a very expensive, good university for economics and engineering). Interestingly, I met a friend of Tommy’s (in Ireland) who also went there and now is working in Charlotte, which is the only reason I’d heard of the small school. Anyway, Katie, Mike, and Phil walked in with a 5 liter of wine that they’d bought for 5 euros. They were very nice and funny and we enjoyed chatting with them.

The next day (Wednesday), we met up with a CSer who lives in Barcelona named Esther, and the whole group of us went to Park Guell. This is a park that was originally intended by the architect (Gaudi) to be a district of the city where there would be houses, a marketplace, a social gathering area, a church, etc. Once Gaudi started the project in the early 1900s, people laughed at him and said no one would want to live in his crazy architectural creations and the project lost its funding. Now it is only partially complete and has been turned into a park. It is SO cool!! Gaudi was a genius, but apparently was just too ahead of his time. The whole park reminded me of something from Disney World (maybe like a giant Honey I Shrunk the Kids park at MGM). I bought 2 pair of earrings from a “path” vendor for 5 euros, and then watched as all the people freaked out as the police got near. It was pretty funny.

We hiked up to the top of this hill and we could see all of Barcelona including the Sagrada Familia and the beach. We spent a little over two hours at the park and then went to the beach by the city. That beach was not nearly as nice as Casteldefells beach, as it was crowded with people and there wasn’t nearly as much sand. I hadn’t brought my bathing suit with me because I didn’t plan to swim, but by the time we got there it was so swelteringly hot that I had to go in the water. I was wearing a tank top and little shorts so I just swam in those. The water was wonderful!

We walked back to our hostel from there, changed and made dinner. Mike, Phil, and Katie were moved to a really cool apartment owned by the same people as our hostel for the same price because they’d overbooked our hostel. We met them at their place at 10 pm and played cards and had some wine, then we went back to the cool rain forest bar that Tamer had taken Lieselotte and me a couple nights before. They liked the bar a lot, but it closed shortly after we arrived. The rest of them went to another bar, but I came back home to go to sleep.

On Thursday we went with them back to Casteldefells after Lies and I reserved our train tickets for Valencia on Saturday. We enjoyed the nice beach again, and then went to a restaurant all together on the beach. It was yummy and we had a good time. Two of Phil’s friends were also there - 2 guys he’d met in Sweden (he’d just studied abroad there). We had a good dinner, then took the bus back to the city to watch the fountain show again. The bus took forever and I was getting really car sick so Lieselotte grabbed my wrist and applied pressure to my pressure point (which is supposed to help with motion sickness) and Phil pressed a cold beer to my neck. It was a join effort to keep me from puking. Lol

The fountains were great again and we all sat around watching them for a while until we realized that the last metro was at midnight and if we didn’t run we’d miss it. I went back to the hostel and Lies went out with everyone again.

On Friday we had to find a new hostel since ours was full again, but luckily there was one right nearby that had AC for the same price. We were excited. We briefly saw Katie, Mike, and Phil before they left (going back to the states), and then Lies and I started to walk around the city, seeing the Gaudi stuff we hadn’t already seen. We saw the house, the huge building that used to have apartments inside and now is a museum, and the Sagrada Familia church. I was so excited!

We were pretty tired so we came back to our new hostel and Lies took a nap while I made phone calls. I made us dinner at ten (pizza and salad) and we ate then tried to go to bed (except the girls in our room were having a conversation as we tried to go to sleep).

We got up at about 9:30 even though we’d set our alarm for 10 because the same girls were being so loud, slamming their lockers and turning the lights on.

We are now on a train to Valencia (it is Saturday as I write this), nearly having missed it because we went to the wrong platform. We are looking forward to Valencia - hopefully it will be less touristy and not so full of hookers. Lol