1. when i say i dont know spanish, i mean literally only hello and thank you
2. for a weeklong trip i spent 400 euros, transport, housing, food, EVERYTHING.. what a deal
3. this might be more detailed then you want to read haha
so im putting lots of pictures to make it more exciting.. and pictures that arent on my facebook!
thursday night i took a euroline bus overnight to get to barcelona. my host mom packed me 7 sandwiches to take with me and a 2 liter bottle of water haha, she is the greatest. i also got a long lecture about safety, a mace thing to bring and packing advice! she is awesome. luckily got to the bus early as it left early? very weird. the bus was ok? i quickly felt out of my world, everyone was speaking spanish and i was totallly lost, i heard them say 'barcelona' a lot but other than that i have no idea what they were talking about. i forgot how a foreign language sounds when you dont know any words... annoying and givees a headache.
DAY 1
i arrived at the station at 5 or 6 am. the tourism office didnt open until 8 so i killed time debating if i could try ordering at the mcdonalds. since i couldnt say any spanish i didnt know if i would look more dumb trying english, or maybe french cus its more.. close? or to attempt sounding spanish.. but i didnt know how to say 'i want it plain' or 'tap water' or 'for here' so i opted to just eat a sandwich i had packed. being a 'mute' you will see is a theme of this trip as well.. surprise i know for me! haha but its true
once the office opened i got a ton of maps a 'barcelona card' - 27 euros for all transit and free stuff which ill mention later. headed out and went to the plaza that danny and i were gonna meet at. we were kinda vague with the place and time so i basically chilled there and read in the sun people watching for a few hours. FUN FACT: every single little kid that came into the plaza was encouraged by their parents to chase the pigeons and feed them oh and get pictures with them. by little kid i mean up to age 16 probably. also beggars everywhere.. they would ask everyone and skip me, i didnt get asked once.. they knew i was going to say something mean.. but while sitting for so long i could see it was like a team of them, they would gather and plan and switch areas... had a whole system to it... ughhh annoying
it was a beautiful day though, seeing danny was awesome. it was my first taste of home! it was really cool to see a familiar face and get to joke like normal and the hostel, it was 12:35 so we had to wait til 1 to check in, dumb. i died laughing as our door had the number half penciled on half taped up, out of 6 lockers available maybe 3 actually worked and there were someones dirty socks hanging by the window. haha perfectly a hostel. once we did we got situated with locking our belongings, we headed out to hit the city.
first stop:
Sagrada Familia
Gaudi is an architect famous in barcelona, he designed the church at the beginning of the 1900s but died before it even got a good start, they are still working on finishing his plan. already its amazing. the detail on the outside and inside is RIDICULOUS. we stared at the outside back wall, all themed about the nativity, forever and continued to find new details, animals, words, all hidden in the architecture. the inside was so neat because it was very modern, but warm and meaningful at the same time which i think is a hard balance to make it not feel like an auditorium or something. The stain glass was soo colorful and there were so many windows that it was all natural lighting, inside as well there was a lot of symbolism hidden everywhere. there was a huge tour group of little kids and i dont get why you would bring grade schoolers to a church thats under construction and where people are trying to pray quietly.. but ok. i cannot imagine what it will be like finished but i loved what i did get to see.
we got on a long detour trying to find the beach, the tourist lady told me it was between two pillars.. well we saw two pillars and thought it was there, but it wasnt. we met some cool old spanish guys that tried to help us and orange trees and some cool houses but ultimately gave up and then went on a search for picassos museum or the chocolate museum. while getting lost we stopped to get ice cream, awesome impulse decision!! but again we failed. we did get an old guy eventually who was SO nice to physically walk us to the picasso museum! rediculously nice, he was so excited to hear where we were from and all. the museum was half closed so we didnt even go to it but then found the chocolate museum or kind of! we showed up and went to the second floor. at first it was sooo embarrassing, we go in a room and its all books and posters about Napoleon and there was no one there but a guy at a desk. we awkwardly left, myself closing a door that wasnt suppose to close and making a lot of noise. luckily as we went back downstairs we found that the chocolate museum was downstairs after all. we got in free with are barcelona card and, as we were hoping for all day, we got a free dark chocolate candy bar! inside it gave us a description of how chocolate was created and evolved and globalized. turns out mexico invented it, it entered Europe through barcelona, but france and switzerland were the first to industrialize it hence why they are more famous for it. there were tons of sculptures made out of chocolate! it was really neat!
we then walked around literally forever trying to find somewhere for tapas.. should not have been so difficult but was for some reason. eventually found somewhere and it was delicious, my favorite was the tortilla patata, like a quiche of potatos and corn bread like. oo also i forget the name but these little breaded rolls with a stuffing in the middle and then we had butter and garlic calamari i think it was. overall very very good. i am/was applying to be RA and there was soo much difficulty, i was trying to type my responses on my itouch once i got back but didnt even end up sending! i gave up and slept so good
DAY 2
our breakfast at the hostel was pretty good with cereal and toast! i was pretty stoked. we then set off for the history museum of barcelona. got lost again but this time it was to our benefit! we found another church that was very spanish inside AND in one of its side 'chapels' was instead a little garden with geese, palm trees and fountains with no ceiling so sun came in. it was SO neat, very tranquil and pretty while statues were on the walls around the garden. i really liked the idea. we also got a cool picture on a barcelona statue.. the b is kinda cut out but here:
also found a street and sign dedicated to st ignatius of loyola.. we were pretty stoked about that. we finally arrived to the museum.. again FREE with an audio tour included. it was pretty neat cus it was all the ruins still intact from the original barcelona city. the audio tour was not interesting cus a lot of the 'room's we could see were either wash rooms, fish cleaning or wine making rooms so it was describing to us how they did it all and.. frankly i just didnt care about that, i just liked getting to see something SOOOO old as that.
boat ride!
we got a free boat ride with our barcelona card! got some crêpes before as a snack and sat staring at the water. the boat ride was neat just to be on a boat and in the water and to soak in the fact that.. i am in spain, in the sea, etc.. got to see a lot of the factory/port side of barcelona and some of the piers. after we took a 'european' photo. europeans never smile and always get pictures of themselves in front of some statue no smile or pose just standing epically in front, so we tried to get one, we arent as good at it yet though
we decided to end the day with the beach :) i could NOT wait..
the smell of it, the sound of it, the feel of it....
i cannot live in the midwest my whole life, i love water too much
first we wrote in the sand 'DANNY AND LINDSEY WERE HERE.... BARCA.. NOT LOYOLA'
hate to brag but it was paradise, and i couldnt stop thinking about YEAH WHATT UP i deserve this, and to be here and NOT in cold chicago.... it was just such a blatant PLUS to studying abroad we couldnt deny it!
we also took pictures of our feet first getting to feel the water, yes it was really cold but it was so exciting that we stood in the water for a little bit anyway.. just staring at the horizon and the waves.. ugh i was so happy... dannys first words were MY JEANNNNSSS as he was dumb and didnt roll them up haha not what i was expecting but hillarious anyway
we stayed sitting on rocks enjoying it until it got too cold and we got too hungry. after reading tons and tons of menus along the shore front we finally picked one, mainly because it had a good shrimp choice. turned out it was a part of our coupon book! what are the odds haha so that was extra exciting, but it was so fancy and so good after two tiring days. we could see the sea from where we were sitting too! it was a perfect end to the day. ACTUALLY not quite the end
we headed back to the palace looking place and they had a fountain and light show. unfortunately we soaked up walking up to it for so long and taking pictures that once we got there the show basically ended.. it was still sooo pretty though.. fountains all the way up the street with the colored ones at the far end in front of the lit up palace. so neat. barcelona.. you are not too bad, not bad at all!
we went to bed as we had an early traveling day to madrid the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment