After my exam today, Eli and I went to a beer garden and then out to a Thai restaurant because it was so incredibly beautiful out today. I'm not sitting at a cafe "writing a paper." I'll get back to that in a little bit...
SO! Barcelona. If only I remembered ANY of my three years of Spanish. I once asked a woman "?Donde esta la casa batllo?" (where is la casa batllo?) and then she replied in Spanish and I made the other girls ask someone else. Well, at least my German is better...
I went with three of my best friends here, Vanessa, Erica and Natalie. We stayed in the quintessential hostel, complete with an amazing location (right of La Rambla), communal bathrooms, and no outlets in the room. It was clean and the bed was comfortable, and that's really all we cared about. No use wasting time in a room when you're in Barcelona, right?
The first night we were here, we went out for tapas, which is surprisingly vegan friendly, along with a bit of sangria, just to fully immerse ourselves in Spanish culture. We walked around a bit, but ended up going to bed fairly early so that we could see as much of the city the next day as possible.
The next day was our Gaudi day. We went to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, which is this huge unfinished church. It was nice to finally see some incredibly unique and bizarre architecture. We didn't go in because it was incredibly crowded and we could see the majority of it from the streets. We then walked around looking for some lunch (I was quite unsuccessful) and ended up at Gaudi's Casa Batllo, only to see that it was way too expensive to see the inside. Eli's floormate, who's from Barcelona, told me that this one was cool, but that La Pedrera was a much better deal, so we decided to do that later. We ended up visiting that on the last day, which I'll get to later. We asked the ticket guy for directions to Gaudi's Park Guell, and we took an incredibly long busride there. It was definitely worth it, though. From this park, you can see all of Barcelona and it's incredibly ornate just like all of Gaudi's creations. There were so many colors. It is also home to the world's longest bench. We took a ton of pictures, walked all the way up the hill (quite a feat in 85 degree weather!), got incredibly sunburned, and sat at a cafe eating amazingly delicious fresh Spanish fruit. All in all, we had an amazing day. We came back and took a nap that ended up being the end of the night.
The next day was beach day. Before that, we discovered an amazing marketplace right off of La Rambla and bought an incredible amount of fresh fruit and nuts, on which I pretty much lived for the rest of the trip.The beach was a little rocky and very dusty and the water was incredibly cold, reminiscent of my days at the Beach. Definitely no complaints, though, because there's really not much better than sitting on a beach. At least I got to study for one of my finals on a beach! That's more than most people back home can say :) I got incredibly sunburned, unfortunately, and wound up with another one of those disgusting rashes. It's still itchy. Ew.
The next day was our last full day in Barcelona, so we did the final necessary things. We went to the Picasso museum and to La Pedrera. It was definitely artistic genius overhaul. Just look at the pictures, they really say it all.
PICTURES!!
SO! Barcelona. If only I remembered ANY of my three years of Spanish. I once asked a woman "?Donde esta la casa batllo?" (where is la casa batllo?) and then she replied in Spanish and I made the other girls ask someone else. Well, at least my German is better...
I went with three of my best friends here, Vanessa, Erica and Natalie. We stayed in the quintessential hostel, complete with an amazing location (right of La Rambla), communal bathrooms, and no outlets in the room. It was clean and the bed was comfortable, and that's really all we cared about. No use wasting time in a room when you're in Barcelona, right?
The first night we were here, we went out for tapas, which is surprisingly vegan friendly, along with a bit of sangria, just to fully immerse ourselves in Spanish culture. We walked around a bit, but ended up going to bed fairly early so that we could see as much of the city the next day as possible.
The next day was our Gaudi day. We went to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, which is this huge unfinished church. It was nice to finally see some incredibly unique and bizarre architecture. We didn't go in because it was incredibly crowded and we could see the majority of it from the streets. We then walked around looking for some lunch (I was quite unsuccessful) and ended up at Gaudi's Casa Batllo, only to see that it was way too expensive to see the inside. Eli's floormate, who's from Barcelona, told me that this one was cool, but that La Pedrera was a much better deal, so we decided to do that later. We ended up visiting that on the last day, which I'll get to later. We asked the ticket guy for directions to Gaudi's Park Guell, and we took an incredibly long busride there. It was definitely worth it, though. From this park, you can see all of Barcelona and it's incredibly ornate just like all of Gaudi's creations. There were so many colors. It is also home to the world's longest bench. We took a ton of pictures, walked all the way up the hill (quite a feat in 85 degree weather!), got incredibly sunburned, and sat at a cafe eating amazingly delicious fresh Spanish fruit. All in all, we had an amazing day. We came back and took a nap that ended up being the end of the night.
The next day was beach day. Before that, we discovered an amazing marketplace right off of La Rambla and bought an incredible amount of fresh fruit and nuts, on which I pretty much lived for the rest of the trip.The beach was a little rocky and very dusty and the water was incredibly cold, reminiscent of my days at the Beach. Definitely no complaints, though, because there's really not much better than sitting on a beach. At least I got to study for one of my finals on a beach! That's more than most people back home can say :) I got incredibly sunburned, unfortunately, and wound up with another one of those disgusting rashes. It's still itchy. Ew.
The next day was our last full day in Barcelona, so we did the final necessary things. We went to the Picasso museum and to La Pedrera. It was definitely artistic genius overhaul. Just look at the pictures, they really say it all.
PICTURES!!
Gaudi's Park Guell
View from half way up Gaudi's Park Guell. This is where my first sunburn happened.
Plaza Real, where our Hostel was
Gaudi's La Batllo. It's supposed to be really cool to go inside, but it cost like E20, so we decided to go to La Pedrera (E5), instead.
At an outdoor market. Ohhhh man... I basically lived off of fruit on this trip.
The four of us (Natalie, Erica, Vanessa, me) on top of Gaudi's La Pedrera
Roof of Gaudi's La Pedrera. So unbelievably amazing.Overall, I love Barcelona and I'm hardpressed to choose what my favorite city in Europe is. I suppose I still have Dresden and Copenhagen to choose between before my European studies are over, but I'm certain that Barcelona is up there. Freiburg will always have a special place in my heart and is definitely the best place for me to live. But to visit? Barcelona is definitely high up on my list.
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