Barcelona

Thursday

After almost two days of rest, I woke up at 6:30am and met Taylor at the Copenhagen airport for our flight to Barcelona. We packed lightly, but we each got a free checked bag with Swiss Airlines, so hey, why not? 

Taylor is amazing and so she bought me a breakfast bagel sandwich while she was waiting for me at the airport!

We had a small layover in Zurich, but on the first flight, Swiss fed us a croissant and juice and coffee, and on the second flight they fed us sandwiches and juice and coffee. Therefore, I didn't need to spend money on a snack! Woot! I think I love Swiss. They also give you a Swiss milk chocolate at the end of each flight. Seriously the greatest airline.

Then, when we finally figured out that we needed to take a shuttle to terminal 1 because it was 4 kilometers away from us and how to buy train tickets, we boarded the train and a band played us Spanish music.

It was really refreshing to see the sun and blue skies.

Our hostel room was two beds in their own room within a bigger room, so we basically had a private room. This was our view.

And this was the hostel's terrace with their hot tub.

Our beds weren't the most comfortable, but the private room was pretty awesome.

There was a shared bathroom, but luckily we were provided this advice:

The shower was tiny! You couldn't bend over to pick things off the floor so when I dropped my body wash cap, it fell into the drain and I couldn't get it out. Luckily, Taylor is amazing and her same body wash was out so she gave me her cap.

We got to the hostel around 4pm, and the hostel provided us a tip-based dinner at 9pm, so we went out and explored La Boqueria market.

I got an empanada thing with ham and cheese and pineapple and a raspberry-peach smoothie.

The market was on one of the side streets of La Rambla, which is a famous touristy street with lots of stands and goods and restaurants.

For dinner, this guy PJ cooked us pasta with salmon and broccoli and made us a salad.

The hostel had one of their workers, Natalia, take anyone at the hostel who wanted to out to bars and clubs because she was knowledgeable and could usually get us discounts. She was paid by tips from us. Tips seem to be a common theme in Barcelona.

The first place she took us was a bar with especially good cocktails, so I got a strawberry colada for 4 euros and Natalia got us all a free shot.

The second place she took us was a 1 euro shots bar, and I tried a couple different shots like hazelnut and black vodka.

The third place we went was an Irish pub, and we got 1 euro beer and played darts.

We finally ended up at a dance club, and there were no discount drinks there. By then, it was only me, Taylor, and two other people left. We danced for a long time until a creepy guy started dancing with us, haha. We went out at 10:30pm and came back around 3:30am. It was really fun because we got to try some different things and Natalia got us discounts.

Friday

We woke up around 11am, a little later than I'm used to but I'm also not used to going to bed at 4am.

It was sunny out so we walked down to the beach at Barceloneta.

We saw the statue of Christopher Colombus.

We walked along a marina.

And we laid at the beach for a while, but it was pretty annoying because vendors kept coming up to us trying to sell sunglasses and mojitos and beer and blankets and everything and it was overwhelming and we weren't going to buy anything.

It also wasn't super warm so I kept my sweater on most of the time.

Then, we walked along a street on the sea that had a ton of restaurants and we found a tapas place that had three courses, drinks, and bread for 10 euros.

I got an iced tea, and they served it with ice and lemon slices and I realized that I haven't had iced tea since I was back in Minnesota.

For our first course, Taylor and I both got a goat cheese salad that had tomatoes and olives and a slice of fried goat cheese. It was really tasty and it had some kind of balsamic dressing on it.

The waiter also brought out some breakfast potato type dish and said it was a gift! The bread was very hard to bite into but good on the inside.

For my second dish, I got a yummy tenderized piece of chicken with asparagus and a roma tomato. The sauce was good with it, but I have no idea what it was.

Taylor ordered a seafood paella for her second dish, but it was intimidating because the shrimp were huge and were whole like they just came from the sea and there were clams and their shells and the only seafood that didn't look alive was the calamari except for the one with tentacles, hahaha. The paella was good, though. I tried a taste of the rice and could feel my tongue tingle a little from my allergy but other than the scary meat it was good!

For my third dish, I got creme brulee and it came with a vanilla cookie in it.

It was super good. Taylor got a cream and chocolate cake and it kind of tasted like it was from Cafe Mac.

So overall, I had a great meal and Taylor kind of could of had better.

We were going to go to Park Guell but then we ran into one of Taylor's friends on the boardwalk and we went walking with them to find this great churro place.

First, Taylor's friend's friends who were leading took us down a peninsula to nowhere. We did run into this cook place, though.

Then we walked a long time to find this churro place but never found it so I hated those people and was kind of crabby so I led us to go get churros from La Boqueria.

I also wanted gelato, so I got pina colada and dulce de leche platano flavors.

Then I found the only place that sold churros and I ate them but they were weird and syrupy and tiny.

Then Taylor's friend and her friends left and since we were running out of daylight hours, we didn't go to Park Guell but instead found all the famous buildings designed by Gaudi on our map and visited them.

I don't know what this is, it may not be Gaudi, I don't know.

This is the Batllo.

This was on our map, but I don't know what it is.

And the same with this one.

However, the one above was next to a churro place so Taylor and I split a cream-filled churro and it was delicious and amazing.

After a nap, there was seafood and vegetarian paella for dinner! HAHA! I ate the vegetarian one and it was delicious. We also drank homemade sangria with three types of vodka and fruit pieces in it.

We went out with Natalia again, and this time there were two really attractive guys from New Zealand coming with.

We went to a 2 euro shots bar and they lit most of their shots on fire. Taylor and I had one called Marshmallow, where they poor alcohol on the bar and light it on fire and we roast marshmallows over the fire, dip them in the shot, eat them, then take the shot. It was pretty fun. Then we had one called the Willy Wonka with whipped cream and a piece of chocolate on top. And then, we had one called the Harry Potter where they put an orange slice on top of the shot and sprinkle sugar on it and light it on fire and then throw something at the fire and it sparks!

Then we went back to the Irish pub and the New Zealand guys wanted to stop moving around to different places so they stayed there and two other people left so then Taylor and I left and it was a meh night except for the crazy cool shot bar. There were about a hundred different types of shots on the menu!

Saturday

We slept in again, I think that's a theme with me and Taylor, lol.

It was pouring raining all day, but we decided to go to the Montjuic area anyway. 

There are so many steps to climb that there are escalators everywhere. The palace in the background is the MNAC art museum.

The view from the museum is great, but it probably would have been better if it wasn't raining.

I think that in the distance is an old Spanish pueblo, but we couldn't figure out how to get in there, and actually the whole area seemed pretty small and we didn't see a lot of things so I think we were missing a pretty huge part of the area. It was hard to be motivated to find the rest of the stuff like the castle and the pueblo and the garden entrance and the olympic stadium because it was raining, but if I ever go back to Barcelona, I think it would be cool to finish seeing all the things there.

So, time for lunch.

We didn't want tapas or paella again, so we went into this restaurant and the inside was pretty fancy!

I ordered a coffee and it was Lavazza, or the same kind they have at Chez Arnaud in White Bear Lake, MN.

These sandwiches were 2 or 3 euros each plate, so I didn't think they'd be that big so I ordered two and they WERE that big but I ate them both anyway. I got one with hamburger, cheese, and tomato and the other with an omelet. Taylor got a bacon and cheese one and so we split the omelet and the bacon and cheese one and it was AMAZING!

Then we went to Park Guell. It was quite the hike up the street.

But it was a pretty cool place and there was a bit that you could see for free.

But we paid the 8 euro entrance fee to see the main Gaudi part of the park.

The mosaic work was awesome and the architecture was super unique.

You can see the Sagrada Familia church that Gaudi did on the left.

Then we went across the street to a little souvenir shop, and inside there were a billion little figures and a bunch of mosaic stuff.

Taylor and I treated ourselves to a little mosaic tea set. An apartment-warming gift, one could say.

Then we went to Sagrada Familia, but by the time we got there it was already dark. So, this is the best picture of it I have and we couldn't go inside. However, there is currently construction on it to make the 8 towers into 18 and this should be completed in 2026 so if I go back to Barcelona in 13 years, I will go inside. I've seen the postcards of the inside though, it's very beautiful and interesting. It would have been 20 euros to go inside now...I hope that doesn't mean it will be much more expensive when construction is done.

And, for our final site-seeing experience, we went back to the entrance to Montjuic to the Magic Fountain.

And we watched the show in the pouring rain.

It was a fountain and lights show set to music, and at one point, they were playing Independent Women, so basically it was pretty amazing.

For dinner, there were bacon and cheese potatoes with a salad and a lot of people bought wine so I had some of that, and I drank it out of a coffee mug.

And again, we went out with Natalia. This time the New Zealanders didn't come because they were tired, boo, but two Belgians and an Australian did and it was a lot of fun.

First we went to a bar called Absinthe, and I had a Heineken, haha. I read the wikipedia on absinthe just now, and it was really interesting. I did try someone's absinthe drink though, and it was the kind that had sugar in it so it kind of tasted like a licorice candy.

Then, we went to a bar with an upstairs room and we put tables together because it was just us hostelers. There were probably about 12 of us. Natalia got us each a free shot. Natalia took us there because they had good mojitos, so Taylor and I split a mojito, but it was so good we both think we could have had our own.

Then, Natalia took us to a club that she said should be free to get in to, but it wasn't so some people left and then some of us went to get churros. 

Taylor was having a deep intellectual conversation with one of the Belgians. Then the Belgians told us to visit them but we never got their full names etc. so that's not possible but a nice offer, haha.

So we went home around 3am.

Sunday

We woke up at 6am, and we went to the metro, then to the train, and then to the airport. It took a long time and we kept having to buy single tickets because we ran out of our shared pass. On the train, I heard some girls speaking French and I understood a little. It was fun to be able to order food in Spanish, too, during the trip.

We flew with Swiss again and it was the same as the first flight: croissant, coffee, juice, chocolate, sandwich, coffee, juice, chocolate, so I was pleased.

I missed the bus again when I got back to Albertslund so I could either wait 40 minutes or walk home with my suitcase, so I walked. Haha. Damn bus. I got home around 4pm.

Chloe got home while we were eating dinner around 7:30, and then she went to Tivoli for the Christmas stuff at 9:30. I know she had done more travelling than me and gotten home later than me, but Linda asked me why I didn't want to go with her and I don't even know what to say anymore. I can't be Chloe and never sleep. I really like to sleep. And I had readings to do, so I did them and then I watched Game of Thrones and I was really happy with that. I can go to Tivoli anytime before I leave, and I enjoy relaxing as much as site-seeing and stuff.

Anyway, Barcelona was one of my favorite places and I would love to go back when it's warmer!