After arriving in Barcelona from the very long bus ride (14 hours) from Paris - seeing our location where we were staying was such a relief. We are staying for the next few nights at Hotel 4 Barcelona, right near the beach. After we dropped our bags off in the amazing rooms, we headed to the Roman Quarter for a walking tour. We walked through the narrow streets and eventually got to the St. Mary of the Sea, the main Cathedral in this area of Barcelona. The cathedral was on the first road to connect the Roman area with the sea. Something that our tour guide pointed out that I thought was pretty funny was that there is a stained glass window in the cathedral of the Barcelona football team. They had donated money to clean the stained glass, so they received the right to their own small window.
After the Cathedral, we walked some more of the streets and passed by the narrowest street which is now gated off from trespassers. It is nicknamed the Street of the Flies either because of the horrid smell from the food that used to be sold there to the sailors, or the idea that the sailors fell into the local prostitutes’ “fly trap.”
I ate lunch at a small restaurant, and got pasta with pesto. We were all so hungry from all the travelling and it was nice to just sit down and relax for awhile. After the lunch we were able to have free time to explore, which I decided to do by the beach. It wasn’t very warm, and the water was pretty cold but I decided to go in. I got used to the temperature once my head was under, but I hadn’t brought a towel with me, so it was cold when I got out. Kelly, Maggie, and I lay out in the sun to dry off and warm up. After the beach day was through, Alex, Barb, and I went over to the marina (Olympic Port) and I got some kiwi. I used my broken Spanish to talk to the store owners, which they really seemed to appreciate. They told me to keep practicing.
After a quick nap at the hotel, the majority of the group decided to go to the Olympic Port for dinner. We stopped at a restaurant called La Fonda del Port Olimpic and ate there. It was 17 euros for a HUGE meal that was really tasty. We got bread with tomato sauce, salad, calamari, mussels, paella, chocolate mousse, sangria, and then the waiter brought us grapa (after dinner drink that was not tasty). It was a great dinner that lasted close to 2 hours, which is always fun.
Afterwards, we hung around the Olympic Port and went to bar/clubs there. The bar we were at, about an hour in, all of a sudden there were pole dancers on the bars and in the middle of the dance floor. We all had fun dancing and people also hung out outside with hookah
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The next day, we got to tour the Olympic site, which was really cool. Barcelona held the Olympics in 1992 and is considered one of the most successfully executed Olympics and also has done great things with the legacy of the games. It was pretty amazing that you only had to walk a few blocks from our hotel (which was in a ‘not yet developed area’) to see crowded streets and much more tourist friendly areas.
We took the public transport up the hill to the Olympic Site, which was neat because it was the first time I had ever seen a subway-like car that went up such an incline. We were able to see the Stadium which was originally built in the 1920s for the 1936 Olympics, but Barcelona ended up not having them (Berlin did). The stadium was revamped and temporary seating was added to have a stadium that was big enough for the 1992 games but also hold the history of the beautiful arena. The site seemed pretty successful; it was crowded with both tourist tours as well as residents walking their dogs, running, walking with friends. It was good to see a successful legacy of the Olympics and definitely gave me hope to what London could be like.
After the Olympic tour, we had a group lunch that was so much food. Everything on the menu was in Spanish but I ended up getting a ravioli dish and a sausage dish. It was a lot of fun to have everyone in the program together before we all split ways for the rest of our travels during fall break. After lunch, I was so full so I headed back to the hotel for a nap and to relax.
After napping, Barb and I headed to the super market to get bread and cheese to have for dinner, since we were still not that hungry after the huge lunch. Everything was SO inexpensive. So much different than London, where all the prices are high.
That night we went out to a bar where we met a very rowdy bachelor party. Kelly, Amber, Lauren, and I were out pretty late hanging out with the bachelors and then headed back to the hotel on the metro.
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This morning we had to pack up our room at the hotel, which was sad because it was so nice to be staying at such a nice place. But we were able to store our backpacks in their storage room which was nice so we didn’t have to carry around our bags the whole day. We did a tour of Gaudi architecture and went to the Park Guell to see all the Gaudi art as well. This was a really cool park and it was HUGE. I loved the mosaic statues and sculptures in the park. My favorite was the lizard at the main entrance of Park Guell.
Today’s weather was perfect for a day in the park and it was really crowded. When we first got there, it was a bit early, and there weren’t many vendors on the pathways. But as we left, the amount of vendors selling jewellery, bird chirp noise makers, scarves, little squishy brightly colored toys, etc increased exponentially.
Later in the day, Barb, Kelly, Maggie, Alex, and I switched to Equity Sea Hostel that was directly on the beach. It was closer to the W Hotel, but in an area that seemed not as renovated as the Olympic Port location. We decided to sit on the beach and relax but that didn’t work out too well. There was a huge man in a beaded thong balancing a water jug on his head that walked over to us and aggressively kicked sand at us, twice. We were all shocked and for the next five minutes tried to get all the sand out of our hair, off our towel, etc. Ten minutes later, the thong man came back and sang an apology song to us. I tried so hard to not laugh hysterically and just tried not to make eye contact.
After the beaded thong man’s song was over we decided it was time for some food and drinks. We went to an outside cafe on the beach and I got some margaritas and nachos. It was really relaxing and a perfect way to start off fall break. We got talking with the people sitting next to us, and they had two adorable children. They ended up being from England and some of them had just recently moved to Barcelona. The family was so drunk, and at one point even tried to dance to no music, where they fell flat on their backs.
We headed to La Ramblas to go out later, where coinicidently we found the bachelor party again. We did flaming lambourghinis (so fun) and then met with hayden, matt, lauren, amber, and becky to go out the rest of the night to some bars. The last bar we went to was full of people smoking, so my clothes smelled so badly when i got back to the hostel. Had to wear them the rest of the 10 day adventure!
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We slept in a little and ate breakfast at the hostel before heading out with all of our stuff to the airport. We had an hour or so to spare, so we went outside at sat on a bench near the water and people watched. This hostel was prime location for that. The beaded thong man was nowhere in sight, but a woman who was just nearly as crazy was on the boardwalk. She was drinking a beer (it was about 10 AM) and screaming at everyone on the boardwalk. She especially didn’t like bike riders. She even took off her jacket at one point and hit a man walking down the path. We decided it was about time to head out, so we made our way to the metro to get to the airport. We had to be really careful with our backpacks because of pickpockets. Barcelona has the best pickpockets, or so we were told. We made it to the airport with all of our belongings, grabbed some lunch to eat on the plane and then napped the entire way to VENICE!
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