The place is just bursting with life... which is more than I can say about how I was feeling when I got there after getting about one hour of sleep on the freezing cold, uncomfortable bus ride. But Larissa, Kristen, and I toughed it out, were crazy tourists and packed everything into two very long days.
We arrived at 6 in the morning, waited at the bus stop for it to get light (so we didn´t have to walk around the city looking for a hostel in the dark), took the metro to calle boquería, and found a cheap hostel. And cheap is the correct description... maybe creepy is a better word. It was called a youth hostel, probably because it was painted with weird pictures and shapes everywhere, and the sign above the bathrooms read ¨toy-lets.¨ Ha, not so funny. But, it came with breakfast and was only 16 a night, so we settled. It ended up being extremely cold and uncomfortable in there... we had to wear every single layer we packed because the door to the porch outside (which just conveniently happened to be right next to my bunk bed) was broken and didn´t close all the way. The second night I wised up and forked over the extra 2.50 for blankets. Sheesh. I guess if I look on the bright side, the freezing-ness of our hotel encouraged us to spend as much time out and about as possible.
And as a sudden update, I discovered today that not only did I receive three small, bite-like red bumps on my back, but about three more on my face, and three or four on my right hand/arm. I freaked out, thinking... oh no! maybe the hostel has given me an incurable disease or infection! so i went to the spanish doctor, who said they were only mosquito or bug bites of some sort and prescribed me a 5 dollar cream to use for elimination purposes. well, the good news is, i´m not dying. the bad news is, i probably hate the darn hostel more than anything in life. and now, the 7 layers worth of clothes that i wore to bed in the freezing cold hostel room must be washed... including my huge puffy jacket. that will be great fun. thank you arco youth hostel.
DISCLAIMER: don´t stay at arco youth hostel in barcelona. it is on calle boquería and it has a big, creepy green door. DON´T DO IT. you will get sick, freeze, and end up going to spanish doctors who tell you that you have nothing to worry about except for silly mosquito bites.
moving on.
after dropping our stuff of at the hostel, we traveled around the city...first stop? el mercado boquería (the huge food market). it´s one of the most famous markets and europe, and i now know why. IT ROCKS! it was possibly my favorite part of the trip because my appetite and love of food is probably similar to that of somebody obese.
we went, bought 1 kilo (a huuuuuuge bag) of strawberries for 2 and a half euro! we would spend that amount on some tiny little carton in the u.s. we continued to buy fresh baguettes, sandwiches, clementines, apples, platanos (banana sort things), chinese chicken, pasta, cantelope, etc. over the next two days. the only thing constant about our trip was our daily trip to the market for lunch. and it was just about the most delicious thing ever.
after the market, we rambled down ¨las ramblas¨ ha, like the play on words? ok i´m cheesy. our hostel was right off las ramblas. there was a ton of history and important buildings here, and we saw the plaze real (on of the several hundred plaza reals in spain) complete with palm trees and a pretty fountain. we then continued on to see a large statue of christopher columbus. apparently he is pointing in the wrong direction... not towards the americas.
we walked along the dock.. saw the beach (kinda... we saw the water but not the sand) and were in amazement that there were so many tropical palm trees in the middle of winter! on our walk back, we discovered some cool shops on the side of the road where we found some bargains. i´m always hunting for bargains because even bargains add up faster than you could imagine.
next, we went to the paseig de gracia, a more upscale area with fancy shmancy shopping, and of course the buildings by Gaudí! and i had never heard of these buildings, so i will explain for those of you who don´t know about them.
guadí was an artist/architect who created a series of houses/apartments/parks in barcelona in a modernist (i think!) style. basically, they are the coolest looking structures i have ever seen. he doesn´t like straight lines... or so it seems because all his buildings have curvy walls, curvy fences and gates, and everything is different than you would expect a building to be. casa batlló is the one house that we toured the inside of. the outside is covered in beautiful mosaics and the balconies to the windows have a gate that resembles a mask or a skull head.. pretty eerie. the inside is a masterpiece of beautiful stained glass, walls painted like mosaics, winding staircases, huge windows that look out onto paseig de gracia, and so much more.
we saw a bunch more other houses and buildings in the area, visited a coffee shop for some mid-afternoon coffee/cookie crackers, and decided to get dinner. we wandered and found this silly little place called BO. It stood for bueno y original, but we laughed at the body odor reference. it was delicous, and we were exhausted, so it was great.
we met a friend of taryn´s (one of our program-mates in pamplona) who she knew from the time when she used to live in barcelona. fernando. we met him at a bar and spoke in spanish to him and his friends... some pretty good practice! it was nice because he was from Ecuador, and it´s much easier to understand his accent than the accents of people from Spain. But we were tired and very happy to sleep in our horrible, evil hotel after our trip to this bar.
the next morning we walked around the casa batlló in the morning (we only saw the outside of the building the day before), did some more sightseeing in the area, then got lunch at the market again.
we wanted to go to the museum of chocolate... me being a chocoholic of course. but we passed it somehow on the way there, ending up in this amazingly great park. there was a pond, palm trees, a small waterfall, and egyptian-looking buildings. i think it was one of the prettiest things i have seen in spain! it was just incredible because barcelona had so many very different things to see in one city! we felt like we were in egypt or persia or in some scene from aladdin! and larissa found a small soccer ball under the bushes, so she as excited.
we found the chocolate museum on the way back, made our way to the gift shop, and purchased the smallest piece we could find. although my tour book said they had the best chocolate in barcelona, it was rich, but not the best i have ever had. then we got gelatto.
we saw the sagrada familia, another of gaudí´s works, his life´s goal actually, which is still being completed today. it is huge and gave me the chills.
ok, we found a spanish restaurant for dinner (so we thought.. it turned out to be slightly americanized, but what can you do?), went to a coffeeshop to avoid the freezing-ness of our hostel, and went to sleep super-early.
for we had to wake up at 6:30 am to get to the bus station before our bus left.
and that is my trip. that is barcelona in a nutshell. that is all i have to say about it for now.
so, i encourage everyone to see barcelona at some point in his or her life. i encourage everyone not to stay in a bad hostel. i encourage everyone to be rich before going to barcelona because it costs about 15 euro to get into every museum, and if you are me or any regular person, you have to settle for seeing the outsides most of the time.
and the best advice i have is this: remember that wherever you are, things are never as good as they could be if you are not with the people you love. (no offense to the kids i travel with.. we have discussed this anyway...we have great times despite what i´m saying) i think barcelona would have been a gazillion times cooler than it already is had i been with the people who i really wanted to share the experience with. so yea, studying abroad is cool. but i don´t think anything could compare to going on these trips with people who i love.
i just wish you were all here with me, that´s all.
1 comment:
Okay, so your old aunt is technology challenged. I wrote a whole letter and tried to send it only to find I had to create a name and password BEFORE I could do that. So I'll try to remember what I said.
I'm envious of your travels. The furthest I ever traveled was Alaska. Spain, particularily Barcelona or Mallorca (now that I know I spelled incorrectly) are two cities I'd love to see. Maybe someday....
Your host family and friends seem very nice and you are obviously having a wonderful time. I hope school is getting easier. Dreaming in spanish yet???
You're not missing much here. It's snowed everyday for about a week and supposed to continue for another week. Ahh, Cleveland. And yet Grandma continues to complain about how cold she is in Phoenix.
Got to put Parker to bed (His 9th birthday is just 2 days away). He's so excited. About what, I dont know. Someday he's going to wish he was 8 again. I'll check your blog out regularily and email or write to you. When I get some birthday pictures of Parker, I'll email them. Be safe, have fun,
Love (and miss you), Aunt Ronna
Post a Comment