I cannot believe that it is August 1st. I have been out of the US since June 24th. The past six weeks have just flown by, and it is unbelievable how much I have seen and done on this Eurotrip.
My time spent in Barcelona these past two days has been amazing. This city is so cool. After a lot of time spent on the train from Paris, I arrived into Barcelona at about 10pm. I cabbed it to my first hostel (I stayed in two different ones this time around) and was greeted by five new roommates, all who were a blast to hang out with. After probably my eighth falafel of the trip, the six of us went to a bar down the street from our hostel to start. There are always people standing in the street ready to hand you free coupons for their bars and clubs, so we decided to take one of them up on their offer. After the bar, we went to a club called Fellini's, which was this big dance club with multiple levels and on each level they played music from different decades. It was so much fun, but the service was unbelievably slow. Unfortunately for me, it was a girl bartender, but all the employees were so whatever about waiting on people. There were a ton of people waiting to buy drinks, and the bartender was just hanging out chatting with the bus boy smoking her cigarette. Ohhh well.
Since the last time that I was in Spain was over a month ago, I seemed to have forgotten how late (and by late I mean really early in the am) everyone stays out until. My roommates and I got back to our hostel at 5am, and none of us woke up on time for check out.
I was originally planning on beaching the entire time I was in Barcelona, but my roommates convinced me yesterday to go with them to the Parc Güell. The park stands at the top of Barcelona (you literally have to take street escalators to get there) and was designed by Gaudi, Barcelona's famous architect. The park was seriously amazing. The view is spectacular, and Gaudi's architecture is so cool. Apparently everything he designed is supposed to resemble some aspect of nature, like there was this one walkway that looked like the inside of a wave. Also, Gaudi is a huge fan of textile designs. They are used everywhere in the Park and on the buildings and are really beautiful.
After Gaudi's park, I checked into my second hostel, which was huge. It is located in the Plaza Real, which is a popular spot for restaurants and people. It's very close to the main street called La Rambla. La Rambla is like a boulevard, with an extremely wide pedestrian walkway in the middle. The outside of the street is lined with stores, and all along the middle of the street are tourist shops, street performers every ten feet, flower kiosks, and even bird kiosks. (!?) Yea, they sell pet birds on the street.
At this hostel I was staying in a room with nine other people, and about five of them similarly said that Barcelona was their last stop before going home. Four of my roommates were Brazilians who were traveling together and had been in Barcelona already for a couple days, so they were telling me about places they had gone out to. Barcelona has a crazy night life. And by crazy, I mean crazy AWESOME. Apparently the night before my new roomies met a fellow Brazilian who offered them VIP access into a nightclub for last night. I gladly accompanied them with a few others, even though we didn't leave the hostel until 2am. Seriously, in Madison 2am means it's time for some Qdoba. The club was called Up and Down, and is very nice, with dress codes, which I was most definitely unaware of. But I still got in with my flip-flops and without waiting in line for FREE! Okay, everyone was telling me that the cover charge was 50 euro. Which is outrageous. They might have actually said 15 euro because 15 and 50 sounds very similar with a Portuguese accent, but still. Either way it is TOO much to get into a club. The club was actually fairly swanky and posh, and I felt extremely underdressed, and also uber-surprised that I paid 10 euro for one measly vodka tonic. But the music was great, they played songs I knew and also had this really great saxaphone player in the band who was so much fun to watch and listen to. And of course we didn't get back to the hostel until after 6am. I literally almost missed check out again, but luckily I have gotten pretty good at packing very fast.
This morning I went to go see La Sagrada Familia, a huge, unfinished church designed by Gaudi. It is still under major construction, and I think the estimated total time to finish it is around 30 years. I was told not to go inside, since it cost money and was not done yet, but the outside was absolutely shock and awe. Gaudi architecture is so different than anything else I have seen.
After La Sagrada Familia I finally made my way to the beach. It was packed with people, and the water was so beautiful and so blue. You can definitely spend way more than two days in Barcelona, and being here was definitely a great ending to my Eurotrip.
