Hola amigos y familia!
We are finally in the gem of countries from my list of places to travel, España!! We landed here 2 days ago on a flight from Rome. Our Eurail passes expired on the 27th, so from here on out we’ll be traveling by plane. We’ve got a hostel booked here until Tuesday and have a flight to Dublin Tuesday morning where we will stay until our flight back to the USA on Thursday. I’m really glad we chose Barcelona as one of the last cities to visit because there is so much to do and see here and me and Tyler both really love it! Italy was awesome but I was definitely ready to leave. The crowds, relentless street vendors, and unreliable public transportation systems were really starting to cause me some anxiety. Plus I was seriously ready to get back to a beach city. The morning we left Rome, we decided to catch a bus to the airport because it was the cheapest way to get there. It turned out that a train strike had started that morning so it was good that we wanted to take a bus, but the schedule was all out of whack because so many people were packing onto buses at the last minute so they could catch their flights. Our bus ended up being 25 minutes late, so I was glad that we played it safe and gave ourselves 4 hours to get to the airport haha. At that point I was really just tired of Rome, so it was a kind of irritating yet satisfying departure. So we finally made it to the tiny regional airport and got some sandwiches, relaxed, and had a smooth flight. There was a group of really loud guys that were sitting right by us and even though they were being really loud and singing and climbing over seats and apparently stealing sandwiches off the food cart, they were a nice distraction from my fear of flying. I’ve been trying to prepare for my flights by periodically scanning the sky, finding planes, and saying, “look, that plane’s not falling out of the sky!” I think if I keep doing that, it’ll work but sheesh I was pretty nervous on this one anyway. Flying over the water was really cool though! All I could see below us was blue water that matched the sky perfectly and clouds. It was my first time feeling totally immersed in the sky. I deliberately didn’t take pictures because I intend to see it again with my own eyes and not having a photo will motivate me to do so. Anyway, so we land in Barcelona and after figuring out the metro (which we’ve both decided is the nicest out of all the places we’ve been) we headed to our hostel. This hostel was recommended by some guys we met in Venice, so we were both pretty excited to stay there. It’s called Sant Jordi’s and it’s the perfect Barcelona party hostel. The lobby floors were all lit blue and the place had nightly pub crawls. It was very clean and very well maintained. So you can imagine my frustration when we went to check in and the hostel worker told me that I’d only made a reservation for one. :((((*(( They were fully booked because there’s a music festival this weekend, so one of us would not be able to stay there. I was so mad at myself for making such a stupid and amateur mistake! I’ve been managing our hostel bookings for this entire trip and on our second to last stop I messed up big time 🙁 it was devastating at first, but we were able to find another hostel right across the street and Tyler offered to stay there while I stayed at Jordi’s. So we both got settled into our rooms then met up to get some well deserved paella, a delicious Catalunyan dish that consists of rice and a bunch of seafood. Stephen and Lizzie recommended that we ask the locals where good paella places are so that we could get some good authentic stuff. The guy at the front desk of my hostel told us where the best place was nearby and so there we went and there we were not disappointed. One of the tastiest meals I’ve had in Europe by far.
I forgot to mention, the area we were in was really nice! Lots of upscale shops, really nice buildings, and we were even right by one of Gaudi’s really cool buildings, Casa Batlló. After dinner, we headed back to Sant Jordi’s where there was a 3€ for all you can drink Sangria night going on. So we drank and ended up talking to some really cool Aussies for a couple of hours. I also chatted with a Hungarian girl for a little while. The downstairs lounge became really packed and for a while I felt like I was young and in college again teehee! So we talked and drank and at around 11 the room packed full of people started to clear out as the hostel-led pilgrimage to some of the many bars of Barcelona commenced. Me and Tyler decided to stay behind and check out a bar a couple of blocks away that was one of a kind. This bar had 500 different types of shots and they were crazy. There was one where the bartender would mix up your drink, dip your thumb in it, light your thumb on fire, and make you eat the fire. It was pretty crazy to watch but also funny. There was another one where they’d make the drink, connect a bunch of straws together, and put the glass on your head and make you drink through the long straw. LOL it was kind of a circus in there but at the same time it was a really awesome idea and I think Columbus’ bar scene could use a jewel like that one. So we got a couple of random drinks, one that was recommended by our Aussie friends where the bartender starts a fire, you roast marshmallows, dip them in your drink, eat the marshmallow, then take the shot. It was surprisingly delicious! The best part, everything was 1-2€. After that we headed back to our hostels and I stayed up till 4:30am talking to the desk guy and one of my roommates about government assistance and the history of language among many other sophisticated conversation topics.
Well it’s morning and me and Tyler need to get going so I will talk about what we did the next day when I’m ready to write again. Writing at night doesn’t work because I’m so worn out at the end of every day all I want to do is sleep.
To sum it up, we’ve been having an awesome time and Barcelona is quickly becoming our favorite city! We’ve got a few days and I’m excited to see what cool things we can discover 😀
Pictures!
