Late on Friday night, I felt a familiar and unwelcome tingling in my throat. I was getting sick! All Saturday, I was slowly getting sicker and sicker. After an hour-long flight from Paris, Olivia (another Canadian language assistant) and I arrived in Barcelona, the pickpocketing capital of the world. We had memorized our directions so as not to look at the map, and tucked our valuables away (I carry mine under my coat, which is pretty obvious, but hey, I haven't been pickpocketed so far!). Our hostel (St. Christopher's) was really nice and each bed had a curtain and a power outlet and a light, as well as a storage cage under the bed. Exhausted and sick, I hit the hay at a pretty reasonable hour, but our roommates had other plans. 2 girls left at 3 am, spent a half hour packing, turned on the big lights, and woke all of us up. At least breakfast was awesome! Ham, cheese, bread, peanut butter, cereal, orange juice, and tea! I can still barely smell or taste, but I was impressed!
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| Outside a Dali museum |
We began day 1 with a free walking tour, and learned much about the city's lengthy history. We had arrived on a holiday in celebration of a 13-year old girl who couldn't be killed (they realized this after they put her in a barrel with a bunch of knives, rolled her down the hill, and she came out without a scratch), and there were parades in the streets with "the giants" or oversized characters, and marching bands. We also learned that during the Spanish Inquisition, they destroyed a Jewish cemetary on Montjuic, and used the headstone pieces to make buildings in the city centre. That's why some buildings have stones with Hebrew writing on them.
To be honest, we barely heard any Catalan. Apparently 95% of the population speaks it, but we heard English and French everywhere. And if someone didn't speak English, we would break out our broken Spanish. Our favourite Catalan word that we saw everywhere was "benvinguts" (welcome), though.
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| This was added in the street to make it look prettier! |
So then Olivia and I took the funicular up Montjuic and strolled through gardens, saw the National Art Museum from the outside, walked to the Spanish Village, and walked down past the Magic Fountain on our way to where we were supposed to begin our paella cooking class with unlimited sangria. There weren't enough people, and it got cancelled, so Olivia and I headed down to the beach for some seafood paella. Neither of us are knowledgeable about these kinds of seafood, so it must have been very amusing for the waiters to watch us struggle. There was even a crawfish, which we couldn't figure out how to eat, and we left it out altogether. It was a lot of work and we even needed wet-naps! As far as I could tell (being sick and all), the rice base was delicious. I think we'll stick to a more plain kind next time, though!
The next day had been declared Gaudi day by us, and we walked past his apartment designs, and onto the Sagarada Familia, which is, of course, still under construction. The lineups to get in were long, and the entrance was pricey, so we Googled photos of the interior and kept walking.....and walking, and walking.... We're still paying for all the walking we did that day. Our legs are in pain!
Eventually, we reached Gaudi's Park Guell, and it had the world's longest bench, odd architecture, and mosaic tiles everywhere. And it was free! I'm glad we saw it.
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| Square in Barcelona |
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| View from the National Art Museum |
From there, we walked to the Arc de Triomphe, and over to la boqueria market. There was fresh fruit juice and fruit everywhere! I guess only having apples, pears, bananas and oranges available in France gets a little tiring. We got empanadas, fruit juices, and found a delicious Mexican food counter open. Then we took our finds back to the hostel to eat. But we only sat for a short while before heading out to find the Torre Agbar (like the one in London). It was a great (but long) day!
Monday, we did some shopping near the North end of La Rambla, hit the market again for lunch, and took our food to eat by the sea. We had just enough time to see the beach before heading back to the hostel to grab our stuff and move onto our next destination: Madrid!
WE HAD THE BEST BURRITOS HERE FOR DINNER!! We were just too tired to do the tapas tour, and grabbed the local take-out instead.
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| The giants |
Today, in short, hurt like Hell. At this point, I am still sick, and our legs haven't had a chance to recover yet from Gaudi day. We didn't have the energy to do the things we normally would, and every step was demanding. That said, we did check out the market (of prepared food this time) for lunch, saw the Plaza Mayor, and checked out the city from one end to the other. We saw a temple (gift from Egypt), the Royal Palace, walked along a huge viaduct, and came home. Although I already took a nap, I'm going to head to bed now because tomorrow we visit the del Prado museum with some Americans we met in our room, and write postcards in the Parque del Retiro.
