I did not think it was possible to like a city more than Paris but Barcelona won me over. Complete with beaches, mountains, incredible architecture and Roman history it was the most wonderful place that I've ever been! When our plane aborted landing becuase the runway was full and had to circle around the city, I looked upon the city carved out in the hills and got really excited.
Travel Troubles - But speaking of planes... our travels did not come without trouble. That morning we left our apartment building, Funenpark, in a taxi to the station. At Centraal Station we caught a train... but we bought the wrong type of tickets apparently and of course this was once of the random and infrequent days that workers were checking tickets, so we had to buy new ones without a refund of the old ones. In doing so, we almost missed the train and we were already running pretty close to take off time. Well once we got to Schipol airport after the 25 min train, Beth realized that she forgot her passport!! We were trying not to freak out, knowing that you cant go to another country without one! So Jackie and I had to go straight to the gate since it was about to board while Beth waited in a long line to find out if her Dutch residency permit was enough. At the very last moment Beth came around the corner, shaking, but happy to be going to Spain! By the grace of God they let her come, hence the name of her facebook photo album "Dear Spain, thanks for letting me in, love Beth." It was a stressful morning... then I got lost in the city for an hour and a half on my own and our cell phones wouldnt work!

La Rambla and Barcina- Once we arrived and put down our stuff in our hostel we explored La Rambla, which is a very touristy street which our hostel was located off of. There were people in crazy costumes acting like fools for money from tourists. There were of course tons of restaurants and souvenir shops down the street but it was kind of a neat area. We went to a free walking tour which started not far away, feeling it was a perfect way to start our time here. Our tour guide was cute, she looked so Spanish but we discovered she was actually Swiss. Hmmm. Well on this tour of Barcina (the old city which is now part of Barcelona) I got horribly lost. The tour was wonderful (at least the part of it I was there for) because this city was part of the Roman empire for a while so the architecture wasn't Mediterranean as you'd expect, but very Roman. This part of the city is called the gothic quarter and its beautiful and very ancient. Luckily I found my travel buddies Jackie and Beth by returning to the starting point of the tour and went back to two places we heard about on the tour to explore. The history of Barcina museum takes you under the city where there are actual remants of the Roman city which were built on top of! You can walk around see the ancient foundations with an audiguide which explains what everything used to be. Then we went into the Cathedral of Barcelona which was incredible and huge inside. This part of the city was one of my favorites because it was so cute and so different than anything I've seen in America.



Along La Rambla is a big market full of fruits and vegetables, candies, meats, some restaurants, seafood and all kinds of other goodies. It was beautiful... well most of it. There was one stand...I'm not sure what it was selling.
Picasso - After checking our Barcelona guidebook we decided to check out the Picasso Museum. I must say, I was not too excited because Picasso has nevver been my favorite artist...actually that is an understatement. I don't like his art. Or I didnt think so, but I actually really like his early work before he began cubism and all of his modern crazy stuff. The area around the museum was very Spanish! With close windy streets with balconies on every window. My favorite part about visiting cities is just observing and marveling at the unique and beautiful elements that make it worthy of being visited by thousands each year.

Sagrada Familia - The most incredible church in the world is still in the process of being built! La Sagrada Familia is a church which was started in the late 1800's by the architect whose work is all over Barcelona, Gaudi. Gaudi is a genuis. He has created some remarkable structures and this church is, in my opinion, his best work. He died before it was finished in the early 1900's, and since it is funded only by private donations it is still not finished, but getting much closer. Included are some pictures but I couldn't get a good picutre of the entire thing at once. (You can look it up online if you'd like) It is simply breathtaking. The shapes he uses are like nothing you've seen before. I hope to come back to the magnificient building upon its completion, whenever that may be.
Beaches - After visiting the church on thursday we headed straight toward the beach because this was supposed to be the only nice day of the four we would be in the city. We walked around the boardwalk which was the area that was constructed in anticipation for the 1992 Olympic Games. There were cute shops and restaurants which over looked the water. We found a nice place which sold pizza and pasta and had a relaxing meal, basking in the sun. This is what Barcelona should be like all the time! We made our way to the sand and just walked to the edge of the cold water of the Mediterranean and sat for an hour in the sand. It was wonderful! I love the beach. But apparently nudity is legal all over Spain and this was especially apparent at the beach where there were topless female sunbathers who were also enjoying the weather.

Montjuic- Hmmm how to begin discussion of this? Montjuic left me speechless! Its a nice area of Spain in the mountainous part of the city. We went to the top of Montjuic where there is a castle and an incredible amazing view of the city which one must experience in person! To get up there first one must take the funicular which runs strait uphill, then one can take a sky taxi or walk the rest of the way. We walked up, at times actually scaling steep stairs. When we got up though it was more than worth it! I could've stayed there for hours just looking over the mountains and the city and the water. The castle itself was neat too. This was the favorite experience of all three of us. The only reason we left was because we knew there were other things in the glorious city to see on the one beautiful day we had.
Paella, Tapas and Sangria! - We took a cooking class through the group that gave us the free walking tour where we learned to make tapas, paella, and sangria and for a fee we could have unlimited amounts of these items! Our group was bigger than usual and the normal teacher was away so an English girl taught the especially large class. It was a blast!!! First we learned to make the sangria which was fun and pretty easy. Like the other 2 dishes, there is no set way to make it, but you can use a variety of different choices for each ingredient. Once she got us startedon the sangria she taught us to make some tapas (basically appetizers) with garlic, tomato, potato omelet (a Spainsh favorite) and some kind of meat. Then, she walked us through the paella as she made a HUGE pan of it for the 25 of us in the class. This occured in the back of a bar/restaurant where we all sat at a big table and socialized as we learned together. Throughout the night everytime one of the 3 pitchers of sangria would run out another small group of people would make another. We enjoyed meeting the others. The couple across from us were the oldest in the group probably in their 50s ( my best guess). We really enjoyed talking to them, especially the man who was hilarious! They were Americans who moved to Germany 6 years ago because the wife had taken a job teaching the children of American military there. They traveled on long weekends. It was nice talking to someone who was not a peer for once. I also met a girl from Charlotte who goes to Clemson in SC but is studying in Ireland!!! What a wierd coincidence! She actually majors in sign language and works at teeh Deaf and Blind School in Spartanburg, which is where my sister graduated from. She began working the year after Nicci left though. I thought that was really strange!


Park Guell- Another Gaudi masterpiece!!! By this point I was hooked on his work. Its a unique and awesome park that he designed around his own home acutally but became a public park. Unfortunately on this day it rained throughout so the weather was not nice for being outside. Since it was Good Friday everything was closed so we had bought groceries the day before and ate them in the park at a table under an umbrella. We had fun acting ridiculous in the park- we had to be in especially high spirits to counteract the effects of the gloomy rain! This was also one of the my favorite parts of the trip.

Hooked on Gaudi- After this we were inspired to see some of Gaudi's other work in the city. We went to Passieg de Gracia which is a large and super nice boulevard, much like the Champs Elysee. I actually like this more. There were lots of trees spread among the buildings and sidewalks which most cities dont have. It was a really nice area of town. The Gaudi houses were all very cool. My favorite was the one nicknamed the Bone House because the balconies look like skulls and the beams all look like bones! It is really colorful in a way which starkly contrasts the creepy shapes.
Arc de Trimof- Yes, the Spanish also have an Arc! In fact a lot of grand cities do, but the one in Paris is most popular. The Spanish Arc was no less great, just a little smaller. Behind it was a row of trees and some type of monument. Unfortuantely it started to pour so we didn't stay long, and my pictures are strange because my camera got wet! But later we went to a park which happened to be on the other side of the Arc and I got better pictures. I really like the Arcs in the cities I've been in. I think they're neat because today they'd never be made, especially in the US! I mean if Americans found out that they're tax dollars were going into the construction of a huge Arc whose import is only for cosmetic reasons they would revolt! But in an earlier time when kings and Queens ruled and could spend government money however they wished, it was possible and necessary for big projects to be made.

Starbucks break and Australians!?! - There are no Starbucks in the Netherlands (except one in the airport) so anytime I see one I have to go! Well luckily they were all over the city, but one in particular was right beside our hostel so we made our way out of the rain, exhausted from all of our walking and adventure over the past 3 days, to our hostel to get books so we could sit in the coffeeshop (for once this word does not mean a shop where marijuana is sold) and do some homework to get off our feet and re-energize. We walked in to a surprise. That morning I made an offhanded remark as our lovely Portugese roomates left concerning our new roomates. I said something like "Wouldn't it be great if our new roomates were sexy men" because it was a single gender hostel. Well ironicly we walked into our room to find 3 attractive, half dressed Austrailians trying to nap! We all just stood at the door for a moment stunned...they noticed. We just told them we thought it was a girls room, but apparently the rooms were co-ed. These guys had been traveling 3 montshs and had 2 more to go and they seem to sleep all day then just go out to bars and clubs at night. Seems like a waste of so much travel money to me but theyve been all over Europe. Hmm. I laughed at the irony of the situation. Well until they got in that night at 4 am and were LOUD for about 30 mins before going to sleep, talking about the girls they tried to get with, but that was better than the IMPOSSIBLY LOUD snoring that one of them did. We got NO sleep! Well back to Starbucks- we enjoyed some coffee while we relaxed and planned the rest of our day.
Port Vell- At this point it wasn't raining so we were craving another beach trip. We walked down La Rambla to Port Vell which was on the water. We sat on the port by the water for a while taking in the mountains in teh distance, the water, the boats and all the people. It was an incredible sight because there was stuff everywhere to see. Monuments, magnificient buildings, a great landscape all around, rides and attractions all along the water and all different types of people. The sitting and observing, really taking in an area is the best way to really remember and experience a city. Running around looking at stuff seems important, but then its easy to forget, but talking to the people and really seeing the city and all it has to offer is rewarding. Especially Barcelona because it has a whole lot to offer! It was also nice just sitting and chatting with Jackie and Beth. I've learned that friendship (and life really) is about sharing in moments and conversation and thought with each other. Just taking time to chill out with someone bring you closer together. We bonded throughout the trip, but most clearly at times like this when we just sat together and talked. After a snack we took off again.

Barceloneta- This was definitely not my favorite part of the city! It was kind of grungy and ugly, a residential area with poorer people. We wandered through then ended up back at the beach on the other side of it. We again sat and had our dinner on a bench at the beach- which consisted of a whole bag of chips and salsa! It was great, we giggled as we ate the rest of our groceries which were a random mix of the chips, some fruit and some nutella.
MAGICAL Fountains- I enjoyed this but Jackie and Beth were just entranced by the fountain show like the cute little girls who sat in front of us on the stairs just giggling and gawking at it. We went to an area of Monjuic where there is a grand palace and a row of fountains. Jackie discovered from a friend that at night on the weekends the biggest fountain performs a show for a huge audience of tourists. We watched it do all kinds of incredible things to the tune of many songs from the Godfather theme, to opera, to Apologize (which was the grand finale). THe fountain turned different colors and the waters got higher and... well I can't explain it. It was magic. It was a neat and different experience that was truly unique to Barcelona.
Metro- The Barcelona metro system was the best, cleanest, and nicest I've seen so far. Our stop was Liceau. The thing about all of these really nice big cities- is you have to take underground metroes everywhere which are efficient, but its kind of depressing to be underground for half of the day traveling around, and I easily get motion sickness and I just don't enjoy them. Everytime I travel though, I compare the metro voices... in Amsterdam it sounds stern as it pronounces stops like "Oostenburgergracht" and "wittenburgergracht." Berlin metros sound angry as they shout German names. French stops sound lovely and wonderful as the woman's voice says "Chateley" and "Le Louvre Centre," while Spanish metroes sound like a joke! There is a man's voice and a woman's voice which go back and forth to give the stops in a sing-songy, humorous fashion.
Last Day in Barcelona- Our last day was a bit gloomy because the weather was not nice and as I revealed earlier, our Australian roomates did not allow us to get much sleep! The entire day is a blur... I started the morning with some more starbucks while we planned our day. It kept raining off and on so it was hard to plan what to do. We went inside another Gaudi house near La Rambla- amazed that entry was free- but it was under reconstruction on the inside so we didn't get to see much, so we found out why. We found a nice park called ASLDKFJGASD which was on the other side of the Arc de Trimof. It was beautiful with a great fountain, nice gardens and a pond where you could get in a boat and paddle around. Since it looked like it was going to rain we headed to a free museum near the magical fountains from the night before called Caixa Forum. There was some really nice stuff there and some very bizarre stuff. It was nice to be shielded from the rain for a while. We also went back to Barcina where the girls fulfilled their most important goal for Spain- getting churros and hot chocolate which is a must. We made our way to Miro Museum, also in Montjuic, which was certainly not my favorite. Unlike the pleasant surprise I got upon entering the Picasso museum and finding that I like his work, I did not enjoy Miro's modern work which looked like the stuff in the house in Beetlejuice- kinda scary sculptures and art that no one should EVER put in their homes! We got a nice view from the top of the museum though- the best part of it. Finally, exhausted we made our way to the airport, determined not to cut it so close this time, to catch our flight back. It was a great flight- landed 30 mins early with little turbulence or disruption.


We had a BLAST in Barcelona, all deciding that it is the favorite destination among all those we've traveled so far. It was great seeing the city, and being there long enough that we didn't feel pressured to run around and see things, but could actually enjoy spending time in it. It was great spending time with Jackie and Beth, learning more about both of them and exploring together. The thing about traveling though- every time it makes us miss home which we now call Amsterdam. We were sad to leave, but excited to go home to our city. THough we LOVED Barcelona, we are glad to be living here, where we bike instead of metro and its small enough that it feels more like a home instead of a tourist trap. Amsterdam hosts tons of tourists, but we know the places to go where the tourists do not. We have special places we frequent, and though we do keep discovereing new places, not in teh same way that one would in a city like Barcelona or Paris. We feel we know this city well and can get around it easily.