we arrived in the late afternoon, just as most people were in siesta time. we didn't have the time to do much sightseeing because museums were closing, but we walked around our neighborhood in search of food and stumbled across two of Gaudi's building exteriors. it's amazing that you can be walking through a neighborhood and then all of a sudden monuments of architectural genius just show up. the picture doesn't do it nearly enough justice.
Casa Battlo
we walked down Passeig de Gracia and realized pretty quickly that all the street signs were in Catalan, which is a totally different language from Spanish and actually has a lot in common with Italian and French. It's comprehensible if you've learned one or more of the Romance languages, but it's definitely different. although we wanted to explore some, we were starving and interested in trying tapas.
a bread tapas sampler. the toppings were tuna, crab, shrimp, ham, and a potato and cheese quiche. yum.
PAELLA
Then it was time for a siesta. Siesta time is from about 4 to 8, so we headed back to the hostel to take power naps and do a little research about where to go and what to do in Barcelona. the waiter at our tapas bar told us that Barceloneta was the place to be on a Friday night, so we decided we'd head there for the night. we left our hostel at around 10.
we settled on a place to eat at around 11:30, which is SO late for dinner but totally normal for Spaniards. once again, we had tapas. the great thing about tapas is you can order 4-5 dishes and share, and that way you can try some of everything!!
fried artichokes - so salty and crispy
from the top: the best clams, literally small whole fried fish, patatas bravas
we also had this really good white wine called k-naia 2011 that was sweet and semi-dry. we finished a bottle very quickly. we finished dinner around 12:30AM and headed out to the clubs. not really sure which one to pick, we decided to go to the one that promised us free champagne inside. it was fairly horrible champagne, but they were good on their word! we danced the night away then headed home fairly late at night.
this is a good time to discuss our hostel. we stayed at Casa Gracia, which was a really positive experience. the hostel was helpful and accommodating and the staff were so nice! our room was spacious and clean and the beds were really comfy. breakfast was provided, which was awesome. I can't speak for any of the activities and programs they put on since we didn't take part in any of them, but I liked that they created a communal space for hostel-stayers. the bathroom was clean and the shower was way nicer than the one at my room in Rome! although the hostel itself was nice, we were in a 6-person room that already had one occupant living in it. he was a pretty strange guy from Switzerland that was traveling by himself, and the weirdest thing was that he had a huge gaping wound going around the circumference of his wrist. anyway, we mostly avoided him.
Las Ramblas street. a busy shopping and sightseeing street, but watch out for pickpocketers. FC Barca had a huge rival game against Madrid on Sunday, hence all the jerseys and spirit
I really loved Barcelona. The city was clean and modern, the streets were also clean and not full of dangerous cobblestones, their public transportation was easy, and their people were nice (and the boys so cute). I found myself wishing I'd studied abroad there, instead of Rome, but that was before my iPhone was stolen. I'm getting there, though.
After breakfast, we headed down to Las Ramblas street to get to the Picasso museum. Las Ramblas is a main road that empties out into the main plaza, Plaza Catalunya, and the area is notorious for rampant pickpocketing. Pickpocketing and theft is a real issue in Barcelona. When I was going to Rome, I was told over and over to watch out for theft, but I've found that as long as I'm not an idiot (aka not putting my wallet down on a counter and turning around, or not sticking a passport in my back pocket on a bus) I've been just fine and I have always felt safe. Barcelona is a whole 'nother story. It's the wild wild wild west out there! I think I clutched my bag and had it zipped constantly. On Las Ramblas we did a little souvenir shopping for FC Barcelona gear and postcards, then wound our way through side streets until we found the Picasso museum. On our way there we stopped into a fantastic candy and confectionary shop that I wish I could have stayed in forever. They had really yummy fruit-flavored lollipops.
The Picasso museum was amazing! It mostly showcased his earlier works. It was pretty cool to see that he was had total technical mastery of his subjects, which is why his later Cubism and Modernist works are still cohesive and aesthetically pleasing. I had also never seen his sculpture and pottery before. Very cool.
After the museum we headed back down Las Ramblas to the Boqueria market. The market was packed with people and had stalls selling all sorts of food! There were fresh fruit stalls, candy stalls, spices and condiments, fish stalls, and the weirdest was the creepy meats. There were lots of stalls selling tripe (umm... it looked fuzzy?) and brains and tongues and livers and whole heads of sheep and chicken with the eyeballs still in. I took pictures, but since I look at this blog a lot I didn't want to continue to torture myself with the gruesome pictures. My favorite stall was the fresh fruit stalls that sold fruit juices and fruit ice pops.
more packed than some of the clubs we were in
so much fresh fruit!!!
I may have died and gone to heaven
strawberry ice pop. I could have eaten a hundred of these, there wasn't any sugar added and they were delicious!!!
After La Boqueria, we decided to hit one more site before siesta time. I was determined to see La Sagrada Familia, and it was not disappointing. It's massively intimidating from the outside, and as an art history student who has seen a lot of medieval and Renaissance churches it was jarring to see post-modern furnishings on the exterior of a church (like colored fruits atop spires and iguanas crawling out of sides of windows) but it was so cohesive and beautiful. I was in awe, and that was before I saw the inside.
my first impression was that the building was melting
I got goosebumps over and over again. its beauty is beyond words.
La Sagrada Familia is the one place I know for sure I would go back to again. It's incredible.
After the church, we were quite tired and we came back to the hostel where I almost immediately passed out. Once I came to, I showered and we headed out the door again for dinner at around 10. The first place we wanted to go to was packed and there was no way we'd be able to sit down, so we wandered around the nearby area trying to find something to eat but none of the places we saw really appealed to us. Desperate and starving, we stumbled into a tapas bar/restaurant called LOFT212, and it was one of my best dining experiences! The waitstaff were so friendly and nice and helpful, the drinks were stiff and plentiful, and the food was different and more importantly, delicious. We were one of three parties inside at that time, and we had such attentive service and way too much fun. We asked our waiter for what he thought was the best, and the following pictures are of what we were given.
blood sausage. no actual blood involved, SO delicious.
this was one of the best things I've ever eaten in my entire life. crispy fried potatoes, some sort of spicy sauce and creamy mayo. oh my gosh. I'll dream about this one for a long, long time.
sushi!!!!! the tuna was fresh and melted in my mouth. yum.
our really charming waiter. he liked us because we told him Spanish men were better looking than Italian men!
in short, we had a very very good dining experience. there was also a fried cheese that we tried. for drinks we had a pitcher of sangria, plus a dessert cocktail that had Bailey's in it. then as a treat for us he brought out Irish coffee which I think was about half whiskey. whew. everything was so delicious and it was 10x better because the service was so good!
after LOFT212 we headed to Espit Chupitos, which is a bar that specializes in crazy shots. there's a wall menu with over 200 kinds of shots and there's a gimmick to each one. for example, the Boy Scout shot entails roasting marshmallows over the flaming shot before you drink it. other shots involve lighting things on fire, including your fingers (!!). I did a few special ones that unfortunately can never go public. let me just say my dignity remains somewhere on the floor in Espit Chupitos.
shots on fire at Espit Chupitos
After Espit Chupitos, we went to Razzmatazz, a big club in Barcelona. we had tickets to see Little Boots, but we never quite made it to the show because not twenty minutes inside the club my iPhone got stolen. ugh. I didn't really hold it together and called my parents really upset, so that effectively ended our night. getting back was a major adventure that I don't want to forget but also don't want to extensively describe on this very public blog, so I am going to make a series of bullet points that will make sense to only a few people. sorry to the rest of you, if you ask I'll tell you the story.
- Mackenzie taking all my things out of my bag
- The first cab ride - tissues and 50 Euro
- The second cab ride - the driver was my new BFF and he dropped us off really, really far
- The third cab ride
- Mackenzie taking all of Maggie's things out of her bag
- "I do it all the time, literally, it's so easy you just clean it right up"
we got back at 4:30AM and slept until 9:55, when we realized checkout was at 10:00 and made a mad dash to collect our stuff and get outta there. the plane ride home was mostly comatose.
in short, Barcelona was awesome. we ate a ton of really good food, we danced a lot, and made friends with some foreign boys. I saw some beautiful architecture, enjoyed fresh fruit and yummy candies, and got to explore the city on foot. we came, we saw, we were totally conquered by Barcelona.
You look so pretty! And all this food is making me so hungry, yum... If you ever need justification to eat a second helping, eat it for me!
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