A Weekend in Barcelona

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The past few weeks have been busy, in more ways than one. I have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the job though it is a long work schedule, it is more the lack of support or team work amongst members of staff. I have started looking for new work and in the meantime have a much needed visitor from back home and a planned weekend in Barcelona.
We arrived on Saturday after taking the slow train and by the time we'd found the hostel and gone out for sightseeing the gloom of twilight was already making sightseeing a little difficult. We took the metro to the Arc de Triomf and visited Parc Ciutadella. Around the Arc de Triomf was busy with locals out walking and jogging, kids on bikes and rollerblades and street performers along the edges. It was dark by the time reached the park itself but still busy. I proudly pointed out 'my' palm tree where I sat to eat lunch every day whilst studying at International House. We stopped to watch a man with a clever frog puppet, brilliantly wired so its fingers actually played the minature piano in front of it. and then wandered by the fountains before going in search of food. We wound up in a pizza restaurant very familiar from 2 years ago and then returned to the hostel.
Today's sightseeing started at the football stadium... yes, me in a football stadium, unbelievable. We took the metro to as close to the stadium as we could manage, which isn't really that close. After a fair amount of wandering we reached the stadium, my boyfriend leaping baout very excitedly. The entrance fee was expensive but when someone comes from England to do my shopping and cook and clean for me because I'm half dead with exhuastion they definitely deserve to choose the itinerary on the days off. So we paid to gain entrance to the museum and picked up our audio guides. My first comment was 'oooh the trophies are shiny' which prompted my boyfriend to disown me but I actually enjoyed the lecture on the early history.
The club was first formed October 1899 when Joan Gamper placed an advertisement in Los Deportes declaring his wish to form a football club. Hans-Max Gamper was born in Switzerland and in 1898 went to visit his uncle, Emili Gaissert, who was living in Barcelona. Gamper was en route to Africa to become involved with sugar trading companies but after falling in love with Barcelona decided to remain, learning the Catalan language and changing his name to the Catalan form. In 1908 Gamper became president of the club he helped form.
Construction of the new stadium, Camp Nou began in 1954 and took three years to complete. It seats 99,354, making it the largest stadium in Europe.
We walked down through the changing rooms had a photo opportunity with one of the large trophies before walking down onto the pitch. We were able to climb up through the seats and even to the top commentator's box before walking to the upper floor of the museum which was basically film displays of parts of matches and a strange art display of tiny picture frames containing photos of every player from Barca's history.
Eventually we left and I was quite impresed I'd survived two hours of football! We hopped back on the metro and passed some time along Las Ramblas watching the various street acts and then stopping to clamber around Columbus Column and take photos with the lions. There was a large antique market set up along the road which we wandered through before plonking ourselves down by the dock to relax and decide our next move.
As evening drew in we arrived at Park Guell. We walked through Gaudi's arches and climbed up to the balcony. The park was still quite crowded despite the late hour and as it grew darker we decided to start winding our way back to the hostel. Still it was a nice time to sit in the park and under the balcony was a violinist playing while tourists meandered between the pillars.
Today we had a grand plan to visit La Sagrada Familia, especially since the Pope was in Barcelona yesterday at the cathedral and the area for miles around was filled with crowds and police. Unfortunately all the other tourists seemed to have had the same idea as us and the usually large queue around La Sagrada Familia had grown to mammoth proportions, as wide as the pavement and stretching to an almost complete circle. Meanwhile the weather had turned cold grey and depressing and decided to just take photos from the outside and then move on.
We took the metro back towards Placa Catalunya and went for dinner along Las Ramblas before strolling the streets and plaza in the slightly improving weather. Eventually we admitted we'd rather get back to Balaguer early enough to curl up in front of the television and eat at home and left to get the train back.

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Comments

[liliram]

Hi there
Love ur photo in Parc Guell! Great your blogging away again! Cheers.