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Published: January 25th 2008
We woke up before the alarm went off, not because of our immense excitement But because of my cold that kept me awake most of the night. I was pretty much packed but Rob still had bits to do with the electronics so I left him to it and pottered around downstairs instead. In my usual fashion I spent a while checking and rechecking packing lists and ensured Rob had a constant countdown of the time left. We even managed to fit in a sit down breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and orange juice. Around eleven we left the house and walked up to the top of the road to catch the bus to the airport.
Blackpool airport has to be one of the smallest in the country, even a complete novice would feel comfortable. Both of our bags were under 15kg and we checked in no problems. We had a bit of a wait, so we whipped out the travel monopoly and had a bit of a game. I was distracted slightly by the stories i'd been told about how painful it is to fly with a blocked nose and so was desperately attempting to use vicks to
little avail.
The flight was ok, nice and short. We both suffered with our stuffy noses, but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. That's the last time I read articles about perforated eardrums just before flying. We arrived at Girona half an hour early and breezed through customs and baggage etc. A bus was waiting to take us to Barcelona for €21 each return. Ouch.
Upon arrival at Barcelona's main station, we quickly found the correct direction using our new compass. (a very welcome addition to our stuff) we walked through the Arc de Triumpf and towards the hostel. You can tell we are no longer off the beaten track because no one batted an eyelid at us treking down the highstreet with backpacks on.
Centric point hostel has a fantastic location and is definitely different from other hostels we have been in. We are in a 12 bed dorm which is fairly cramped but for now at least there's no one else in it. By approximately 8pm we had made our beds and looked around so we left the hostel to explore.
The Ramblas isn't too far from our hostel so we walked down
that. It wasn't quite the picturesque street that I envisioned from descriptions in guidebooks with the constant traffic running either side of the cobbles. We kept on getting tempted off the main road by alluring little streets with narrow passageways and secretive little bars hidden away. The top of the Ramblas leads to the port which we recognised from pictures we have seen. We walked around the port area and stopped to look at the fish that were illuminated by lights from the bridge.
Eventually we decided we should grab something to eat before everything shut. We saw lots of set menus in restaurants on the Ramblas but not much that tempted us. We were going to settle on a Falafal pita, but the place really didn't look nice. Around ten we realised it was getting too late to eat, so we dived into a restaurant with the cheapest offer on the Ramblas. We both had the vegetarian paella with sangria which wasn't terrible at all. We had a laugh at the cliché of sitting on the Ramblas eating the typical food and drinking the typical drink.
Back at the hostel we stepped into the common room for
a beer and a bit of planning for our stay in Barcelona. It turns out that there is plenty we want to do here and fitting it all in may be a problem. We're off to bed now and i'm hoping i'll sleep off my cold. Night Night. Stob.
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Fishies!!
I saw the fishies too :) http://tackycheese.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=7521 and the fountains, yay; http://tackycheese.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=7878 There was an odd show going on at the time though, can't remember what it was, think it was farm equipment or something equally as random. Anyhooooooo, tara!