oh how nice it was to be back in spain! and to have only two days left of traveling (we were pretty worn out by this point, especially after the night of little sleep).
landing in barcelona it was a relief to finally have signs in spanish again, although it followed the catalán words (the official language of the area, which i wanted nothing to do with)
our ryanair flight took us into barcelona girona airport, so we had an hour or so shuttle to the main bus station in the city. the bus station sat right next to barcelona's own arc de triomphe, so we saw that and then made our way walking to the hostel (again not choosing to use any form of public/private transportation)
the hostel was right off the passeig de gracia, which is a main street of barcelona and fun to walk down. at the cross street stood a gigantic bilboard of a man's face with brilliant blue eyes, so for the rest of the trip the boys always reminded us to turn when we saw the hot guy. my friend shayla trained back to sevilla from paris, leaving me alone with four ridiculous boys. oh joy.
the hostel was wonderful (3/3 for me). we had a private four-person room with nice beds, nice linens, and its own window balcony looking over the passieg de gracia (if thats not worth 20 euro i don't know what is)
the boys being boys were tired and decided they were just going to sleep for the rest of the day. but me being me would not think of wasting 1 of 2 days in barcelona sleeping so i called my friend from sevilla, jenny, who was visiting barcelona with her parents and two brothers.
i took the metro to the stop for parc guell, a huge park constructed by the architect gaudi. then proceeded to walk the wrong way from the stop about forty-five minutes and wound up at the very top of the park overlooking barcelona (you're supposed to just walk to the bottom entrance). so i saw the amazing view and then wandered down the winding steps and paths until i found jenny and her family. its definitely nice to be with a family, even if it can't be yours, just to get that family-feel and her parents are really nice, as well as her brothers. one is a freshman in college and the other is in 7th grade, so a fun family dyanmic. we walked around the park a bit. the two main attractions are two "gingerbread houses" designed by gaudi at the start of the park and a mosaic lizard that lies along a stairway. in a sense the park looks very dr. seuss-esque.
from there we metroed down to barceloneta, barcelona's harbor. it was beautiful. tons of boats and yachts, boardwalks, little shop tents, and restaurants. then jenny's cousin who is our age and studying in barcelona met up with us along with her parents and younger sister. so it was just me and the fams. we went to a restaurant for drinks since they had late reservations for dinner and had fun talking about our travels and semesters abroad.
then we went to my one of my favorite attractions of barcelona, a fountain show that i believe was in the plaza de espana. this giant fountain changes colors and "dances" to the music. very much reminded me of fantasia, the animated disney music movie. then met up with my boys, got some dinner (a delicious balsamic salad with fruit, cheese, avocado, and tomato, which i'd been craving) and called it an early night, which i desperately needed and the boys didn't mind one bit.
saturday:
walked down passeig de gracia to plaza catalunya (main plaza in barcelona) and then all the way down las ramblas (famous pedestrian street). las ramblas is filled with vendors, street statues of people in varying degrees of creative costumes, and tons and tons of people. the street dead ends into barcelona harbor so i walked around that once again, which was fine by me. this time we walked along a boardwalk that goes out into the harbor. tried to find a park, but after much time spent wandering decided that a park's a park and we should move on. in the mean time we happened upon the beach and saw the ocean, which was nice.
we managed to find the closest metro and took that to la sagrada familia, gaudi's very famous and very unfinished church. it was amazing to see. the architecture is so different from anything else, and the two sides of the church look completely different. the one reminding me of shots of the titanic underwater hundreds of years later. we walked from the sagrada familia to another section of the city known for its architecture and saw another one of gaudi's famous buildings, the other being right across from our hostel.
then after a little dunkin' coffee pick me up and a little time spent on a bench, we made our way to the gothic quarter to wander around. in this area we partook in a great game of bench hopping, in which we'd stroll for a while until we found a nice bench spot, sit there for a rest, and then continue on.
when it started to get cold (apparently it was the worst weather barcelona had had since january) we went back to the common room of the hostel to rest/read/do puzzles.
when the boys went to dinner i met up with my good friend jon fasoli for a cup of tea and some long overdue chattting. charming i know. before i knew it two hours had passed by and i had to meet the boys at the bus stop to head to the airport.
we once again declined to book a hostel since our flight was at 6AM and since the first shuttle bus to the airport is at 5AM we had to take the midnight bus. this i won't even complain about, because sleeping in the lovely barcelona airport was nothing compared to paris. unfortunately we weren't allowed through security until 4AM so instead of sleeping on the chairs at the gate we found some cozy tile in front of security to camp out. the few hours passed fairly quick and then we were through security, to the gate, shuttled to the plane (terrible system), on board, slept the whole flight, and HOME TO SEVILLA.
ran to catch the 7:45AM shuttle to downtown sevilla since they only come every hour on sundays, only to see it pulling away (adventure #311). didn't matter. we were in sevilla, sitting in the cool morning sun, knowing we would be back to our homestays in an hour.
so good to be "home" and to have such a nice homestay and nice host parents that i can look forward to doing so. i took a long shower to wash away the travels of the trip and sat down for damian's classic breakfast of a baguette with jam and a large mug of coffee.
le echaba de menos sevilla (i missed you sevilla)
but the end of the trip meant three days until my parents would arrive :) and then morocco :) and then budapest/prague :) and from there the rest should progress in no time :) / :( so many fun things left to do, and great people to do those fun things with. but when all that's said and done it will be great to get back to all my great people in madison and the states
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