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Published: April 14th 2010
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One of CaudÃ's famous houses My lovely travel buddy Deanna and I decided we’d had enough of our roommates, and life in Granada, so we took a little weekend trip to Barcelona. We had a late flight out of Granada, so we didn’t arrive at our hostel till about 10:30. We checked in and went to go unpack before grabbing a drink. We walk into our room, and our roommates were taking a nap, so we were trying to be quiet. One woke up and said hello so I started talking to him, then his friend woke up. They didn’t speak Spanish or much English, but so I asked them where they were from. They’re from Italy (they would be). Their names are Luka and Mauro, but I will refer to them as the Italian Stallions. They continued to tag along with us for the rest of their time there, but they were only our roommates for one night, then the cute couple from Singapore moved in.
On our first full day, we took advantage of the free Gaudí walking tour. This tour took us to see all of Gaudí’s houses that he designed and to see his unfinished masterpiece, Sagrada Familia. Sagrada Familia is a
massive unfinished cathedral. It is quite impressive. Gaudí died in an unfortunate bus accident (he literally got hit by a bus), but they are still trying to finish it. They say that it should be finished in about 50 years. However, if you ask me I don’t think it will ever be finished. It will just be one of those mysterious unfinished masterpieces.
After the Gaudí tour we invited the Italian Stallions to grab lunch, then they went to the beach and we went farther out of town to see Park Güel, one of Gaudí’s famous parks. It was quite the hike up a mountain to get there but it was gorgeous! It had a bunch of architectural pieces by Gaudí, and trees! I still get very excited when we travel to places that have a lot of greenery. Granada really is a desert. The weather was also gorgeous while we were in Barcelona. Sunny and in the 70’s every day!
We quickly found out that Barcelona is significantly more expensive than Granada. We’re talking 9 euro for a mojito or 7 euro for half a liter of beer! Another thing about Barcelona is that they don’t speak Spanish, the
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If you love architecture, Barcelona is for you speak Catalán. Catalán is mixture of Spanish and French. It is not a form of Spanish; it is a completely separate language. I could probably understand it if I read it, but I can’t understand it when spoken. Barcelona is very touristy though so most everyone speaks English, and they look at you funny when you speak to them in Spanish. Spain in general has four separate languages.
The following day we went on a walking tour of the Gothic district. Our tour guide reminded me of Indigo Montoya from “The Princess Bride.” I believe his name was Gorka (or something around those lines). It was scary how similar they were. If you’ve seen the movie you’ll know what I’m talking about. My favorite fun fact that I learned on this tour was that it is perfectly legal to walk through the streets naked. You just have to be wearing shoes. So if you ever find yourself in Barcelona and you feel the urge to be naked in the streets. No problem man, drop trow. Just make sure you’re wearing shoes. Later that day we went to the beach. This beach was very crowded, but nice. The water was too
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Not Caudà cold to go swimming, but I am always a happy camper when there is a beach involved. We spent the better part of the afternoon there. Later that night was a big fútbol match between Madrid and Barcelona. This is huge rivalry, and I was told that if Barcelona wins (which they were expected to) there would be major parties/ riots in the streets. We grabbed some dinner, and then went searching for a “cheap” bar. We finally found a bar (not cheap, but by that point we stopped caring). The streets were dead by this point. But you could tell the instant that Barcelona won, instantly there were hundreds of people in the streets. I’m not a big fan of soccer, but when you’re in Spain you are, and you better not be rooting for the wrong team.
The next day was check out day. We had to be out of the hostel by 11, but our flight wasn’t until 8 PM. So we put our backpacks in a locker and hit the streets. The first thing we did was go to the Picasso Museum. It was a nice museum, but you could tell that he was going crazy
in his later works. After that we still had hours to burn so we went to Mount Juic. This is another park closer to the beach. Buy this point we were exhausted. We had no motivation to do anything. I was starting to get a cold, our feet hurt, and we were without a hostel. I’m sure we looked like quite the sight. Two girls moping around the park ready to pass out in any patch of grass we could find. So we decided to take the monorail up to the top of the mountain. It took us about an hour to get enough motivation to do this (even after about 5 coffees). It was a gorgeous view of all of Barcelona and the Mediterranean. After that we descended the mountain, and still had time to burn, but we decided we’d be better off spending it at the airport. I really loved Barcelona. It is completely different then the cities in Andalucía, and there is so much to do and see. Three day’s really wasn’t enough. We did everything and then some, but we were exhausted in the end.
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Auntie Kasha
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Katie - how I love reading your blogs - I feel like I am there with you - have you ever thought of being a writer - your blogs are very desciptive coupled with your sense of humor they are a pleasure to read. I can't believer that little Katie who cried at summer bible camp is now touring around Europe. Love Auntie Kasha P.S. LOVE your pictures