Advertisement
Published: July 21st 2007
Edit Blog Post
Hi Everyone!! Hope everyone had a good weekend!! I LOVED Barcelona... the weather was fantastic and the city absolutely beautiful!! The city actually reminds me a lot of California... palm trees, mountains, beach, busy city, plus some really cool architecture.
Let's see if I can recap the weekend so far
Friday we got up early and headed to La Sagrada Familia... it´s this beautiful church that's still undergoing construction... very gothic, designed by a man named Gaudi. The stained glass windows inside were big and bright... although strangely enough you couldn´t really see the color from the outside. We also saw a man working inside on some of the church, which was really cool to see as well. After seeing the church we walked around the area a bit more, as there was a lot of Gaudi architecture around (although we weren´t really positive as to which ones were which!). We then headed over to a park, Park Guell, which one of my coworkers told me was a must see. She was absolutely right!! INCREDIBLY gorgeous!! Again, more Gaudi stuff... the entrance was gorgeous, with lots of mosaic and a fountain and steps that led to go higher
into the park. As we went higher into the park, we were able to see the "world´s longest bench", which was all mosaic as well, very very cool!! Afterwards we headed to the beach and for the first time this summer I was able to get some sun!! I also went for a run while we there which was quite refreshing on the beach 😊 The beach was quite an experience... I guess over here it's normal to sunbathe topless. So in essence, I saw a lot of what I didn't particularly want to see... but guess there's not much you can do about that. There were also a lot of people selling stuff on the beach... beer, donuts, crisps, massages (or as the lady said, "massagies")... it was all illegal to sell on the beach, so they all had them in bags or had towels around their necks to wrap over their goods if a cop came. haha. After the beach we went to have some Sangria, which is like wine with fruit in it, and some tapas (which are basically appetizers). We had some potato things that tasted like french frieds but had a special sauce on them,
and these croquettes that i'm still not really sure what were in them... cheese maybe?? ha. Once we finished our sangria and tapas we headed home and took a little "siesta" (nap) and then showered and got ready to go out. The night life here is quite fun, but very strange because here, people eat dinner around 9 or 10 pm and actually go out around midnight. It's normal for people to stay out until like 6 in the morning!!!!! So anyways, we went out pretty late but were still the first ones there, but had a great time dancing the night away to some good music! On our way home we met some really nice Italians as well as a cute Swiss couple. We ended up seeing them several more times throughout the weekend which was quite strange but cool at the same time!
On Saturday we went to the Old City where we went to Placa Saint Jaume, Plaza Reiall, and then to the Cathedral, which unfortunately we were unable to go in because we were wearing tanktops (which you would've thought I'd have learned my lesson after Sacre Coeur, but hey, it was a hot day!!)
We did a little shopping and then went to the Museo Picasso, which was really cool... there were several pictures of him and a lot of his artwork that went from when he was young up until his later years. I really enjoyed seeing all of it, very interesting to me. After that we went back to the beach for a while, where we met up with the Italians and Swiss couple again... what a small world we live in!! We also ended up meeting a few people from France and ended up going to dinner with one of them. It was fun because when we met the Italians, Kara (my friend who came with me) knew a little Italian to communicate with them but I felt a little lost since I knew pretty much nothing... but when we talked with the French people I could actually understand some stuff and they said that I had a good accent! haha. (They were probably just being nice!) Anyways, we ate dinner on La Rambla, which is a long pedestrian street where there are many shops and restaurants, mimes, tango dancers, you name it... I ate another Spanish dish that is pretty famous here called Vegetable Paella, which was pretty much vegetables, rice, and some spices.... mmmm, very delicious! After saying goodbye to our French friend we headed to the club and had another great night! It's so funny, sometimes they would play songs in English and the people will just belt them out, even though they can barely put together a sentence in English!! I don't get it!! haha.
Sunday morning we managed to wake up and headed over to Montjuic, where there is a palace, beautiful gardens, the Olympic Stadium, etc. Absolutely brilliant!!! I was in awe of the scenery and the view, I felt like I was in a movie!! After going there we headed to La Rambla, picked up a few more souvenirs and watched some Tango dancers that were quite good!
Unfortunately we had to head home after that... but it was such an incredible weekend, we saw so many beautiful sights, met so many great people from all over the world, and just enjoyed every single minute of it!! Our hostel was nice, too, which was good because I was a little nervous since it was the first one I've ever stayed in... very clean, breakfast every morning, free internet access, I felt very safe, and the front desk staff was very friendly and helpful. Also in a great location, right off of La Rambla. The weather was fantastic, hot and actually felt like summer, although there were a few clouds every now and then. But at least I got a little bit of a tan! I felt like a lot of people spoke English there, because it is very much a touristy city. Everyone was so nice... even though our hostel wasn't too fun people wise, we met SO many people all weekend I couldn't believe it!!! I really didn't want to leave, such a beautiful, fun, fantastic city!!!
Went back to work today. All things are going well there. Nothing too eventful, just the ordinary work stuff! Some of us are going bowling together on Thursday so that should be fun too!! Tomorrow night I'm going to see Othello at the Shakespeare Globe Theatre, which I am very excited for, and then on Wednesday night I'm going to see a classical music concert in Royal Albert Hall. Spending this weekend in London, which will be nice to get to see what I haven't gotten in yet while being here. I'm very sad that this is my last weekend in London... I grow to love this place more and more every day and thinking about going back to the states makes me very sad. It will be nice to see my friends and family, but I just love it here so much and have been having such an amazing time... I honestly couldn't have asked for a better summer!!! Well I need to get to bed, I have to get up in like, 6 hours... whoops!!! GOodnight everyone, cheers!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.053s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.031s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb