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Welcome to Europe!
Picking Lyndsay up at the airportWe know that you have all been anxiously waiting by your computers and checking your email inbox hourly just to hear the exciting conclusion of our last blog. So, just to refresh your memory on our dilemma, here's a quick recap:
Rob and I arrived in Narbonne to find out that all of the trains in France going to Barcelona had been cancelled due to a strike within French Railways that had started that morning. We searched out as many options as we could think of to get to Barcelona - bus, car rental, flight, etc. and none were available.
And now to continue where we left off. . .
It was really begining to look like we were not going to make it to Barcelona in time to pick Lyndsay up from the airport. I started freaking out and imagining the worst possible situations like Lyndsay having to sleep on the airport floor for a few days until we found her, her getting kidnapped, or her attempting to wander the streets and get lost forever. My Mom's voice kept ringing through my head "don't forget Lyndsay at the airport! Make sure you are at the airport to pick up
The Sagrada Familia
It looks even larger in person! Lyndsay! You had better not forget about Lyndsay! Don't forget to take your vitamins!" I decided to email home just in case we didn't make it to Barcelona on time to tell Lyndsay to just wait at the airport, because we would eventually make it that day (hopefully).
After a couple hours of sitting and waiting in the train station we decided to ask a different railway offical if there were any possible ways to get to Spain. She quickly told us to get on this last train to Perpignan, which is a little closer to the Spainish border where there should be a bus that would take us to Barcelona. We hopped on and hoped our luck would change.
When we arrived in Perpignan we ran to get in line at the information desk to find out where to catch the bus to Barcelona. This is where we found out there were no more buses going to Barcelona that day and we would be forced to spend the night here. This is when our stress levels went through the roof! While standing in line we heard a couple Australian girls, who were also trying to get to
Lynz and I
Inside the Sagrada Familia Barcelona, ask about another bus that would take them to another town that was even closer to the Spanish border. Knowing that all we needed to do was cross the border and from there we could take any train to Barcelona, we decided to attempt to inch our way closer and tag along.
While waiting for the bus, which wouldn't be leaving for another couple of hours, two guys, who were also trying to get to Barcelona, approched us asking if we wanted to share a cab with them to get across the border. They had already talked to a cab driver who had agreed to the price of 110 euros. Since this was a sure way to get across the border we decided to spend the extra money. The four of us loaded up our stuff and were on our way. As we were leaving Perpignan, both Rob and I had thoughts of this being a possible set-up, and as soon as they found a good spot they'd pull over and take us for everything we had. I didn't know until after the cab ride was over that Rob was thinking the same thing, as neither of us
City of Barcelona
View from one of the towers in the Sagrada Familia wanted to worry the other.
As we finally approached the border, Rob and I looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief, saying "we're going to make it!" We were feeling on top of the world at this point! We were going to make it Barcelona in time to meet Lyndsay at the airport without incident. However, once we got to the front of the line, a police officer threw one last small obstacle at us... he told us that a truck was on fire on the Spanish side, and we would have to take a different route into Spain. So close! Yet so far. . . We turned around and eventually made our way into Spain. The cab driver dropped us all off in Figueres, where we could catch a train to Barcelona. We had to pay an extra 5 euros each for the unexpected detour.
Finally some good news, the next train to Barcelona would be leaving in about 10 minutes. I made a quick collect call home (hopefully it didn't cost too much) to let everyone know that we would definitely be at the airport in time. We caught the train and arrived
Go Barca Go!
Cheering in the stands during the game in Barcelona a couple hours later.
After a long and stressful day of traveling we spent that night relaxing in the hostel with a bottle of our first cheap, and much needed, Spanish wine. This day had easily been the most stressful of our whole trip, and yes, that includes India.
We woke the next day and spent the morning and early afternoon finishing the last blog. Later that afternoon, we anxiously left for the airport to pick up Lynz. Since we got to the airport early we decided to grab a beer and make her a "Welcome to Sarah and Rob's Super Fantastic European Adventure" sign. At 4:30pm, her expected arrival time, we grabbed a "welcome to Europe beer" and we went to the gate where we waited impatiently to see her come through the doors.
About half an hour or so went by and still no Lyndsay. Most of the people around us, who were also waiting for loved ones, had already left. Yet, there we were, sign, and now warm beer, in hand. Just as I was begining to worry, Lyndsay walked through the doors. Rob and I started cheering and began frantically waving
Street Celebrations!
Parading in the streets after the game the sign! After our quick reunion we left to catch the train to go to our hostel and began catching up.
That night was the Champions League Final, which is bascially the best of the best soccer in Europe, and Barcelona was playing against Manchester United. The actual game was being held in Rome, but there were big screens put up all over the city to show the game. We decided to join thousands of Barcelona fans and watch the game in one of the stadiums. Just to show our support for the team we decided to buy some jerseys as well. In our usual fashion we made it to the stadium moments before the game started. Our hostel had told us that it was free to watch the game here, but as it turned out only paying fan club members were allowed in. So, we decided to buy some tickets from a scalper for 5 euros each and made our way inside!
The stands were filled with screaming and chanting fans all waving flags, and this was before the game even started! We managed to find some seats and joined in on the excitement. For us it
Candid Shot
Wandering the streets while Rob is camera-happy. felt as though we were watching a Rider game in Taylor Field back home. The whole stadium was going crazy the whole time and didn't let up for a moment. When Barcelona scored their first goal the place nearly exploded! They were singing songs, yelling chants, jumping and madly waving their flags! We didn't know any of the words to the chants, but that didn't stop Rob from trying. He would just make sounds that sounded close to what everyone else was yelling. At one point, I even saw the girl sitting in front of us turn around and laugh at him, but he obviously didn't care and kept on yelling "Lah lah LAAAH lah. . . !"
For those of you who didn't see the game, Barcelona won 2-0 and that's when the fans really went wild! Everyone flooded out into the streets, creating a sea of red and blue. We decided to follow the crowd through the streets of Barcelona as they were jumping and dancing, stopping cars, and playing drums all while chanting at the top of their lungs. There was only one part of the chanting we understood and could join in on which was
The Casa Mila
It's actually an apartment complex yelling "Barca, Barca, BAAAARRRRCA!" Rob and I were yelling this as loud as we could and felt like real Spaniards! Lynz, however, was a little more reserved than we were.
The parading crowd eventually made their way to the metro station where we all piled into a subway. The party continued where everyone was chanting and jumping up and down to the point where even the subway was rocking. We got off at and unknown stop with the rest of the crowd where everyone seemed to split up. Since it was going on 1am, and Lynz hadn't slept in a long time, we decided to call it a night and go back to the hostel. This had been one hell of big day for all of us, and a definite European kick in the ass for Lyndsay as her first day.
We all awoke to cars still honking and people still chanting as the celebrations continued. For us, that day would be our first day of sightseeing in Barcelona. We planned on seeing the famous Sagrada Familia, along with several other architectural masterpieces by Antoni Gaudi. Building for the Sagrada Familia Church began in 1883 and isn't expected
to be finished for at least another 50 years. What makes this church stand out so much, other than its size, is that Gaudi got most of his inspiration from the beauty of nature. Also, while we were exploring this amazing church we ended up running into the two Australian girls who were also stranded at the train station in Perpignan. Small world, eh?
Other buildings designed by Gaudi we saw that day were the Casa Mila and the Block of Discord. Later on, we were going to head to the Picasso Musuem, but instead I suggested we go to La Ramblas, which was where the bulk of the celebrations took place the night before. When we arrived there was a large crowd gathering around the Columbus Monument and many people were still wearing their Barcelona jerseys. We joined in the crowd who was, not surprisingly, still chanting, and soon found out that the Barcelona soccer team was going to be parading down the street any moment. As we waited, the crowd grew and grew to the point where it seemed like the entire population of Barcelona was surrounding us.
After over an hour of waiting, we heard
Lynz's First Picnic
On a concrete bench in Park Guell the crowd roar before we could even see the team bus. As the bus grew near the people around us started screaming and jumping up and down. The team rode by on top of a double decker bus, with "We Are the Champions" blaring while everyone sang along. An Estrella Dam (Spanish beer) bus followed the team shooting out confetti into the crowd.
By this time it was later in the evening and we were all starving and tired from all the walking that day. Because of the large crowds the subways were once again packed with people and there were huge lines to even get into the metro. We decided to take advantage of this opportunity to see Las Ramblas area, which was when we all really fell in love with the city. We walked through the narrow pedestrian-only cobble stone streets browsing the trendy shops, the many tempting bakeries, and gelato stands. The area had a very laid back, yet lively vibe to it, giving all of us a reason to come back.
That night we all just relaxed at the hostel with oven-baked pizza and a couple bottles of wine. Rob and I began our
Having Some Fun
Hanging out at Park Guell quest to have Lynz develope a taste for wine, but with little to no progress. Oh well, more for us!
The next day we decided to visit a park designed by Antoni Gaudi, where we would have a picnic. We picked up a bottle of white wine (hoping Lynz might like it better than the red from the night before), a fresh baguette, some strawberries, a wedge of brie, and a bag of Cheetos. After climbing what seemed like an eternity of stairs, we finally made it to Park Guell. The park was filled with palm trees, cactus, and random bits of creative architecture. It was absolutely stunning, despite the fact that there wasn't even a single patch of grass for us to have our picnic on. After a bit of aimless wandering we settled on using a large concrete bench for our picnic site. It was nice, but it didn't have the same effect, especially with a constant flow of people walking beside us and staring at us. Sidenote: a few days later we found out that in Spain it's actually illegal to drink in public. . . whoops.
Later on, as we were leaving the park,
The Crowd Builds
Waiting for the Barcalona soccer team to come home we came across a large patch of grass that would have been perfect for our picnic. We decided to take part in a Spanish custom and have a siesta in the grass. Rob ended up falling asleep for a little while with only his legs in the sun, and woke up with a brutal sunburn. . . on half of one leg, with a very distinct burn line. Rob called himself Two-Face for the remainder of the day.
That night we decided to take part in another Spanish custom: tapas. Tapas are miniature appetizers, where you typically order several different kinds and share at your table. Once again, being vegetarians makes our lives difficult. After searching around and reading several menus we were ready to give up. So we did, and decided to try the nearest Chinese restaurant we could find. There, we had mediocre food, but at least we were provided with free entertainment: prostitutes fighting over territory (we think) right outside the restaurant doors.
On the way home we picked up a couple beers and figured we'd spend the night relaxing as we had an early train the next morning. While enjoying a cold brew, Lynz
remembered that we had forgot to go to the Magic Fountains that night. It was 10:30pm, the show ended at 11pm, and the fountains were on the other side of town. We grabbed some beer (at this point we were still unaware that it's illegal to drink in public in Spain), and ran to the metro station. We got off the metro at about 10:55 and frantically started looking for splashing water. By this time, we were just hoping to catch a glimpse of the tail end of the show. Lynz spotted yellow water being shot into the sky and we all made a run for it. Since Lynz was still working on her beer, she had the difficult task of sprinting with an open can of Heineken, while trying not to spill a single drop. She failed miserably. When she caught up to us at the fountains the beer was foaming over the top, her hand was glistening, and she had a few dribbles on her chin from attempting to drink while running.
Luckily for us the last showing started at 11pm and we arrvied just in time. It was nothing more than high pressure water set to
music and lights, but we all found it quite entertaining and well worth the sweat and spilt beer.
The next morning we caught our train to Valencia. Walking to our hostel we passed by this amazing looking food market, and immediately after checking in Rob and I left to check it out. It's like the farmers market back home, but much bigger, and with a lot more sea food. We browsed through all the fruit, veggie, baking and cheese stands trying to control our drooling with our saliva crashing against our teeth like a tsunami (Rob made me type that).
Other than shopping at the market again, our time in Valencia consisted of seeing several essential tourist sights. One of which being the Llotja de la Seda. Unforunately, the inside was closed off due to construction. It did, however, have some "naughty" gargoyles which we found quite amusing. We also saw the Torres de Quart, a pair of towers from the 1400s, that used to be part of a medieval wall. However, the main reason for us to come to Valencia was to see the City of Arts and Science, which is an Oceanarium, Planetarium, IMAX, and Science
Mercat Central
The greatest market I've ever seen! Museum all in one. Since it's such a massive complex we decided to only buy tickets for the oceanarium and science museum. We all had such high hopes for this attraction and made our way there first thing in the morning.
The oceanarium was by far the most interesting part because of it's 70 ft long tunnels with sharks swimming above and around you. While most of the tanks were great to see the Beluga Whale and walrus tanks were far too small and the animals seemed stressed out. The science museum part was a definite let down, though. Lyndsay loved the Marvel Superhero exhibit, but other than that we were all quite bored with the rest.
For our last night in Valencia the three of us decided we'd head out to a pub for some drinks. However, while we were having dinner we met some fellow Canadians and decided to join them, and one Australian, in playing the British Genius version of Trivial Pursuit. It sounds kind of lame, but we actually had a lot of fun. Needless to say, we won! Rob would like to thank his family and the Baileys for all of those Sunday
The City of Arts and Science
One of the few 70 meter tunnels in the oceanarium nights playing incredibly competitive games of Trivial Pursuit.
We went to bed at around 2:30am, only to wake up 4 hour later to catch our train to Sevilla. Since this is getting rather long, we will leave it at that for now.
Lyndsay says hi to everyone! As do we, as always! Thank you again for following along on our Super Fantastic European Adventure!
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Lisa Tannahill
non-member comment
YAYYY Lyndsay!!! I want to come, although I don't think I could hack it (I don't like beer). :) "don't forget to take your vitamins" - you crack me up.