Blogs from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, Europe - page 219

OK SO.... We got in to Barcelona on the Wednesday night. We were both a bit nervous as we had never been to a hostel before. Luckily for us, we had a really lovely brother and sister staying in our room and they introduced themselves and told us about this Spanish night that the hostel organises. They take you to a bar, you eat Paella, have a few drinks then go to a Flamenco show, another bar, then a club. It sounded a bit trashy but we went anyway. The bars were actually really cool, the Flamenco show was not touristy at all, and the Paella.....well, that didn't actually materialise but we ate lots of tapas!! It was a good way to start the trip, we got to meet more lovely people and felt like ... read more

Ok, so it's 8:46am and I'm off to the airport. I'm a little nervous, but I'm trying to keep in the "take it as it comes" frame of mind. I have packed and re-packed my backpack but it doesn't seem to be getting any smaller! When I get back home I will probably be walking around leaning forward all the time. I'm wearing my lucky Charlie Chaplin T-shirt ( I've just decided this morning that it is lucky...come on Charlie, don't let me down!) jeans and flip-flops, hopefully I won't be too hot, it's 26 degrees there, I've forgotten what that feels like....How british am I talking about the weather! I still can't believe that I'm doing this, it doesn't seem quite real. I'm off on an adventure, yes I am. I'm going to try ... read more

So we returned from Barcelona- alive! Our hostal turned out to be in the best possible location ever! Good job, B! It was right on Las Ramblas, the main street in Barcelona, which starts at Placa de Catalunya (center of town and shopping) and goes all the way to the Meditteranean. Also, our hostal was right between two Metro stops which was very helpful since we opted to make our way around the city to all the tourist places on our own using the train as opposed to paying 42 Euros total for touristy bus passes. We ended up spending only 12.40 Euros on travel—not to mention the 3 Euros we had to spend for cab fare Saturday night after the trains stopped running. So first, we stayed in Barcelona for two days … Touristy places ... read more

Your not in France anymore when prositutes line the main highways under sun umbrellas looking to make someone a lucky man, whilst that man is on transit to the nearby airport. It hits you in suprise and it is damn classy. Particulary the "we don't even need to stop to take off my clothes" aspect of their atire. Wonder if those on arrivals or departures get more buisnes? I LOVED Barcelona!! (not because of the prositutes). It was fantastic. The culture is fantastic wine and fantastic tappas, music and dancing, the colours are bright loads of red). Archictecture is amazing, especially all the Gaudi around the city. The unfinished cathedral particulary spectacular. The city's landscape and lights particularly attractive. The waterfront and beaches beautiful, expect mind the plastic bags when your wading out in the water. ... read more

Strange morning. I was a big girl and joined Mark (Mark David) and Gudrund (or however you spell it) at breakfast. The tension between me and Mark was so thick I bet trying to cut it with diamond blade knife would be rough going. He is probably the first person that I didn´t exchange information with and we gave each other the coldest goodbye. He asked if I was heading out to see the sights one last time because that´s what we had planned and I said I didn´t have enough time (excuses are better when they´re actually true). So we looked at each other one last time and said “goodbye”. No hug. No “if you´re ever in my part of the world look me up”. Nothing. It was like a “have a nice life” farewell. ... read more