Partying in Barcelona!

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Sangria, Siestas and Paella! The train ride from Nice to Barcelona was a nightmare. The French railworkers were on strike (as usual) so we ended up taking some random train to our first stopover where no one told us that the next train was no longer going to Barcelona. We checked the schedule and just didn’t see it so Steph was appointed to deal with “customer service” and had to talk to an annoyed, disgruntled employee who was not very nice. Anyway, we had to take a train to a place near the France-Spain border and transfer to one of two buses. We missed the first (crowded) bus and got on the second one. At least we got seats! Suckers! We got to our hostel around midnight after an uncomfortable 3 hour bus ride.

The first night we were tired but since Barcelona doesn’t ever sleep, we decided to wander around before we passed out. Since we were starving after our long travel day, we had our first (of many) paella. Saffron rice, mussels, chicken, crayfish, shrimps, squid….mmmm! Since our hostel was right in the area, we wandered around Las Ramblas, a crazy street full of tourists, weird locals, street performers, artists, etc. We returned to our hostel around 2 am and our roomies weren’t even back yet (that was the first and only time we got home first). We found out we were sharing our hostel room with 2 boys from Montreal and one guy got burned so bad on the beach the day before (Note to self: wear sunscreen). I know now that there is such a color as neon red. But they left the next day so we hoped for girl roomies next since boys smell (really I am not kidding, it stunk like sweat in there and it took lots of effort to air it out)!

Our first day here, we decided to take things easy and do some wandering around. For lunch we ate at a hot spot right in Placa Reial near our hostel and had our first sangria and damn those are tasty. I had some black rice with cuttlefish (the rice is black from the cuttlefish ink). It looked creepy but was really good. We knew we shouldn’t have but we did some shopping (bought way too many bags – is 3 in one day a bad thing?). We then lined up for the Picasso Museum and got to see his works from when he was a teenager through his “Blue” (depressed ) period and the “Black” period. This kid was amazing. His doodles were works of art. We even got to see a piece of paper where he practiced his signature (we all did that)! More wandering, checked out some cathedrals where (probably rich) people were getting married and did some more laps of Las Ramblas, that madness-friendly pedestrian-only street. We picked up another 40 of vanilla vodka and drank at our hostel for a bit. Our hostel is a pretty fun party place and there was a club next door (Jamboree) that is open til 5am, so totally different from back home. There were lots of creepy men in there so we decided to sit by the fountain in Placa Reial and people watch. That night we figured out that fountains were sort of a pick up spot in Europe and people were picking up left, right and centre. We always wondered why the fountain areas were so busy in Athens, Florence and Nice. Now we know.

The next day was an Antoni Gaudi day. We saw a number of sites designed by Gaudi (a famous modern Spanish architect for his time) and found out that he pictured his designs by hanging strings of different lengths with little weights on the ends from the ceiling and looked at the model structure from a mirror placed underneath (check out the pictures). La Sagrada Familia was the most touristed construction site. Gaudi started building this church in the 1880’s and it is still under construction. Reason: Gaudi vs. tram. Tram won. Seriously, Gaudi got hit by a tram and died. The exterior is full of detailed scenes – one of the favorites was the Nativity facade. Next up was Gaudi’s Casa Mila (La Pedrera), an apartment building (people live in it today) with the coolest roof terrace ever. We walked past Casa Batllo another Gaudi building with intricate iron balconies and blue mosaic exterior. Drank more sangria and more of our 40 that night.

We were due for a beach and Barcelona had a very pretty sandy one. This was the only beach where I didn’t venture into the water. A girl at our hostel told us that there were needles and other gross things in the water and even though others were going in, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Highlight of the trip: our one and only white speedo sighting in Europe! Boy oh boy, it was a happy day! Since grade 7, my friend Senem would joke about the European white speedo and now there it was right in front of us for a very long time. Of course, I took some pictures (for Senem) but was kind of grossed out. Back to lying on our beach chairs, tanning, reading and sleeping. Afterwards, a paella and sangria dinner, of course. That night we went on an impromptu pub walk with some hostel folks (led by some weird Edmontonian) and went to an old absinthe bar. No we did not bring ourselves to drink it but we had Malibu (which Steph so kindly spilled on me) and somehow lost our pub walk group and took off with a couple other lost hostellers to some clubs. At one of the clubs we met some New Yorkers who we thought we might meet up with in London to watch the World Cup games. Club Fellini was cool cuz they played Bif Naked and other punk and rock!

It was sad to leave Barcelona but our last day we tried to see some more sites before we caught our night train to Madrid. Checked out Montjuic Park and somehow walked up the biggest hill in the world when we could have taken the metro. We did try but we couldn’t find the damn metro station! There was a meh Castle up there but it had some really awesome views of the city. The Milo Museum was pretty interesting. This was one place we should have got the audio guide. Milo’s modern art didn’t make any sense although we were amused by a painting called “Hair Being Chased by Two Planets” (a line beside 2 dots) that we still talk about to this day. We couldn’t get enough of Gaudi so we went to Park Guell, a park that Gaudi designed. We checked out his old residence and the longest bench in the world (a windy mosaic bench) and some quirky little buildings and statues he designed. There were a couple hours to kill so we decided to hit up the Aquarium where we saw some cuttlefish mating, sharks and penguins.

We bash the hostels for cleanliness and rules (or lack thereof), crowded space, and shared bathrooms but hostels are great for meeting lots of cool people…and a lot of stupid ones! Kabul Hostel in Barcelona had some interesting ones. There was a guy we will call Burn Victim, who decided it would be very fun to drink rubbing alcohol and blow fireballs on the pub crawl. Burn Victim ended up in the hospital with burned lips and eyelashes. He was an Aussie (we weren't even surprised). His friend got it on video so we got to watch the whole thing. It was creepy cuz he was all taped up around his mouth and looked like Hannibal Lector. We also met Mugging Victim (x2), a very nice but unassuming guy from Vancouver. He got mugged in Morocco AND in Barcelona. He actually caught the muggers in Morocco and brought them into the police station but the police did nothing about it. In Barcelona he got mugged by prostitutes who grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket. He probably thought they were coming on to him! Hahaha, felt bad for him, but it was a funny story nonetheless.