Day 29 & 30: Barcelona

Our new friend, Shutaro
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Day 29:     We hopped on our overnight train last night in Nice and were extremely pleased that we were wrong as to what a real sleeperette looked like.  Apparently the Italian couchettes just suck!  We actually slept on a sleeperette coming to Barcelona.  They are just regular-looking train seats that have more room in between them than normal seats and almost recline down to a full 180 degrees.  This we could do!  On the train we met a really incredibly nice guy.  His name was Shutaro and he was from Japan.  He was traveling all by himself.  We ended up talking to him for some time before we went to bed.  He, in his broken English, asked us a lot of questions about America and apologized for his not-so-great English.  We, speaking NO Japanese, told him he was way ahead of the game considering we couldn´t say more than two to three words to him in Japanese!  He was also on his way to Barcelona and was worried that he would get a bit lost in our connection in the border town of Port Bou.  He asked if he could tag along in the morning and of course that was no problem.  When we woke up, the three of us hopped on yet another train into Barcelona.  We all exchanged emails and told each other we´d keep in touch and we truly hope he will!

On our bus tour of Barcelona
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We arrived in Barcelona safe and sound at around 10:00 a.m.  We headed immediately for the city´s official hop on/hop off tour - the Barcelona Bus Turistic.  We felt that it was a good way to get an overview of the city since we had such little time in Barcelona.  After a good two hours or so riding the bus and getting to see so much of the famed artist, Gaudi´s work, we dragged our sweaty selves off the bus and did a bit of exploring of our own in our own district near Las Ramblas and the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter).  The weather, although warm, was much milder than we had been experiencing in Nice and Italy and we were thankful for that.  We got to explore the beautiful Gothic cathedral that towers in the middle of Barri Gotic and got to get lost among the tiny old streets of Barcelona.  Barcelona is a funny city.  It has some truly old parts, but the city is so reminiscent of a New York or Singapore.  It´s cosmopolitan and sometimes with all the languages milling around, you can´t tell what country you´re in, especially since they speak a lot of Catalan here.  Much of Gaudi´s work can be seen throughout the city, from city roofs, to churches (his famed Sagrada Familia), to parks.  Modern art just surrounds you from every corner!  For dinner, we stopped by a little restaurant in a cute square and had some long-awaited paella.  Oh wow, was it good!  We also topped off that meal with a full pitcher of Sangria de Cava (champagne).  It was so light and fruity.  We definitely finished the Sangria!  We were tired from the long train ride the night before and decided to turn in at around 11:00 p.m. - - when the real Spaniards were just about having dinner!  Boy, we have to get used to this whole eating incredibly late thing!  All Europeans tend to eat dinner pretty late . . we´ve been feeling quite out of place!  Can´t wait for tomorrow!

La Boqueria Market
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Day 30:     Today we woke up at what seemed like the crack of dawn.  We had to go down to the train station to reserve our seats for our ride to Madrid.  We got ready with incredible speed and took care of our errand quite early.  We then hopped on the metro and headed for Gaudi´s famous Sagrada Familia Church.  Gaudi passed away in the early 1920s and his church is STILL not completed!  The construction is determined by the amount of financing by anonymous donors.  The church is AMAZING.  Intricate and beautifully weird.  Stories on every little inch of the church´s facade and interiors.  Gaudi, being heavily influenced by nature, incorporated details of nature everywhere.  We took an elevator to one of the completed towers and saw an amazing view of Barcelona.  We walked down a set of spiral staircases that he designed to look like the inside of a seashell.  So many details!  We really could have spent all day there!  Afterwards, we hopped back on the metro and decided to head on to Mount Tibidabo - the mountain that overlooks Barcelona.  To get there, we had to hop on a 100-year-old tram called the Tramvia Blau (Blue Tram in Catalan).  Then you had to hop aboard a Funicular that took you to the top of Tibidabo where an incredible church awaits you and funnily enough, an old old amusement park that is still in business today.  After enjoying views from Tibidabo, we hurried on down towards the city as today was actually quite cold.  We pulled out our map and decided to walk to Park Guell, the park Gaudi designed (not originally as a park) with the famous mosaic iguana he designed.  The park was fascinating.  Interesting caves and mosaic ceilings everywhere.  There´s even a long tunnel that is designed to look like a wave.  Everywhere you look in Barcelona, Gaudi is present.  We then took the metro back down to our stop, Placa Catalunya, and walked towards the Colombus monument.  We headed on up the monument in a TINY elevator that fits (barely) 4 people.  We got to see a pretty incredible view of the harbor and the city.  We then headed on down and walked along Barcelona´s beaches and it´s La Barceloneta district.  Their beach is pretty.. but we think after seeing the clarity of the water in Nice/Monaco/Villefranche, we´ve been pretty spoiled.  We found a little beachside restaurant and decided to stop and eat some tapas like the Spaniards do.  We had a small dish of calamari, fried little fish, and potatoes.  After that we strolled along Las Ramblas again for a more detailed look at all the tourist hooplah.  Street performers EVERYWHERE!  Still, it´s kind of nice strolling along.  We even saw two Michael Jackson imitators and they were surprisingly pretty good.  A while later, we found a restaurant that we had read about called Los Caracoles.  Apparently it´s quite famous in Barcelona.  We decided to head in and luckily enough, dinner at around 8:00 p.m. is too early for the restaurant to be packed yet for its 10:00 p.m. rush.  We ordered the paella AGAIN and it was DELICIOUS.  We ordered a pitcher of sangria de vino that was also quite good.  For dessert, TJ ordered a strawberry tart that he found to be too small since it was SO good.  Melissa ordered a creme brulee that they call creme caramel (suggested by two nice Californian women who were sitting next to us and come to this restaurant every year).  The creme brulee was bigger than the size of Melissa´s head!  Everything was so so good!  We now have to head on back early to the hotel considering we are leaving incredibly early for Madrid tomorrow.  Last stop.. Madrid!