Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Sagrada Familia
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Day 3 we woke up to, not just one, but three snorers! I even think they had a rhythm going for a while. And not to mention, one was directly below me. It was rough! With pleasure, I got out of bed to get ready for the day. At breakfast, the sun was shining and a few white fluffy clouds were in the sky. Yes, a nice day! I was excited. Natalie and I decided to get the tourist bus that travels around Barcelona and takes you to major touristy sights along the way. You can get off and on as frequently as you like. Not a bad deal and a lot easier than trying to navigate our way around. We first headed towards Sagrada Familia and viewed it once more from the bus. From there, we headed up to Parc Guell. This park features even more architecture by Gaudi. The entrance to the park was neat. Two abstract castles welcome you on both sides as you enter through an iron gate. Straight ahead of you is a small fountain demonstrating Gaudi’s work and above that on the stairs is the lizard, commonly seen on many postcards around town. On the top of the staircase is a room with pillars. On the ceiling between the pillars is more of his art work. He is known for colorful works of art based off of nature. He mostly uses broken tiles to design many of his masterpieces. We hiked up the stair case towards the top where you get an excellent view of the city.

In Parc Guell
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Due to time constraints, we didn’t walk around the park. We hopped back on the bus and the rain began. It down poured forcing us to make the decision to ride around the circle once. Two hours later we arrived at our next destination, Mount Tibidabo. We wanted to visit here for the location is mentioned in an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S., the one on who came onto whom between Ross and Rachel. We took the blue tram up towards the top. This is one of Barcelona’s oldest public transportation. At the top, we were going to take another shuttle to the top, but it was shut down. The walk was a little rough up and with the rain, we decided to head back down. Once at the bottom, we got on the bus to the next stop for some lunch. We went to a baguette shop called Pan & Co. It was surprisingly very good and inexpensive. The area where we stopped apparently had the best cakes in Barcelona. We wondered around for a bit to see what we could find, but the best we found was whole cakes. Not really what we were looking for.

Sign into Parc Guell
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Back on the bus we figured it was time to switch routes. The morning route took you through the north part of Barcelona, passing the Football Center of Barcelona where many soccer games are played along with the first University in Barcelona. Once on the blue route, the rain started again…pouring down. We remembering the walk home the night before, we rode around the blue route once. We went around the entire loop taking a quick Starbuck’s break near La Rambla. Our first tour stop on the blue was in MontJuic. At the entrance of the National Museum in Montjuic are two enormous columns. Fountains line the side of the road leading up. I believe in the summer they run all day, but today they were turned off. We walked toward the National Museum. As you get closer, more fountains appear. During the weekends in the winter, they have a water/light show, similar to that at the Bellagio in Vegas. We unfortunately missed the shows since Montjuic is farther out, but I can imagine them to be quite amazing. But, I do love the Bellagio in Vegas! The view from the top of the hill where the museum is was one of my favorite views of the city. It is located on the opposite side of Mount Tibidabo and gave an impressive city view. From the museum, we preceded toward the Olympic Stadium. Barcelona was the host of the 1992 Summer Games. The area where they were held was gorgeous with many statues dedicated to the games. We got on the bus one last time as it took us around to the starting point where we ended our touring for the day. We were exhausted… surprising since we rode the bus quite a bit.

Looking down to entrance of Parc Guell
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Back at the hostel, we met up with Peter and Kuba for dinner. Tonight we headed on the outskirts and decided to try a buffet. It was okay, but I have been to better. The salads were a different than I am used to and I even accidentally ate some tuna on a piece of pizza. Ugh! I did like the all you can drink coffee and dessert! We walked back to La Rambla Street which was very dead from all the rain and the fact that it was a Sunday night. Around 10, we said goodnight to the guys and prepared for our exciting evening… SUPERBOWL!!! A few bars around the area were showing it and as we were checking some out, we bumped into a small group of American’s also looking for a place to watch the game. We joined the group and walked around seeing what bars were showing the entire game. Most were closing around 2:30. The only luck we found was Hard Rock Café and they were charging 14Euros to watch. No thank you! So we settled for a small sports bar. I was surprised by the crowd the game drew in. I bet about half of the people in the bar were American’s with the other have being English. Didn’t know they were a fan of the game?!?! What we saw of the game was great. We chatted with our new friends, drank some beer, and watched the game. No commercials though. We shut down the bar at half time and decided to call it a night. We headed back to our lovely hostel ready to endure our final night of snoring. We arrived to the melody already started. Yea!