Barcelona: The Happiest Place in the World

There are so many thoughts constantly running through my head when I think about how amazing this weekend in Barcelona was. It doesn't seem like real life, it's almost like it's straight out of a movie- an award winning movie I'll have you know. Since we did and saw so much, I think the best way for me to get in lots of descriptions and lots of the 300 plus pictures I took would be to break it down into smaller sections.

Hostel: Our hostel was incredible, and definitely the main reason why we enjoyed the weekend so much. We didn't check in until about 12.30 at night Thursday, and when we arrived we were greeted by the 20 something worker who's first question was "Are you hungry? I made you dinner on the stove." He knew the way to a girls heart. We put our stuff up in our room quickly, came back down to pay and he simply goes "we will deal with it later, I know where you give, go eat, drink and make friends." So we did. Dinner was a basic pasta and cheese dish, and we enjoyed it with about 5 other college kids who were staying at the hotel in the really nice communal screened in patio type area. The same guy worked the next morning and he was great, pointed out routes for our sights, recommended local restaurants, and gave directions really well. Everyone who worked there (and the people in the town overall) were so friendly. It was great. Other reasons why we loved the hostel? Free breakfast AND dinner every day. Largely because of that, the hostel main floor was a huge congregating area for everyone the entire weekend filled with music, food, and just friendliness. Mornings people came and went, but at dinner time (9-9.30) there were easily 20 people down there all eating together, most of whom stayed to just chat and hang out the rest of the night. We met so many people, a lot of really small world coincidences of knowing people (ex: a kid studying in Oxford, who went to Langley in NOVA who knew tons of people who went to UMW, and a girl who not only knows my ex-boyfriend Matt, but also had his Mom as a teacher) It seemed like everyone had at least one of these weird coincidences happen to them over the course of the trip. It was from these impromptu, 4 hour long get togethers that we met the 4 other kids we toured around with the rest of the weekend- Lauren and Sabrina: two girls from Santa Barbra studying in Rome, and David and Nate: both from Kansas, David studying in Germany and Nate coming over to visit him. This chain of hostels has a branch in Prague, so we're absolutely going to book them again when were there in April and hopefully get an equally great experience.

The graffiti lobsta in our room

The whole hostel was covered in funky, colorful spray paintings

The People of Barcelona: The people there are fantastic. Everyone is so friendly and so relaxed all the time. Speaking of: siestas are real. Shops and restaurants legitimately close from like 2-6 or so every day, and reopen later in the evening.That's just how they are there, everything is laid back, easy going, and if you don't get to it now, you just do it tomorrow.  They love public spaces too. The market places were always crowded, which is typical of most markets, but walking down side streets in really residential areas you just seem people sitting on benches, strolling around, not really having a care in the world. I don't blame them, in a place that beautiful, I wouldn't have a care either. They really are in no rush for anything down there. Because of siesta, dinner isn't served til 9-10 at night, and because dinner is so late, bars don't open til after 11 and clubs don't open til 2. Not exactly London's cup of tea where pubs are always lights out at 12.30. That's just how they do it, relax in the day, stay up late, sleep in and enjoy their mornings, then do it all over again. I also learned that Spain has 4 official languages, and that the language spoken in Barcelona isn't actually Spanish, it's Catalan. Catalan is similar to Spanish, however  we were informed that the people of Catalonia do not like it at all when people assume they all speak Spanish. Apparently there have been numerous attempted to emancipate Catalonia from the rest of Spain, and if the most recent attempt prevails, the official language will be Catalan, with the secondary language English- not Spanish. That's how much they dislike the automatic association. Despite the language barrier, the people were great to us. Not many knew much English besides very basic words and numbers (like my knowledge of Spanish) but that was mostly because the places we went to eat were recommended holes in the wall, not in touristy areas. With lots of drawings and hand motions however, we were able to navigate our way through the city pretty easily.

Food: Do not even get me started on the food in Barcelona. First of all: SO CHEAP. There was a little fruit market two blocks from our hostel: two apples- 28 cents. A bag filled with a mushroom, tomato, eggplant, and two peppers for omelets- 2 euro. Pocket change compare to the 2 1/2 pound (which is heavier than the euro, fyi) charge for 4 apples in London. Grocery shopping one morning my 6 eggs, 10 slices of cheese, bottle of water and bottle of orange juice cost like 4 euro, a six pack of beer only costs 3. So much cheaper than London. Cheaper than the US even. We went to a paella place on Friday, which while I didn't like it, everyone else swears it was the best paella they've had in their life. 5 HUGE servings of paella plus two bottles of wine (only 3 euro a bottle!) and a salad for me came to under 60 euro everything included. For 6 people, not too shabby. Saturday we went to a tapas place which was even better. We got their house sangria - to die for,  and everyone split a bunch of tapas. I got chicken and grilled asparagus- delicious. Most days we ate a bigger breakfast at the hostel, a few snacks in the early afternoon (gelato, churros, fresh fruit smoothies) ate our real meal around 5, and then headed back to the hotel for "half meal" dinner at 930. A little nontraditional but a very cheap way to go about it. Dinner at the hostel was never that great, pasta one night, polenta another, and rice and veggies with sweet potatoes the last, but for free it was a nice little snack before going out in the evening, especially considering how late "out" is in Barcelona.

Boquera Market smoothies: one euro heaven in a plastic cup

Fresh sangria: heaven in a wine glass

Walking Tour: Our hostel organized a free (or so we thought until the leader came back the next night insisting tips) walking tour for us through the city center. This isn't where any of the real attractions are, besides Las Ramblas- the main strip that runs through the center of town, but she did show us some hidden gems and knew tons of information. We stayed with her for probably 2 1/2 hours or so before 6 of us branched off to wander on our own the rest of the time. We had a beach to get to.

Las Ramblas

Our tour guide explained that when you drink from this fountain for the first time, it makes you fall in love with the city of Barcelona. I drank. It worked.

Hemingway's Bar in Barcelona

This is the shrine to one of the saints of Barcelona. Story is that the saint was a 13 year old girl who was captured and tortured 13 different ways before she was killed for defending her religion and her city. The legend says that right before she was killed, she was whipped in public and as she was about to die, it suddenly started snowing to cleanse her of her sins. The city holds a festival every year in honor of her, and they say when it snows in the city, it's her looking down on them.

Memorial plaque under the shrine

The cutest little school children

We walked into, literally, a photoshoot

The chips in the walls are actually from one of Hitler's bombs when Germans dropped fire on Catalonia. Most of that area of the city was destroyed expect for this one church that clearly shows scars from the event

Who is behind this wonderful piece of "art" a three year old could do? Believe it or not, Picasso himself did the mural

One of the many ornate churches we found...absolutely nothing compared to the Segrada Familia

Lots of dancing school children

Boquiera Market: One of our stops on the walking tour which was probably the best part of the tour. It's so hard to describe, so many colors, smells, stands, people everything. It was fascinating. Anything you can imagine food wise could be found inside: fruits, veggies, spices, fresh meat, still moving seafood, bakery, wine, dry goods they have it all. I'll just let the pictures explain this one.

Market entrance- makes the place look tiny...it's not

We watched a crab be put into a plastic bag and weighed, assuming it was dead. When the woman picked up the bag to hand it to the customer the bag was moving. Yeah, none of that stuff is actually dead, talk about fresh.

The Beach and Harbor: Obviously after being in the gloomy city of London for the past few months, seeing the beach was high on our priority list for the trip. After we left the tour group, we walked around finding the massive harbor, and eventually the beach. The weather was great all weekend- 70s, but near the beach it was  chilly, windy, and surprisingly foggy. From the beach in the distance we could see some fog, but thought nothing of it until 10 minutes later we were in the fog. Really strange and totally uncharacteristic of the city. We didn't actually go in the water, wayyyy too cold for that, but we did enjoy walking in the sand and just soaking it up.

The Christopher Columbus

Contrary to popular belief, he's not actually pointing to the new world. Supposedly he is pointing towards his home city of Genoa, but that is still popularly debated.

Gaudi: Question: who is this Gaudi man and why is he so popular. Answer: He's arguably the most popular architect in Barcelona (if not the world) and he's amazing, so that's why he's so popular. Seriously his work is absolutely awe inspiring. Everything he does is colorful, whimsical, visually stunning, really organic shapes, heavily rooted in nature and just stunning. We started Saturday looking at a few of his pieces that are still functioning buildings in the city before heading over to his park and masterpiece Sagrada Familia later. Mostly in part to Gaudi and that style of architecture in the city, it really feels like you're in a Dr. Seuss book. I loved everything about it, so happy.

Casto Balltio- one of his more famous buildings that is unique from his others in that he designed the interior of this one as well so you see the same shapes and designs both inside and out.

The streets of the city all look like this and are made up of tiles designed by Gaudi

La Pedrera- another one of Gaudi's pieces

Sagrada Familia: I don't even know where to begin with this. I guess a little history would be a good place to start. Sagrada Familia is hands down Gaudi's masterpiece, even though it is unfinished and will be for likely the next 100 years. Basically Gaudi designed probably the most elaborate cathedral in the world, and dedicated the last 30 years of his life to it. He died in the 1920s when he was hit by a public transit tram, and because he was leaving the church construction sight he was scruffy, dirty, and was misconstrued as a homeless man. Thinking he was homeless, no one rushed to help him, and he died in the hospital the next day once people realized who he was. Anyways, the church decided to finish building based on his plans, however its so ornate and complicated that funding is an issue. Therefore, the church was started in the late 1800s, is still under construction, and will probably be under construction for at least 100 years to come, if not more. The front facade of the church is unbelievable. It just pops out at you, so grand, ornate, massive, just really intriguing.

So you get past the massiveness of the front facade, get in line to buy tickets, and enter the interior of the church. This place is gem on top of gem on top of gem. The interior easily surpassed the front part of the church.

He designed the inside pillars so that they resembled branches holding up trees

The windows that are soon to be replaced with stained glass as soon as more funding comes in. Only about 1/2 the church has it's stained glass in place

Best. Quote. Ever.

Okay, so at this point you're amazed by the front and the inside, and then you go outside and see the back of the church. Ornate is an understatement. From a distance is looks almost like clumps of melted candle wax, but when you get closer you see that each "clump" is actually some sort of scene from the bible.

Close up of a "clump" that's actually a head and a man praying.

At this point, you think it couldn't possibly get better, but like everything else about this place, it keeps getting better and the best is certainly saved for last. Our admission ticket included a lift to the top of one of the towers. We assumed it would just open out to a small observatory window, be there for five minutes, then we would take the elevator back down. Boy were we wrong. The only thing we were accurate about was that the lift took you up. Everything else absolutely blew us away. You take the lift up, and can see through the little "windows" a gorgeous view of the city of Barcelona, then you follow a path that takes you to an uncovered bridge from one of the towers to another. That part, totally expected. Figured there would be a view, just  not nearly as nice as it actually was. Then, things got crazy. We followed the path looking for the elevator back down...there's not one. They literally let you roam up and down all 4 of the main towers. So many staircases and forks to choose from and you just go. You explore. You see. Breathtaking is an understatement. I was truly stunned to the point where I was physically shaking. Here we are, 6 American's doing a touristy day, just happened to buy the lift ticket with our admission and we are at the highest point of Spain's most famous attraction just hanging out. It wasn't real, it felt like a movie. We just kind of went, stumbling across new exposed pathways from one tower to another and even a few balconies. We were standing on the balcony of the Sagrada Familia. How many people can say that. It was hands down the best experience of my life. All of us just kept like hitting ourselves to wake up from this dream. Literally, we'd turn around and there would be one of the beautiful ornate pillar toppers of the smaller towers. They were so close you could practically touch them. That 45 minute experience alone was well worth the trip, I just can't get it out of my head. We all were on such a high when we finally wandered down. That was the first time that I had ever had that sort of reaction to something. I'm not normally claustrophobic or afraid of heights, so I don't know if that was it, or the amazingness, or the fact that we were just wandering around this wonder of the world but I was literally shaking the entire time. I can't even explain any more how it felt, unreal is the only word I can think of. Best experience of my life. I can die happy. You really are so small up there. You're surrounded by these MASSIVE structures, the top ornaments themselves are a good three of me tall, and you really feel just like a speck in the world. Unbelievable. Hopefully these pictures will kind of give a glimpse of what it was like.

On the balcony

My attempt to explain where we were in the Basilica. Green line: the tip of the ornaments on the church that can be seen in the pictures from the exterior front. Pink: the cross bridge where we were that took us from right towers to left towers. Blue: the end of the current building. The four towers are the tallest currently built. Yellow: the plans for when the church will be completed. Where we were is not even half way up the proposed structure

Parc Guell: So continuing on our Gaudi day, we left the Sagrada Familia still freaking out a little bit to go up the very long, very uphill walk to Parc Guell- Gaudi's gorgeous mosaic park. It really was great, so lush with palm trees, so many neat mosaics and lots of people just hanging out and enjoying.The views were stunning, you can literally see all of the city. It was really neat for us to see the big landmarks of places we had been from so high up on a mountain, and it wasn't until then that we realized how much land we had actually covered in one day.  Again, it's a picture is louder than words thing.

Magic Fountain: the nightcap for Saturday and the trip in general was a trip to the Magic Fountain, only about 10 minutes from our hostel. After dinner Saturday, Ariel, Lauren and Sabrina went back to shower and get ready for the night, so Nate, David and I headed over. I wasn't really sure what to expect, I had heard about it both from the hostel and from websites online saying you had to do it, but that's about where my knowledge ended. There were huge spotlights visible from where we ate and we figured they were for the fountain so we followed them, and then HOLY CRAP fountains. Tons of fountains. The spotlights were coming from behind this grand palace all illuminated at night, you take a series of about 7 escalators down to get the to the main fountain. Lining the escalators down, are tons of little fountains and waterfalls all light up white. Absolutely beautiful. As we got closer to the main fountain- really obvious as it's massive, multicolored, and surrounded by people, we heard music. The fountain itself is super high tech and it is actually a 20 minute show, every 30 minutes of lights, songs, water, and movement. It was so very neat. We were surprised by the choice of music: old school 90s pop. We're talking Backstreet Boys, MJ, Oasis, Smashmouth, but it was so cool. Inside the huge fountain are little spinning ones so the water is absolutely mesmerizing. The place was packed too, lots of locals and visitors as well as vendors selling glowsticks and light up balls for the kids. The night was just simply illuminated. It really was the fantastic end to a very magical day in Barcelona.

The fountains lining the way down the main hill

Transportation: the only flaw in our whole trip was transportation...on multiple occasions. On our way in from the airport, we found what we thought was the airport's taxi queue...lots of taxis all lined up, professional signs, even a man directing traffic and people into taxis. Our taxi driver was great, spoke very little English but tried to communicate with us as best he could (mostly cervesa and fiesta) and attempting pointing out attractions using hand gestures to describe what they were. He even warned us about pickpockets which everyone claims are really bad in Barcelona. All was going well until we noticed his meter wasn't on, but at this point we were on a highway and there wasn't really any going back. Then we got near our street and he got lost. Like wrong way on one way roads lost. Four times he stopped and asked passerbys for directions, it took a while but eventually we got to our place. 40 euro later we were there safe. Somewhat pissed off that the cab was that expensive, we paid (since we didnt speak enough to argue with him) and agreed not to take a taxi back to the airport. Turns out a normal taxi to the airport should be like 20 euro. So we were slightly pissed off because at the airport it seemed real legit, looked exactly like the taxi queues outside London stations do, but figured at least we got there safe, and it could have been worse.

After that experience we took the public transit train back to the airport...or attempted to. We had to change once, did that perfectly, no problems what so ever. When we got to the main train terminal, we swiped our ticket (only 2 euro ) to get into the gates, found out that we were leaving at 9:09 from platform 9 and about 10 minutes before then headed down. A train came almost as soon as we got there so we, with a bunch of others, hopped on and continued on our way. The train left at 9:06 which we figured was a little rash since the terminal information said 9:09 but we were on it so what did it matter. 20 minutes later a ticket collector comes around and we see he stopped the people a few seats in front of us, we just assumed that they hadn't bought a ticket, but we had ours so we were fine. Turns out we weren't. Apparently us and the guys ahead of us were on the wrong train. Apparently, someone, some crazy Spaniard thought it was a good idea to have a train leave from platform 9 going to some other city in Spain a mere 3 minutes before the train at platform 9 going to the airport. We figured the train just got there early, since we boarded at 9:04, but turns out that's not the case. So we were literally kicked off the train. They made a stop they normally don't and the guy told us that he called the train behind us(the one we were supposed to be on) and they would stop for us at this station so we should wait here. 5 minutes a train came...did it stop? Nope. So after looking at timetables and figuring out none of the trains at that stop went to the airport, us and our 2 American military men based in Italy who got kicked off with us headed towards the town to find a taxi. It took a bit, no taxi's in sight but it was an adorable little beach town. Definitely a locals only spot. We found a cafe owner who called us a cab and arrived to the airport after a very costly cab later (the whole thing we were trying to avoid from the get go). Luckily Ariel and I like to be early, so our flight was at 11:30 and we got kicked off the train at like 9:30 or so, so we had plenty of time to get to the airport which turns out was only 20 minutes away. The boys weren't so lucky, as their flight was at 10:30. We got to the airport at like 10:40, so we had plenty of time to get to our gate, no line at bag drop or security, but we're assuming the boys didn't make theirs, but I guess we'll never now.

So aside from those little transportation flaws, the trip was absolutely amazing. I'd go back right now if I could. The only thing I could think of when we landed in gloomy London was how in a heartbeat I would switch to study in Barcelona. Everything about it is great.  It's sunny, it's warm, it's friendly, it's colorful, it's happy, it's beautiful, it's magical, it's everything. The other places I've been to this semester were great, places that I'm so glad I went to, and would go back if it came up but would rather see other new places first. Not Barcelona. I will and plan to take any opportunity to go back as many times as I can. Other people I know who have been there said the same thing, but I just assumed it was an exaggeration. Not even close. Hands down favorite place and best experience I've had yet- this semester and in life. Seriously, if you have the opportunity to go, grab it and go. You will absolutely not regret it.