Wow. So I just got back from an amazing weekend in Barcelona. I had to play some catch up for being gone and pump out two papers after getting back to Amsterdam Monday morning. Anywho. All school aside, I cannot wait to share how much fun I had in Barcelona. I could easily move their in a heartbeat.
I set out Friday morning from Amsterdam on a short, less than 2hr flight. I landed around noon to beautiful sunshine and immediately had to rid myself of my sweater and jacket because I was sweating. I'm pretty used to this routine when I fly home from Oregon to San Diego. The first impression I got from Spain was that it felt oddly enough home to me. I had a hard time trying to find the train to the city that I was looking for (because I later realized that I was in the wrong terminal), so I just settled for a bus. I started talking to a girl, Mia, from Sweden while we both new to Barcelona and trying to figure out if we were getting on the right bus as the bus driver lady is barking at us to keep moving. I started talking to her about Kara and my plans to backpack through Scandinavia in June and she was a great source to bounce ideas, cities, and plans off of. When we got to Plaza Catalunya, I had a few more hours to kill so I joined her and her Parisian friend, Paul, for tapas nearby. Paul again was a great resource both for finding out places to go and see in Barcelona and for my trip this weekend to Paris. Needless to say, I have little expectations for the French to be pleasant, some must-see sites and the knowledge that the Paris nightlife is a joke.
After I said goodbye to Mia and Paul, I grabbed a map and started wondering. Naturally I had to check out Las Ramblas to see what it was all about. Just as touristy as I imagined with some creative street performers. I made my way down to the harbor, took a bunch of pictures of everything around me to get it out of my system for a few hours. I loved how blue the ocean was, all the palm trees and Barcelona's love for bright, vibrant structures. My friends got into Barcelona around 5pm, so I met up with them at Plaza Catalunya and headed up to our place for the weekend.
Tommy, a kid I was traveling with, has a few friends studying in Barcelona and it worked out that they were on spring break. We lucked out and got to stay at their apartment kinda in the Gracia area. It was 3 guys' place, so it was necessarily the cleanest so I just kept reminding myself "free, free, free". One of Tommy's friend, Ben, was still in town so he played host and took us around. Friday night we got paella off of Las Ramblas and came back and napped. Yes, napped after dinner from 9 to 11pm. Then got ready and went out to Pippermint's, a popular place that has the biggest drink imaginable. The 5 of us spilt a 6L of rum and come. Needless to say, I did not need another drink that night. Even though we were pretty tired, we headed out to get a sense of Barcelona nightlife. We went to some cool clubs on the beach, Catwalk and Opium. It was pretty cool to be able to walk on the beach and go from one club to another. Without even realizing it, we were out until 5am. Even though the metro stops running at midnight Sunday-Friday, it's not uncommon for kids just to catch the first metro in the morning at 5am. At first I laughed, but after my first night in Barcelona. I understand now.
The next morning I woke up, still feeling the rum and coke, and was determined to not waste too much time in bed. So Courtney and I headed to see Gaudi's Segrada Familia. Easily one of the craziness churches I could have ever imagined. The line was around the corner, so we just walked around and took pictures. I'll go back when it's finally finished (whenever that is). That afternoon, once everyone got up (around 2:30pm), we went to the beach and relaxed with some beers. After being endless solicited to buy beer (when we already had a 12pk) and 5 euro massages (which is just creepy), we head back home with some color. Some dinner and another nap, we headed out for another crazy Barcelona night. We went to a popular music club, Razzmatazz, pay a cover with an included drink and had a good time exploring all like 30 rooms in the club. Not uncommon, we again caught the morning metro and got back at like 7am. Such an unreal experience for me cause I'm not really a night owl. But when in Barcelona...
The next morning was a struggle, not do to drinking but just to lack of sleep, but I was determined to see the city cause I was leaving soon. I took a trek up to Gaudi's Parc Guell and spent an hour or so walking around with my jaw dropped. The landscape and view was gorgeous. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city, seeing more Gaudi architecture, historical buildings, and made my way down to the beach to meet up with my friends. We headed back home around 7pm and stopped for dinner on the way back. After an attempt to nap and rally up, we decided that we were all too sleep deprived to do anything. I turned in but couldn't really sleep cause I was much too nervous about getting to the aeropuerto on time. The metro doesn't start running until 5am and I was trying to catch a 5:25am train to the airport that would get me there around 6am and my flight started boarding at 6:15am with the gate closing at 6:35am. I probably only got an hour of sleep.
I got up the next morning at 4:30am, got all my stuff together and headed down to the closest metro I could take without having to take the time to transfer. Needless to say, I was about 98.34523% sure I was going to get mugged walking down the streets of Barcelona alone at o'dark hundred. I took everything valuable and hid it in my purse under my jacket and keep looking around every 30 seconds. Luckly, I had no problem and caught the first metro to Sants Espcio. From there I ran around trying to find the train, bought my ticket and sprinted to catch an earlier train that was leaving in a minute. That was the first thing that really saved. I got to T2 at like 5:40 and had to take a bus to the next terminal. Finally got into T1 at like 6 and sprinted, yet again, to the security only to find the great gift from the Spainards. Even though the airport was packed, the security was so well organized that I made it through in less than 5 mins. The only loss of the morning was my corkscrew which got confinscated. I made it to the gate with time to grab something to eat... I stressed so much over nada. I made it back to a much colder Amsterdam and got home with some time to take a little nap and head off to my 1pm class.
I had a wonderful weekend with beautiful weather, fun times with my friends and got to see a great city! Here are some pictures :
I set out Friday morning from Amsterdam on a short, less than 2hr flight. I landed around noon to beautiful sunshine and immediately had to rid myself of my sweater and jacket because I was sweating. I'm pretty used to this routine when I fly home from Oregon to San Diego. The first impression I got from Spain was that it felt oddly enough home to me. I had a hard time trying to find the train to the city that I was looking for (because I later realized that I was in the wrong terminal), so I just settled for a bus. I started talking to a girl, Mia, from Sweden while we both new to Barcelona and trying to figure out if we were getting on the right bus as the bus driver lady is barking at us to keep moving. I started talking to her about Kara and my plans to backpack through Scandinavia in June and she was a great source to bounce ideas, cities, and plans off of. When we got to Plaza Catalunya, I had a few more hours to kill so I joined her and her Parisian friend, Paul, for tapas nearby. Paul again was a great resource both for finding out places to go and see in Barcelona and for my trip this weekend to Paris. Needless to say, I have little expectations for the French to be pleasant, some must-see sites and the knowledge that the Paris nightlife is a joke.
After I said goodbye to Mia and Paul, I grabbed a map and started wondering. Naturally I had to check out Las Ramblas to see what it was all about. Just as touristy as I imagined with some creative street performers. I made my way down to the harbor, took a bunch of pictures of everything around me to get it out of my system for a few hours. I loved how blue the ocean was, all the palm trees and Barcelona's love for bright, vibrant structures. My friends got into Barcelona around 5pm, so I met up with them at Plaza Catalunya and headed up to our place for the weekend.
Tommy, a kid I was traveling with, has a few friends studying in Barcelona and it worked out that they were on spring break. We lucked out and got to stay at their apartment kinda in the Gracia area. It was 3 guys' place, so it was necessarily the cleanest so I just kept reminding myself "free, free, free". One of Tommy's friend, Ben, was still in town so he played host and took us around. Friday night we got paella off of Las Ramblas and came back and napped. Yes, napped after dinner from 9 to 11pm. Then got ready and went out to Pippermint's, a popular place that has the biggest drink imaginable. The 5 of us spilt a 6L of rum and come. Needless to say, I did not need another drink that night. Even though we were pretty tired, we headed out to get a sense of Barcelona nightlife. We went to some cool clubs on the beach, Catwalk and Opium. It was pretty cool to be able to walk on the beach and go from one club to another. Without even realizing it, we were out until 5am. Even though the metro stops running at midnight Sunday-Friday, it's not uncommon for kids just to catch the first metro in the morning at 5am. At first I laughed, but after my first night in Barcelona. I understand now.
The next morning I woke up, still feeling the rum and coke, and was determined to not waste too much time in bed. So Courtney and I headed to see Gaudi's Segrada Familia. Easily one of the craziness churches I could have ever imagined. The line was around the corner, so we just walked around and took pictures. I'll go back when it's finally finished (whenever that is). That afternoon, once everyone got up (around 2:30pm), we went to the beach and relaxed with some beers. After being endless solicited to buy beer (when we already had a 12pk) and 5 euro massages (which is just creepy), we head back home with some color. Some dinner and another nap, we headed out for another crazy Barcelona night. We went to a popular music club, Razzmatazz, pay a cover with an included drink and had a good time exploring all like 30 rooms in the club. Not uncommon, we again caught the morning metro and got back at like 7am. Such an unreal experience for me cause I'm not really a night owl. But when in Barcelona...
The next morning was a struggle, not do to drinking but just to lack of sleep, but I was determined to see the city cause I was leaving soon. I took a trek up to Gaudi's Parc Guell and spent an hour or so walking around with my jaw dropped. The landscape and view was gorgeous. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city, seeing more Gaudi architecture, historical buildings, and made my way down to the beach to meet up with my friends. We headed back home around 7pm and stopped for dinner on the way back. After an attempt to nap and rally up, we decided that we were all too sleep deprived to do anything. I turned in but couldn't really sleep cause I was much too nervous about getting to the aeropuerto on time. The metro doesn't start running until 5am and I was trying to catch a 5:25am train to the airport that would get me there around 6am and my flight started boarding at 6:15am with the gate closing at 6:35am. I probably only got an hour of sleep.
I got up the next morning at 4:30am, got all my stuff together and headed down to the closest metro I could take without having to take the time to transfer. Needless to say, I was about 98.34523% sure I was going to get mugged walking down the streets of Barcelona alone at o'dark hundred. I took everything valuable and hid it in my purse under my jacket and keep looking around every 30 seconds. Luckly, I had no problem and caught the first metro to Sants Espcio. From there I ran around trying to find the train, bought my ticket and sprinted to catch an earlier train that was leaving in a minute. That was the first thing that really saved. I got to T2 at like 5:40 and had to take a bus to the next terminal. Finally got into T1 at like 6 and sprinted, yet again, to the security only to find the great gift from the Spainards. Even though the airport was packed, the security was so well organized that I made it through in less than 5 mins. The only loss of the morning was my corkscrew which got confinscated. I made it to the gate with time to grab something to eat... I stressed so much over nada. I made it back to a much colder Amsterdam and got home with some time to take a little nap and head off to my 1pm class.
I had a wonderful weekend with beautiful weather, fun times with my friends and got to see a great city! Here are some pictures :
