Barcelona 16th - 19th

This time we took the high speed Ave train to Barcelona from Madrid which travelled at 300km/h!!! The train was quite comfortable too and there was a Spanish movie playing. When we arrived in Barcelona we had no idea where we were going and it took us ages to finally find our hostel. Spanish people are really bad with directions, they will say left but then point right so it makes it very confusing and difficult to understand. Already we had fallen in love with Barcelona and the only downside was that my Spanish was non existent as here they speak Catalan.

We had expected it to be cold here up north, but no. It was the hottest day we had yet so once we had the hostel staff looking after our bags we went to explore the port and the wharf. It was just buzzing with excitement and it was so nicely presented. Here we gave our feet a rest and enjoyed a delicious ice cream in the sun, while watching a man rummage through trash. A little further along, past a very expensive children's adventure section consisting of a small zorb like thing and many other fun things there was the edge of the wharf which I sat on and dangled my feet over the edge.

After soaking up some well needed sun we ventured onto the well know street La Rambla. This street is unique because it is lined on both sides with tents filled with all kinds of knick knacks and street performers are seen everywhere. As the street progresses you see a change in the stalls and soon the street is covered in street artists, and then further down pets stalls. We returned back here later that night for dinner and we were extremely disappointed as the menu deal we thought we were getting really wasn't what we got. Thank goodness we only shared a meal. Also the whole way through dinner we were bugged by beggars and people trying to sell us silly things.

The next day was another beautiful day so we decided to start with a visit to a park. We walked to the park Ciutadella and explored around there, but not on the grass because that wasn´t aloud. The park is also the home of the Catalan Parliament. The end of the park led onto the Arc del Triomf which is very similar to the one in France. We got a little bit lost trying to find this market but luckily instead we found a chocolate museum so we had morning tea there, also tasting all of their samples. When we finally found the market it was very disappointing to learn that it was closed for renovations.

The afternoon consisted of a Gaudi hunt as we roamed around the city viewing buildings he created and then catching the metro to the other side of town to go to the Park Guell where his famous Lizard/Dragon mosaic is. By now I was exausted and my feet hurt like crazy so i sat down and ate some of our nut pavlova/meringue/rock while mum climbed to the top of the park to look around some more. We then walked back to the metro and I found my energy after purchasing a few lollies from the sweet shop as mum has learnt that when I´m tired I get grumpy and lollies make it all better.

For our last day in Barcelona we decided to spend it with our new friends Yael from Israel and Ryan from China. We took the metro up to the Montjuïc castle where we explored and admired the view of Barcelona from the top. We could see the city on one side and the construction work of the Sagrada Famila and on the other side we could see a huge cruise ship coming into port which Yael and I found very interesting to watch. Getting down the hill was the fun and easy part. We found a slide. It didn't go right down to the bottom well actually it went no were near... but it saved us a bit of walking until we decided we wanted to go down it again and again.

After Ryan and Mum dragged Yael and I away from the slide we all walked to the Olympic Stadium of Barcelona which was actually really tiny. When we finally walked our way back down to the same level as the city we ate lunch in the Las Arenas at Udon Ya. After lunch we all went our own ways with mum and I returning to the hostel via the Sagrada Familia and a few more Gaudi buildings like Casa Batilló and La Pedera.

For dinner we went back to La Rambla and picked somewhere with a little more class. A gourmet Pizza place called La Poma. Here we shared a delicious pizza which was ham cheese jamón and lettuce. The next morning, the last in Barcelona we said our farewells to Yael and left a message in Ryan's boot as we didn't want to wake him. We then walked the now familiar walk to the metro and said goodbye to Barcelona.