hola barcelona

Sorry I'm not sorry, but I'm skipping really blogging about my solo trip to Derry. That's what I get for being behind in blogging, no one really wins. =/
But I promise, Barcelona is much more exciting than Derry. That's not to say I didn't enjoy Derry; I definitely did. Traveling completely alone was scary at first, but everything worked out and I liked the solo time. That's all I really want to say about it. Perhaps it'll get a bit of a picture post later. Don't fret.

Anywho, BARCELONA. I am so glad I went there as a last hurrah trip with Elizabeth. It was amazing! We left Monday morning to get to Glasgow, where our flight went out of [it was cheaper that way]. By the time we got to Barcelona, it was about 5:30, their time. It's an hour different than Edinburgh. Anywho, that airport is not labeled very well, so we had some difficulty finding a "cajero automatico" and then the train that our hostel directions told us to take. Eventually we found the train, well more accurately, a train, and hopped on. It too wasn't labeled well, but it was the only one, so we took it and hoped for the best. Thankfully, it ended up being okay even if it wasn't exactly the right train. We had to take the metro from there and that was 10x easier. Love metros. Our hostel was simple to find once we got off the metro, too. Yay. When we got to our room, there was another girl in there who'd just gotten there like an hour before. She was from Hawaii and had studied abroad in Seville for the semester. She invited us to go to the market with her to get dinner, so we did and had a cheap, but tasty dinner of pasta and chicken and onions and tomato sauce. They had some nice spices in the hostel, so that flavored our meal as well. HA. Wow, that's like super detailed and you probably don't care. Sometimes I lose my filter of what to share on a blog and what to save for just my own journal. It's harder when I'm blogging first as opposed to after I've already journaled. So sorry. The rest of that night we just hung out in the lobby of the hostel..

La Boqueria fruit market!

Casa Batllo, a house designed by Gaudi

Tuesday morning we had breakfast in the hostel, then Elizabeth and I went to Plaza Reilal or something like that to do this free Gaudi tour around the city. We stumbled upon La Boqueria on our way; that's a huge food market with the most delicious, cheap fresh fruit juices. Of course, we indulged. =) On the tour, we saw 3 houses that Gaudi designed and ended at the Sagrada Familia. It was really cool getting to learn about Gaudi and see the actual buildings and all the crazy detail he put into them and just how imaginative he was. He was a bit of a crazy genius, very focused on the architecture and often went way over budget and just did what he wanted for the sake of the building not necessarily what the commissioners wanted, but hey, that's okay because now there are really awesome buildings and such all over Barcelona! I knew that the Sagrada Familia was still under construction, but didn't realize how much still has to be done to complete it. It is also going to be HUGE. What is the tallest spires or whatnot currently are actually going to be the shortest part. They are the bell towers. I don't know if y'all care about the construction of the Sagrada Familia, probs not, so I won't continue, but know that they are trying to finish it in 14 years since that will be the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death. It's apparently over halfway done, the whole inside is complete, but the hardest parts still remain...should be interesting to see if that happens! The construction is funded completely by donation and the visitor fee, so seeing as I went inside, I helped fund the building of the Sagrada Familia! Whoot! Oh, another thing, Gaudi is well on his way to becoming a saint, too. How cool is that? So even if the building isn't done in 14 years, he'll probs be a saint by then. Wacky.

La Sagrada Familia!

inside, supports based off of trees

at Park Guell

looking out at the city

trencadis method, like mosaic

After we had lunch in a park across from the Sagrada Familia, we took the metro to go to Park Guell, a park that has a bunch of Gaudi art in it. It was much bigger than I expected, but so cool. There was all sorts of cool stuff to explore and I'm sure we didn't see half of it. It was a gorgeous day, too so we spent some time just sitting and enjoying the park. We made our way slowly back to our hostel and had to chill there awhile until it got later so it was more acceptable to go to dinner. We ended up just finding a random place on La Rambla [the main touristy drag, but very pretty]...all the places I'd looked up before, we couldn't find and then we tried one that the hostel recommended but all the tapas there were seafood. haha. Of course, and it was kind of sketchy seeming. So we just went to this place that sounded good on La Rambla and got chicken paella and sangria! The sangria was quite good and the paella was pretty delicious too, even though the chicken pieces were still boned. We got ice cream after dinner and that was awesome. Wait, maybe I only did, but whatever. Noms. and that's pretty much the end of our first full day in BCN. =)

sangria for the win