Barcelona

Sagrada Famili

This past weekend I went to Barcelona with a classmate, Arianna. We flew out of Madrid and it was probably the shortest flight of my life so that was nice. Ari has a friend in Barcelona so we were supposed to stay with her but her apartment situation fell through so we were stuck walking around Barcelona with our suitcases for the majority of the first day. Luckily we met up with another friend from class who was visiting the city with 3 of her girlfriends so we ended up going to their hostel and staying there. The first night was a lot of fun. At the youth hostels there are events that they set up every night for a good deal so we went out with them for the first night to a club on the beach. It was a lot of fun and it was really cool to be on the beach at the same time. The second day we walked around and went to the Park Guell which is a park with a lot of art by Gaudi. It is at the very top of a huge hill so you have to climb up the street and there are actually escalators to help you up because it is so high and steep. Once you are at the top you gradually walk down seeing all different kinds of art on the way down. There is a spot with a famous bench that I guess is the longest bench in the world and it is completely mosaic, really neat. Under neath a part of the park is this walkway/ cave where they filmed one of the seasons of America's Next Top Model. Later we walked around Las Ramblas which is one of the main streets in Madrid with lots of little venders and shops on it. There were a bunch of human statues that were pretty funny. (People that paint themselves and dress up like something and stand completely still until you put money in there little jar and they'll move) One was of Edward Scissorhands and i was interested to see what he did if you put money in his jar so I put like 10 cents in and he started snipping my hair like crazy (with his fake scissorhands) it was really funny. We also went to an outdoor market that had everything from Squid to boob shaped chocolate. It was really interesting and felt very European. The next day we went to Sagrada Familia, a huge cathedral designed by Gaudi. It was really amazing on the outside but definitely not worth going inside. We payed 12 euro to basically walk in the door and take some pictures. It has been under construction since 1909 so there really isn't anything to do inside because it is all blocked off by construction. Still pretty cool to say I was inside, I guess. On the last night I met up with my roommate from school because she was visiting from her studying abroad in France so that was really nice. Finally we went to our hostel and met an Australian lady who had basically the same life as the lady from "Eat Pray Love" which was so interesting. She was in a really bad marriage for a long time and finally got divorced and decided to go travel the world. She just broke up with her boyfriend of 2 years and has been traveling for 3 months throughout Europe and she plans on continuing her travels for at least 3 more months. Not exactly my lifestyle but pretty inspirational. Anyways, Barcelona was pretty amazing and I would definitely suggest it to any traveler. There was a lot to see and plenty to do.