Barcelona 8/16-8/20

After 8 pleasant hours spent reading Harry Potter on an ALSA bus, I arrived in Barcelona. Alexx met me at the train station and we walked the short distance to our hostel.

We had dinner at a local restaurant and Alexx told me all about her time at Leadership camp in Japan. The next day we had a lively Irish man lead a free walking tour viewing some of Gaudi's work. Gaudi is Spain's most famous architect and he is known for his crazy and unique designs. A lot of which appear to be giant gingerbread houses. La Sagrada Familia is the granddaddy of his designs and has been under construction for over 130 years. Dang. It also has an overwhelming amount of symbolism.

In the evening we watched a free water fountain show in front of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.

On Sunday, we visited the beach. The sand was imported from Egypt and was conveniently planted on the port of Barcelona in order to appeal to more tourists for the 1992 Olympics. That is also when the metro system was constructed.

For lunch, we had Paella, a traditional Spanish dish. Until then, we had been really good about making our own food and spending little to no money on meals. We kept this up with the exception of the Paella and a couple of other restaurant stops.

We saw the Museú de la Musica and were some of the last people let into the Picasso Museum for free.

That night, we had a short stint at the Festival de Gràcia, an outdoor music festival featuring multiple genres and assorted paper mâché animals including dinosaurs and spiders. We saw a swing band, a few rock bands, and an amazing jazz band. At one point we stumbled upon an underground Spanish punk rap show behind this questionable garage door:

We spent the next day reading at Parc Guell, the park that was going to become a neighborhood of homes designed by Gaudi. Like most things in Europe, it is unfinished and full of tourists. Gaudi constructed the largest park bench in the world there and you may recognize the famous iguana sculpture. The entire village is accented with oriental mosaics. Locals are protesting because for the first time starting this September, the city is going to charge an entry fee to enter the grounds. I was especially excited to visit Parc Guell because it was the location I most vividly remembered from the Cheetah Girls' second film. 

 

That evening, we participated in the pub quiz, (a series of random 10-15 question quizzes on various topics all bound in one book) in order to compete for a free pub crawl. I won the game after taking the Harry Potter, Color Category and a couple other quizzes. Alexx did not want to pay 15 euros for her ticket so we went out alone. However, we eventually ran into the pub crawl group at an Australian Bar by the beach. Our dancing got the attention of the others in the bar, especially after the DJ played Single Ladies at my request. This is probably why the guy in charge of the pub crawl gave Alexx a free pass and we proceeded to migrate to Club Shoko along with the group. We didn't stay out til 7 am like the rest of the group but we had a nice night dansing. On our last day in Barcelona, we did a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter of the city. We learned some more history then I retreated back to the hostel to skype. That evening we did another pub crawl, however this one was free for everyone.