Oh Barcelona...
November 1, 2007
...how dare you be so amazing.
ok, so don't get me wrong. i love Madrid. like, L-O-V-E it. I didn't think anything could shake me from my love affair with it. But I was enjoying Barcelona so much, i felt like i was cheating on Madrid! Barcelona is like the really hot, edgy friend of your boyfriend....nice to look at and hang out with, but you know you would never stray. AHAHAHAHAHA! did i just say that?! Moving on, so my friend Julianna and I spent the long weekend of "el dia de Todos los Santos" (my namesake! i had to do it right! haha) in Barcelona from Nov.1- Nov.4 2007. We didn't really have much of an itinerary/idea what the hell we were going to do when we got there, we just had heard how amazing Barcelona was and so we knew we had to go.
que bonita, no?
And it was. It wasn't a sightseeing vacation so much as it was a "Gluttons Gone Wild" vacation. my goodness. i have never eaten so much in my life! prolly safe to add drunken so much and bummed around as much too. so let's get to it:
so Julianna and I decided, last minute natch, "hey we both have a long weekend, it would be an excellent idea to go to Barcelona!" unfortunately, everyone else had the same excellent idea. All the airlines raised their prices and I was not about to spend like four times the normal cost to fly there, so we took the coach instead. "eh, it's only 8 hours there...if we take a night one we can sleep on the way." hell.on.earth. could not sleep. could not get comfortable. could not get the people behind me to shut the f up.
ugh. anyways, so we finally got to Barcelona at like 9 in the morning. After some time we found a taxi and got to our hotel in the Upper Barri Gotic, the Hotel Rembrandt, wanting nothing more than to rest my weary head and get a quick nap in. No such luck. Turned out we couldnt check in until noon. So feeling like complete zombies, Julianna and I sat in this like deserted little square right outside our hotel just waiting. and waiting. we finally checked into our hotel, discovered that it was really nice and quite clean, and promptly fell into comas for the next 6+ hours. when we finally awoke from the dead, we ventured outside for some sustenance and experienced one of the most intense WTF?! moments of my life.... our quiet, deserted street from earlier had turned into a massive sea of people and we could barely walk through it.
our French partners in crime
honestly, i thought for a quick second that maybe something had happened and everybody was like fleeing some catastrophe. but no, we were just right by one of the busiest streets for pedestrians in all of barcelona (c/ portaferrissa and Portal del Angel) and didnt even realize it. all the shops had been closed earlier in the day, but turned out to be awesome clothing shops and stuff. to be a reformed shopaholic (my rehab= being broke), in a shoppers heaven, surrounded by some of the cutest clothes everrrrr, is utterly depressing. and sooo tempting at the same time. le sigh. anyways, we were starving and decided to check out the restaurant "El 4 Gats" on Montcio (Picasso's old hangout? recommended by Let's Go! Spain ? whatever, seemed like a good idea.
pre-buying beer on the street at 5 am
) Got there, and decided the menu looked proper scary so we wandered down the street to this place that was quite possibly one of the best meals of my life (i'll write a review later.) After eating, jules and i decide to go out on the town and get crazy. except we didn't really know where to go but ended up at this random lil irish pub (since they never disappoint.) We met some fun French boys who were looking to get as crazy as we were and wanted to buy us a shot which, duh, we allowed them too :) It was something called aftershock blackberry--- absolutely dirty. in fact i think it might be the black plague/black death. after bar hopping some more with the boys, we finally got kicked out of all the bars and bought some beer on the street (totally the norm in Spain.
i missed the beach, ok?
a girl can get used to this) to keep the party going. which we did, well into the next day and so...
...of course we woke up late AGAIN the next day and were soooo hungover. like, the worst ive ever had in spain (how dare you sangria for being so tasty, yet so cruel), and so we just went to the beach and lied there all day doing nothing (except drinking more beer of course) that was great. i'm a california girl... i missed the beach! and then that night, we actually met up with Julianna's cousin from Columbia/his friends that she hadnt seen in a few years and who happens to be living in Barcelona. We had a lil botellon on a cool street in La Ribera district (i think?) called Paseo del Born. Botellon doesnt really translate well into English, but basically involves a group of kids/friends sitting around on the street corner/park benches/whatever drinking beer and hanging out (would never happen in the states cos you would get arrested instantly.
yay! sailboats
) It was fun to just sit there and enjoy the conversation, sippin' on some Mahou, and some other stuff of the herbal variety. Then of course we were all starving so we went to this like co-op type restaurant that was so good. very organic and with all fresh ingredients. I have no idea what it was called tho :/ then her cousin was tired ('twas only like 11! practically morning) so he let us loose and jules and i found some really cool bars that totally reminded me of some of my old haunts back in The Bay. and because Julianna and have NO impulse control when we're together, we got this dessert called gofre. Hmmm...I believe that's Catalan for best.dessert.ever? it was like a waffle, but not, and covered in chocolate and whipped topping and nuts.
amazing. we partied some more, but were in bed before the sun came up so we considered it an early night for us.
are you still with me?
So by saturday, we were like ok, we have to do some sightseeing! When we were walking around, we randomly saw this postcard that caught our eye, again no impulse control, and so we went to this park called Parc Guell (lil umlauts above the u, i dont know how to do it) that was designed by the architect Guadi was absolutely crazy awesome. except we spent a lil too much time there and and it got too late to go to the ONE thing i said i wanted to do in barca...go to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia cathedral. bummer...guess i just have to go back! anyways, we happened to be staying right next to Barcelona's other main cathedral, the Santa Creu so we went there.
Catedral Sacre Crue
..except it was being renovated and we couldnt see as much. and by then it was getting a bit dark so none of my pics were really coming out :/ was breathtaking tho. Later that night, we went BACK to the restaurant from the first day and ate the same thing again ahahahaha. stick what you know, right? And then even later that night, we met up with fellow Travbuddy jteddyb aka Ted who lives in Barcelona. First we walked over to this place called "The Buddha Lounge" (is that right?) and dealt with THE most intimidating bouncers ever (honestly, they were acting like they we were a bunch of poorly dressed hooligans looking to rob the place) So we get in and everybody is staring at us. and its uncomfortable. and weird. plus there was no where to sit. So we went to, you guessed it, another Irish Pub (haha "i dont even get how there are any irish people left in Ireland when they are all working in Irish pubs around the world" -Ted) and killed 3 pitchers of sangria.
According to Jules it was "the best irish pub ever" and the band playing was the best ever too haha. Since we weren't ready to call it a night and having too much fun, we decided to head over to the Port Olimpic area to a karaoke bar. After all the dull, requisite love songs in espanol, we decided we needed to liven up the place and we had to sing. So we did with Bon Jovi's "Livin On a Prayer" (which I could already sing the whole thing without the assistance of the screen haha) Not sure if the crowd really appreciated it tho. oh and how dare it be so expensive! 6 euros for a heineken? blasphemy! So we left and walked along the port that was nothing but open air clubs and sweaty boys. But we were on a mission to find Ted some food so no stopping for us. And then since we were leaving early in the morning we decided to be relatively "responsible" and go home.
good thing we got some sleep too, cause the bus ride home was even worse than the way there. Honestly, who allows like 20 unsupervised, sixteen year olds to travel together, alone? thank goodness for ipods and excedrin.
so in summary? didnt do much sightseeing (or even take that many pictures) but it was absolutely the best vacation ive ever had...if measured by the amount i ate and drank :) but honestly, was nice and relaxed and felt like a "vacation" not a we must see this! we must do this! etc, you know? not one thing to complain about. plus it gave Julianna and I plenty of fodder for our "Quote of the Trip" book. and now? i'm plotting my return...
que bonita, no?
our French partners in crime
pre-buying beer on the street at
…
i missed the beach, ok?
yay! sailboats
Catedral Sacre Crue
Parc Guell
i dunno. Was at Parc Guell. cute
i was actually in quite the prec
…
view from the very top of Parc G
…
turns out...not the best idea to
…
view of the city from Parc Guell
coolest park bench ever....and w
…
smiling can be sooo exhausting s
…
Guadi is a mad genius
Las Ramblas
"coolest thermometer everrrr"- j
…
where am i even at? i dunno. mak
…
at the Catedral Santa Crue
Barri Gotic....our 'hood for the
…
Muppetude! the drunker i get...t
…
