"A Barcelona, a amore..."

Hola chicos,

So I got back from Barcelona yesterday, making my first official traveling trip a successful one. It was so beautiful there. I have to say I think Barcelona has more beautiful place to visit than Madrid, but I like both of them. Barcelona has a lot of interesting architecture and I really how you can see the sea. Now after that nice little introduction I'll tell you about my travels.

We took an overnight bus Thursday night so we would arrive there Friday morning. The bus was comfortable but sleeping was difficult. Whenever I would fall asleep for a little bit something would wake me up, so I pretty much just listened to my ipod the whole way. We got to our hostel around 8:30 Friday morning, so we checked in and dropped off our bags before we headed out for the day. It was called "graffiti hostel" and was really cool because it was covered in graffiti art. We were in the "Roma" room, so it was covered in Italy art.

Hostel

 My Bed

We were all very hungry, so we decided to walk toward where we wanted to go then stop for breakfast somewhere along the way. We stopped at this little restaurant, but the owners didn't really understand what we were trying to say. Nevertheless, we all ordered our food and got something to eat. They had a little boy who was very curious/friendly with us. We were trying to plan where we wanted to go and he kept touching our map/jumping on our table. He reminded me a bit of my kiddos at home, and it made me miss them a lot. Anyway, I choked down a half cup of coffee (as most of you know I absolutely despise coffee, but I really needed caffeine, and when I tried to order hot chocolate instead the owners looked at me like I was crazy) and ate a very good chocolate croissant. Then we all headed out for a very busy day of walking/exploring.

The first thing we saw was la Sagrada Familia, which is a large cathedral that is famous for having so many different architects working on it. There is still construction being done on it. We didn't go inside because it was kind of expensive and we have seen a lot of cathedrals already, so we just took some pictures and moved along. Then we decided to walk to this place called "Gaudi's house" which is a cool architect who has done a lot of famous buildings/monuments in Barcelona. Along the way we saw a lot of different monuments and such. We saw the old bull fighting ring, some fountains and some statues. When we got there, we saw the outside of the house which was really interesting looking, but the inside was again expensive and we decided to skip it. We then started toward a different part of town.

 La Sagrada Familia

The back side

 Me in front 

old bull fighting ring

 Fountain

Pretty architecture

 Gaudi's house

Again

We ended up walking La Rambla, which is an area with a lot of different street venders, with touristy shops on the outside. It was really cool and interesting to see all the different things they sell there. They sold things from Barcelona themed tshirts, to flowers, to jewelry and to pets! I thought it was a little strange. You could buy some strange animals as pets, and if it hadn't been for the difficulty of getting it back home, I probably would've bought one. We stopped at a restaurant along there call Patagonia, and it was a very interesting experience. The atmosphere is really fun there and I think it is aimed at students who are visiting. We all got a pizza, a glass of sangria and 2 shots for only 7 euro (the shots were free). It was a good deal. This was my first shot, and it was really good! You couldn't really taste the alcohol, it just tasted tropical. When we asked them what was in it they said it was top secret. Anyway while we were there, our friend got a neon clown wig put on her head, someone got hit on the head with a plastic hammer, and another got a rose from a british guy (who got it from the bartender who was trying get us to talk to the british guys). One of the shots the bartender gave us came with a toast from him that was "to Barcelona, to love, to sex, to more sex, to more sex tonight." We all just kind of laughed. When we left, we continued walking down la Rambla toward the water. We wanted to find a beach, but we ended up just looking at the sea. It was really pretty. I'm really bad at coming up with words to describe the things I am seeing so sorry if they are repetitive/inadequate. It's just an over all incredible experience. 

 La Rambla

Pets for sale

Patagonia

Miranda with her wig

 First shot

Me and Megan

 Street performer

Art for sale

Christopher Columbus statue

The sea

After that we walked around a bit and stopped at a little shop for a snack. Then we headed back to the hostel to change/ make plans for dinner. We decided we wanted to go to some bars and we figured we would get food along the way. But the first bar we went to was in a slightly sketchy neighborhood so we headed into the area where we were before for dinner. We stopped at a little place and enjoyed some good food. Then we headed back to the bar where we wanted to go, which is called Bharma. It is a bar based off of the tv show "Lost" which I have never seen, so all the little meaning of things were lost on me (pun intended). But I tried a mojito there and it was really yummy. We also ran into some other people from SLU Madrid so that was kind of fun. After we were done with the lost bar, we went to a place called the Dow Jones bar, which is a replica of the stock market only with drinks, except you wanted the prices to be down because then it was cheaper. It was kind of cool because while we were there, there was a "crash" and all the drinks were cheap. This bar was very American but I really liked it. They had Wall Street signs everywhere and they had espn america playing (which showed a clip of the Hawks which made me super happy). I tried a gummy bear shot here, which was a let down because it had nothing to do with gummy bears and tasted like cough medicine. After that we headed back to the hostel for some much needed rest.

Pretty tower

Lost numbers

Bharma bar

plane crash

Dow Jones Bar

Drink Prices

 American Bar

Saturday was a long day full of walking. It was supposed to be sunny and really warm, but that was not the case. We started out the morning by going to breakfast at this place called milk. It was the best breakfast I've had here, and I was able to eat pancakes which made me happy. After that, we walked around this place called el Borne, which we affectionately called "Funky town" because it was known for "funk." They had a lot of cool little shops and interesting architecture. It was mostly a bunch of little side streets. We stopped by the Picasso museum but, since we had seen a lot of Picasso in the Reina Sofia Museum, decided to not go in. Then we headed over to the Olympic stadium. Along the way we saw their art museum, which looked more like a castle to me, and I was looking forward to seeing the "magic fountain" but unfortunately they were doing work on it so it was not working. When we got to the Olympic stadium, it started to pour rain. I got soaking wet but it was still fun. We ended up chillin in the museum for a long time, which was very interesting and insightful (I learned a lot of things I had no idea about that had to do with the Olympics). They also had a little section where you could play and interact which was fun. I think we all enjoyed that the most. After that we went and got some yummy crepes. We walked around some more and bought some souvenirs and things before heading back to the hostel for a break/dinner plans. 

 Monument 

Museum

 Museum

Olympic Stadium

 "Stick it"

Soccer!

Volleyball

Medals

Crepes and homemade ice cream :)

We always planned to just find places for dinner and it never worked out really well. We did eventually find this nice tapas place and split all of our tapas (which are basically equivalent to appetizers in the US, but they are super popular in Spain- sometimes you get them for free with drinks). It was delicious and not expensive at all. We then headed to an ice bar called ice barcelona. It was really cool because it was right on the beach, so we did end up getting a chance to see the beach after all. When you go there, you get a parka and gloves to cover up in because it is so cold. But it was totally worth and an awesome experience. And the free drink we got was really good too. I had a good time, I just wish we could have stayed a bit longer. One of our friends felt like she was going to pass out so we left a littler earlier than we planned. She was alright though. Then we headed back for some more sleep.

 tapas

ice bar

ice bar

Megan and me

our drinks

Megan, Miranda, Kat, Abby, Jessica, Sophie

The next day we got up bright and early to check out of the hostel. We then went to a place called Guell Park, which is really famous there. It was really pretty, and it was on top of a huge hill/mountain thing so we had an amazing view. We saw all of Barcelona as the sun was coming up. It was breathtakingly beautiful, words cannot describe how amazing it was and sadly the pictures don't do it justice. After walking around for a bit we headed to the bus station and left for our 8 hours of bus time. It wasn't too bad. The trip as a whole was really exciting and fun. I also can't believe I've been here for almost a month already! It's going fast. That's my long trip story for now.

Park Guell

Barcelona

Me and Megan

Me 

Love,

Ashley