It’s the final leg of the blog posting marathon, and I have one hour until I leave for the Czech Republic… so here it goes!
Day 6: Thursday, April 14
We got up bright an early in Paris, and left our hotel by 6:45am to take the metro across the city to catch a bus to the airport. We flew Ryanair to Barcelona, which is great because it is so cheap, but they have so many other issues. From now on, I will be paying a little more to fly a better airline. First of all, they only fly to small airports in the middle of nowhere, so we paid 15 euro to take an 80 minute bus ride to the airport. Then, I had to pay extra to check my bag, which is carry on size for every other airline except Ryanair which makes their weight and size restrictions ridiculous. Also, even though we were at an extremely tiny airport, we had to wait 45 minutes in security because everyone ahead of us apparently didn’t get the memo that razors, huge bottles of liquids, and knives aren’t allowed on carry-on luggage. Ok, the knife part may be an exaggeration, but seriously I don’t think anyone on our flight had ever been in a plane before. Needless to say, Gabi and I were getting quite annoyed, but after awhile, it was just hilarious that they were so ignorant.
The flight was only an hour and a half though, and luckily they flew into the main airport in Barcelona, so once we got to Barcelona we just hopped on a train that took 20 minutes then took the metro two stops to our hostel! Our hostel was AMAZING! It is called Hostel One Sants, and I highly recommend it to everyone! As soon as we checked in, the woman at the desk pulled out a huge map and circled all of the cool places we need to see and told us how to get there! It was also really colorful, clean, had free computers with internet, free activities at night, and a kitchen that you could use and store your food in!
After checking in, we met up with Jackson who is our friend from DIS and also happened to be traveling in Barcelona and staying in our hostel!! On the way to the metro, we walked by a fruit stand that had amazing looking strawberries, so we bought a whole kilogram of them for 2.50 euro! Then we ate the entire container within the next three hours haha. They were huge and delicious!!!
We met up with Jackson at Parc Guell, the park designed by the famous architect Gaudi.
His architecture is so whimsical and weird. It reminded me of Candyland.
The main area was crowded with tourists, but there was a lot of hiking trails that were less crowded. There were also a lot of spots that had amazing views of the entire city!
I wish Copenhagen had at least a hill I could climb to see the city from above like this!
I was really reminded of being in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico with the design of the buildings and the city. Also, there were palm trees… ahh summer! Jackson told us he had plans for us for dinner that night… a cooking class on how to make paella and sangria! We met at a place called Travel Bar, and 2 other girls from DIS who happened to be in Barcelona were there too! There were also four other people who we didn’t know, but had a great time talking to throughout the night. SUPER WEIRD COINCIDENCE: One woman who was there grew up in a town, Stanwood, about 45 minutes from my hometown, and she went to North Cedar who we played in high school! Such a small, small world. Oh and even weirder… she was staying at our hostel! I love when things like that happen!
So once everyone was together at the Travel Bar, our chef took us to a local market to buy the ingredients for the paella!
Those crabs and lobster were alive!
Calamari that we bought for our dinner!
We headed over to a different Travel Bar (they have three in the city) for the class. When we got there, they had tapas ready for us to eat and sangria for us to drink! We enjoyed them for about an hour maybe and talked a bunch while he prepared the ingredients in the kitchen.
The things on the left are Spanish tortillas, which I now know how to make thanks to my hostel’s cooking class! I also learned how to make Spanish tapas:
1) Rub a tomato on the little slices of bread so that the red juice covers the top
2) Drizzle a little olive oil on top
3) Layer a piece of cheese and a piece of meat on the bread
4) Drizzle a little more olive oil and add a dash of spicy paprika
5) Add an olive and enjoy!
Then the chef made paella for us and told us all of the steps! It seems really difficult and you need a flat pan (not a wok) so that it heats evenly the entire time. You also add each new ingredient to the center, and you don’t stir the rice like risotto! It’s not supposed to be creamy.
While the rice cooked, we learned how to make sangria from the bartender! He gave us the directions and made us one jug, then we had to make two more. I was the brave soul who stepped up and made the first one! It was fun, and now I know I can make it! This is the classic recipe he gave us:
1) Put some slices of fruit into a jug (we used limes and oranges, but you can also use apples)
2) Add two big spoonfuls of sugar for one jug
2) Add 1/3 jug of red wine (or white wine), 1/3 jug of orange juice, and a 1/3 jug of apples juice
3) Put in about 8-10 counts of Brandy
4) Stir and enjoy!
We had seafood paella, but you can also make chicken or vegetable paella. Too bad seafood is so expensive around us!
YUM! You can see it steaming! It was absolutely delicious! We hung out, ate, and drank for a couple hours, then decided to go on the pub crawl the bar was hosting that night. We had to run home first and change though, and I decided to leave my camera at home because… well I am not known for taking care of my camera and Barcelona is known for pickpockets! We went to 5 bars… the coolest one was a place that had 600 different shots! We took one called the boy scout where the bartender lit the bar on fire, and we lit a little marshmallow on fire over it, dipped the marshmallow in the shot to put out the flame, ate the marshmallow, then took the shot. It was so cool! We also did one called the Harry Potter where he put a shot of something in a glass, put an orange slice and sugar on top, lit it all on fire, then you eat the orange slice and take the shot. It was so cool looking!
After the bars, the final stop on the pub crawl as a dance club! They don’t go out to the dance clubs until 2am!! We only stayed about an hour and a half because we were super tired and Jackson had to be up at 6am for his early train to Valencia! Once we got back to our room, I climbed right into bed and passed out within 2 seconds!
Day 7: Friday, April 15
Gabi and I had a late start this day… for obvious reasons! We didn’t end up leaving the hostel until 11am, and our first stop was Sagrada Familia, a famous church by Gaudi that still hasn’t been finished for 200 years. There were a ton of tourists around, and honestly, I thought it was weird and ugly. It could have just been because of all the construction around it… or the weird tourists.
Then we walked to the main street to see Gaudi’s house he built. The architecture is so odd!
It was so nice outside though! And Barcelona is gorgeous with all of the trees! Plus I could actually understand a little of the language, at least what was in Spanish and not Catalan! I actually remember some stuff from Spanish class!
We pretty much did what we did in the other two cities, just walked around! We got lunch and some ice cream, and decided to head over to the beach!
It was only about 70 degrees, but that didn’t stop some people from wearing their bikinis! We ended up laying on the beach for about an hour and taking a nap :) At that point I was wishing I didn’t put on a skirt because it was so windy! That’s when we decided to head back to the hostel before dinner to put on some pants!
This is why our hostel rocks: rooftop terrace with a hammock. BLISS! After relaxing a bit more, we got a bite to eat for dinner then went to a light/fountain show that the hostel staff told us we had to see! We are so glad we went! It was in front of the art museum, and they had the fountains spraying to the beat of different songs! We saw three shows, and our favorite was the first one. They played funny music, like I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston.
Then we climbed up to the museum to get a view of the city!
The show was great! It was so warm outside, and humid!! I missed humidity so much! After the show, we went back to our hostel for a Spanish tortilla making class! I am going to make them when I get home! It was fun hanging out with people from the hostel, and the staff there are so nice and funny. Oh also, I am impressed by how many people were cooking their own delicious looking food. I seriously need to start learning how to make good dishes! They were cooking for just themselves and it looked amazing! When Gabi and I go to Berlin, our hostel has a kitchen, so I think we should cook for ourselves… cheap and good! We ended up going to bed around midnight because the next day was my last day :( Oh yeah, and before bed, I realized I got a sunburn! Even though it was only 70 degrees, the sun was still hot!
Day 8: Saturday, April 16
We started the day by heading to the city park, which was absolutely gorgeous and had hardly any tourists! It smelled so great, and there were people playing ping pong and doing yoga just like the hostel staff said!
We walked around the park for awhile then we stumbled upon a hippie market with stuff about alternative medicine, yoga, meditation, food, crafts, organic random hippie things. It was really interesting and Gabi bought some awesome jewelry!
Then we walked around the city some more to explore a new area and ended up walking right back to the main area, La Rambla which as a bunch of street performers, caricature artists, cafes, and tourists! We looked around forever trying to find a cheap sandwich (because obviously the tourists area is overpriced). We ended up finding a sweet and cheap deal, then we ate in the sun by a gorgeous church and people watched. Then we unfortunately had to head back to the hostel so I could get my bags and take the train to the airport. I had such a great time! Barcelona was gorgeous, and every city we went to was so unique. My favorite part was the cooking classes!! They were awesome, and now I have a new dish I can cook!
Now it is off to the Czech Republic! I am excited to get out of a big city for awhile and be around nature! Then I get a day to explore Prague. What a difficult life I live ;)
Hej Hej!
Emily
PS. I will update when I return on Friday!
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