Thanksgiving seemed to fall sooooooooooooo late this year. But, I guess that the perk of that is now it's already December and I can start counting the days until I get to return to the States and visit my family.
15 days!!!!!!!!!!!
However, the Thanksgiving holiday gave me a four day weekend and I was off to Barcelona.
Thankfully, my key to my apartment jammed on Tuesday (and not Wednesday) and gave me time to have it fixed long before I had to jet off to the airport.
Thankfully, my landlords are pretty great in that they took over figuring things about getting the whole situation straightened out but it did mean I was locked out of my apartment for about 19 hours. Argh.
Thankfully, Caitlin came through and fed me dinner and let me sleep over so that I wasn't stuck outside. This was definitely one occurrence that reminds you that expat life isn't always easy.
Anyways, on to Barcelona!
We arrived easily by
AeroBus (€10.80 or so round trip) to Placa de Catalunya and took the metro out to our hotel. I've always heard that Barcelona is notorious for pick pocketing and simple thieves. We hadn't been in town for more than two minutes when some guy tried to open the top section of my backpack. I felt something brush against me and turned and looked around to see some creepy guy a little too close for comfort. He moved away and I got on the metro. Stacia checked out my bag and said the top portion was open. I keep my iPhone there, so I'm happy to report that the thief was unable to ruin my weekend, because my iPhone was safe and sound!!! What a relief!!!
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| Stacia and me! |
We wandered around Thursday night a bit, checking out the area where we were staying and hopping the metro back in to the main part of the city. We tried some tapas at
a little joint near
the hotel and then headed towards a
recommendation from Angela. Oddly enough, we made our way to the place and then ran into Angela! So funny!
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| Barcelona...under the lights! |
On Friday, we started our day at Starbucks (of course!). We decided to check out the
Sandeman's Free Tour of the city. While the tour was good, I had a hard time connecting with the history of Barcelona so I spent the time taking pictures and enjoying the sites. We met up with Angela again and she gave us a back alley tour of her old neighborhood. The Gothic Quarter is a really cool section of the city. We indulged in some
more tapas and shopped around. Before we went back to the hotel, we had
another round of tapas, which quite frankly intimidated us since we couldn't identify anything!
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| so cute! |
Saturday we went to
Sagrada Familia. I had booked tickets for the entrance, audio guide and a tower tour in advance. That was the best decision since we didn't wait in any lines at all! Sagrada Familia is Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece. It was so unique and so intricate. I loved that it was meaningful and yet playful all at the same time. I mean there is fruit on the top of some pillars, curved staircases and lines, and so many unique touches.
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Passion Facade
cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo by Martin Pilát:
http://flickr.com/photos/martinpilat/4930300304/ |
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| close up of one element of the Passion Facade |
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| fruit, from part of the Passion tower...of course, this place is always under construction |
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| from the tower you could see all the way to the sea! |
We also took a stroll past the Block of Disorder, a set of houses designed by
Gaudi and others, in the same modernistic design. I really loved the house of his design. Next we moved on to La Rambla and took a stroll down to the Columbus monument and the port of Barcelona. I also went out to Parc Guell to see more Gaudi design.
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| kind of love this one... |
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| at the port |
Barcelona was a great city and I hope to make it back again. There's so much more to see and do that I didn't get to this time around.
On another note, my favorite sister had a birthday this week! Wishing her the best of days!
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| Happy Birthday Cece! |
Have you been to Barcelona? What's your favorite thing to do in the city?
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