DAY 10 – Saturday 26 June
The bus ride to Barcelona was about 5 hours, showed us the coast line, but nothing too exciting. It took us about 10 minutes to find the Metro stop located outside of the bus station because of really bad signage, but once we were on the Metro, it only took a little less than 10 minutes to make it to our hostel's metro stop: Jaume I. We stayed at the Equity Gothic Point hostel, located in the area known as 'Barri Gotic', and had a 14 people dorm room. 14 people sounds overwhelming, but it turned out to be amazing! Each room had high ceilings which allowed for the hostel to bunk the beds and provide a drape for privacy, so each bed felt like its own room. (go to the web site to check out the bunking system because we forgot to take a picture...oops) Our room ended up housing 7 Americans, 3 Australians, 2 Dutch, 1 Canadian, and 1 French (it also included a Brazilian before the last American arrived but he didn't really hang out with us).
For lunch, we ate at this awesome place called 'Conesa'; they are famous for their "entrepans", a Catalan word, which equates a 'bocadillo' in Castellano. [Catalan is the Spanish dialect spoken in the region Catalunya where Barcelona is located. Castellano is the national Spanish language=textbook Spanish.] We then stopped at a gelteria called "Gelaaati!" because one snow could not stop craving frozen yogurt. Both of these establishments were located on the road Lliberteria (right next to Calle de Jaume). It was time to start our Barcelona walking tour via Lonely Planet, and our first exploration led us to La Rambla--the main street in Barcelona where you can find performers, small markets which sale crafts, souvenirs and even pets, etc. Also along La Rambla is "Market La Boqueria"--one of the fresh markets in Barce.
Our tour took us to the Placa de Catalunya, the Cathedral, the Roman Wall, Museu Picasso, and Palau de la Musica Catalana (notice the Catalan spelling for some words). After the tour was done, we joined some of our roommates from the hostel for the USA game at a pub named "The Palace". During overtime, we moved to the hostel which was our meeting point for 'The Party Bus'. 'The Party Bus' was hosted by our hostel and cost 25 euro. It took us to 3 bars and a disco called "Catwalk". Our room was fast asleep by 5am. [By the way, one of our roommates from Rutgers University spoke, acted and looked like Justin Bieber. In greater coincidence, he actually plays guitar and can also sing.]
DAY 11 – Sunday 27 June
One Snow managed to wake up by 10:30am for Mass at the Esglesia de Santa Maria del Mar; Mass was done in Catalan which was really difficult for Snow to understand but she made it through. By the time Snow was out of church, the rest of the room was awake. The afternoon started with a visit to the Museu Picasso and the Pre-Colombian museum. The Museu Picasso featured the early work of Pablo Picasso and marked his stylistic changes as he moved between different cities in Spain; the best part of the collection, at least for the Snows, was Picasso's reinterpretation of Velazquez's infamous art work "Las Meninas". The Pre-Colombian museum was interesting and featured artifacts recovered overtime by the Spaniards during their exploration of Northern and Central America.
Next on the agenda was a trek to Anotoni Gaudi's unfinished church called 'Sagrada Familia'. From our hostel, it took about 40 minutes to walk to the infamous, architectural beauty, but for us, it was well worth it and also gave us a chance to see another piece of Gaudi's architecture in Barce, 'La Pedrera'. When we visited the church, we were unable to climb the towers, but we still felt it was worth going inside to view the work in progress within the church. [It cost 12 euro per person; this is pretty pricey, especially since the towers were out of commission, but we allowed ourselves to splurge and felt it was worth it.]
Upon our return to the hostel, we headed out for dinner at 'La Taberna del Cobre'. We had patatas bravas, an hamberguesa, and tostada ahumada. That night's festivities included watching the end of a World Cup game and then a journey to a club named 'Roxy' with a large group from our hostel and its sister hostel--the hostel provided everybody with free entrance to the club and the girls got a free mixed drink and champagne.
DAY 12 – Monday 28 June
Monday morning started off with unbearable heat inside our room and drilling right outside our window. One of the downfalls of this hostel is their inability to have functional AC inside the hostel rooms--or at least within ours. For lunch, we went to 'Taller de Tapas', located on the same street of the Museu Picasso, and had a pintxo de calamares, a pintxo de bombas (a meatball surrounded by mashed potatoes), and a parillada de verdeturas (grilled vegetables).
The main item on the agenda for today was Parc Guell--a park built by Gaudi. We took the metro as a means of transportation because the distance was a little too far even for the Snows. The park is a must-see for Barcelona! Its layout is built upon a hill which leads to different lookout points over Barce; the best and highest of these, however, is the one marked with a sculpture of a cross surrounded by other abstract shapes. A trail is provided for park goers which snakes them through the different museums located within the park; the snows had different plans though. Instead of following the paved trail, we followed a nature trail which bypassed the museums and took us on a small hike through the hill towards the highest peak. Our trip from bottom to top took about 15 minutes when it should have taken about 30. Nevertheless, the view from the top included the coast line, the Olympic stadium, and the vast city of Barcelona.
The day started and decided to remain hot. We were satisfied with our touristic adventures and decided to visit the market on La Rambla to buy fruit for our next day early train ride to San Sebastian. The rest of the day was reduced to a failed attempt of watching the World Cup, an exploration of the hostel's terrace (which was really nice, spacious and included a ping pong table), and a crucia siesta for a snow. Dinner was enjoyed at 'Orci', a Basque-style pintxo bar. At this bar, you serve yourself the pintxos you want to try (buffet-style), then the server counts how many toothpicks you have left on your plate from the pintxos and calculates your bill. Too many pintxos were tried, so a list cannot be provided, but they were all delicious so as a piece of advice: Do not be afraid to try new, and sometimes unrecognizable, pintxos.
Our last night in Barce was spent in two different ways for the Snows. One snow went to the beach with the Dutch girls from our room, and the other snow went to the 'Harlem Jazz Bar' with the Australian friends and another American from our room. Both snows spent a relaxing evening in amazing company :D
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