Barcelona!!!!!

Oh my goodness, what a city. And where to start! Well, might as well start at the beginning, and I'll pick up where I left off the last post. Myself, Carla (the carshare girl), and the Frenchfella (who's name I can't remember) arrived on the outskirts of Barcelona at around 8:30 or so, at the tip of the Metro system. We said bye and thanks to Carla for the ride, hopped on the metro, and made our way to the centre. Now if I hadn't known there was a festival that night I would have been scared for my life, for the firecrackers they have here aren't the little piddly things we get back home. These things are more like backyard dynamite! And they're going off all around town on every corner, which was kinda eerie because the town itself seemed deserted. Apparently everyone was getting all silly down on the beach. I was pretty bagged having not gotten  to bed till late the day before, so I decided to take an easy night, walked for a little bit, bought a baguetini and a beer, and checked into the hostel. Hands down the craziest hostel I've ever been in! Actually it was more a cross between a hostel, hotel, and night club. Great staff, comfy quiet rooms, but so busy. On top of that, I found out it was a Contiki Tour hostel, so busloads of young underage American and Aussie kids getting loaded and such. But I was blessed with quiet roomates, a couple South Korean girls and a few French who didn't speak English.
The next morning I met my New Orleans friend, Ben, who apparently never got in contact with his CouchSurfing friend and ended up spending the night on the beach! That guy was a trooper I tell ya, never lost his spunk! At this point I'm trying to remember all we did, it seems like so long ago! Oh there was this one cool thing we saw that wasn't too far from my hostel.

The Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece. You might have seen pictures, but not even these do this place justice. I thought Notre Dame de Paris was tall at 90 metres to the tallest spire, but at 170 metres the Sagrada dominates everything nearby. And it's not even finished! As the story goes, Gaudi was hired to work on the church which had already been planned and started. He basically scrapped the plans and went to town with his own ideas. As time progressed Gaudi's increasing dedication to the church and the lack of funding resulted in him devoting the last decade or so of his life entirely to the project. One interesting thing is that the church is funded entirely by private donations, partially the reason it has taken so long to construct!
In the last years of his life Gaudi was consumed by his work, and basically lived in the Sagrada. His youthful smart outfits had deteriorated into rags and he began to appear hermit-like, which unfortunately led to his end in a roundabout way.
While Gaudi was crossing the street one day he was hit by a tram and severely injured, though due to his tattered clothes he was taken for a homeless person and left on the side of the road. One smart city official finally recognized him and rushed him to a hospital, but he died there of his injuries. At the time of Gaudi's death in 1926, the Sagrada Familia was less than a quarter finished but they plan to have it done by the centennial of his passing in 2026. Interestingly, the hardest parts are still yet to come, and the tallest spire hasn't even taken form! Notice in the pictures how as the statues get newer, they become increasingly blocky and less fancy. Not sure why, but it's cool!

Here's another church we found, really open compared to French Gothic styles.

Now ben took off to find his lodging and I decided to do my usual aimless walking thing and found La Ramblas!

Really cool street with an amazing market, but I was ready to destroy anyone I saw with one of those stupid punch-and-judy voice changer thingys! The street hawkers really get to you after a while, I'm not gonna lie. The end of the street led to the start of the ocean, so on I ventured!

That was pretty stunning. I found the beach, and a nifty little burger shop that plastered the walls with comic book covers, and headed home for the day.

I'm not gonna lie, this may be all backwards because I could NOT keep track of time while I was there! I do know at some point I wanted to check out the royal palace only to find it closed, but found Camp Nou instead, home of the Football Club of Barcelona (FCB).

That night (I think) I went to meet up with Ben again to check out the Font Màgica, or Magic Fountain of Montjuic. And it was closed. Turns out they start shows on Thursday. We found a little bar, had a beer, and parted ways as he was heading to Valencia the next day.

At some point here a few of the people I had met in Toulouse showed up and we finally managed to link and go see a couple things. The first being Park Guell, a beautiful park on the side of a hill featuring a TON of Gaudi architecture and a bunch of really good musicians!

I will admit that I was a bit nervous walking under some of these...

 Thats Moose from Brighton. Awesome dude.

There is a lot of stairs in Barcelona! A constant challenge for some of the people I was with.

This is the view from the top of the park. Notice the Sagrada Familia? Most of those buildings surrounding it are about six to ten stories high. We headed back down and made plans to meet up for dinner at their hostel, so I went back down to the Ramblas and the Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria, the lord of all farmers markets, to pick up some watermelon and mint for a salad. 

I got to the HelloBCN hostel where they were staying just in time, and we had a spread! There was about 6 of us and we ended up givin food to about 12 people we had so much. 

Hold on, I missed a day. The day before all this we met up and had dinner at the most amazing restaurant! Which is kind of a funny story...we were determined to find a decent Paella in town and after walking for a while we stopped into a little place with not many people. No people in fact. The place was a little odd to begin with, but went the waiter came up looking either drunk, stoned, or both, we were even more nervous. I guess the hooka collection on the wall should have been a clue. 

So we ordered, looked at each other, and split. We literally just got up and went before they had a chance to say anything! Hah, I've never done anything like that in my life, though I don't think they lost out cuz the guy never did put our order in. Turns out he was watching youtube. So just around the corner we found another place worlds above this one. They were uniformed, professional, there was a live piano player, amazing food and wine....I could go on. So success! 

But now I gotta skip a couple days. Confusing? Sorry 'bout that, its more confusing for me I think...7 days is the longest I've stayed anywhere besides the farm so I get all mussed up if I'm in one place for too long I think...

I was really kinda bummed about missing that fountain the other day so I suggested it to the folks and we decided to go, though Moose stayed behind. That was a bit of a shock compared to a couple days before! Well, the gay pride convention was a shock too, but the fountain was even more! I let the pictures explain now. Keep in mind this place was totally dark when we went before!

So that was fun. We called it an early night, for I hadnt got home till 6am the night before having gotten lost on the bus system and riding all the way out of town and back. The next day Moose had missed his flight and found another so he was back in England, so out of all the people I met in Toulouse and Montpellier it was only me, Jack, and Alice. That day we split up, Alice went shoppin and Jack and I went to find the Palau de Musica, for I heard there was an open concert. We got there at the perfect time, the lineup was down the street when we got out!

And the music was amazing! Two childrens choirs, one from Catalunya and the other from Australia. 

And that pipe organ in the background played Tocatta and Fugue in D minor between sets! After that Jack and I walked around and found some cool stuff. 

Another arch de triomf,

The castle of three dragons,

An awesome fountain,

And Alice. We randomly met her in a gelateria, one of the many in town. So we decided to find some lunch and came across an awesome little pizza parlour with amazing sangria. First sangria in Spain!!

Classy. After lunch Alice went to find a couple more stores and Jack and I went back to the fountain to  see the park in the daytime. We found stairs. Lots and lots of them.

How messed up is it that they have an escalator going up the mountain, eh? Where's the fun in that!? Well this little hike turned out to be pretty awesome and let to the 1992 Olympic park.

I'm not sure what that is, but it's definitely not the Olypic swimming pool. We found the hill went even higher, and determined to make it to the top we found a castle. A real life castle! And the view from the castle was unreal.

So that's about it, we made dinner again, went to a bar on the beach, met some more Aussies and a British girl, made our way back, said our goodbyes, and that is the extent of my seven nights in Barcelona. Now I know I'm missing a ton of stuff in there, but as I'm still recovering from that city I find it quite difficult to recall much of it. But where I am now, which is about 85k north of Barcelona, is the absolute perfect place to relax for a few days. There will be many photos to share, so until then!