After the 3 trains, and 10 hours we arrived in Barcelona and got a taxi to our hostel at around 11pm. We had been quite excited about Spain leading up to it, and were glad that we could put it back into our itinerary after initially thinking in January that we wouldn’t have time.
The next day we headed into the city (as our hostel was 20 minutes out of town) to walk down the infamous La Ramblas – the most famous street in Barcelona… Quite honestly I’m not sure what the hype was. It was basically tourist row with crappy souvenirs stores and a few human statues busking for money. Perhaps our idea of Spain was a little warped before going there… we thought there was always a carnivale, and salsa dancers roaming the streets, lots of bright colours everywhere and beautiful beaches that met the desert. We expected a small village like old town in San Diego but on a much larger scale with tumbleweeds rolling down the street – kinda like in western movie… somehow I think we expected Mexico… or perhaps Mexico isn’t like that either it’s just like that in our heads… hey we have learnt a LOT on this trip… Barcelona does not equal Mexico, nor is it on the same continent (this fact I learnt while planning the trip – you know, because they both speak Spanish…)
Nevertheless, Barcelona was not what we expected. It is a huge city! And looks just like any other European city we have been to. We decided to walk around and find the famous beaches… and we found one, and then followed it around to the other eight identically boring beaches. We did however, wonder why there was a naked 50 year old leathery skinned man roaming the beach with no belongings anywhere in sight… where did he come from? Where was he going? And where were his clothes??!? Other than that the view was bland, the sea was flat, there were few people around and it was just unfulfilling and dull. After about 8 hours of walking around we headed back to the hostel to make dinner, quite disappointed that the Spain in our heads did not exist.
We spent the next two days on the hop-on hop-off bus tour. The first day we got out at the Park Gruell and walked around for about 2 hours, stopped at a flea market which was literally someone’s rubbish bin tipped out on the floor for shoppers to go through, and ended with some quite expensive, and unfulfilling, tasteless Chinese food for dinner and left still hungry.
The second day we got out at a cable car which was to take us to the top of a mountain to see a castle/fort. Somehow Sara talked me into going up, even though I was quite happy to wait for her at the bottom. I gritted my teeth and got on the contraption, fearing for my life I held on and left a hand print on the metal bar. After what felt like an eternity we arrived unscathed at the top, though I was a little wobbly on my feet and had to sit down for “uno momento”. I was very brave!
Next we walked into the very unimpressive fort which overlooked the bland view of the city. It seems that every building in the city is cream or off white or any other variation of bland earth colours, so when you see them on mass they all meld together into one big mass of bland. Once again I gritted my teeth, got back on the cable car and held my breath as we made it back down the hill to safe ground.
By this stage we were quite disheartened by our time in Spain and felt there had to be something we were missing. We asked people on facebook who we have met along the way what they did here, we asked the hostel staff what we should be seeing… but everyone kept telling us the places we had been. We decided that Barcelona blows!
The next day we thought we would go to yet another church… my guidebook says that if you do one thing in Barcelona you should go to the Segrada Famiglia Basilica, and other people had raved about it. Sara and I are not particularly into art and architecture… or religion for that matter, but decided to such it up and try to be ‘cultured’ for the day… We hopped off the metro and walked over to the basilica and looked around for the entrance. We were standing in front of the group entrance but I could not see the normal entrance or where to pay… next thing I know Sara has ‘joined’ a tour group and so we followed them through the gates and into the basilica, no questions asked! BRILLIANT! – That saved us 18 Euro each! And surely after the amount of money we have given to churches lately they have enough to satisfy their Santa.. I mean Jesus (no offence, each to their own fairy godmother..or godfather… you know what I mean) – turns out the main entrance is on the other side of the church…
Somehow we lost our new friends from our ‘tour group’ and were left to venture in on our own, but we didn’t mind so much, we can’t speak Spanish anyway and they kept ignoring us and talking among themselves… quite frankly we found them rude and exclusive, it was like they didn’t know we were in their group!
So we prepared ourselves for yet another church, hoping this one would be more interesting that the countless other European churches we have been to… and as we walked in we were greeted with stunningly bright stain-glass windows that did not depict he slaughter of a man, but a mosaic of coloured light. The ceiling was incredibly detailed, the stair cases swirled and whirled up to the roof. It was absolutely stunning. It had been designed by Gaudi, a famous modernist architect that has built many structures throughout Barcelona, but in 1926, was tragically hit by a tram and died three days later.
We now felt that we were starting to “get” Barcelona, and ended the day back at the beach where the place was now buzzing with people.
With a new appreciation for art and culture and stuff we like totally thought we should see more cool stuff like... So the next day we decided we would head to another place built by Gaudi – Casa Batllo.
Being our last day in Barcelona, we thought we should send home a box of things we have collected along the way, as we will soon need our packs to meet the airline weight restrictions when we meet mum and dad in a months time. So we packed all our trinkets into a bag and headed to the post office… We walked to the train station with one handle each, as the bag was quite heavy on its own.. then we played “you carry it, no you carry it, fine I’m leaving it here, no don’t” while we waited for our train… then we arrived at the square and found some markets – we thought we should look at the stalls before the post office in case we found anything else we wanted sent home.. so then we played “you carry it to the end of the row and I’ll carry it back” and whinged about it the whole way. Next we played “you carry it for 15 minutes then I’ll carry it for 15 minutes, but it doesn’t count if you sit down or while you stop to ask directions and if you try to jip me I’ll make you start your time again” as we walked around looking for the post office. Then we arrived to a locked up, very closed building and realised it was a Saturday and therefore we were unlikely to be able to mail it today, also considering it was now 4pm.
We were now very weary from our long walk to the train station and all our game playing and needed more energy to continue searching for someone to take our shit off us, so we decided to break for lunch… luckily the place we asked for directions was a restaurant because we wouldn’t have made it any further… being our usual fussy selves we looked at the menu with an impending feeling of worry that if we didn’t find anything here we were going to have to continue walking with that blasted bag again. We must have decided that walking any further without food in our bellies was impossible and begrudgingly ordered a chicken paella, to share – surely it can’t be that bad, even though it isn’t white its still made of white stuff… and if we share and it blows it will give us enough energy to get real food – or at least enough energy to play “you finish it, no you finish it”..
Luckily for us, it was delicious, and we ended up playing “that’s my half, no that’s mine, stop touching it, get away from my spoon, I can’t believe you ate my last mouthful I was saving that bitch”. And it was filling enough to last until dinner giving us lots of energy to begin our walk across town…
On a side note – mum.. dad…. Are you sure you’re ready to spend 6 weeks with us??? Coz we play a lot of games like this and you’ll need to be prepared to carry our things in 15 minute intervals…
Now buzzing and ready to go we continued playing “15 minutes each” while we asked locals if there was a courier service or something that may be open. We were told that if we just walked to the other side of the town one place may reopen at 5pm but they were not answering their phone to check… so we continued to play “you carry it, its too bloody heavy, I hate this stupid bag, why am I sending this home I’ll never use it, screw it that shirt can go in the bin, oh and mine too, mine too” and eventually made it up to yet another closed store, with a slightly less heavy bag.
Finally we found a courier that was open but to our dismay, they wanted to charge us 400Euro to send home a box… which is ridiculous considering the brochures inside that Sara so diligently likes to send home, were free, so we politely declined. But now we were left with that pile of crap for the day, no one to send it home for us, and the Guadi house was fast approaching closing time.
Sara wanted to continue playing “15 minute intervals” but after she continuously jipped me by sitting down during her turn I cracked it and took my things out of the bag so she was left with only her things. Amazingly each bag was now quite bearable to carry, but we did have fun playing our games, even though we whinged a lot when it was our turn (part of the game is seeing who can whinge the most – I usually win).
We finally arrived at the Gaudi house and again were amazed by the detail that went into building it. The builders didn’t even have plans to go from, only a model that Gaudi had made, and he sat outside while they worked, directing them how to build it. Gaudi made each of the door handles by modelling clay to the shape of his hand and then brassing it. He also designed lots of the furniture which originally lived in the house… and is available to buy in the shop.
We topped off the day by going to the “magic” fountain, where the fountain danced in time with music and lights and then we ventured into a tapas restaurant after having such a good experience at lunch. We ordered lots of dishes, including seafood (yep that right, I ate seafood) which were all delicious and even had dessert! It was a good day!
Today we caught the 13 hour train to Granada and arrived to rainy weather, here’s hoping the rain will go away because I think I’m gonna like it here…
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