BARCELONA!! (Spring break part 3)

We arrived in Barcelona around 11pm (later than anticipated because we missed our flight, boo). Molly, Rachel, and Laura's apartment is HUGE!! It was nice to be back in an apartment rather than sharing a room with a bunch of randos in a hostel. As soon as we got there we got ready to go out. Some other wisco kids came over and we headed a bar called Chupito around 1am. This place was very crowed with black lights and crazy shots. There were over 200 shots to choose from with all sorts of crazy names. The first one everyone took was a smores shot in which you shot was lit on fire, you roasted a marshmellow on it and then dipped the marshmellow in the shot, took the shot and then ate the marshmellow. Most of the shots have something to do with fire one of them the whole bar was lit up! It was pretty cheap at 2 euro a shot so it was a good place to start out. Around 2ish we headed to a club called Sutton. At first there weren't many people and I was somewhat unimpressed with their "crazy nightlife" but it evenutally picked up and it was a fun night of dancing. Anne and Monica met us there so it was a big DG reunion. The only bad things about the place is there was so much broken glass on the floors that it kept getting stuck in my heels and making it really hard to walk AND people can smoke inside the clubs which results in stinky hair and clothes.

Day 2: We woke up and headed down Passeig de Gracia, which is the big shopping street in Barcelona to check out some of Gaudi's work. We saw his Casa Batllo which is the colorful building that looks like it has skulls and bones that form the balconies. Molly told us some crazy stories that she had learned about the building and why Gaudi might have designed the building the way he had. We also saw the Casa Mila which was an apartment building that Guadi designed. According to molly, nobody wanted to live in the place at first because it was so different from traditional styles! Afterwards we headed towards las ramblas. Las Ramblas is a famous street that has all these crazy street performers on it and people selling junk. They even had animals for sale! The street was super crowded and supposidly its notorious for pick pocketers so I held on to my stuff real tightly. The street led us to the Boceria, a huge outdoor market place. It had TONS of fruit and candy and vegetalbes and fish and everything you could imagine. We got smoothies that were only 1 euro and so delicious. Then we got lunch at a little sandwich place and by the time we were done it was already almost 4 so we headed back to the apartment for a nap. Emily, Molly and I made dinner that night and after getting ready to go out we ended up just sitting on her couch till 4:30 am catching up on the last 4 months.

1Euro smoothies!

Day 3: Molly and JD walked us around a bit more checking out some near by parks and then we got some TAPAS. they were a differnt kind of tapas in which they were all little sandwichs. I'm not sure what exactly it is that I ate but it was so good. It was expensive though which was kind of lame because I was still hungry when we were done. Afterwards, Molly was off to Venice for the weekend and Rachel and Waldman had already left for Amsterdam so Emily and I headed to her friend Mikes house where we would stay for the remaining two nights of our trip. We dropped our stuff off and headed out for another day of site-seeing. Our first stop was the Sagrada Familia. It is a massive Catholic church that started to be built in 1882 and is not expected to be done until 2026! It was designed by Gaudi (like everything else it seems) and although its pretty cool looking now, I saw pictures of what it is suppose to look like in final form and it is absolutely AMAZING. I'm impressed.

Sagrada Familia

Next we hopped on the metro and headed towards Parc Guell, designed, of course, by Gaudi. The park is on a hill and the whole place is a bunch of architectual strutures that are decorated with mosaics. Everything was so colorful and pretty and the fact that it was like 75 and sunny just added to the beauty of the park. Emily and I wandered around the grounds for a couple hours before heading back to mikes.

Park Guell entrence way

We went to the store when we got back and picked up some food for dinner. We made Tacos! ha yes, its mexican food rather than spanish but it was delicious all the same. We may have started drinking a bit to early because when 3am rolled around and we headed to the clubs, Emily and I were sent home in a Cab soon after when the bouncer would not let us stay. Whoops.

Day 4: We woke up around noon and headed to the BEACH!! We layed out all day soaking up the sun and it was SOOOO NICE! I am so jealous that Barcelona has a beach and Florence does not. It was a topless beach though which was awkward. There were moms running around playing with their children with no shirts on. Maybe its normal to them but still very strange to me. Around 4 we headed to this place called the Champaigneria which obviously is famous for their champaign. Everyone got burgers and champaign and we headed home for a nap. On the metro which was insanely crowded, one of the girls we were with got her wallet stolen. Thank God it was not me! We had to nap in shifts as Mikes roomates also had visiters and everyone wanted to nap in the beds so as some of us napped the others cooked and then we rotated. ha. That night Mike cooked us chicken stirfry yum! There was a HUGE soccer game on so we headed downstairs to the bar below thier apartment to watch the Barcelona Madrid game. People were crazy, everytime they scored a goal everyone went nuts and you could hear fireworks and other stuff going on outside. Barcelona won 2-0. After the game we headed back up stairs to get ready to go out. We went to a club called Razzmatazz which was insane! It was a massive multi-level club with different types of music in each room. We danced until the wee-hours of the morning and got back to the apartment with just enough time to make some "breakfast" and watch the sun rise.

Our group for the last two nights

Day 5: We spent our last few hours in Barcelona at the beach again. Emily and I got massages by these asian women walking around that are super annoying but well worth the 5 euros. At 6pm we left to get to the aiport that was an hour and half away (thank you ryan air for making my traveling as inconvientant as possible). Our flight was at 10:30 and after waiting in the Pisa airport for a bus transport to florence we finally made it home around 2:30 am. Long night of traveling and it felt so good to be home! I absolutly loved Barcelona, by far the best city I have been to so far. :)