Wandering Worlds : Barcelona, land of Sangria and Tapas

I just got back yesterday from the beautiful lands of Barcelona, Spain. My one roommate and I went, and while we were there, we stayed with my old friend (like last time we went to the same school was elementary school). It was so amazing of her to let us stay with her, and even better to be able to catch up with her. I love how people can come together like that in different countries. Enough of my inspirational thoughts, as I know you obviously care more about what actually went on in Barcelona:)

I feel like traveling somewhere, even if it takes a 2 hour flight, takes a whole day. I had to take the tube to the bus station, then the bus to the airport, then the plane to Barcelona, then the train to city center, then walked about a mile or so to my fiends place. All of this happened from 8 am on Wednesday morning until about 3 or 4 pm that afternoon. We all went to dinner at a place called the Black Sheep at around 8, which is early because most people there do not eat until 9, or so, but we wanted to watch FC Barcelona vs. Man City football match. The black sheep was awesome, with almost a dungeon-y feel. I kicked off my first meal with tapas. I had patates bravos and fuet (sausage) on bread with a tomato paste spread over it, which were both really good. We watched the Barcelona and Man city Game to which Barcelona won 1-0. We stayed there for a while and had LOTS of Sangria can cava (still don’t know what that is, I believe a type of champagne). Being used to pints of beer being so expensive, and sangria being fairly cheap I was loving life, a little too much, but when in Barcelone, right?

After not getting to bed until 2:30 in the morning, I slept in….lol not, I woke up at 8:45 weirdly. I got myself ready for the day and off we went to explore. My friend took us to the Bocaria, which is Borough Market, but to me, a little better. Borough Market has every kind of meats and cheeses and desserts, and then like random other things. Bocaria has EVERYTHING, well everything from Spain. They had meats, cheeses, fish, chocolate, so many fresh fruits and juices, croqettes….okay it is the same exact thing as Borough Market. After I got a chicken and a cheese croquette, and a strawberry banana juice, we kept walking around and got chocolate covered strawberries. Then my roommate and I went on our walking tour, which we ditched at the halfway mark. The guy was good, but a little dull and we weren’t feeling it, so then we decided to walk to Sagrada Familia, which is a really long walk, so halfway there we decided to take the metro:) It was huge and super decorated and HUGE! Very pretty, but a lot of it was under construction, which was kinda lame, but still beautiful none the less. I got Patates Braves (they are that yummy) and Churros there, which were pretty good! We then met my friend back at her place and got ready for dinner. We went to a little bar that gives you a free tapas with each beer, so cool! With our first beer we got almost like a garlic bread with sweet ham on top, so yummy, and our second one was bread with onion, sausage and bbq sauce on top, delicious! We then went to a place for dinner called Pepe Tomate. We split tapas and got patates braves (they are so good and actually very different wherever you go), this omelet thing with ham on it ( I can't remember the name), and calcots (its on onion straw basically, some are deep fried, with this weird orange looking sauce, and all of it was so good!

A piece by Pablo Picasso, as a joke to the city, but there it still stands

The tallest recorded human pyramid that they do during festivals!

My friend left for Madrid today, so after getting up, my roommate and I made our way to our air B&b for the night, stopping at a cute cafe for cafe con leche (coffee with milk) and croissants along the way. We then got to the place, which was very eclectic and weird, but not too bad for only one night. After checkin in there, we went to Parc Guell and climbed up to the top to see amazing views of Barcelona! We wanted to go sit on those mosaic benches that everyone sits on, but the line to get in was super long and we didn’t realize it cost money. So after getting all the views from above, we made our way to the beach. It took us a bit to find it, as we started at the marina and were super confused as to where the actual beach was. A couple of blocks down we finally found it. BUT, it was super cloudy, and the wind was probably a good 40 if not more mph. We took a view photos, much to our hair’s disagreement, and then went to look for lunch. I wish it was sunny and nice out so we could have sat on the beach:( But we found a burger place called Makamaka, and it was super yummy! I got a Jamaican burger with fries and it was exactly what I needed. After that, we just explored the city center, got our souvenirs and went to dinner before calling it in for an early night because we were super exhausted and had to leave by 8 am the next day for our flight.

Such pretty alleyways and architecture

Trying to find the beach...

Arc de Triomphe (spanish version)

The last day consisted of getting up early, getting to the airport, and going through security to realize we were flying RyanAir....if you have ever flown them, you know that that means. So my roommate and I had to leave through the exit of the airport, at the other side, so get our visas checked and stamped at the entrance, and go through the WHOLE airport process again. A mistake I made once, and never thought I would do again, but I was sorely mistaken. Nonetheless we made it with plenty of time to our flight and arrived safely back in London:) Another amazing trip down on this crazy adventure I get to call life.