The construction isn’t predicted to be completed until around 2040. It’s nuts.
The inside was even more beautiful - unlike ANYTHING I’ve ever seen before in my life.
After we took in as much as we possibly could, we headed back to the hotel to change for dinner. We took a taxi toward the beach and walked around for a bit before sitting down at Can Majo for a delicious seafood dinner. We shared some amazing paella with extra seafood.
(That was my portion - SO GOOD!)
We went to check out the bar in the W on it’s own little peninsula after we had filled ourselves to the brim with paella and delicious desserts. It was a reeeally cool place with delicious sweet drinks, but we definitely regretted the whole she-bang in the morning… WAY too much sugar in those drinks and not enough water. Or something of that nature.
Struggling to get a move on Saturday morning, I went to meet them at their hotel hoping that I wasn’t the only one feeling crappy. They didn’t feel so great either, and luckily we were heading to one of the best hangover brunch spots in Barcelona: Milk. I had a great cup of coffee, a LOT of water, and some delicious eggs Benedict, the same meal I’d had the last time I went to Milk. After breakfast, we went to see La Catedral, which was obviously just as beautiful even the second time around. We quickly saw the Temple of Augustus ruins, but Dad had already seen lots of cool Greek ruins this summer, so it wasn’t necessary to stay there too long.
We grabbed a cab back on Via Laietana and headed out towards Montjuic. I’d been wanting to go for so long so I was getting really excited even though I wasn’t feeling so great. We took a cable car up to the top of the mountain, then walked our way down. At the top, there was a gorgeous castle with a cool exhibition and concert actually going on in the middle. The concert didn’t start until later that night so they were only setting up for it, but it was cool to see all the people milling around the old creepy castle.
We walked down the mountain through pathways and on roads, it was really beautiful! The Olympic Stadium was so cool too.
We went back later and napped and changed, then tried to find a place to watch the Madrid Barcelona soccer match - a huge deal around here. We were running a little late so most places were already stuffed full, and we had to settle for a crappy little place. It ended up turning out okay though because we got to see the game, Barca won, and we met this adorable little old lady from Berlin named Ruth. She had the coolest story about how she escaped from Berlin in ‘63 and then moved to Australia. She was traveling here with a tour, and had been eating dinner alone so we invited her to eat with us!
Because the food there was pretty gross, we stopped into a cute place called Barnauda for tapas later on. We ate a bunch of types of cheese and a lot of the high quality jamon iberico, a Spanish specialty. We barhopped after that, and tried two cool places called the Attic and Luzia. The Attic was a rooftop place with a douchey bartender, but Luzia was right across from the hotel and was really cool! I want to try to get back there at some point - maybe I’ll take Mom and Sarah.
Sunday morning we woke up and went to Park Guell. We started by exploring around the park because we didn’t want to wait in the huge line to get into the more famous area. We thought maybe we could sneak in somehow or find another way in, but we ended up getting lost a couple of times and never making it in. You could see most of the cool stuff from the outside I think, but either way, I’ll be going again with Mom and Sarah so I wasn’t too worried.
Next on our agenda was heading outside the city to a little beach town called Sitges. It was SO much fun and an absolutely gorgeous day.
We had lunch at this AMAZING (and expensive) place called Maricel. We ordered ceviche, beef tartare and octopus and I devoured as much as I could of every single one.
After we were stuffed, we sat on the beach for a while and Dad and I went swimming. Such an unbelievable day!
We headed back toward Barcelona just before the sun set, and showered and changed before dinner. For dinner, we went to a little place called La Vinateria del Call in the old Jewish Quarter within Barri Gotic. It was really hidden and hard to find but we made it there! We ate a bunch of different traditional dishes, including more iberico and more cheese plates. I tried sheep cheese, duck and venison. After dinner, we wandered around the back streets some more and found a little place called Saltezio with a Moroccan feel to it. When I say little, I mean this place was tiny, had a tabletop burner stove, and served only a couple things. It was really cute! The owner of the place was there at the little bar, and Barbara and I spoke to him in Spanish for a while, which was really cool. I am so freaking rusty though!
After Saltezio, I took them to Plaza George Orwell, where Carol and I had gone to lunch at that amazing vegetarian place a couple weeks ago. There’s a cool bar there that I’ve peeked into called Bar Oviso with a funky crowd. It was awesome there, except that the bartender poured me a drink with 75% Absolut, even though I asked for “menos vodka y mas soda”. I had an open-note midterm in history the next morning (sorry Xavi), so I headed home without drinking that awful drink.
Monday, my test went fairly well and I turned in my photo assignment on portraits that I thought were pretty cool! Here are my favorites:
(This last one’s my favorite of the 4 I think…)
After class was over, I met them back at the top of Las Ramblas and we walked to Brunch and Cake for a delicious and healthy lunch. When we were done, I took them back to my neighborhood on the metro and they got to see my dorm room, my residencia building, the Arc de Triomf and Centennial Park.
At the Zoo entrance, we went right and walked through El Born for a little while. We wandered and got to explore the cute back streets. I got a tan sweater in a little shop and we stopped in one of those fish spas where the little fish eat the dead skin off of your feet. It felt absolutely weird but so cool!
For dinner, we went back toward the direction of their hotel and stopped in a place on the corner called Bar Lobo. We ordered a bunch of tapas and split them between us. Beef carpaccio, tomato and mozzarella, grilled artichokes and more of my beloved octopus - deeeelicious! After we ate, we tried out an underground live music club called Jamboree, which had a really great first act and a really awful second. We left then and stumbled upon a place called Tasty, where this huge group of Danish 17-year-old boys (or around that age) came in and ordered 20 shots. It was hysterical. Apparently, Danes can really drink…
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