Barcelona

The train ride from Madrid was largely uneventful and, thankfully, pretty short. The ride from Santiago to Madrid took almost seven hours, but to Barca, it was only about two.

Anyway, from the station, we grabbed a set of 4-day metro passes (which were incredibly expensive at about 25 euro apiece; I’d forgotten how expensive the metro system was. We got our money’s worth, though) and headed to the hostel. It was in a fantastic location (1 block from the Arc d’Triomf metro station, and a ten-minute walk from my old residencia), and the people running it were nice. Also did my laundry for 6 euro. Considering that’s about how much it costs to do it yourself, I was pretty happy with the deal!

After we checked in, we went to warm up for Sagrada Familia with some lesser-known Modernisme. The Arc d’Triomf was a block down the street, so we went there, grabbed some photos, and meandered into the Ciutadella, a big park in the heart of the city famous for two things. One, it was a former fort that the Castillians built to keep an eye on the rebellious Catalonians several centuries back. As soon as it was vacated, the Catalonians tore it down and built the park. Two, it has a fountain designed by Gaudi and one of his students in the middle of it. It’s also a phenomenal park in its own right.

After that, dinner, then bed.

Day 2, went back to the station to reserve our seats to Avignon, which was an experience. After two hours and four attendants who spoke about as much English as we did Spanish, we finally realized that we didn’t need to reserve seats, since we were taking local trains. After that, we did Sagrada Familia (which I’ve already posted about), then headed to La Rambla and slowly made our way down the water front. On the way, we stopped at La Boqueria (the big market here, where I grabbed some guava agua fresca) and shook our heads at a Catalonian bachelor party making its way across town. They were…thoroughly sloshed by the time we saw them, and had air horns, whistles, and megaphones to herald their arrival. Anyway, we wandered down the waterfront for a while, then headed back for dinner.

On the way, we walked through the Carrer de Ribes neighborhood (wanted to see if the Italian restaurant was open), and got to see the joyous sight of what happens when you give small children matches. While we were walking down the street, we realized, “Oh, that trees on fire.” Some kids had apparently wanted to see what happens when you held a lit match to the bark of a palm tree. They were initially highly amused by it, but when it worked its way up the tree, they got a little panicked when they realized they weren’t tall enough to put it out. It was honestly hysterical to watch all the adults scramble over to extinguish it (Though one guy started hitting it with a flip flop. I don’t know what he hoped to accomplish, but someone ran out with a 2 liter of water, which did the job).

The next day, we headed up to one of Gaudi’s other masterpieces, Parc Guell. After trying (and…somewhat succeeding) to get a photo with El Drac, we wandered around, meandered through Gaudi’s house (which, oddly enough, he didn’t design), saw the bench, and hike up a bit to get a good view of the city). On the way back down, we also got to see a rather amusing fruitbasket turnover, as all the Pakistani guys selling knick-knacks heard a police siren, wrapped all their wares in the sheets they were laid on, and VANISHED. They straight-up BOLTED out the front gate of the park in about a minute.

After that, we killed some time before dinner, then headed out for tapas. Unfortunately, a tapas place I remembered (the one I ate at my last night in Barca) was closed for the holiday (Spanish memorial day, basically), but a dim sum place nearby was open. So, we pigged out on Chinese food, then headed to Placa Espana to see the Magic fountain show.

Day four, we headed to the beach to grab a cable car up to Montjuic. The ride was expensive, but worth it for the views of the city we got. We hiked up to the peak, taking a few breaks for ice cream and coffee, then walked down the other side of the mountain, walking past the Olympic plaza, the Palau Nacional, and the Mies van der Rohe pavilion. That night, we just kinda chilled at the hostel while we ate dinner, then went downstairs to the TV room (which had a VERY nice screen) and watched the Spanish classic El Caballero Oscuro (i.e. Batman: The Dark Knight).