The Long-Awaited Trip to Spain

Well, if you read my blog (yeah, there is the one regular reader on my blog according to the statistics in the main panel) you know that about a year ago I got some money after finishing the university to fulfill one of my dreams. So it was settled that right the next summer my friends and I would go. And so we went!

Day 1

We arrived in the afternoon and missed our hostel twice. Really, we walked past twice before I took out the good old navigation in my phone and was led there. There was a tiny logo of our hostel on the wall with the doorbells but  none above the door (it's not like we expected a neon sign blinking at us but something slightly bigger would sure help). Anyway, we got there and a very helpful guy started telling us all about Barcelona since we confessed it was our first time there. That's where we got lost. His English was fine but the speed! Oh my.. So we were nodding and nodding and finally got a map and the keys to our room. It was small and cozy. But accommodation hardly matters when you are somewhere for sightseeing so we decided to kill the afternoon by walking down Passeig de Gracia and La Rambla to put our map to perspective. 

Now I must stop here and tell you a little story. Before going to Barcelona I told everyone and all the people who had been there told me about how they got mugged or almost mugged. There were stories about opened bags, torn purses, muggers in parks and on the trains and even one about a dodgy-street Asian restaurant and tourists in the freezers for organ harvest.

Now, we can continue. So we are going down the most famous street and I'm clutching my money and camera and purse and I definitely look like a tourist. I pay for souvenirs, keep any eye on the zipper of my purse, pull my camera out, put back in... and when I emerge from the thick crowd and want to take a picture of Christopher Columbus, I reach for my purse and find the zipper open. And for a little while I'm screaming in my head that I'm an idiot and should have listened to all those stories and so on. But you know what? Everything was in place. I just forgot to close the purse when I was putting my camera there.

So we walked around the harbor and winded up back on La Rambla for dinner. Oh yesssss, paella and sangría. There is nothing funnier than getting half a liter of it at the end of a tiring day - I haven't been intoxicated by just one glass in a long time. One funny thing we noticed there was that the waiters ignore you. I have no idea what signal you are supposed to do to catch their eye but sitting there with an empty glass would make any waiter back home come to you and ask you about the next drink. In Spain you are just sitting there with an empty plate and an empty glass and no one cares. You try futilely to make eye contact, resort to not so subtle waving and still it doesn't give them any clue. Or it does but they are in no hurry to come. And that pisses me off because the tip is included on your bill. I wouldn't give anyone such a big tip for such a terrible service! But here you have no choice...

When we finally got to our hostel on our happy feet we realized the downside of having our room with a view to the street which crosses Passeig de Gracia and which has a pub right underneath. Oh, those noisy Spaniards! They come out at night and keep finding the most noisy objects on the street onto which they repeatedly throw other noisy objects while talking loudly.

Day 2

The Rain in Spain... That was unexpected. It rained good half a day and the only shoes for rain I had were flats. Have you ever tried to walk 17 km in flats? I tried and it burned the soles of my feet which made my trip very painful for the rest of the week since a new blister appeared each day on those burned areas. 

But back to the beginning of our rainy day. We took our map and set off for Sagrada Família, then we wanted to go to take a look at Torre Agbar, walk past the Triumph Arch to the Picasso Museum and get lost in the streets of Gothic quarter. Well, we somehow missed our turn in the rain and found ourselves way too north of Sagrada in a surreal part of the town where there are things made of cardboard as a decoration. But after some time and after some members of our group finally found a shop with umbrellas (it was too late anyway, they would get runny nose) we got to Sagrada. And there were tourists everywhere. And the lady from the ticket office told us the tickets would get us there in the afternoon. So we just stared at it from the outside and walked toward our next goals. Needles to say that we arrived at the Picasso Museum and the little street in front of it was one giant queue so we didn't get in that afternoon either. But we walked the street of the old town and found a nice exhibition about Gaudís life (Walking with Gaudí) which was very helpful because later when we visited his buildings, we saw them through totally different eyes. By the way, there is Catedral Basílica right next to it where the queue is shorter and you can get up to the roof. And there are geese in there, too. Or ducks I can't tell the difference. But they are real ;-)= 

We decided to go to a tourist office to buy tickets to Sagrada, Parc Guell and Picasso Museum in advance since we knew the queues were not for us. These tickets for three adults were obviously too much for the dude in the office because he accused me of hating him (yeah, too much work on the computer clicking) and when some of us wanted to pay for the tickets by card and some of us had cash, I thought he would commit harakiri on the spot. 

We proceeded to the St. Josep market to buy dinner. We came across Organic is Orgasmic veggie burrito stand and bought two burritos. And by burritos we thought we would get two burritos. Instead we got burritos with a lot of things on the side. Like chickpeas, lentils or neon green and pink pasta. And as we had to get through the crowds on La Rambla, everyone was staring hungrily at our loads.

Day 3

At first we had to go and buy tickets at the train station for our Friday trip to Figueres since our attempts to buy it on the internet failed. Right down the Sants station there is Industrial Park (smaaaaaal) and Joan Miró park. Our map with touristic highlights showed a sculpture by Miró so we assumed there would be more than what we dubbed A COW. It's a woman with a bird, by the way. And the park is full of palm and no statues.

This day was about Sagrada Familia anyway, so we hopped into subway and disembarked on station called Sagrera. It's 2,5 painful kilometers away from Sagrada. Remember the blisters? Oh yeah, they were getting bigger and bigger. But Sagrada was worth the pain. My jaw literally fell to the floor when we came in. Words can't describe the beauty of it. See, I always thought Gaudí was using too much color, too much ornaments but seeing it in real light and with my own eyes it all looked very natural. So we spent more than hour just drinking the main chapel in when we spotted a queue. A queue in Barcelona always leads to something good. So we waited and then we got to the employee who told us to get SPECIAL tickets for the tower lift. Annnnd of course they were all sold out. The frickin' tourist office hater didn't tell us about another tickets for the towers. Seriously, what's wrong with him?

Anyway, our day ended by walking west of La Rambla to find a spot with something I thought was a cat, my friends thought it was either a bear or just a made-up animal. The picture in our map was too small for identification but we found it. And it was a cat.

That day we put our postcards into one box and all the recipients go their letter in the span of TWO weeks! I mean how is that even possible?
But back to the main thing - we were hungry for some food and spotted a sushi restaurant where the sushi master was preparing it right in front of us. That was cool. Our friend who eats neither chicken nor fish didn't have such a blast over his boring bowl of noodles but hey...the majority wins. 

Day 4

We started at 10 am in the zoo. We only had 2 hours to go through it before we had to be at a different entrance which led to the metro so that we could go to park Guell where we had to be at certain hour, of course. What's the main attraction of the zoo? A white Gorilla. When do most exhibits with such rarities and funky animals open? Later than the zoo opens, actually, at the time when we had to be on the other side of the zoo. And let's not talk about the enclosures which were closed for construction. Like, most of them. And whenever no one knew what animals to put in an empty space, they put flamingos in. A total waste of 20 Euros, trust me. 

But getting in park Guell (into the paid zone) was great. Again, there were those queues and it was hot and there were these people walking around with plastic bags shouting they had cold water. Funny. Oh, and the park is so huge! We even got up to one hill with a spectacular view of the city and there was a crazy man in leopard leggings playing his guitar and singing a song in his own language. This is actually very nice in Barcelona. The musicians. Especially in the subway. There are long corridors leading to the trains and the air is dense and doesn't move. See, in Prague we go to the metro to cool down because the air is cold and moves. In Barcelona you will be in your personal hell. And these musicians are willing to withstand it. Amazing.

When we were leaving park Guell we came across Gaudí 4D experience. Neither of has had ever been to such a thing so we waited (only an hour) for the 15 minutes of unknown. Really, they spray you with water and shake you and make you think birds are brushing your legs. That was fun.

Day 5

Dalí, I'm coming for you! We got to Figueres by a super fast train AVE and had to get our bags go through a security check just like at the airport. And when we got out of the station in Figueres something started to feel odd. It smelled bad there and suddenly we had the urge to slap ourselves. Because some insect started to eat us. So we hurried toward the town center to find something I had dreamt of for so long I never thought I'd see. But here I was, in front of the museum Dalí himself envisioned and saw open. Again, awesome things are hard to describe so let's just say I had my fan girl moments there. And didn't want to go home. But I had to. 

Otherwise, Figueres isn't really a town for the whole day trip. There is nothing (if you don't count those archeology and yoghurt museums and a tiny park and some touristy stuff which lives off Dalí - like Dalícatessen LOL). 

On our return we felt a little bit thirsty and found a cocktail bar. It was funny when the bartender brought our cocktails and then a tray with gummy sweets. We all felt like laughing at them and thought we wouldn't eat them but somehow they disappeared because they went disturbingly well with our cocktails. Oh, and we each had only two because after the two we again started to feel a little bit tipsy and hurried home.

Day 6

Since there was a guy in our group we had to cut him some slack. Art isn't his thing and we decided to go to see the Olympic park area. During the breakfast we noticed black clouds and he assured us there was no rain coming because that's what his phone told him. So, what beautiful pictures we took when we were going up the hill in the Montjuïc furnicular! It was raining cats and dogs! And we had no umbrellas. When he wasn't looking, we made a pact that if he took out his raincoat (of which we were sure he had with him) we'd kill him. And bury him in the park. Fortunately for him he didn't take the coat out and we are not wanted criminals.

As devious as we are, we let him think this was his day, but there is Miró museum right next to the park so we accidentally found it and had to see it. Then we went to see the Magic Fountain in the daylight (only to return at night to see it perform) and took a detour to some Spanish village where they wanted us to pay entrance fee so we walked away disgusted. I also walked away limping but that's my blister martyrdom. The last stop of that day was the Stadium, you know, football. So we saw that. Not that the female part of our group was happy to walk so long from the subway to see it. But then we went on an open bus excursion to see all the sights we visited during the previous days. Some were nicely light up (Torre Agbar) and some we couldn't almost see in the dark (most of the cathedrals).

Day 7

We were totally destroyed from walking so we decided to spend a couple of hours on the beach (again, walking some kilometers there and back) to get red and then fly home. And our flight got delayed and we had to amuse ourselves on the airport during the night (hint - no shops are open, just that creepy vending machine with soup is demanding your attention). But despite the pain in our legs we had great time and fell in love with Barcelona.
Meanwhile at the airport: We were waiting for the check-in desk to open and the only three vacated seats were next to a very intoxicated group of Swiss guys. They were fooling around... whatever. With small or no bags they obviously just had one day to spend in Barcelona on the beach (they were as red as lobsters) so the sun and alcohol did its deed. We tried to not to look at them since the drunk usually get weird ideas but then... then one of them approached another one from behind and tugged his shorts down. Apart from being flashed by the stuff not even the sun gets to see, and unbelievable amount of pebbles and sand spilled out of the guys' shorts. Everyone just stared at the heap. How?! And why? And how come he hadn't noticed? It must have been so uncomfortable :-D This was definitely the most amusing thing at the airport ever.