The Much Anticipated Barcelona Post

I know I've been just abysmal in my posting habits, and unfortunately in these last few days blogging is not going to be high on my list of priorities as far as final activities go. Which is even more unfortunate, because I'm probably going to have more to blog about than normal, since we're trying to make every moment count. After Barcelona, expect a brief Roma/Manchester United game post, the Holiday Bonanza post, the Supperclub post, and whatever else I end up doing until that time.

But first things first, my successful trip to Barcelona. Successful is the first word that comes to mind, because there was much doubt concerning whether we'd make it out of Spain on time. Despite a terrible reputation for never seeming to quite make transportation to work out in my favor, Meghan and I were too attracted to the prospect of a round trip flight for 20 euro to allow minor details like that fact that we needed to be on the bus to the airport at 5:45 Sunday morning to sway us. When Carly informed us that she went ahead and booked the same flight, our hopes of a successful journey were lifted, but nothing was assured. But we weren't concerned with any of that on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, so we decided to cross that bridge when we came to it.

It would be false to imply that we ran into NO trouble concerning transportation, because as we were heading to the airport those rascally little metro guards at Termini were quick to pounce on me for not having a Metro pass (oh yeah, my wallet was stolen the Tuesday before and I was left penniless, credit-card-less, and Metro-card-less right before leaving the country for a weekend. Cute.) and Carly and Meghan for using Student Metro cards that are reserved for only Italian students... fines may have been issued, our spirits may have suffered a blow immediately prior to having a great weekend, but that is neither here nor there anymore.

So we get on the plane, get on the hour long bus to Barcelona's center, spend 20 minutes trying to find our way out of the bus station and to the Metro (it was a small station too haha), spend 10 minutes trying to find the right bus stop at Plaza Catalunya (which was happily decked out for Christmas, or "Festes," as they say in that language they speak in Spain that I'm so familiar with... Catalan) once we get off the metro, walk the wrong way down the main drag, but finally, at around 9:30 make it to our Sea Pointe Hostel (which, as the name indicated, was RIGHT on the beach... so nice... probably nicer in summertime but we still enjoyed the setting), and were STARVING. Jeff and Dan made it to town hours earlier, and we were hoping to find them sleeping, but no dice. Our phones only work so much of the time in Italy, so in Spain we weren't planning on relying on them much, not to mention mine was dead and Carly's out of minutes, but somehow we managed to get in touch with the boys and they came and met us at a bar called Foc.

Foc clearly left itself wide open for some controversial cocktail names, so we started the evening with some Quick Focs, then moved onto a delightful fare of nachos. That's Spanish right? I mean, "nachos" is certainly a Spanish word, so they must be from Spain. Then I got some crazy salmon-crepe dish that I'm not entirely sure was Spanish either, but it was damn good, so I'm not complaining. And despite our intentions of taking advantage of Spain's late-night culture, we were all exhausted from traveling, so we sat on the beach listening to the boys' tales of their trip to Tunisia, then headed to bed.

Were up before the complimentary breakfast shut down at 10, and made our way along the port to the Maritime museum, where they were hosting the Bodies Exhibition (<= that's a link, if you want a detailed and graphic explanation of the exhibit) that Jeff had seen in Phoenix and claimed we absolutely had to see. He is a paramedic, and Carly is studying to be a pharmacist, so they were really into the biological significance of it. And yes, it was a very fascinating experience, but it took me a little while to get over the idea that these were real, human bodies that I was observing, scrutinizing, viewing on a level that nature doesn't readily allow. The whole time I was just asking myself who these people used to be, what they used to do... I guess I couldn't help trying to give them a personality, because they were really people. After that, we grabbed some lunch. Naturally.

We were on the way to the Dali museum, but along the way we passed London Bar, which apparently is famous or something. In any case, we decided that, seeing as how it was famous and all, it would be appropriate to stop in and have a drink. The Irish pub a little down the street also seemed like and appropriate place to stop in, and soon we were far less interested in the Dali museum than in the piercing salon around the block. Carly commented that Jeff would look good with an eyebrow piercing, Jeff offered to pay to get Meghan's second holes pierced, and in spite of an asserted fear of needles, Dan was pressured into joining the fun. Because in situations where one's masculinity is questioned and testosterone kicks in, sometimes you just have to get your tragus pierced. At least I think that's how the saying goes. I seriously considered giving into my wishes for a Monroe piercing after all this time, but conditions of employment at Omni played the role of the angel on my shoulder, and the angel won out.





Before we did something really crazy like getting the letters of S-P-A-I-N tattooed on our necks or something, we decided it might be a good idea to have some downtime on the port. Especially since Dan was pretty white in the face for awhile. Coincidentally it happened to be sundown, which was lovely. Afterwards, we went and checked out the huge market on La Rambla (Las Ramblas? I'm pretty sure we never decided on an official name...), then went for some tapas, then walked back towards our hostel for dinner so we'd be in an ideal location for changing and hitting up the clubs. Well the paella was fantastic, and apparently so was our discussion on immigration, because it kept us there until the restaurant closed after 1, and once again we decided we didn't have it in us to rally.

Saturday morning we realized that in reality, we hadn't experienced very much of Barcelona the day before, so we needed to cover our bases that day. The Dali and Picasso museums caught our interest, but we decided we weren't up for 4 hours of art intake, so the boys and I went to the Dali exhibit and Carly and Meghan went to Picasso. I determined that Dali was absolutely nuts, but he had some pretty neat stuff, and such a wide variety of styles that it was hard not to be impressed. The random pictures of him hanging out of helicopters or posing with a swan on his head or holding a nude woman's leg also kept us entertained. It was kind of nice to change it up from the Renaissance masterpieces we've been constantly bombarded with since our arrival in Rome haha. Met the girls at the Cathedral, which was closing, headed out for some good (though seriously lacking in the portions field) "modern" cuisine, saw the Arc de Triumf (they moved it from Paris... something about a transportation strike and Spaniards being more deserving than the French... I don't know, I don't understand European politics), and hopped on a metro to see Gaudi's church, La Sagrada Familia. Again, entirely different than any architecture we've witnessed in Rome, a clear tribute to Gothic structures, a cool experience to see the building of a cathedral as people 500 years ago would have witnessed the construction of the churches we now marvel at in their completion, but all in all very gaudy and a little excessive in my opinion. Fruit garnishes some of the spires and there's a large stone Christmas tree decorating the back entrance. I mean. I'm just saying.

Carly wasn't feeling well at this point, Dan needed minutes for his phone so he could contact his friend who was flying back to Barcelona where she was studying, we were all tired, and we needed to pick up our luggage from the hostel we were no longer checked in at. We were tired and a little cranky, and after sitting around the hostel for awhile waiting for a call from the friend, our hunger growing all the while, we decided to head out into the city and eat. After that our spirits were once again lifted, and right on cue Kim called. We were hoping the 'big church' she had said she lived near was the centrally-located and walkable Cathedral, but alas she was referring to Gaudi's church. This made us nervous in light of the early morning (or late night, as we really intended it) we knew we'd end up having. After meeting up with Kim and her roommate Meggan, we were very pleased to have a whole six euros get us to Pippermint, the crazy bar Kim took us to. In Virginia, it is illegal to serve a pitcher of a mixed drink. In Barcelona, our table shared a 6 liter rum and coke. Granted there were 9 of us and the ratio was pretty weak, but still. Loco.

After that we finally made it to a club and boogied down til we decided our time gap was closing for making our bus. Another couple cheap cabs got us back to Kim's place and then the bus station at 4, slept til the bus left, slept the whole bus ride, slept the whole plane ride. Traveling has really never been better!

So that's Barcelona, un tiempo muy bueno, so glad to have finally gotten there. It reminded me of just how much I love Spain, not that I don't love Italy (no hard feelings!), but it's really just so different. It has all the personality of Italy without all the kinks haha. At any time of day we could find someone spraying down the sidewalks to keep them clean. The Metro got you just about anywhere you could want to go in the city, and in a timely fashion, and it didn't close at 9 or 11:30. The city was a grid and traffic patterns made sense. I said at one point, when marveling at the efficiency and sensibility of Barcelona, "Ohhh Rome... you crazy little town." Dan corrected me: "Ohhh Rome... you crazy little ball of chaos."

But it's our little ball of chaos, and only for 5 more days:(. Still can't believe it. But now is neither the time nor place for the sappy farewell post... Stay tuned for updates on the other events in my life.