Last Stop: Barcelona!

After a morning walking tour around Valencia, we had a somewhat short drive to our last stop in Spain: Barcelona! We got there late afternoon and after checking into our hotel, our awesome tour guide Sam got us all together and showed us how to take the metro into the center of the city. We were 4 stops away from Las Ramblas, a huge promenade/plaza thing where people walk in the middle and cars drive on either side. There are tons of stores, restaurants, artists, and crazy performers that goes allll the way down to the water. We saw so many weird people and performers...it was definitely from any place we had been in Spain, but we really liked it.  He took us into the gothic quarter which was really amazing at night and then we all parted ways. Our group of friends found a really good restaurant and had dinner then strolled through the streets for awhile. We found an irish pub called Temple Bar and stopped there for drink. We ended up each getting a drink for 2 euro and free shots!

The next morning we had a local guide show us around the city. First stop: Parc Guelle. Mom and Dad, you KNOW i was excited about this. For everyone else, I loveeeee all parks so I was really looking forward to this. And no, I was NOT disappointed, quite the opposite. One of the coolest parks I've ever seen thanks to Gaudi's crazy designs.

After the park we headed to Segrada Familia, the craziest cathedral I have ever seen. It started being built 200 years ago and it's still not done! They project it will be complete in 2026 (yeah, Spain takes its time with everything). The architecture was unlike anything I've ever seen and the statues were almost creepy. See all the droopy stuff hanging off the cathedral in that picture? So weird. 

Sagrada Familia

 After that, we drove around the city and saw lots of different sights. It was interesting to see Gaudi's architecture in the most random spots around the city, like above a Chanel store or a random apartment building. You could tell right away it was his though. We drove to the top of a hill and saw the stadium from the 1992 Olympics. That was REALLY awesome. The Olympic pool was designed so that it looked as if the divers and swimmers were jumping into the city.

When the tour was over, our group of friends went to the BEST market in Spain, the San Miguel market. None of us were overly impressed with Spain's food but we finally had a really great lunch in the market...and it was organic vegetarian! It was so so good. We were never so happy to taste cayenne pepper and other spicy seasonings. We walked around the market for a really long time. I got some candy from this booth..

Later that night, Sam invited the whole group to meet at bar and have a farewell drink together. Did I mention how great he was? Definitely the best tour guide we've ever met. We had the top level of a little bar and everyone hung out for the last time all together.

Sam giving a toast!

After awhile everyone went their separate ways and went to different bars. Our group of friends stayed at the bar and had a really long drinking and food celebration with Sam. It was really fun. We got tons of sangria and tapas (maybe a little too much sangria? nah). Afterwards we went back to Temple Bar. The in-house band was playing American songs and we knew every one and sang along. A lot of other Americans were there, it was fun! The whole group left at 6;30am for the airport back to the U.S. Special shout out to my roommates Elaine and Katie for getting in at 4:51am and getting one hour of sleep before I had to WAKE YOU UP FOR YOUR INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT. haha. Garrett, Lauren, and I were lucky enough to sleep in and check out around 12pm.

Lauren and Garrett were feeling under the weather and didn't make it to the day tour the day before, so I made them go to Parc Guelle the next morning before we left for Rome. It ended up being an even nicer day and we stayed for a long time. We listened to this music group for a little bit and Garrett even bought their CD. They were soooo good!

After that we got our luggage from the hotel and headed to the airport. We got into Rome around 10:30 and took bus for 4 euro to the center of the city. From there we had the option of taking a taxi or metro to our part of town. A cab driver tried telling us it would be 30 euro to get to our hotel, but silly cab driver, we aren't stupid tourists. We took the metro for 1 euro each and got to our hotel in 20 minutes! We were starving and had been deprived of good food for the last 11 days, so we were really excited to get our hands on some Italian food. Garrett was especially in pure heaven when he got his first pizza. We also noticed right away how nice the Italian people are. We went back to the hotel and slept for 10 hours!

-B