Spain 1- Barcelona

  Barcelona, Spain
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

I found a convenient flight from the Florence airport to Barcelona.  The week before, I'd booked all my hostels for the week, except for the night in Granada which I couldn't find anything for and was a little worried about.  The annoying thing about having an Italian passport is I haven't gotten it stamped at all.  I'm going to visit lots of cool places and have nothing to show for it.  It is pretty convenient though.  I can just walk right through customs.

I got to Barcelona and took a bus to Plaza Catalunya, which was about a 10 minute walk from my hostel.  I got to use Spanish for the first time in months asking the bus driver for a ticket.  That was pretty exciting.  Once I arrived at Plaza Catalunya, it took me a couple of minutes to orient myself, and I actually took the wrong street for awhile.  But, it was still nice, and I eventually figured it out.  The hostel was right off La Rambla, one of the main streets of Barcelona.  It was a great place and I stayed there two nights.  I was in a dorm room with 5 beds and I luckily got the one that wasn't a bunkbed. For both nights, I shared the room with two Russian girls who went partying at night, got back late, and them spoke loudly in Russian for awhile while getting ready for bed. Oh well.  The hostel had free internet, and a nice big breakfast was included in the price.

That first day, I didn't go to any museums.  I just wandered around the city, learning the layout and planning what I would do the next day.  It was actually great to be able to relax and walk around without being pressed for time, as I was for the rest of the week. I took pictures of places I walked by, which was fun. One of the coolest things I saw was this advertisement for the Zoo. Unfortunately, it was too expensive for my budget, but that just means I'll have to go back. And, according to some postcards that I saw, they also have an albino/white male gorilla.

Then, I walked by the water, which was very pretty.  Luckily, the weather was nice.  I forgot how important Christopher Columbus is to Spaniards.  Here's a Columbus statue that was by the water.

La Rambla is a pretty fun street, although completely touristy.  There are street performers everywhere, and little shops selling postcards and lots with animals as well. There were constantly lots of people on the street, so I always felt safe. I thought Italians stayed up late, but Spaniards are worse. They don't have dinner until 9 or 10 pm, and clubs don't even get full until after 3am. I would never be able to do that. Every morning, I was up and out by 9, and nothing even opened until 10. It was funny.

This performer was pretty cool. She had dreadlocks, like lots of people in Spain, which I wasn't expecting. Dreadlocks aren't very common in Italy. There was one guy dressed up as Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands. I wish I'd gotten a picture of him, because he looked great. When you gave him money, he'd pretend to cut your hair and you could take a picture. This guy was dressed up as Death If you came near him, he'd make scary noises and look menacing. He was also fun to watch.  And then there was a group of guys doing breakdancing.   Here are just some of the animals for sale. On my way to the airport on Friday, I was walking up La Rambla and heard a rooster crow.   I figured out it was inside one of these boxes.  Isn't that sad?  I wonder if all the animals spent all of their time there.  I'd rather not think about it though.

I got hungry, so I went to the daily market in a building right off of La Rambla. 

Here's a picture of the entrance.  I bought a yummy fruity banana-y drink for a euro and then just wandered around looking at the fruits and vegetables and meat hanging from the stalls.    I also got a drink the second day, but that time it was mango-flavored.  That's when I took the pictures.

So, after wandering around for hours, I bought a sandwhich for dinner and headed back to the hostel.  I planned everything out for the next day, because I didn't want to walk more than I needed to.  On Thursday morning, I was up at 8.  I took a shower, ate breakfast, which was delicious, and headed out.

First, was the long walk to Guell Park, which was designed by Gaudi and was far away, so I decided to go there first, so I could then walk back down and see everything else.  Also, none of the museums opened until 10, so seeing the park and some other places maximized my time.  On the way to the park, I saw at took pictures of some cool buildings, also by Gaudi.    I sat down in front of one of the buildings, on a bench, and a group of Italians came over to sit down as well.  Throughout the entire trip, I heard as much Italian as I did Spanish.  It was unexpected, and actually pretty cool.  Lots of Italians vacation in Spain and, because that week was a vacation for most of Italy, it made sense that there were so many Italians there.  I was still surprised though, every time I heard Italian.  It made me sometimes forget that I was in Spain.

Park Guell was probably my favorite place in Spain and I would absolutely love to go back and just spend an afternoon there.  It was like a fairytale park, with colorful buildings that looked like castles, and tiled steps, and leaning columns everywhere. Here's the entrance. And then the stairs, right when you walk in. There were several different paths to take, so I just wandered around for over an hour. When you got up higher, there were even great views of the city. Then, there was an open plaza, with supposedly the longest bench in the world. You can see it, snaking around the entire plaza.

On my way down and out of the park, since I still had many places to go to that day, a Spanish woman asked me the distance to the plaza, in Spanish.  That was fun.  And then, after I had left the park and was walking to the next place on my list, an Italian asked me for directions.  And then that afternoon, and American asked me.  And, amazingly, I could actually help them.  It was the biggest rush.  Now I know I want a job in which I can speak in Spanish and Italian every day.  Or at least one of the two.  Because that would be great.

While walking down the street, I saw this funny looking building. I have no idea what it is, and didn't get any closer to it, but it's probably famous.

Here's my next stop, Sagrada Familia by Gaudi.  It's pretty cool.  A very touristy place though. 

And then, a Hospital.  I don't remember the name, but it was still used as a Hospital.  I wouldn't mind going there and waiting in line.  It was gorgeous and I probably took way too many pictures of it, but it was very fun. I was walking down the street from the Sagrada Familia and saw these buildings. So, I started taking pictures of them, thinking there was no way I'd be able to actually go inside them.  But then, I saw lots of people walking through the gates, so I followed, still taking pictures.  And then I didn't see a ticket window, so I walked right though to the courtyard, and was surrounded by these buildings.  I spent a lot of time wandering up and down looking at them.  Barcelona is an amazing city, filled with wonderful things like this.

By this time, it was after 12 and I'd been basically walking nonstop since before 9.  My feet hurt a little and I was hungry, but I wasn't even halfway through the places on my list.  My next stop was the place I had been looking forward to seeing the most out of all the places in Spain.....the Chocolate Museum.  Honestly, it was a overpriced and rather silly, but I'm still glad I went.  I didn't read much on the history of chocolate, but had fun looking at all of the sculptures made of chocolate. 

There were chariots with horses and gorillas and other exciting things.

#6 is a close-up of #5 so you can see the little pieces of chocolate and chocolate smears. Would that be a great job? You wouldn't need to stop for lunch. You could just eat pieces of your work that you didn't like. I'd love it.

Since I'd taken a class on Cervantes, and was in Spain, I had to take a picture of Don Quijote and Sancho with the windmills. And then, one of my favorites, Mozart.

And a copy of the Pietą by Michelangelo that's in St. Peter's in Rome.
And, finally, Bambi.

After looking at all of the chocolate, I was starving, so I stopped by the cafe at the Museum and (of course) had a cup of hot chocolate.  There were also free samples of some type of chocolate on the counter, which I had two of.  Honestly, I've had much better chocolate off Piazza del Campo in Siena (which all of you should go to!).  But, it was still thick and creamy and good.

I was still hungry, so on my way to other museums, I stopped at this place, which was recommended in my book. 

It was good, and cheap.  There wasn't much room in the place, so I walked and ate, while trying to find a good place to sit and rest my feet for a couple of minutes.  But first, I saw this interesting man.  He was calmly talking to the guy in the store for several minutes, while a group of us couldn't help but stare. A bunch of us were discreetly taking pictures and he didn't seem to notice at all.



I finally made it to this pretty park, where I sat down and ate the rest of my lunch.  My feet were very happy for the rest.  I also read some of a free newspaper someone on the street had giving me.  It was interesting, because most of it was in Spanish, but then some was in Catalį, spoken by people of Barcelona and that area.  It's a very cool, very similar to Spanish but different enough to be considered a different language and not a dialect.  That's one of the aspects of Spain that fascinates me.  Like Italy, but even more so, Spain has lots of different regions, each with their own culture and language and customs.  It's very cool.  I unfortunately didn't have time to go up north, to Basque country.  The Basque people fascinate me.  I'd love to learn their language, but it probably wouldn't be very practical.  I actually bought a novel in Catalį on a whim that day.  I haven't actually started it, and probably won't be able to understand much and will get frustrated and stop, but maybe some day I'll be able to say that I've read a book in Catalį.

I wasn't done for the day yet, so I stood up and went over to a Palace that had been turned into a museum.


I bought the ticket and the woman asked if I wanted the pamphlet in
English or French.  That was exciting, because they couldn't quite
place my accent.  The best part of the palace was that there was a free
audio tour of the archeological exhibit under the building.  The audio
tour was very helpful because I actually understood what I was looking
at.  Otherwise, I would have just wandered through and not learned
much.  The rest of the museum wasn't very interesting.

I was done with museums for the day, so I spent more time, walking, as
usual.  I walked so much that week.  I walked through a garden with
this cool graffiti. And then here's the town hall (I think)

  Speaking of old men, there were at least 40 of them in a little park playing Bocce.  I didn't take pictures of them, but did stop to watch for a minute.  I bet they were Italian.

  The bookstore I went into was off of Plaza Catalunya, which was a nice piazza.

  The piazza had pretty fountains, statues, and congregations of pigeons everywhere.



I people-watched for a bit, and took lots of pictures of the pigeons surrounding a food stand and a little boy, who loved it.





 And then, the old men playing chess.  They were great.  I hope I didn't creep them out by taking pictures though.  Speaking of old men, there were at least 40 of them in a park playing bocce.  I didn't take any pictures but did stop to watch for a couple of minutes.

That night, I met a nice Canadian girl who slept in the same room as I did.  And she went to bed earlier than I did, so I didn't feel weird about it.