Barcelona, Spain

La Sangrada Familia  

After debating back and forth where to go on our free weekend, we agreed on Barcelona, Spain! We didn't have Friday classes so we were comparing all the options with dates, times, various airlines, and where to depart from while saving the most money. We kept putting off booking it, hoping that prices would go down last minute, but they never did so come wednesday evening around 9, we searched the best options at the time, and five hours later, just picked one from the spanish airline, Vueling, which was recommended to us. Well, it turns out that we were way too tired to be doing this so late, and booked the wrong flight, departing from Madrid instead of Milan. And even worse, I read the final information out loud to Carly to make sure we were booking the right one, and we didn't even realize our mistake until one of the other girls coming with us called and told us we were leaving from Spain and not Italy. The terms and conditions on the website said it was 39 euros to switch a flight, and we had two of them, but for some reason they charged us 156 euros, the price of four flight changes (we still need to call and get this money back). After this disaster, we decided to go to bed and book the hotel in the morning. Well of course on thursday morning there were no hotels or hostels open for thursday, friday, and saturday at the same place so when we found one available, we went with it. Before paying, the confirmation page said the price for thursday-sunday for 3 people. Well it just so happens that once I click pay, the confirmation page shows that that was for each night. Frantically, we ran to our advisors office to use her phone to cancel, and the company we booked through says the hotel system is down and this is not possible at the time. We leave for our field trip in food and wine class to San Donato in an hour and haven't began packing. Never receiving an email the rest of the day, we took the 10:30 plane from Firenze-Barcelona, not arriving at our hotel until 1 am, still unable to contact the agency to cancel the reservation.

fresh fruit juice, every flavor imaginable

Sending a few urgent emails paid off when I woke up the next morning to an email saying the next 2 nights were cancelled and we received a little discount. We booked a hostel in the lobby for Friday and Saturday night, then walked across town to find our hostel right on Las Ramblas, the main street in Barcelona. The hostel was a very interesting experience. Where we were consisted of 5 bedrooms, each sleeping 8 people in bunk beds. Every room except for ours was full of dirty Spanish men who smoked cigarettes all day long and never left. I showered at the beach, went to the bathroom downstairs at Burger King because ours was so gross, and slept on my purse every night. We got really lucky with the room we were in though, it was the 4 of us, a 20 year old boy and his sister from Madrid, and 2 guys from Hungary who were here for Sonar, the biggest electronic music festival in Europe all summer. There were no lockers at all so we were sketched out when the brother from Madrid was in the room every time we left and came back, but then learned our last night you really can't judge a book by its cover. He was only there in case his sister needed anything, she was 15, and in Europe that's comparable to an 18 year old in America. She would go out every night on her own and he had no idea where she was, but his job was to just stay at the hostel for when she returned. It didn't phase him at all, one of 8 children, and one of the most genuine and interesting guys we met. It was definitely an experience, but hopefully one that I'll never have to do again.

Ice Barcelona

Friday, we spent the day at the beach, where we first got lunch and a pitcher of Sangria, still in disbelief that after all the mistakes, we actually made it, and were here in Barcelona, Spain! Most of the women at the beach there were topless, and it didn't phase anyone at all. It was humorous when you can spot who's a tourist because they parade around the beach topless, making a big deal about it. That evening we found a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with Sangria, seafood paella, and gazpacho, which was exactly what we were searching for, typical Spanish food. Afterwards, we headed an Irish pub called Cheers where we watched the eurocup game of England vs. Sweden. It was awesome because everyone spoke English so we could understand their excitement and passion for the sport and this game, like it was their life. One time when England scored, these British guys lifted up our table spilling beers everywhere like it was tradition. When the game ended, we headed to the infamous Ice Bar of Barcelona. They have multiple ice bars in the world, but this was the first I had been to. It was much smaller than I expected, but we got cool parkas and gloves because the room was -10 degrees Celsius and everything including your drink cup was made of ice. We weren't too smart in planning though because we wore shorts and sandals, so couldn't stay very long.

Everyone else got really burnt on Friday, so unfortunately didn't want to go to the beach much on Saturday. In the morning we walked to the market where we got fresh fruit juice (they had every flavor imaginable) and a half kilo of fresh cherries. We then walked through the city, passing by the buildings by architect Antoni Gaudi arriving at La Sangrada Familia, which was interesting to learn that it has been in the process of being built anise 1882. Gaudi passed away in 1926, so other architects continue to work on it, with hopes that it will be finished in the 21st century. I stopped in the Nesspresso store, where I got dad the featured flavor and a free espresso to drink there, it was a great setup. We walked back to the market to get another fresh juice, Carrot Orange this time, and an unbelievable organic dish with a modge podge of stuffed eggplant, falafel, pita, spanish rice, and many veggies. We headed to the beach to swim for an hour and shower in the beach showers, getting more gazpacho and seafood paella on the way back to the hostel. We found an awesome antique market that was unfortunately closing, and wouldn't be open in the morning before we left, so quickly got a few things. We took naps at the hostel which made us extremely tired, and took a few of us to convince ourselves to go back out for our last night in Barcelona. We went to another Irish pub called Cheers, where they had live music and a fun atmosphere. We were tired afterwards, so just walked along the streets getting a glimpse of Barcelona's nightlife, where everyone goes out from 1am-6am. We headed back early, with our last stop at Doner Kabab to end the night great, and left early in the morning. I'm so glad we chose Barcelona for the weekend, it's a beautiful city where you can relax but still enjoy the history and architecture as well.

Ciao,
Tarra