Barcelonaaaaa

so, lucky for you, my pictures are now uploaded onto my computer (but not yet snapfish), so the barcelona and madrid posts will include pictures!

So I got to barcelona around midnight, and cabbed it to the hostel since the trains were no longer running...the ride into the city was so strange because I had done the exact same thing almost exactly 3 months before with the fam.

This place was REALLY nice and in an AMAZING location, which i've learned is the most important feature of a hostel...so I checked in and met up with everyone else who had gotten there that morning from Paris.

The next morning we had a late morning, and met up with everyone at La Sagrada Familia...the Gaudi church that they've been building for over 200 years. I had done this 2 summers ago with the fam but this time we went inside...which turned out to be kind of a waste of 8 euro, but oh well. The place is obviously still under construction, so the inside is just filled with scaffolding, tools, and lots of huge pieces of plastic to keep dust off of everything, but it was good to see none theless.

Afterwards we ventured to the chocolate musuem...but first I had a freak run-in with someone I went to high school with who's studying in barcelona for the semester. So we're on the metro, and i'm just looking around trying to figure out where the hell we are when our train stops at the next stop...so i'm still looking around not paying attention and the train across the tracks going the other direction stops at the same stop...the next thing I know everyone I'm with was like "nicole, do you know that kid waving"...and I look over to the other train and it's Tyler Kitson, waving like crazy trying to get my attention, literally the second after I saw him the train started moving and that was that...we ended up getting in touch via facebook and meeting up twice real quick but, come on, HOW WEIRD IS THAT!

Anyway, so we continued to the chocolate museum, which we found cheap and included a chocolate bar! score! I think the best part of the museum was watching everyone eat (not drink...eat) the hot chocolate in the museum cafe...this looked like they just held the cup underneath one of those chocolate fountains and handed them out...you couldn't even drink it, you had to scoop it out because it was so think. Well, actually I wouldn't know, i had no lactate pills on me and that would have been BAD NEWS, but I took everyone's word for it.

We then decided to just walk around for the rest of the day, Maggie and I headed towards the water, where I found the hotel we stayed at this summer, and the restaurant where we got gross eggs! The weather was a little overcast, but, who cares, we were in spain! After doing some shopping along the way, we walked along the water and made our way to Las Ramblas, the big shopping/tourist area. We walked around some more, then headed back to get ready for our dinner of tapas and sangria.

Yes, time for more eating! Spanish food was so good, everyone was making fun of me because I said last time I was in barcelona we just ate italian food...oops...but this time I got some good spanish food--here are my prawns (shrimp) with garlic and oil...mmmm

Thursday the weather was amazing, nice and sunny, so we did more wandering, and then bri arrived! Thursday we were all guilty of not eating spanish food...instead we ateeeeee...

...yup, we did it, and it was DELICIOUS. After lunch we did some more walking around Las Ramblas and by the water, then walked around the tiny backstreets which were beautiful

that night everyone kind of split up for dinner but met back up down my Port Olympia, right on the beach! Being able to see palm trees in october just made my week, especially when we found out that snow was forecasted for syracuse...oh well!

We all ended up at this "discotecca", because apparently that's the thing to do in spain, the best part was the music they were playing, it was the cheesiest american music, including musicals...mamma mia, grease lightning, it's raining men...all the classics. these poor europeans must think that this is what americans listen to 24/7...no wonder they're bitter at us, they have to listen to it even when they go out, oh well.

Friday we ventured to Park Guell, which is a park that overlooks all of Barcelona, with one area of the park designed by Gaudi, the architect who designed la Sagrada Familia, I think this was my favorite part of Baracelona...the sun was shining and we hiked up the park, then just hung out taking in our surroundings (this may have been the only part of the week where eating was not directly involved)...but then we got lunch!

After lunch I went with Bri to show her the Sagrada Familia, then went down to Port Olympia for one last walk on the beach...again, perfect weather, palm trees, doesn't get much better than this

...then it was time for Madrid!!