Long Weekend in Bar(th)elona!

Hey everyone! So I am now back in Valladolid after spending 5 days in Barcelona.  Let me just say it was amazing.  I loved the city so much and did not want to come back to Valladolid.  I would definitely recommend going there, and you probably need at least 3 days to see the city.  We got there Wednesday night, checked into our hostel which was close to Las Ramblas (the main shopping strip), got a free dinner, then relaxed for the rest of it so we would be ready to go in the morning.  Here is a summary of all the wonderful things we did!


Thursday
We woke up around 8:30 and headed to this AWESOME market for breakfast.  It was so great that we went there every morning.  It had every kind of fruit, fruit juices, meat, fish, fudge, bread, dessert, everything.  The first day I got coconut-strawberry juice for 1 E.  Other good finds were banana chips, bread, and pizza!  


Later that day we took a ski lift up to this castle and got a great view of the city!

After, we went to la playa (beach) and swam in the Mediteranean sea! It was cool to think that we were actually in the Mediteranean.  


Friday
Friday was probably one of my favorite days of the trip! We rented bikes and biked across Barcelona to Park Guell, La Sagrada Familia, Arc de Triump, and another park.  It was such a great idea because it only cost 10E for the whole day and it was awesome to bike around the city.  At first it was a struggle, because bikes aren't allowed on the sidewalks because there are too many people, so we had to ride them in the streets.  Basically, we had to ride them on the far right side of the road in a tiny space between cars/busses and the sidewalk.  Not gonna lie it was a little frightening at first, but I was surprised at how aware and respectful that the drivers were of bikers.  I'm glad they were patient because there were 9 of us biking down the road and not all of us were experienced bikers hahaha.  It was pretty comical.  There was some random stopping, going on and off the sidewalk, almost running over people, running through red lights, and trouble getting on and off the bikes, but we all made it out alive!  My favorite part was when we got to a different part of town were there was an actual bike lane in the middle of the road! It was so much fun.  Here are some pictures.

The Arc de Triunfo was really cool.  I just realized that in the 30 day photo challenge I did last year I said that somewhere I'd like to travel was Spain and I posted a picture of this exact arc! I'm glad I got to see it in person!

We also biked to the Sagrada Familia, and let me just say it was the most beautiful Church I have ever seen in my life.  Everthing about it was amazing.  I like the style of arctitecture, it was a little more abstract and had a TON of details!

What's awesome is that even though Gaudi died, they are still continuing to build the Sagrada Familia according to his blueprints.  


Saturday
Saturday our group of 9 split into 2 different groups.  Half of us went to Camp Nou, the Barcelona soccer Stadium, and the other half of us went back to the Sagrada Familia to see the inside.  I chose to go back to the Sagrada Familia, but the people who went to see Camp Nou said it was incredible! One guy said he got goosebumps and my roommate said she almost cried.  If you have any interest in soccer at all I would recommend going there!  They got to see the locker rooms, training rooms, stadium, pictures and I'm such a lot of other things.


I'm glad I went back to the Sagrada Familia though because the inside was breathtaking.  I was in awe the whole time. My favorite part were the beautiful stained glass windows.  I was talking to my friend Jess, and we both agreed that it was so peacful inside.  No matter how many people were in there there was still this feeling of tranquility.  I have never been to a church like that and would love to attend a service there.  

Sunday
This was probably my favorite day of the whole trip because Melissa, Eric, and I went hiking in the Pyrenees mountains!!!!!!!  Props to Melissa for planning this trip because it was so amazing.  After asking 5 different people for dirctions and practically running to the train station at 7am we barely made our train and headed north to the Pyrenees.  It was about a two hour ride but felt much shorter because I slept the whole way.  Then we took another small little train up higher to the mountains which was about a half hour ride.  When we got there there were so many mountains and we were really excited to start hiking. So we stepped out of the train and for some reason I thought it would be okay to wear shorts and a t-shirt to go hiking in the mountains. Haha, bad idea because when we got there it was freezing!  I knew if I didn't get a sweatshirt or something I would just be miserable the whole time, so we stopped in a gift shop and bought the cheapest sweatshirts we could find.  I'm glad be bought them though because it ended up being a good souveneer. 

Then we stopped in the cafeteria we had there and got a bocadilla to save for lunch and a croissant for breakfast.  And oh my gosh, I don't know what it was but it was seriously the best croissant I have ever eaten in my entire life.  It was just so soft and i don't know if there was cream cheese in the middle or what, I don't think so, but whatever it was it was delicious, so I just thought I'd dedicate a paragraph to talking about the croissant.  


After that we began our hike up the mountain and every view was spectacular.  There was one point when we sat behind this rock at ate our lunch overlooking the mountains and it just felt like it was a dream.  Everything looked not even real, like a painting.  This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip.  

Then there was one point where Eric thought it would be fun to go off the trail for a little bit, so we did.  We hiked off the trail across the mountain, so we were literally scaling across a mountain!!! It was a new experience being off the trail because it made me feel like I was a real mountain climber conquering the mountains. haha It was awesome.  There was another point in our hike where Eric decided to go off the trail on his own and Melissa and I continued on the trail, but we kept our eye on him just to make sure he didn't fall or anything.  But while he was walking away it was such a humbling experience because he literally looked so tiny compared to the mountains, like an ant.  You don't really notice when it's just you hiking along, but then when you see another human being you realize how small you really are.  Not that it means your insignificant, just that you have no reason to be proud.  It was very humbling.  We hiked for a total of 5 hours and by the end we were dead tired and hungry.  We got back to the hostel around 10 and Eric and I split a pizza.  It was so delicious because I hadn't had pizza in forever! Overall Barcelona was a fantastic trip and I am so glad that we went.