I am going to use this blog post to show you what I did and what I saw in Barcelona. If you have already been, this may be a reminiscing moment for you and you may be like 'Oh Em Jee, I recognise that place' and hopefully for those who have not been, maybe it will make you want to go.
I thought that Barcelona would be 'just like another European city' and to be quite honest, I was not wrong. The wide streets filled with beautiful artistic buildings, pastry shops, the lively night life... All this was pretty similar to previous places I had been to. Barcelona did stand out more to me though.
I realy enjoyed the different places I went to see, the history behind certain buildings, the wars fought and not to forget THE FOOD!!! the Paella and Tapas. Scrumptious.
Let me start from the beginning. I had to go straight to Gatwick airport from university.
And let me go straight to the end - I went straight to university from the airport once I was back in London in the morning. (Hence why this is a day late... I have had work and sleep to catch up with...)
First Night
We got to Barcelona on Friday night and somehow got lost and walked so far up we managed to move nearly an hour away from our hostel even though it was a five minutes walk from the station we got off at. We were on the right road, just on the other side. Hostels in most places are very nice and clean and this one was very nice. I guess London Hostels are the worse and most grimey. (That is based on one experience)
After finally finding our hostel, a good night of rest was needed.
This trip was relaxed and layed back and we saw what we could. We probably saw in two days what people normally take a week to see.
Day 1
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| The man himself with my leather jacket on. |
Saturday morning we started of in Parc de Guell - a massive park designed by a very famous Catalan artist - Gaudi. I had never heard of him till now.
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| The famous mosaic Lizardy statue that everyone was dying to take a picture with. Well here is my selfie. |
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| This is a nicely structure wall which I climbed into... |
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| And was later told that I am not allowed to do that |
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| We jump pretty high right? |
After walking around and getting up to mischief, we went to see the amazing work of Gaudi again but this time of a Roman Catholic church called Sagrada de Familia.
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| Sagrada de Familia |
We went to see the Arc de Triomf... I think a lot of cities have an Arc De Triomf.
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| The new trend we try and do... Take Palestine with us wherever we go... |
That same day, even though we were exhausted, we decided to take a route through a fashion district known as the Cosmopolitan route.
It was pretty and cultural. Obviously materialistic (do you get it. Materialistic)
We finally went to have out first Seafood Paella and it was amazing! We were not so hungry after snacking on different food throughout the day but if we were, we would have maybe had two dished.
We decided we would walk it through La Rambla, a street full of hustle and bustle and atmosphere. This got us wide awake and we ended up walking longer than we had planned.
Throughout the day, we were pretty tired and a few things had happened. One of my sisters had falled asleep on a seat on the platform and when the train came, the other sis and I walked on not realising she had fallen asleep. It is only when we turned around to ask her something that we saw her sleeping on the seat whilst we were on the train. Thank God the train was not moving straight away, we actually had time to shout her name out and get her to come on the train.
The weekend was full of stupid moments.
I'll go to the length of embarassing the other sister who was paying no attention to where she was walking that she actually walked straight into a glass window.
And the lack of sleep really got to her that she read 'the countless number of bars and restraunts' as 'the countless numbers of bras and restraunts'. When one is tired, mistakes like these are painfully funny.
Day 2
We had Churros for breakfast!!! It was oily but
when one can have Churros for breakfast, the
opportunity needs to be grasped.
There was a free tour which takes place everyday for the people who stay at the hostel so we used this to its advantage and went along. The tour guide was English, from London, who fell in love with Barcelona twelve years ago when he went with his girlfriend for Valentines. His girlfriend is now his wife and they have a son together and all three of them live in Barcelona. Why am I mentioning this? Well, the UK wants to have firm laws on immigration and decrease the number of people entering because apparently all our good jobs are being taken away and many more reasons. But, British people are allowed to go settle their arses in other countries and do the work that their own citizens can do. It is just a topic which drives me up the wall!
Nevertheless, it was funny to see the tour guide still had British humour and only the three of us sisters understood his jokes.
He took us around the old town with Gothic buildings & mythical story inspired buildings. We went through a Jewish town - Jews were once driven out of Spain and it was thought that they were the cause of the black plague because they were the only ones who were not suffering from it due their high levels of hygiene. But it was pretty sad how they were treated. We saw a castle, saw a pine tree which apparently Virgin Mary was found in during one of the wars. The church that over looks the pine tree (not the actual tree now, its been replaced) was once a mosque. We heard stories about the Ottomans and the Catalans - So within Barcelona there are Catalans who want indepence from Spain. They have their own flag and language and want to be recognised as Catalonia but Spain will not allow them as they benefit from them especially during economic crisises.
We walked through small streets where the architecture was very pretty and was told that the Christopher Columbus statue in Barcelona coincidentally points towards Algeria roughly towards a city called Constantine. It was funny because we had one Algerian guy in the group who was pretty shocked.
On our way to the Old Marine near the water, we came across a carnival with people in costumes. They all looked South American. Each country had its own traditional clothing and dance. Some looked amazing, some scary and some were very under dressed. But it was fun.
The weather was on our side and it was sunny!!! Vitamin D! Unlike the day before where it rained. We somehow ended up on the beach sun bathing and even managed to fall asleep for a few minutes.
In the evening after a needed nap, we went to the Magic Fountains near the Museum of Art but the fountains were not even on. The view from the top was amazing though. We saw Barcelona in the night. The stairs to the top were quite tiring but we 'Rocky'd our way to the top Believing we were the 'Eye of the Tiger'.
After this we decided to end our last night with another Paella then walked it all the way down the long street, through another long street with the most rich and designer shops and actually ended up walking to our hostel.
And that was that. Our last night in Barcelona. It was a good weekend and we fit a lot into it.
I wouldn't mind going back again as every experience is different but I didn't fall in love with Barcelona the way some people have.
We had Churros for breakfast!!! It was oily but
when one can have Churros for breakfast, the
opportunity needs to be grasped.
Nevertheless, it was funny to see the tour guide still had British humour and only the three of us sisters understood his jokes.
He took us around the old town with Gothic buildings & mythical story inspired buildings. We went through a Jewish town - Jews were once driven out of Spain and it was thought that they were the cause of the black plague because they were the only ones who were not suffering from it due their high levels of hygiene. But it was pretty sad how they were treated. We saw a castle, saw a pine tree which apparently Virgin Mary was found in during one of the wars. The church that over looks the pine tree (not the actual tree now, its been replaced) was once a mosque. We heard stories about the Ottomans and the Catalans - So within Barcelona there are Catalans who want indepence from Spain. They have their own flag and language and want to be recognised as Catalonia but Spain will not allow them as they benefit from them especially during economic crisises.We walked through small streets where the architecture was very pretty and was told that the Christopher Columbus statue in Barcelona coincidentally points towards Algeria roughly towards a city called Constantine. It was funny because we had one Algerian guy in the group who was pretty shocked.
On our way to the Old Marine near the water, we came across a carnival with people in costumes. They all looked South American. Each country had its own traditional clothing and dance. Some looked amazing, some scary and some were very under dressed. But it was fun.
The weather was on our side and it was sunny!!! Vitamin D! Unlike the day before where it rained. We somehow ended up on the beach sun bathing and even managed to fall asleep for a few minutes.
In the evening after a needed nap, we went to the Magic Fountains near the Museum of Art but the fountains were not even on. The view from the top was amazing though. We saw Barcelona in the night. The stairs to the top were quite tiring but we 'Rocky'd our way to the top Believing we were the 'Eye of the Tiger'.
And that was that. Our last night in Barcelona. It was a good weekend and we fit a lot into it.
I wouldn't mind going back again as every experience is different but I didn't fall in love with Barcelona the way some people have.
The people of Barcelona were very nice and welcoming (Unlike other places I have been to like Greece...) and they always had a smile on their faces. We got told off at one point for being girls from London who didn't know how to speak Spanish. Let me put this in to context. A guy was speaking to us in Spanish, we told him 'no Espanol', he asked us where we are from, we said London. Then he looked disapointed and said, 'you are from London, it doesn't mean you can't speak Spanish'. We were baffled. We told him we are not Spanish hence why we do not know any of it. So basically he thought we were South American girls living in London... We can speak Bengali if that helps.
I hope you enjoyed my weekend. I certainly did. I would recommend Barcelona for a place to visit and the hostel I was staying at, I would go there again. The whole place is very child friendly which reminds me, there were toilets which we came across made especially for children. They were so small. But when nature calls, you use what you find.
I hope you enjoyed my weekend. I certainly did. I would recommend Barcelona for a place to visit and the hostel I was staying at, I would go there again. The whole place is very child friendly which reminds me, there were toilets which we came across made especially for children. They were so small. But when nature calls, you use what you find.
If you haven't already, read my previous blog
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