Barcelona

 Last weekend, we skipped our Friday class so we could have 3 days in Barcelona! We had A LOT of mishaps with our tickets, but in the end, it ended up working out better for us and we saved more money! Because we had to split up the tickets half and half, 4 of us left just after midnight early Friday morning and after the most uncomfortable night ever, we got to Barcelona around 8am.

This is when public transportation got the best of us. It is times like these when I cherish my ability to speak another language, because I'm note entirely sure we would have made it to the hotel without it! From the airport, we took a bus to a train to two different metro companies and then walked around the streets of northern Barcelona until we finally stumbled upon out hotel, (THANKFULLY)! As soon as we got in, we crashed for a couple hours. We can't enjoy Barcelona as walking zombies.

After our siesta, we decided to go to Las Ramblas, the center of Barcelona, and explore. One of our friends was there last summer, so he was able to give us a gist of what we should do.

Another beautiful cathedral in the middle of a shopping center.

Barcelona graffiti. Top of the line.

One of our favorite things that we stumbled upon was the market. They had EVERYTHING in there, and it was so cool! I wish we had something like this at home, because I would shop there every day.

Random animal guts such as kidneys, stomach linings, tongues and esophagi.

Baby sheep heads

Pig legs

Biggest tuna I have ever seen

Chiles

Frutas

Dragonfruit zumo. Although it is the color of happiness...it wasn't as good as it looked :/

Eggs from all sorts of birds.

After we were slightly less fascinated by the market, we made our way down to the harbor.

Puerto de Barcelona

An amazing sandcastle that I believe is there in order to advertise the orchestra that is coming up soon. Everything in Barcelona is written in Catalán, so it's a little bit more work for me to decipher things.

Closer to the time our friends were suppose to show up from the airport, we headed back to Las Ramblas for some sidewalk drinks and people watching.

Biggest. Sangria. Ever.

The next day we had to leave our nice little hotel because the price had gone up more than we anticipated. After searching for hours down by Las Ramblas, we finally found this hostel, and it was perfect for all of us!

It had 5 bunk beds in 1 room, so the 7 of us shared it with two Brazilians from Ireland and one kid from Lousiana. It was actually pretty comfortable! Maybe even better than sharing beds back at the hotel to save money!

Another colorful room at our hostel

After we got our sleeping location all figured out, we decided to dedicate the day to the Barcelona Tour Bus. They have an open-air bus that has several lines that go all around Barcelona for only 24 €. It's almost worth it just for the ride. We were allowed to hop on and off as it took us by all the main site of Barcelona, up in the hills and down by the beaches.

Everyone on the bus

My favorite building in Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia.

It's this amazing cathedral that Gaudí started building at the end of the 1800s. He knew he would never live to see it finished, so he carefully selected someone to complete it for him. Over 100 years later, they still have much to go to finish this giant work of art...

Unfortunately we weren't able to go inside because the line was too long and the entry fee was frankly too expensive, but the outside was amazing enough for all of us.

The main entry way

The back side of the cathedral

Bocadillos outside La Sagrada Familia

Another one of Gaudí 's designs

Cable car in the sky to a military fortress!

Olympic track field

The olympic torch 

Casa de Bastilló

Paella, sangria and Spanish pizza for dinner. SO GOOD!

Post-paella

Eating our free hostel breakfast...very similar to cardboard....

handmade leather masks

Evan likes masks?

Haha one of my favorite things that I saw in Barcelona. a 4-year-old boy taking a ride on his mom's suitcase through the entire airport. I was pretty impressed.

Barcelona was amazing. Despite all of our mishaps it was still great. I wish I weren't stuck on a daily school schedule so I can roam around Spain more. Luckily, I got the awesome professors and they don't seem to care if I miss a day here or there :)