BARCELONA!

We had a week off before classes started, and we decided we wanted to stay in Spain so we could keep using our Spanish. Barcelona seemed like a perfect four day trip! And it turned out perfect, because only after booking our hostel and buying our plane tickets did we find out that we would be in Barcelona for the celebration of La Mercé, the Virgin Merced, aka lots of people and celebrations! Awesome timing. 

We flew out of Granada very early Tuesday morning. I had caught a stupid nasty head cold the night before, which is still bothering me more than a week later, the little bugger...We arrived at the airport, found a bus into the city, and then took the Metro for the first time and finally got to our hostel around noon. Nice, colorful hostel with friendly staff and young adults from all around the world. I love that environment.

Rather than listing what we did in boring chronological order, here are the noteworthy reflections and excitements of our trip, in the order they come to mind:

-LAS RAMBLAS. The famous main street, awesome! It is always flooded with people. When you see an aerial view of the city, it is the big wide green patch in the middle that leads to the ocean. It's a wide walking street bordered on both sides by big green shady trees. There are tons of street performers, or more just like people that have dressed themselves in such ridiculous costumes that they don't look human. There was an alien-looking thing, one man who worked out his props so it looked like his head was on a bloody platter on a table (see pictures I will post), knights in full armor....you get the idea. Crazy stuff. Really crazy. And of course there are artists, art galleries, souvenir shops. And then there are full-on plant stores with green plants spilling everywhere. My favorite part of the street was the stall where they were selling pets. Everything! Birds in cages, chickens, bunnies, and......(best part ever and I don't know if I agree with it morally..) CHIPMUNKS! Like 20 little adorable chipmunks in this cage. I wish I had a picture. I couldn't help but think of when I was a 10 year old backpacking with the family in the Canadian Rockies and how I was in love with those cute chipmunks and wanted one as a bet so badly! 

-GAUDI. We were good little tourists and visited all of the major Gaudi sites throughout the city. My favorite was Park Guell, a beautiful park full of his buildings, mosaic walls, huge long mosaic lizards...He has such a cool unique style! I will post some pictures, as they will show it much better than I can explain. Then we saw La Sagrada Familia, which was huge and powerful in all of its unfinished glory. Very intimidating gothic architecture. It did very much look like a grown-up sand drip castle. Gaudi must have been a pro sand castle maker as a child on the beach. Incredible how much is completed, and how much more until it will be finished the way Gaudi drew it. There was some good people-watching there too, as it is quite the tourist spot. We also saw some houses designed my Gaudi, which in my opinion looked like normal buildings that were reflected in one of those tall, wavy clown funhouse mirrors. All the lines of the buildings were wavy and distorted. Cool style!

-METRO. Love it. It made getting all over the huge city so easy and doable! And because we were there during La Mercé, a few nights it ran all night, which was very helpful when we were coming home to the hostel at 5am after a long night, and when we were heading to the bus station to leave on the 3am bus to the airport. Good deal! 

-LA MERCÉ. There were huge outdoor stages set up in all of the main big plazas, and free concerts every night. Fun to walk around the city and run into all of these different stages and music and crowds of people. One afternoon we were on Las Ramblas and there was this huge loud drum beat. We watched this procession pass, with a big group of kids in orange shirts playing percussion instruments, followed my men carrying a big float of this virgin statue. It looked like what I imagine La Semana Santa to be like this spring, but small scale and less religious. Friday night we found this fountain-light show that was magical! We found seats among the throng and watched this beautiful fountain show with music playing, from classical to old 80s hits like Video Killed the Radio Star and some Police songs. Amazing the effects they can do with colored lights and jets of water!

-BEACH. We had wonderful, warm weather our whole stay in Barcelona. (Which I appreciate even more now, as the past few days in Granada have been cold and overcast). We went to the beach a couple times. The water was fantastically refreshing, go Mediterranean! I saw some boys kicking a soccer ball around, and really wanted to join them, but as I got up to ask they were heading back to their towels. So I asked if I could use their ball. Turns out we had no language in common, as they were Italians and spoke no English or Spanish. We got along fine in Italian and Spanish, and then Henna and I kicked the ball around for a while. Then one of the Italian boys came and it turned out he was a goalkeeper too, so Ricardo and I preceded to shoot on each other in the ever-growing waves for a long time. It was really fun, diving in the waves, and trying to shoot the ball on the slanted shoreline. When I came back to our group on their circle of towels, the girls said to me, “Megan, most girls use sports to get boys. You use boys to get sports.” Haha. It was fun floating out in the waves too. Oh and I had a near-scare when I stood up after a particularly good wave-thrashing and felt that my nose piercing stud was loose, and it fell out in my hand! I found a bathroom and a mirror and out it back in, a little scarily and painfully. But now I've done it and it won't be a problem in the future. 

-ST. JOSEPH BOQUERÍA. A fantastic outdoor food market. Stalls and stalls of fruit, vegetables, meat, overflowing bins of nuts and dried fruit and chocolates and candy, seafood, so much! It felt like what I imagine markets in Indonesia and India to be like. We spent lots of money on our lunch, with huge fruit salads and chocolates and fresh fruit juices...

Fun trip! I loved the group I was with: Adrienne, Henna, Kelsey, Armelle, and Kenneth. We got along very well for traveling in a group of 6 together 24/7 for four days! My first trip abroad was a success!