Spain Day Eight: Barcelona

On Day 8, our last day in Barcelona, Adriana and I ditched the tour bus and explored the city on foot. First we checked out the Gothic Cathedral, which was very close to our hostel. Unfortunately, they were doing some construction to the outside of it, but it was still very impressive.









Then we went to the Parc de la Ciutadella, which is filled with trees, pretty buildings, a gorgeous fountain, and the Arc de Triomphe (a bit familiar... ha ha.)









Then we wandered to La Pedrera, another building designed by Gaudi. It used to house luxury apartments, but now is kind of like a museum, with one decorated "apartment" inside, and a bunch of his unique structures on the roof.















Then we wandered back to the area where our hostel was located. We wandered down Las Ramblas, which is a strip filled with street vendors and performers.

We stopped by La Boqueria market, which is a huge open market with all kinds of colorful fruits, vegetables, meats, candy, etc. We each had a fresh squeezed juice, which was very refreshing. :)






We headed back to the hostel and got dressed up, since it was our last night in Barcelona. On our way to dinner, we were followed by a creepy guy begging for money, and we hurried into an Italian restaurant to escape him. Believe it or not, he followed us in! Adriana told him that we were eating dinner and to leave us alone. The restaurant staff escorted him out, and they were very nice to us after that. Luckily, we had a delicious meal and more amazing sangria, and we promptly forgot about our little scare. :)

Spain Day Seven: Barcelona

Slowly but surely I am going to finish this Spain series. I don't really have anything else to blog about, so I may as well get this done.

On my seventh day in Spain, Adriana and I continued our bus tour. We got out at the beach, and walked down the coast a bit before hopping back on the bus.

We then went to La Sagrada Familia ("the holy family"), which is an incredible church which has been a work in progress since 1882. The architect, Antoni Gaudi, died in 1926, and since then many other architects have tried to finish what he started. It was amazing to see how the architecture of the building tells the story of Jesus' birth, life and death, and how much passion and worship went into creating the church. I was definitely impressed.

We continued on to have lunch. (At this point I was very low on blood sugar and a bit grumpy - but nothing an all-you-can-eat Italian buffet couldn't cure!) Then from there we hopped off the bus at Park Guell, which is an architectural park designed by Gaudi (same guy as above), full of neat buildings that reminded me of gingerbread houses, and structures covered in his distinct style of mosaic.

We went back to our hostel - after stopping for an amazing treat - Belgian waffle covered in chocolate and whipped cream, yummy! We ate them on our little balcony. Then we rested for a bit, then went back out, walked around our little neighborhood, and had falafel for dinner - not a traditional Spanish food, but it was tasty. :)

Spain Day Six: Barcelona

I was getting lazy on my Spain pictures, but I am determined to finish blogging the trip. So, here goes. On our sixth and seventh days in Spain, Adriana and I took double decker bus tours to see the sights. The city was split into two separate bus tours, so we did one half of the city one day, and the other half the next day. Here we are on the bus:

This is a huge statue of Christopher Columbus. You can't see him very well, but he's pointing off shore, toward "India." :)

A port we stopped at:





A bull fighting arena, which is as close as I ever need to come to a bull fight:

We have started a tradition of taking pictures together in silly glasses, (remember these?) so we kept it up:

We headed up a very pretty mountain that they call Montjuic, or "hill of the Jews," which has amazing views of the city:











We continued on to the Olympic Stadium, where Barcelona hosted the summer Olympics in 1992. To be perfectly honest with you, the stadium wasn't as grand as I expected. It was still neat to see though.







After returning to the hotel room, changing and freshening up, we went to dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.

We were excited about the glasses that we got to take home, and the refreshingly delicious fruity drinks inside them. :)

If you look closely, there is a guitar above my ear:

Adriana with Julio Iglesias' jacket:

Me and Elton:

We headed home and stopped at a cute little bar right by our hostel, where we got blue margaritas that looked fun but tasted gross. Adriana is smiling because she hasn't tasted it yet. Ha ha.

And this is what they did to our tongues:

The end of another fun Spanish day. More to come.

Spain Day Four And Five: Madrid-Barcelona

On day four in Spain, we slept in (since we'd been out until the not so wee hours of the morning) and then started out the day getting lunch at a cute little restaurant:



Then we returned to the Plaza de Espana so we could see it in the daytime. (This is where we walked after the flamenco show - remember the pic of me in my cute red shoes? :)











This statue is Cervantes, who hails from Madrid, and in front of him (next picture) are his characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (and me):



Then we went to The Prado, which is the largest Spanish museum. It's free on certain evenings, so we could only spend a couple hours there, but that was just enough to see all the big time Spanish artists' works. Of course I couldn't take pictures inside, but here is the outside:





We went home and changed, and went back out again, with one of Adriana's friends, and a couple of his friends. It was a fun evening, but we unfortunately forgot to take pictures. The next morning we dashed to the bus station and almost didn't make it (it was a crazy morning, but I'm going to leave the details out.) Luckily, we got there in time, and we spent 8 hours (!) on a bus to Barcelona, with a couple of stops to eat and stretch our legs. Here are some pictures of our room at the hostel:

Taking a shower in our room was kind of like a circus act, but it was still preferable to the communal shower. (Not because it was gross, just because it was... communal.)

The balcony:

The view from the balcony:

My rash covered, swollen feet:

Some of you may not be super familiar with what my feet and ankles usually look like, but this is HUGE compared to normal.

That evening, we freshened up and walked out to a nice Italian restaurant where I had some delicious Gnocci, and then we sat in the street and had gelato for dessert:

More Barcelona fun to come!

Spain Day Three: Toledo

On my third morning in Spain, we headed down to the Atocha Train Station in Madrid, which is a pretty amazing sight itself. Inside the station is a little jungle, with tons of plants and trees and... turtles!

We took a train to Toledo. During our trip, Adriana and I spent so much time on buses, trains, and subway cars, that we took to playing games. We played word games with the alphabet, and question games, and a favorite was a game to do with rating the attractiveness of celebrities. :) It was quite entertaining, and we were pretty much never bored. When we arrived, we grabbed sandwiches, and then began exploring. Below you can see the stone fortification (the castle-y thing), called Alcazar de Toledo.

Toledo was the home of El Greco, a very famous Spanish painter, and it is located in the region of Castile-La Mancha, which was home to the well known and well loved characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. :)







Toledo, as I've mentioned, was one of my favorite parts of the trip, not just because of the history and the grand buildings, but the narrow walkways and cobblestone streets give it that small-town European charm.











We stopped to take pictures of the cathedral, and lay down in the grass. Keep in mind, that it was 112+ degrees that day. When we sat down, the grass felt so cool and refreshing, that I lay flat with my face in it. Weird, I know, but you do what you must to cool down.





Then we continued to explore:











At the end of the day, we took a train back, freshened up, and believe it or not, headed back out again. We went to the Berlin Cabaret, where we danced our little hearts out. :) Every so often, they stopped everyone from dancing, and put on a flamenco show. As you can see below, there's a round part of the stage where the dancers come out, and Adriana and I discovered that it's bouncy - like dancing on a trampoline - so we had a great time. The end to another great day!

Spain Day Two: Madrid

On the second day in Madrid, we started the day by returning to the Royal Palace so that we could tour the inside. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures inside, but I can assure you it was glamorous, decadent, and well... fit for a king! :) We took some pictures in the courtyard though.







This is the view from the courtyard, and you see those two tall buildings in the background? The one on the left is Adriana's apartment building!

We headed to the Plaza Santa Ana for lunch. On the way, I saw this ham shop ("Museum of Ham") that I had to take a picture of. I don't know why, it's just very... Spanish. :)



For lunch we had some delicious tapas and amazingly sweet and fruity sangria!





After lunch, we went to... believe it or not... the pool! Not a tourist attraction per se, but it was soo hot, and sounded so amazing, so we did it anyway. And it was glorious.





We returned home to shower and change and then headed out to a little cafe/bar to watch a flamenco show! It was really fun, all the passionate singing and stomping and spinning... I enjoyed it. And I found out gypsies still exist. That blows my mind. I thought they were basically fairy tale characters. :)







After the show, we wandered through Plaza de Espana (I can't make a tilde with my computer) and took some pics by the fountain. It was necessary that my beautiful red shoes get captured, since it was the only time I was able to wear them, before my feet went to hell in a handbasket.

We continued on to have drinks at a cute little bar that played American hard rock music. We chatted with Luca, the Italian bartender, who made us yummy drinks (the Spanish are not big on mixed drinks, so this was exciting.) Adriana had assured me that Spanish men would stare but not approach, but as soon as she left me alone to go to the bathroom, they flocked. Ha. The good that came out of it (besides some much needed Spanish practice) was that the men suggested that Adriana take me to Toledo instead of Segovia, as we'd planned. We took their advice, and as it turned out, Toledo was one of the highlights of the trip! So thanks, random Spanish men. Look forward to pics from day three (Toledo!) coming soon.

Spain Day One: Madrid

Hello again! It's time to start the Spain chronicles. For my own benefit, as well as yours, I am going to post the Spain pictures one or two days at a time. That way, I don't bore you out of your minds, and that way I have a detailed record for myself. If you just want to scan through the pictures, and not read the descriptions, I won't hold it against you. :)

So, after a very long flight, which actually wasn't so bad, thanks to an aisle seat, an empty center seat, and tylenol PM, I arrived in Madrid. Adriana was waiting with open arms, and the adventure began. Adriana, as I mentioned before, lives on the 17th floor of her apartment building. Here you can see the view of the city from her place. I also added her room (the one with her in it), the room I stayed in (with my stuff everywhere) and the living room. It's a very nice place. She just moved in, and her other roommates hadn't arrived yet, so she was anxious to redecorate and spruce it up. It's a pretty great place though, regardless.

After freshening up at Adriana's, we headed to the Plaza Mayor, which is a neat open plaza with a statue and little outdoor cafes. It was lovely:

We had some yummy little sandwiches for lunch:

We walked by the Opera House:

We continued on to the Plaza de Oriente, which is just outside the Royal Palace, and has a big fountain and some neat statues. Fun fact: this statue was the first built in which a horse is on its hind legs. Cool, huh?

We had some popsicles, because it was scorching outside.

This is the Royal Palace:

We wandered down to the Sabatini Garden, where there is a lovely fountain. A few groups of people were putting their feet in the fountain, so we joined in the fun. It was very pleasant and relaxing, and we stayed there chatting until our feet turned into prunes. :)





Then we went to the Cathedral La Almudena. Adriana's opinion is that it's ugly on the inside, and I responded, "you've been in Europe too long." The grandeur of these huge buildings is incredible, and the acoustics alone are enough to awe and inspire. However, the decorations are pretty modern, and after visiting several more cathedrals on the trip, I could see what she meant. (My pictures, however, capture the pretty parts.)







We returned to Adriana's place and watched the sunset. We also planned out the remainder of the trip, and I dozed off briefly during the planning session. In my dream state, I heard Adriana saying, "did I lose you?" I opened my eyes, "just for a second." :) We attempted to watch a movie after dinner, and that's when I REALLY couldn't keep my eyes open. But it was a pretty eventful first day!