A Sensational Weekend in Barcelona

What do you think of when you think of Barcelona? City of the Olympics, paella, sangria, beaches? No. It is definitely the City of tourists. Now, yes, I was most definitely a tourist with my city map, guided walking tours, and eternal fear of pickpockets, but I was a hip, cool tourist under the age of 60 who made the conscious decision to wear clothes on the beach.

Typical Barcelona beachgoers. The girls named the white haired one "Mr. Elephant". Not saying why

We arrived in Barca on Friday afternoon. Unlike many European cities, you actually have to pay for the metro service; this ended being an annoying extra expense the entire weekend. Our hostel was a few blocks from the water (great location!) but its door was akin to a military bunker. This worried us at first but we quickly learned we were in a very safe neighborhood. I guess the 8 inches of steel was just for aesthetics. The hostel was wonderful, the older spanish woman who ran it treated everyone like her children and directed us to all the best restaurants, bars, stores, and metro stops no matter what we wanted to do. The free although tiny breakfast in the morning was nice too.

Friday night we went out with the majority of the AU students who were in Barcelona that weekend. This was about 20. Yeah, a lot. After aggressively pregaming in our hostel kitchen, we met up with everyone at this stock market bar. Everyone in the bar was American; I didn't really mind though. So a stock market bar, what the heck is that? It's actually a cool concept. As people buy drinks, the drink's stock goes up and others go down. Drink prices are always fluctuating which makes drinking a little more exciting and interactive. Craziest part was, however, I turn around and who do I see but a girl from my high school graduating class. Crazy coincidence but it was nice to talk for a while and catch up. On Friday I also ate my first ever Spanish paella. As a "kind of vegetarian but still loves fish" person, this was my jam.

In terms of sites, we saw a fair amount. Friday we saw the Parc Guell, the infamous maze of sculpture and architecture that could have only been created by someone on hallucinogenic drugs. It truly is an amazing feat of architecture, however, incorporating natural landscape along with beautiful mosaic art (shout out to my momma, the mosaic queen). As we approached the park, the sun was setting, a storm was coming in off the water, and the park was rather lonely. A lone man was playing a solemn and eery number on the violin. It was the most surreal experience I've had in a long time. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera. This forced us to return to the park the next day avec le camera. Just our luck, the sunny Saturday afternoon was packed with tourists so not quite the same effect in my pictures.

  

Trippy yet very cool architecture in the park

Hi Jesse!

An example of the mosaic art

Before Parc Guell round deux on Saturday, we took a free walking tour of the city titled "Gaudi tour". Gaudi is the messed up dude that designed Parc Guell a long with anything else famous and touristy in Barcelona. This dude used to only eat lettuce dipped in milk and would use stillborn fetuses for sculpture cast models. But these days you gotta do something crazy to get famous. Gaudi's pretty much a 19th century Charlie Sheen. On this walking tour we saw a bunch of Gaudi's other works including some wavy buildings as well as the Sagrada Familia, a really big ass church. When I say big ass church I mean BIG ASS church. I was standing relatively far away from the base and couldn't even see the top of the tower.

Wavy apartments. Above: The HUGE Sagrada Familia and another Gaudi Building

Unfortunately, we didn't go into the Sagrada Familia. I heard that it was amazing, though. However, a 14 euro pricetag and a 60 min wait at the end of a long walking tour didn't sound too appealing. Speaking of the euro, I'm kind of pissed that it's rebounding from its dive in value vs the dollar. I say let Greece go bankrupt and I'll reap the benefits of living in Europe for only 2 more months.

After the walking tour we were pooped and needed to get some rest for our big night. I had been waiting for this night since I departed for Europe: Sensation Barcelona. Sensation is a concert/production that travels around to a few European cities every year. Everyone dresses in all white (cred to my man Jared who let me borrow some slick white pants) and dances to house music accompanied by a cirque du soleil -esque show. Tickets were a fat 70 euro but let me tell you, it was worth every penny. Not only did I have 1 part of my main crew there with me (Jesse), I had a bunch of great friends to enjoy the night with. We made all the way from 11pm to 6 am, making sure to get our money's worth.

This isn't the best video from the night, but the site isn't letting me put up the bigger files

Anyways, Sensation was an absolute blast. After getting home around 7 am, we slept for a good 4 hours and then woke and went straight to the beach. Nothing like a nice relaxing day on the sand to recover from a hard night of partying. It was great to be on a beach again. Reminiscent of my spring break middle school days, thinking I was too cool for anything but laying and enjoying the sun. I did swim in the Mediterranean Sea, so I can check that off my list. Another thing I can check off my list is seeing dozens of naked old people. Gotta love Europe right. If only it were the hot young spanish women who enjoyed topless sunbathing. 

Beautiful views of the beach and sea. That building is the iconic W Hotel Barcelona

Sunday was a nice relaxing day. We again had paella at a little restaurant close to the beach. After unsuccessfully trying to catch a "spectacular fountain show" in Montjuic park, myself and the other boys headed out to a bar to watch some good old American football. Pats Jets game was actually a fun game to watch. Even more fun were the crazy ass Dutch dudes we met in this Irish pub. Refused by the Spanish clubs because they were wearing shorts, they proceeded to get extremely drunk at this rather pricey bar. It made for great entertainment, however. I now have friends in Amsterdam where I will be next week. First, however, our program heads off to the Hague to do some hands-on learning followed by some much needed relaxation this weekend.