Our last day in Spain March 20, 2016

I guess I’ve been putting off writing the last day because it’s almost felt like reliving the trip.  Anyway here goes.  We pack our bags for a picnic and take the metro down to Park Guell.  We walked uphill the entire way and entered the park.  If you go you should absolutely pay to get into the ticketed part.  The free part of the park is beautiful but it doesn’t compare to the colours and exploration you can do in the ticketed part. We walked around, had our snacks, named a lizard Harry and just took in the sunshine on our final day. We went back, took a siesta, Sabine did squats in the elevator and shopped a bit.

Our stomachs started to grumble and we were DETERMINED to get to La Paradeta so we walked halfway there, to the general area and then we took a CAB!  Which brought us right to the door of the restaurant.   We realized that we were so close the first time, we just couldn’t figure out the right street.  Anyway we ordered the seafood fresh at the counter and they grilled it right there for us.  We had a massive portion of : tuna, calamari, mussels, clams, shrimp and oysters.

After we ate what was approximately our combined weight in seafood we walked back to our suite and Sophie and Sabine did some acro  yoga.   And once again we had a knock on our door, a hopefully young guy asking for a hair dryer and once again was disappointed that 4 girls didn’t have one between them.

We went to bed that night, unsettled by the thoughts that we would be abandoning this fantastically slow and sweet lifestyle tomorrow and back to our reality.  Ciao Spain- you were amazing.

Cheers

Roberto # 2 January 24, 2016

I kind of wish I could just write my notes for this blog post because they’re really funny but they wouldn’t make sense to anyone so I’ll actually write a post out. You’re welcome. Today we had breakfast at the hostel and there WAS sponge cake (see, clearly very important to us).  We signed up for a free walking tour and gathered outside at the meeting spot.  A short tan man gathered us up and told us he was taking us to the big meeting spot, where we would break up into different groups depending on which tour you wanted.

Us “Wouldn’t it be funny if his name was ALSO Roberto and he was ALSO from Mexico, like our guide from Madrid”

Guide “Welcome, please follow me. My name is Roberto, I’m not originally from here – I’m actually from Mexico but I fell in love with this city”

Collective us “WHAAAAAAT”

Okay maybe that’s not as big a deal to you guys reading this but seriously what are the odds?! So this man was to be referred to as Roberto #2.  Roberto #2 was very kind and answered all kinds of historic and art questions we had as he led us to the meeting spot. We also met an American couple who were on the tour with us.  They only came to Barcelona because Hemingway was there and they were following his path or something.  We broke up into our tour and we were led by Max through the historic story of Catalunya (Barcelona history- look it up). It started to thunder and poured down on us but we continued our tour.  We visited the place were Picasso grew up and learned about the political problems Barcelona had years ago.  He showed us where people put up protests and we learned that the national sport of Barcelona/Catalonia is castell which is basically massive human pyramids.

We finished our tour and stopped into a pretty expensive lunch because of our location.  I had squid ink paella. We went back to our hostel for siesta and to watch twerk videos.  The guys in the suite down the hall came to ask us for a hair dryer, which none of four girls in our room had. After that we went to our hostel for happy hour and fidue dinner (which is the Barcelonean version of paella).  We met an Australian named Eve and Sophie convinced her and her German friends to go on the pub crawl with them. We played a massive game of jenga and then Soph and Sabine went to the pub crawl and Ally and I decided to explore around our area.  We found the plaza del sol, which is a square surrounded by restaurants and bars and a big open space in the middle for you to have a picnic or just hang out.  People had their dogs running around. Ally and I tried to order a mojito but were ignored so we left after people watching for a bit.  We walked around and found a place that was still open and had some tapas and delicious little desserts.  We took our time walking back to the suite and went to bed.

Note: I’m not sure why but at the bottom of my journal for this day someone wrote “Drizzle Drizzle Drizzle” – Sophie, Sabine or Ally – please explain.

Cheers,

La Rambla and the biggest market ever January 23, 2016

We woke up and had breakfast at the hostel.  Unfortunately there was none of that delicious sponge cake (and that must have been important to us at the time because I have it written in my notes).  Because of the construction still happening on our side of the suites, Ally and Sabine got temporarily locked outside.  But it’s okay because we were in Spain and not in the current -20C weather we’re having at home. I digress…We got dressed and were on our way down to La Rambla, which we were told is fantastic during the day and a dangerous outdoor brothel at night.  We walked along with millions of other tourists looking at the little pop up stands and the beautiful trees lining the street.  Then we finally got to mercat de la boqueria. This is one of the biggest indoor food markets and I seriously mean big.  Every edible item you could imagine and more was being sold there.  It was absolutely amazing and completely overwhelming.  Just when you thought you had seen everything another hall appeared and there were even more vendors.  We bought some snacks and had to drag Ally away from the seafood vendors.  We grabbed lunch where I ordered “muslo” off the menu thinking it was muscles.  It wasn’t. It’s a turkey leg. After that we shopped along the stores on our way back to our suite.  We hung out in our suite for a bit, tried to watch TV on what was clearly a paranormal possessed TV set and then had our siesta.  We woke up hungry and asked our hostel what the best seafood restaurant was.  They told us about this delicious place where you choose the seafood from the counter and they cook it fresh for you.  It was called La Paradeta and it looked to be walking distance from our hostel.  On empty stomachs (dangerous) and following verbal directions (even more dangerous) we set out to find this amazing restaurant.  After walking for about 30 minutes and not being able to figure it out, we tried asking around.  No one seemed to know what we were talking about.  We finally got so fed up and hangry we just decided to walk back and stop in the first place we saw. We stumbled into a sweet family owned restaurant where the owner was really kind and gave us a free dessert. After that we called it a night.

Cheers!

When Sophie was better than Shane at his job January 11, 2016

I hit my head on the taxi door on the way to the airport. Then I squeezed Sabine’s hand during the entire flight.  Anyway, in no time at all we were checking into our hostel at Barcelona.

Hostel Employee: I’m so sorry, there is a big group of people checking in together.  Would you mind if we upgraded you to the brand new suites in the building beside us?

Us four in unison: not at all

So we were in the fashion district of Barcelona being upgraded to a gorgeous suite.  Mind you they were still in the process of some construction in the building, but that didn’t bother us because we had a kitchen and a bedroom and a beautiful balcony. We dropped everything off and walked to Sagrada Familia. The line was long which allowed us to revel in the intricate beauty of the outside wall design.  Every crevice, every surface, had a different figure or shape to it.  The whole structure itself was telling a massive story that you couldn’t capture in a single frame.  The inside was all the glory its described to be.  The colours and vast open space are simply breathtaking.  We spent as much time as we could trying to see everything in this spectacular church.

When we got back to our hostel we saw that they offer an 8 euro dinner and a happy hour with 1 euro sangria.  Do I need to say more?  We filled up our plates (apparently everyone but ourselves is modest with service sizes) and drank as many 1 euro sangria as we possibly could in that hour.  To our sadness, an hour can only last so long.  We thought our luck had run out but then we found out that the regular price of sangria is only 2 euros!  We were playing cards in the common room with other hostel dwellers when a guy came over to us, introduced himself as Shane, and did his very best to sell us tickets to the pub crawl happening that night.  While he wasn’t wildly convincing, we didn’t have plans and were lots of sangria in so we joined!  Sophie then went on to show her true selling skills  by convincing a bunch of other hostel stayers to also come on the pub crawl, putting Shane’s selling skills to shame.  We made friends with three adorable 18 year old Australians named Anabelle, Emily and Kate.  We were constantly meeting Australians.

Right before we left, we had a National Anthem sing off and were almost asked to vacate the property.  There’s no “lower sound” button to Country Pride.  The first stop on the crawl was a small bar owned by suspicious looking Middle Easterners.  They kept trying to convince us to buy “deals” which mathematically were not actually deals.  We then met Scott, who was high out of his mind, and trying to organize another pub crawl which included handing out sleeveless shirts to those who had premium bracelets.  Scott was actually from BC and while Ally talked to him about our home country Sabine snagged us a couple of T shirts.  They say “I survived Barcelona b**ch” quite largely along the back and are possibly the comfiest things we’d ever own. After that we were on to our next club.  While Ally and I stood at the back judging the age of everyone Emily and Kate came over to chat with us.  They were having some friend circle problems but ultimately told us that they were indeed best friends for the last two years and that nothing was going to tear them apart.  Ally and I laughed and told them that we had been best friends longer than the two of them had even been alive.

Not too long after that we called it a night.

Cheers!

I went to Spain September 7, 2014

I haven’t written in forever. When people used to ask me “What’s the most important thing about having a blog” I would always answer “Post as often as you can”. I didn’t take my advice. It’s not that I didn’t want to post or I didn’t have things to write about, I really did. They weren’t always fantastic topics, but if you’ve come here more than once you know that I don’t always chose the most riveting things to say. I don’t know what happened. Things slipped, time went on and I just never wrote. But then I went to Spain. I figured I could do a day by day recap for you but my brothers Ipod touch barely turned on. Internet was shady. I took siestas. I drank sangria.

So here’s what I did do for, I kept a journal. Like the old fashion way of preserving your memory. Paper and pen. Classic and chic. I mean I didn’t write “Dear Diary” or anything like that but I did keep track of what happened during the day. So I’ll do my best to give you posts where I recap based on these journal entries.

Stick around or stop by whenever you feel like it. I’ll throw in some jokes, maybe even some puns here and there to keep things light. Thanks for reading 🙂

Cheers,