Bellisima Barcelona

I’m back from my adventure in Barcelona! There’s a lot to say about this beautiful city. Lots of images are crowding my head right now and I want to pick all of them at once, but let’s start from the beginning.

On Friday, we all skipped class to get a good start on the weekend. About 15 of us from the Pamplona campus (mostly girls) met the bus of about 17 students from the San Sebastian campus (mostly boys, and all from the engineering program). At the typical half-hour after the predetermined time (and after John – our group leader – proved his love for the bus’s microphone once again) we were on the bus and heading east to Barcelona. And one pleasant, though long, bus ride later, we were there! We were struck by the impressive architecture and overall richness of the place. Just like in Paris, everything was art. In any direction I looked, I saw sculptures and spires and statues. Oh my! And I couldn’t help but notice that there were more signs in Catalán than there were in Spanish. Catalán is the language spoken by many people in Cataluña, the province in which Barcelona is located. It’s basically Spanish, with French influences, so if you know Spanish you can generally understand what a sign in Catalán is trying to tell you without any trouble. Definitely intriguing, though.

The first thing we did was head to our hostel to unload. And what a hostel it was – despite the paintings of creepy children with huge eyes (from some recent exhibition, apparently) in the entryway, we were immediately impressed by the curvy marble staircase and the general posh-ness of the place. Our rooms were quite nice – the guys and girls stayed in different hostels (a requirement of Opus Dei, I think, which is the conservative Catholic organization that funds the university), so I was in a room with several other girls. The beds were comfy, and the room had a great view of a gorgeous building beside the hostel. The only issue was that there was only one toilet and one shower for about ten girls. But I woke up early to take a shower both mornings, so it worked out fine. Anyway, it was a great place – they served a delicious breakfast (with toast and cereal! I hardly ever get those here, so I was excited), and we felt safe and comfortable there the whole time. Which is more than I can say about our Paris hostel – but then, I think this one was a little more expensive. You get what you pay for sometimes, I guess.

Once we were settled in our hostel, we met in the gorgeous Plaza de Catalunya, where there were huge, beautiful fountains and some obligatory classical statues. Oh, and about a million and one pigeons. I’m beginning to really dislike those things – they’re so dirty and nasty, and they’re everywhere in cities. Sometimes a big flock of them would fly up suddenly, causing us girls to shriek and shield our eyeballs. Alfred Hitchcock, anyone (Okay, so I haven’t actually seen The Birds. But still.)? But I digress. After the boys came, we headed out on a little tour of the main parts of the city. We went to Las Ramblas, the main street in Barcelona, which has all sorts of vendors, a market, and lots of other interesting things to see. We were surprised to see lots of booths that were apparently miniature pet shops, sporting cages of birds, rabbits, and other little animals. Sooo weird. Not the souvenir I would choose, but whatever. There were also people displaying their talents in hopes of collecting money from passersby. These people were everywhere – way more than in Paris, even. However, this may have been because it was frigid and not very street-performer-friendly when we were in Paris. But it got to the point where, whenever I saw someone doing something out-of-the-ordinary, I could pretty much assume that they were doing it to get money. There were men making extremely life-like bird noises with their mouths, gypsy women wheedling away at people, and men throwing glow-in-the-dark objects high into the air to get people’s attention. And my favorite, the living statues; Las Ramblas was lined with people standing stock-still on platforms, wearing elaborate costumes and paint. I took a few pictures of them, enchanted. As a chronic fidgeter, I can’t imagine standing so still for twenty minutes, let alone hours. Some of them did move, though, in order to get into their character more. For example, a guy dressed up as Edward Scissorhands had Johnny Depp’s facial expressions down to a tee. It was definitely the coolest way to solicit tourists that I’ve ever seen.

We also went into the huge market for a bit while walking down Las Ramblas. They were selling every kind of food you could imagine – meat, gorgeous and exotic fruits (both fresh and dried), exquisite chocolates, and a dazzling array of colorful gominolas (gummy candies). I was sorely tempted to buy some of the candy, but I figured it was rather too rich for my blood, so I went for a delicious ice cream cone instead. We went to another plaza after that, with yet another pretty fountain and lots of cool buildings. There was a guy sitting in one of the upper windows, playing guitar and singing enthusiastically, but not very beautifully. You come across the most random people sometimes!

Next, we headed down to the port, where we saw the harbor and a ton of little boats. We crossed the gorgeous bridge and watched a big yacht coming in to dock. I even caught a couple whiffs of ocean air! Pretty soon, we were off to find some dinner. At the first bar/restaurant, the kitchen was closed, but we had something to drink – water for me, as I was feeling severely dehydrated at this point – and sat talking for a while. After waiting for another group leader (who we seemed to be waiting for during most of the trip), we left to find another bar, deeper within the city. It was really cool, because we were probably the only tourists in there, so it was very authentic. It was a seafood bar, and they had their specialty – octopus – lying around on the countertop in a bin, still intact. We all ordered our food and drinks and sat talking at a long row of tables in the back. I wasn’t very hungry and I had a sandwich with me, but it was one of those situations where I felt obligated to order something, and I couldn’t very well whip out my bocadillo (sandwich) in the middle of a restaurant, so I got some little breaded shrimp-like things. Still not sure what they were, but they were good. They were a lot more than I was expecting to pay, however, which made me kind of angry. And I paid even more because I felt I couldn’t say no to helping the group pay for a bunch of little things that we all went together on. And besides, I wanted some of the octopus pieces and the wine (which was delicious). But if there’s anything I’ve learned throughout my travels thus far, it’s that sometimes you just have to let things go. Sometimes you’re going to have to pay more than you thought you would or wanted to. Sometimes you’re going to miss out on something you wanted to see. Sometimes you’re going to run out of time before you get to everywhere you want to get to. But you just have to let it go.

After the bar, it was time for us tired travelers to go to bed, so we went to the hostel to get some rest for the long day on Saturday. And it certainly was quite a day. We started off with a tour of the old Gothic part of town. We had a tour guide who was the friend of one of the leaders, and I’m sure she did a great job, but I have no way of knowing because I could hardly hear a word she said the entire time – she was great at leading us around, but a normal speaking voice that doesn’t carry at all just didn’t work so well for a crowd of thirty kids who are sometimes talking amongst themselves. Oh well. We got to see an amazing Gothic cathedral, so I was happy. I wasn’t really paying attention when we walked in the door, so when I looked up to see a huge arched ceiling, a looong aisle, and a bunch of gorgeous stained-glass windows, I was taken completely by surprise! I think I almost liked it better than Notre Dame. It didn’t have the same sadness that seemed to hang over our dear Parisian cathedral, and the clean, elegant simplicity of the place was breathtaking. After the tour, we walked a little on Las Ramblas and down towards the port again, where some of us girls got crepes at a booth we had been eyeing the night before. Not as good as the ones we had in Paris, but still worth it. With the insides of our tummies sufficiently sugary, we basked in the sun for a while as we decided what to do next. I ended up going with a few of the girls to find the beach. It was a bit of a walk, but we made it! My first view of the Mediterranean Sea was a fantastic one. And I couldn’t resist taking off my shoes and wading in the cold, cold water. So worth it! I’ve learned to take full advantage of every opportunity I have to see the ocean or sea, because they don’t come around very often.

By this time, it was nearing lunchtime, so we went to find an inexpensive place to eat. I didn’t end up ordering anything because I was still kind of full from my crepe and I was sick of spending money just then, but I enjoyed the beautiful seaside view! After lunch, we took a different way back to the Plaza to meet the group, and we saw Barcelona’s smaller, red-brick version of the Arc de Triomf (Yes, I know that’s an “f;” that’s how they spelled it) on the way. From the Plaza de Catalunya, we were off to see the Sagrada Familia, the cathedral that Gaudí designed which is still under construction. As Maite said, we had to go, because not seeing it would have been like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower. And it was certainly worth it. We didn’t go inside because they were closing soon and it costs 10 euro to get in. And we heard that there’s not a lot to see inside anyway, because it’s still being built. That was fine, though, the outside was impressive enough. However, I still can’t decide whether I liked it or not. It wasn’t so much beautiful as it was striking. It was too out there to be aesthetically pleasing, in my opinion – it looked like a Gothic Catalán cathedral and an aliens’ sculpture museum had a baby. Very weird. But I enjoyed seeing it, at any rate.

Next on the agenda was Gaudí’s house, also designed by him, called la Pedrera. It was also very different-looking, but cool. We had a hard time deciding whether or not to go in, since it cost us six euros, but we ended up going for it. I’m glad we did, because the inside was really neat. There’s not a single sharp corner in the entire place, and some parts were positively labyrinthine. It was cool to see the old furniture in the rooms, as well. And my favorite part was the roof – lots of smooth, twisty stone sculptures looking gorgeous in the light of the setting sun. And the view from the top was amazing! We could even see the Sagrada Familia sticking up in the distance.

After Gaudí’s house, we broke up into smaller groups, and I walked around Las Ramblas again with Megan, Lauren, and Lise. We got some snacks to eat at the very crowded Carrefour Express, and then headed back to the Plaza again. The group was planning to go to a bar called La Oveja Negra (The Black Sheep), but when Megan and I found out that we’d have to take the metro to get there because it was so far away, we decided that we would just go back to the hostel since we were pretty much dead on our feet at this point and weren’t very hungry anyway. We hung out and relaxed on my bunk for a bit, and then headed to bed for some much-needed rest. I slept like the proverbial rock…it kind of scares me when I sleep that deeply because it can be kind of tough to drag myself back out of it. Ah well, I daresay I needed it.

Sunday, our last day in Barcelona, was my favorite day of the trip! We took things a little slower, our only main stop being the Parque Guell, a park designed by – you guessed it – Gaudí. That guy went crazy on that town, let me tell you. Anyway, the park was by far the prettiest of his designs, in my opinion. It was full of mosaic walls and stone tunnels and palm trees and buildings that looked like they were straight out of Candyland. Of course, we all started taking pictures of everything. After a few minutes of this, Megan and I realized that it was going to take forever if we went with a big group, so we decided to go explore on our own. After a little direction from John as to how to get to the coolest parts, we were off. It was such fun to walk around and see all the outstanding architecture and gardens, enjoying the sun and the different types of music floating around the park – every time we rounded a bend, we heard something different: a mandolin, a classical Spanish guitar, a Chinese dulcimer, a digeridoo (which I have no idea how to spell), a reggae band, etc. So fantastic! And there were more of the ever-present living statues, of course.
After a while, we ended up chilling in the sun for a while on the rooftop of one of the structures, which had another wonderful view of the city. We could even see the Sea from up there! And the roof was surrounded by wavy mosaic walls – I’ve seen a picture of them on the back of one of my high school Spanish textbooks. Little did I know back then that I’d be seeing them in person one day! I was rather impressed by this.

A bit later, we met up with the group again here, and found out that it was time to split up for lunch. Megan and I had been thinking of going with a bigger group of girls, but we had already decided that we wanted to go to Las Ramblas one last time to look for souvenirs and gifts, since we hadn’t had time to do that before. And since we knew that waiting for the group would probably mean that we wouldn’t get the chance to do that, we struck out on our own once again. We knew (or should I say, Megan knew…I greatly envy her sense of direction!) where to go, and we got to our destination without any problems. We had about an hour and a half to make some very satisfying purchases (one of them being the most delicious gelato I’ve ever had in my life), and then it was time to go back to the hostel, load up on the bus, and head for home.

The bus ride was very pleasant, and I had a great time listening to music and my audiobook, and just zoning out and enjoying the beautiful sunset and landscape. It was funny – once it got dark, it reminded me of any other bus trip I’ve taken in the States, so I didn’t really feel like I was in Spain. But I didn’t really feel like I was in the U.S., either. I just felt like I was in no-place. It wasn’t unpleasant, really, but definitely a little bit strange. And after about five hours in the bus, we were all quite ready to be back to Pamplona. It had been a fantastic time, but I was excited to eat homemade dinner and crash in my own (well, sort of my own) bed.

What a great weekend! I’ve fallen in love with yet another wonderful Spanish city. Besides all the beautiful things in it, there’s just something about the atmosphere of the place that just makes you feel really nice inside. It’s almost relaxing, even though it’s a bustling city full of people. I’ll definitely never forget it. But I’m starting to use the same adjectives over and over again, so I’ll leave you with yet another novel, and the wish that you could have been there with me to experience such a great three days.