Fall break kicked off bright and early last Friday with our 7:30 am flight (the latest flight of the entire trip, by the way) from Rome to Barcelona. Right off the bat I learned a lesson. Flying the cheapest airline out of the cheap airport at the cheapest time is not always a good idea. To get to Rome Ciampino airport, located on the very fringes of civilization, one must take a taxi. Riding in Roman taxis is exhilarating, but they cost lotsa money. The other fun aspect of flying cheap airlines is how strictly the enforce carry-on sizes. My bag for the entire nine day journey had to fit within RyanAir's tiny allotted dimensions, which meant I was re-wearing all of my clothes at least once. Minor drawbacks both, but I felt they needed to be mentioned.
Anyway, BARCELONA. I didn't get the chance to travel here when I was in Spain a few years ago, so I was glad to have the opportunity to visit a new city/region. The best part was actually speaking the language of the country I was in for once. Granted their official language is Catalán, which is weird as hell and nothing like Spanish, but most people there speak Spanish as well, so I was fine. It was reassuring how easily I fell back into speaking it, and my friend Julie (who is Mexican) and I had a great time prattling back and forth to each other in Spanish. We stayed in a nice hostel in a quieter neighborhood outside the city center but with super easy access to their underground system. The five of us were in an eight bed dorm with three other (less than classy) American girls and unfortunately had to use co-ed hall bathroom. It was a little inconvenient, but at least everything was clean.
The first day was cloudy and rainy, so we took the opportunity to just relax at our hostel and have a long lunch (9 euros for three courses!) before we finally dragged our lazy butts out to the city center at night. We cruised down Las Ramblas, which is a famous shopping and dining street in Barcelona and had a gelato while observing some really great human statues. We also discovered St. Joseph Market, which is a huge open-air market where vendors sell beautiful fruits and vegetables, nuts, chocolates, fish, meat, fresh juices, and anything else you could want. Pretty sure I was drooling all over my camera as I was snapping pictures of everything, especially the fruits. They were absolutely perfect. I wanted to eat all of them at once.
The cathedral in Barcelona is cool, as is Las Ramblas, and the St. Joseph Market, but by far the highlight of my three days in Barcelona was the afternoon and evening I spent with Ashley, one of my good friends from high school (and elementary school) who I hadn't seen since we graduated. We met up at 11 am, walked to a café where we talked for two and a half hours, then walked around the city and talked some more. We went down to the sea and did some browsing at a little market there, people watched, and just walked. We then wandered around until we found the Gothic Quarter, which I really liked. I've decided I prefer Gothic architecture to the Baroque style you see all over Rome. It's a lot more detailed and less pretentious in my opinion. In the evening, Ashley took me to this awesome tavern near Plaza Catalunya that had the biggest, most delicious (and strongest) sangria I've ever had. There we proceeded to talk for yet another three hours over our huge glasses and patates braves and garlic bread. I love how easy it is to talk to true friends, regardless of how long you've been apart. And the best part is that I convinced Ashley to come visit me in Rome over Thanksgiving weekend. Yay company!
The other little (by which I mean enormous) highlight of Barcelona was my pilgrimage to the FC Barcelona futbol stadium, where Julie, our friend Morgan and I did the Camp Nou Experience. Our tickets got us into the club's museum, which was beautiful and state of the art. It really gives you an idea of the insane amount of money this organization has. There were hundreds of trophies, jerseys and spikes from the first years of the club's existence, interactive smartboards that let you watch a certain goal from a certain year or read about one a certain player. The place really had everything. In spite of myself, I did rush through the museum just so I could get out into the stadium. We walked through the visitor locker rooms, the media area, and down the tunnel until we were on the ground level, right next to the Barcelona dugout. Very cool experience, even if the security guard didn't let me touch the grass. Jerk.
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