Friday, April 16, 2010

Espana...Barcelona Part 1

I love when the biggest decision of the day is which twisty straw to drink my sangria out of...normal sized straw or huge one?

After 12 hours of travel to Spain and getting lost for 45 minutes looking for our hostel, we crashed. The next day we wandered around Las Ramblas, a really crazy street full of street performers, exotic birds and flowers. We also hit of La Boqueria, an AMAZING market full of dead animals, cheese, fresh fruit juice and crazy fruit and candy. And I'm serious about the dead animals...I definitely saw a lamb's head with the eyeballs, teeth and tongue still entact. It was awesome. Then we tried to find a tapas place Aunt Tara recommended and ended up dining at a lovely, less expensive place across the street. I had FANTASTIC iberian pork with quince jam that was salty and oh so crispy. I also got fried camambert cheese with red fruit sauce. Not too shabby! Then we walked along the beach, got ridiculous hot chocolate the consistency of pudding, and headed to a market for bread, cheese and wine before dinner. Kelly, my travel buddy, and I drank the wine, ate most of the cheese and a full baguette. YUMMO. A bit later we headed to Las Ramblas for dinner, found a special with tapa, paella and dessert, got sangria *I've definitely had better* and ate waaay too much. But it was very lovely. Then we met up with some other Arcadia peeps at a cute bar that seemed like a fairy tale. It was decorated with trees and levitating people..very cool. Then we went to bed!

Yesterday Kelly and I met some of the boys to check out the soccer stadium, though little did we know how much it would cost. She opted to sit out, but I thought it might be interesting to see...with the price of admission I figured we got a tourguide and a free soccer ball or at LEAST a soccer player to take home, but nay. We got NONE of the above and just walked through the place. Succch a waste HOWEVER the museum at the end was cool. Then a few of us got picnic fixins and I embarrassed myself trying to use what little Spanish is left in my vocabulary. I tried to chat it up with the cashier-hola, como estas? and he may/may not have tried flirting with me by asking if I was on vacation but I didn't understand what he was saying so I went all catatonic on him. I turned bright red, the people in line behind me looked at me like I was a moron, someone asked me if I'm on holiday, I said yes, turned even beet redder and ran away. Traumatizing. Anyway we continued on heading to Parc Guell and just died. It was SOOOOO awesome. Gaudi is one creative dude and must've had a wicked sense of humor. We enjoyed our cheese, meat, baguettes and strawberries-olives for the ladies and pringles for the boys-and explored the park for a good four hours. The view of the city was incredible and there were so many new and exciting and different things around every corner! Then we got more pudding hot chocolate, met up with the rest of the group for dinner, found amazing sangria and then ate at a DARLING restaurant, Petra. It had silverware for chandeliers and had an excellent and inexpensive menu. I had duck magret salad with pumpkin dressing and sesame seeds and blue cheese gnocchi, of course. And we all decided to split 5 desserts and pass them around. So delightful.

Today Kelly and I wandered around La Boqueria again, got picnic fixins, but it started raining so we went back to the hostel to eat. And for me to change. Apparently I don't believe in weather forecasts, or they don't believe in me because I brought sundresses to wear. Oh well. Though I've gotten SO many weirdo looks, but ya know what? I think YOU'RE weird, lady in the down jacket that goes to your ankles. It's APRIL and you're in wool/leather with fur/whatever. It's springtime, embrace it. But yeah a lot of peple looked at my pasty American legs with confusion. Anyway I changed into my black cropped pants, we went back out and went to the Picasso Museo-coolness-and then the beach. It was beautifulll and there were 2 nudist dudes walking around...everyone else was fully dressed, weirdos. But I received a lovely text from RyanAir stating my flight home to Ireland is CANCELLED due to a little volcanic throw up in the north. Flights are cancelled until at least Monday, woof. Guess when God gives you lemons you make Sangria and extend your trip to Madrid!! Flights aren't cancelled within Spain, just EVERYWHERE ELSE in Europe. Although I am supposed to be in Scotland on Wednesday--I already bought the plane tickets and stuff. We'll see how that goes. But yeah. There's an update!

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