Barcelona, Spain
I was well excited for a summer holiday away! I even spent £30 on fake tan. More on that later. We started off this adventure by once again being late to the airport then once again waiting for EasyJet to get its issues sorted so we could depart. I thought that with Marcelo being fluent in Spainsh, that we’d have no problems in Spain, however Barcelona has its own language. I did not know this. Spanish is the major language but a lot of the signs and things are in Catalun which M really struggled with.
We arrived in Barcelona at around 10pm, just enough time to get on the train towards the centre of town. After 3 stops, we saw a station that vaguely sounded like the one we were meant to be at. We got off the train, looked around and decided hells, we’d only been travelling for 15minutes and this can’t be the right stop, so we jumped back on again. Almost an hour later I’d finally convinced Marcelo to stop being a damn man about things and ask someone where our stop is. A quick conversation in Spanish occurred and Marcelo comes back to our seat, looking sheepish.
“I have bad news” he tells me.
“We were meant to get off at that stop and hour ago, weren’t we” I replied.
“Well yes, there was that. We’re also not even in Barcelona anymore. And this was the last train”.
After a lot of arm flailing and swearing, we briefly considered a taxi then decided against it, opting for the cheaper bus alternative. Then the bus didn’t show up for 45minutes and another kind person told us that the buses had been cancelled and there wasn’t another one for an hour or so. Taxi and £25 each later, we finally arrived at the freaking hostel.
Our first day was beautiful. Sunny and warm, time to whip out the short shorts. We wandered down to La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s greatest work. It is an incredible building. It’s also one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. It’s still in construction, the inside of it hasn’t really been done at all, which we paid £10 to find out. Barcelona reminded me a lot of Wellington. The little boutique shops, every one of them burning incense, the goths, the emos and the hippies all chilling. Everyone has a piercing or a tattoo. You don’t really get that as much in London. We returned home to the hostel late with Marcelo sulking as the rest of the hostel had gone out to watch the bull fight, something I flatly refuse to support. In the distance, thunder boomed. I thought that was odd as, like, it doesn’t rain in Barcelona, right? I mean, I only packed summer clothes.
It HOSED down for 2 days straight. Not be put off, we still attempted to go sight see.
It was a bit of a failure. We ended up in a mall and then randomly at an aquarium which was pretty awesome.
The sun finally made another half hearted appearance and we joined up a free walking tour of the city which was fantastic. I think the free walking tours are the best ones, obviously because they’re free, but also the guides work for tips which means they just put a whole lot more love in there.
Our trip to the airport was once again, harrowing. Despite leaving on time and assuming we were going to be early, Barcelona’s one train to the airport came almost an hour later than we thought it would. Another mad dash to the gate, which left me mentally making a note to do a bit more time on the treadmill and we got there just in time for everyone to start boarding.
