From Cork to Catalunya

This past weekend my roommate and I went to Barcelona for the first time in our lives. Friday we managed to get to the city center from the airport relatively unscathed (point 1 for us) and needed food. We ended up going to a quintessential Spanish restaurant...KFC. BUT we managed to order our dos peces de pollo en original recipe con Coke en espanol so we were both pretty excited. (It didn't hurt that the menus had numbers on it - my roommate suggested we go to restaurants with numbers on them from then on.) After our peces de pollo we were ready to conquer Barcelona...and by that, do a hop on hop off bus tour.

First stop, Sagrada Familia. This incredible church by Gaudi has been under construction since it's inception and is likely to remain so for the immediate future. It's hard to describe. It has a Christmas tree as a main center point. It has salamanders and snails as Gargoyles. The entire thing looks like it is dripping.

After Sagrada Familia we went to Parc Guell. Gaudi had built a park for his family when he was alive and the family left it to the city upon his death. It's like walking in Candyland. There are mosaic lizards, benches that curve around with mosaics, everywhere you look there is something different. In addition, it offers one of the best views of the city.

Saturday, we decided to Gaudi-it up again. First we went to the Gothic Quarter which has a bunch of little streets and as can be guessed lots of Gothic architecture. We then found the zoo by mistake. After that little detour, we decided to visit Casa Batllo and Casa Pedrera. Gaudi was commissioned by people to basically build giant apartment buildings. Casa Battlo has a scaly outside, and a fish like theme in all of the rooms. Even the center light area is blue mosaic starting at a light blue and going into a dark blue when you reach the top. Which naturally features a giant dragon. Casa Pedrera is just as neat and as hard to convey.

We also had our Spanish tapas meal on Saturday. We had ham croquettes, paella and Spanish tortilla. At night we walked along Las Ramblas which is a major street. They had a bunch of street statues who would move when you would give them money. My personal favorite was this Quasimodo looking one who would jump out at people and then mimick their laugh.

Sunday, we went to Montserrat which is an old Christian monastery up in the mountains. It was beautiful, it was really interesting and it was absolutely freezing. We took a subway-train-train to get there. One of the wonderful things about the Spanish subway is all the stops are listed in the train car with little lightbulbs which light up when you get to the stop. We ended up on the train with a honeymooning couple who were very conversive. We learned more about Mexico City/ their families / how they met / how saints are incorruptible / how there was going to be only one world government / how the Hindus apparently worship devils / how saints bodies don't bleed if you cut them and so on. Definitely made the ride more interesting. We managed to finally get to Montserrat and the views are stunning. Montserrat, I learned, is where Ignatius of Loyola had a vision of Mary and where there is the Black Virgin. So we waited in line for a long time to see the Black Madonna which was a neat experience.

We came back and had our second Spanish meal, Paella con Sangria. Then walked along the beach area and all through the waterfront. Monday morning we were up before five although we didn't really sleep due to some lovely individuals in our hostel who decided to have a forty five minute discussion in the early morning hours consisting of one girl accusing the other girl of taking her phone and not giving it to her and how she was so angry. The other girl would then tell her to shut up and go to bed and how she was going to be so embarrassed in the morning. This pattern repeated on the 30 second mark for forty minutes. Turns out the phone was on the floor lol. I heart  inebriated strangers but they were  nice people when sober. We made it to Barcelona airport which involved more tram rides than necessary to get to the right terminal. (Basically we learned the hard way that Barcelona has a lovely car park.)

Anyway back in the Emerald Isle. Barcelona was a really neat city. Kinda like a cross between San Francisco/Miami/New York. And we made it through a weekend on our Spanish which was kinda awesome.