Mi primer viaje!
I took my first weekend trip while abroad this past weekend to Barcelona and I fell in love with the city. Me and my roommate found a cheap round trip flight that left Thursday night and got back Sunday afternoon so it worked out perfectly. We stayed at a friend from work’s apartment, Britt, who lives IN the Segrada Familia area! Yes, that’s right, Gaudi’s famous La Segrada Familia is right outside of her apartment door. It was absolutely beautiful and I was so thankful she let me spend the weekend with her. As for a play by play of my trip, Thursday night we arrived at the apartment around 11:30PM so it was perfect timing for us to get ready to go out. We went to a bar called Dow Jones, the alcohol stock market bar. The prices for the drinks work like the stock market. There are electronic boards above the bars with the prices of all the shots and when the “stock market crashes”, it means the prices fall tremendously, the board flashes red and people immediately run for the bar to order as many drinks for the low prices as they can. It was definitely a good time.
Friday we spent walking around all the different shopping districts in Barcelona, famous streets, and the beach. We first went to Plaça Catalunya, a VERY large shopping area, and walked to Las Ramblas, which was a large touristy street with all different kinda of shops and entertainment. On Las Ramblas is La Boqueria, one of the BEST places I’ve ever been to in my life. It is a gigantic outdoor food market filled with all kinds of reasonably priced food, dessert, and drinks. I ended up walking away with strawberry pineapple juice, a loaf of fresh bread, a bread kebob, and some sangria to go for probably under 6 euro. One word: Amazing. After we met up with my friend from my program who traveled to Barca the same weekend as I did and we then went to the Gothic area where there were more cute little shops. For lunch we went to Bo de B, which is a place that I’ve been told by soooo many people that I have to go to. Bo de B was this very tiny little restaurant, actually I wouldn’t even call it that because you order through a window and find a random place to sit on the streets, where you order a bocadillo with EVERYTHING on it. You get a GIANT sandwich with multiple sauces and toppings with your choice of meat for only 3.20 euro… it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever eaten. After Bo de B we walked around Marina del Mar, which is a beautiful marina with a mall and many restaurants and places to walk around. After we had some time to kill so we went back to Plaça Catalunya and did some shopping, which was inevitably going to happen.
At night my roommate, Britt and I went to the Ice Bar! It was literally the coolest place I’ve ever gone out to. It’s a bar where EVERYTHING is made of ice. The walls, the bar, the cups, the tables, the chairs, etc. Before you go in they give you a huge down jacket and gloves to keep you warm because they have to keep the bar around -13 degrees Celsius and they change the temperature based on how many people are inside. I honestly didn’t even think it was too cold but I also was wearing about 3 jackets because it was one of the coldest weekends in Barca, of course the one weekend I come but whatevz. It was really cool because people don’t normally stay inside the ice bar for more than 45 minutes or an hour so once you get out they have fire pits to warm you up and an outdoor bar where you can stay and drink and hang out. We payed 15 euro a person which includes a free drink so I definitely thought it was worth it for the experience, especially since we were there with a bachelor party who were all from London (my fav. accent) so meeting them made things a lot more fun.
On Saturday my roommate and I did all of the touristy stuff. We started off at La Segrada Familia, where we went inside and toured the church. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Then we went to Parc Guell, which was another beautiful work of art from Gaudi. I honestly wish I could live there. The park was HUGE, we spent about a good 2.5 hours walking around, and the views were astounding. The fact that one person could come up with the ideas for the architecture and sculptures in this park is absolutely insane. We also tried going to Montjuic, but by the time we got there it was getting dark and it was very hard to find out way around because you have to walk through a very large park to get there, but it is definitely on my list for when I go back in March (which I’m doing because my best friend from home, Jill, is coming for spring break!)
For lunch we went with Britt and her roommates to this trendy restaurant called Milk. They have an excellent brunch menu, with many egg breakfast options and other things like salads and sandwiches. I ordered the vegetarian omelet and it was absolutely delicious. Then we went to this candy store called Papabubble where they make the candy right in front of you, which was definitely a cool experience. For dinner my roommate and I had felafel kebobs. There’s some sort of trend in Spain where everyone just eats felafel (they call it Doner Kebabs), especially as drunk food, but I don’t hate it. At night we went to a club called Catwalk. I ended up coming home early because I had to wake up for my flight at 7AM (which I almost missed because ALL 3 of my alarms just weren’t on but I don’t even want to remind myself of the fact that that even happened to me).
Overall my trip was AMAZING, not including this morning obviously, and I definitely can’t wait to go back! I definitely fell in love with Barcelona but it also made me realize how much I LOVE Sevilla and how happy I am to be studying abroad here out of any where else I could have gone in the world. This weekend I’m going to PARIS to see one of my best friends who is studying there so I’ll be updating sometime when I get back from there!