I promised myself I would write about the last 2 cities on my trip (Barcelona & Paris), so even though I have been back in the States for almost 3 weeks, here's my recap of the first one - Barcelona. On the flight from Pisa, I happened to meet another Emily who also studies Linguistics and passed the time on the flight and the hour-and-a-half bus ride from Girona into Barcelona proper chatting.
In Barcelona, I met up with two friends from the Tombs, who both happened to be in Europe at the same time as me. One (Ian) was on a trip similar to mine - 3 weeks, lots of different cities, and the other (Sully) had spent a week in Barcelona prior to my arrival. He was originally supposed to leave the day Ian and I arrived, but changed his plans to hang out with us. It was nice to see some friendly-faces who already knew who I was and a little bit about me. It was two less times I had to explain my story and also avoided the "but why are you travelling alone?" questions.
Barcelona was my "relaxing" city in that, while it is gorgeous, there are not as many touristy sites to see. I actually only had one thing I absolutely had to see: Gaudi's Sagrada Familia. This meant I had less on my agenda and didn't spend my days running around trying to see everything. Our first afternoon, Sully, Ian, and I recruited our fourth roommate - an Aussie named Chris - to come with us to the Picasso museum. It was an interesting museum because it mostly focused on his earlier work, pre-cubism; he actually went to art school and used classic techniques before eventually altering his style. The museum did have a large set of modern works based on his exploration of Las Meninas by Velazquez, which was really interesting.
On our way back to the hostel, we ran directly into a Catalan independence march. It was cool to see that the people are actually doing things to make their opinion known, rather than their want for independence to be purely an asterisk on the Barcelona wikipedia page.
The next day, we "took the hill" (Sully's phrasing) in that we took a day trip to Tipidabo, the highest point around Barcelona. In addition to great views, there was also an amusement park and a really pretty church. It was quite an adventure getting there; we took the subway, a bus, and a funincular (i.e., cable car) to get to the top of the hill. The views were pretty amazing even though it was a little hazy, and we enjoyed a beer at a bar on the hillside before heading back into the city. That night we went out to an amazing tapas dinner that was suggested by a friend of Ian's and happened to be around the corner from our hostel. The meal was fabulous, and we shared our table with an older group of Aussies via South Africa so we had some interesting conversations as well.
Ian and I visited Sagrada Familia (Sully had already seen it), which is a trip. Ian wondered what drugs Gaudi was on when he designed it, my response to which was that he was very religious. Whatever it was, it was quite a sight. It's huge and based on the plans I've seen, it's no wonder it's not finished after 100 years of work. After the cathedral, we spent a couple hours on the Barcelona beach. From there, I headed back to the hostel to pick up my things and catch my flight to Paris. Overall, it was really nice to have a few days that weren't crammed full of sights and to get to sleep in a bit.
A recap of the city of lights will be forthcoming...
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