After an hour flight from Milano to Barcelona, we arrived at our hostel called, Itaca. It was so cute - mural-covered the walls, artsy lamps hung from the ceiling, a windy staircase wrapped in christmas lights - definitely a lot nicer than I expected a hostel to be.
We settled in a bit and then headed off to dinner. Although it is a custom to eat dinner around 9 or 10, we were starving and couldn't wait. A few of us ended up eating at a restaurant close by called Taverna del Bisbe, where we all split a bunch of tapas, seafood paella, and a few pitchers of sangria. Yum! The paella/all the seafood was so fresh and amazing. I think I ate a total of four paellas in the 2 days we were there. So good.
Paella and Calamari!
After that restaurant we decided to go to another restaurant (we are fatties) just to see what other foods there were. Leah and I split some mussels and we all got another round of sangria!
That night we went out to a L'Ovella Negra, a pub located downtown and then a club called Razzmatazz. Razzmatazz was a five (?) story club that was basically a maze and none of us still have any idea the layout, but every room played different music and it was so much fun! Such an incredible night. We went home around 6 or 6:30 am, but Anna, Lyndsea, and I were in a cab together and didn't know the street name where Itaca was located. We told the cab driver near the cathedral, but he ended up dropping us off at a different cathedral on the other side of Barcelona. We were lost for 2 hours, wandering around...it sucked, but it was nice to see the whole city. Finally, we made it home around 8am and passed out.
We got up a few hours later (no sleep in Barcelona!) and went to lunch - more paella! We wandered around this outside market place, which was really cool. They had things like jewelry, art, clothes. I bought a pretty bracelet from an Inca store. There was a bunch of sick graffiti throughout the city too.
Later we went on a long adventure to the train station to reserve our tickets home, which was annoying and pointless and took forever, but whatever, got to see more of the city. Afterwards Katie and I got crepes with nutella and went to the beach! IT WAS NUDE! I LOVED IT! Obviously I went topless, so free! The water was pretty cold, but I still loved being there.
Sunset on our way back to the hostel.
We then met up with everyone else (some people had gone to a futbol game...which I now regret not doing but it was pretty expensive) and we got mojitos at a bar down by the beach. Some people went out afterwards, but others just went back to the hostel to chill. We were all so exhausted from not getting any sleep and walking around all day.
We had to get up super early the next morning to catch our train. It was my first time riding a train so I was excited and it was so awesome. I don't know if I'd want to do it again, but spending an entire day on a train this one time and being able to see Spain, France, and more of Switzerland on the way back was pretty cool. France was absolutely gorgeous, we went through a lot of little rural towns and passed lakes and mountains. It was beautiful and I definitely want to go back sometime soon! On one of our trains there was a guy playing guitar and we just listened to him the entire way. Graham said it all -"music is a common language" - and after hearing Spanish, French, German, and Italian everywhere it was nice to listen to something you know everyone in the train would have understood. It was so relaxing and was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
Somewhere in France!
Somewhere between Geneva and Zurich
There were so many dreadheads throughout our trip home too! Makes me so tempted to do my whole head.....
This was our first weekend trip, so we definitely had a lot to learn from the experience - things we'll do differently next time. Although I hate touristy stuff, I wish we had seen a little more of that side of Barca, but I did enjoy the aimless walking. Definitely miss Barcelona already, but it was nice to come home to everyone in Lugano. Some people went to Rome and it was cool to share experiences. Can't wait to do some more traveling, I think we're going to Italy next weekend (either Cinque Terre or Venice or maybe both!) and anyone who knows me knows I've wanted to go to Italy my whole life!
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