Starting Somewhere New: Barcelona Highlights!

My ten incredible days in Barcelona have come to an end, so here I am to document my memories! As sad as I am to leave, I am also ecstatic about my new adventures that are about to begin in France. If I have learned anything from my adventure in Spain, it is that wandering aimlessly gets you where you need to go. Every single meal and every activity that my friend (Kayla) and I had was neither meticulously planned nor "Google-mapped". Sure, we had an idea of places we wanted to see and some vague goals for each day... but we accomplished them all and discovered hidden secrets just by roaming the streets of Barcelona and seeing where they led. It astounded us, honestly.

On our first night (after spending the day sleeping off our jet lag), Kayla and I stepped out of our apartment building in El Raval to find the streets totally slammed with tourists. Hungry, but not having any sense of direction, we found ourselves walking through sidestreets and into a small tapas bar called Acoma. The bartender let us know there was a small terrace in the back, so we grabbed a table and ordered a glass of cava. Everything was perfect! The atmosphere, the cobblestone ground, the coyfish pond next to us... everything.

We even met an American girl there who was traveling alone and invited her to sit with us. We all ended up grabbing drinks after dinner and discovering Barcelona's nightlife together. (which included being VIPs at a beach club and ending up on their website)

So just by chance, we made a great friend and had an unforgettable night. Wandering also worked in our favor in instances where we weren't sure where the metro we walked into was going but hopped on anyways, stumbling upon famous cathedrals and landmarks while searching for churros, and saying "eff it" let's just see where this road goes. Doing this forced us into situations where we had to branch out of English and use our Spanish, French, Italian, and (newly developed) Catalan skills. It gave us confidence in unfamiliar situations and it allowed us to experience a side of Barcelona that other tourists aren't able to see.

But anyways, back to the highlights! I'll start with the famous attractions:

Park Guell took my breath away. It is basically a huge park that overlooks all of Barcelona, and we got there easily on the #24 bus at the Catalunya square. I love love love trees, so this was such a cool day for me. However, it is a huge tourist site and it did rain all morning, so the best part of the day was wandering out of the park and through Park Carmel, then happening upon a little restaurant with the best juice & calamari of the trip.

La Sagrada Familia was one of those places we definitely didn't mean to find, but it probably the greatest tourist attraction in Barcelona! Kayla and I were wandering around one night looking for a place to eat dinner, when we saw a metro stop at Parallel in El Poble-Sec and decided to eat someplace out of walking distance. We ended up on the L2 tram towards Badalona and noticed there was a stop for La Sagrada Familia! We got off and planted ourselves at a restaurant three blocks away which overlooked the cathedral, and proceeded to eat a seafood paella each and 2 1/2 pitchers of sangria. It was nearing midnight by the time we were done and the cathedral was lit up, so we took a few pictures, got some gelato and explored the neighborhood. This was one of my very favorite nights... maybe because of the cool breeze or the unreal architecture, but actually I think because the restaurant staff was just so much fun. We ended up going back for dinner the next night, where they gave us a whole lot of free cava and dessert!

The Magic Fountain of Montjuic. There are no words I could ever write to explain the beauty of this place. Kayla and I didn't really do much research before coming to Barcelona, so we heard about it from our waiter at dinner one night. Montjuic is a cool district on top of a mountain where the Olympics were held in the 90's. Thursday through Sunday nights between 9:00 pm and 11:00 pm the massive fountain lights up and plays music and a show. It sounded like fun, so we got on the L1 tram at about 9:30 pm and were blown away as soon as we stepped off. First of all, there were TONS of people there. We heard about 100,000 showed up that night! Secondly, the street performers, the lighting from the fountains and the cool mountain air makes the atmosphere perfect. We walked around and sat at the top of the stairs to just stare in awe at everything around us. The water, the music, the view... I really wish I could describe what the fountain looked like but neither I nor pictures will be able to do it any justice...