Barcelona let us down

Maybe it's not Barcelona's fault. We all had extremely high expectations and we kept hearing such great things! But coming off of such an amazing time in Lisbon, I think it was doomed to fail. It pretty much started when we touched ground. Sally and I were on a different flight from everyone else, so they had to wait around in the airport for a long time for us. The directions the hostel gave were super unclear and we ended up walking around for about an hour until we found the place. The good news: the hostel was literally right on the beach! The bad news: It's February. And it's cold. So we were so out of the city and it was inconvenient to get anywhere. But had it been warmer and the summertime, it would have been awesome!


We got into the hostel, and were greeted by Paolo, who was blasting reggae music and had super long dreads. He handed us our keys and our sheet. One sheet. Oh, and a pillowcase. We had the option of renting out another sheet, but it wasn't even a blanket or anything! Just another flat sheet. I slept rolled up like a burrito those two nights. Luckily, it didn't get too cold! The others slept with tights on and used scarves as blankets.

When we saw our room we knew we were in for it. We realized that we shared a ceiling with four other rooms; because the other rooms didn't have windows there was space at the top. So basically we could hear everything, and they could hear everything! The hostel's rule of silence after 10:00 was beginning to make sense. Getting ready that night, Corin's hairdryer blew a fuse and not only were our lights out in the bathroom but everyone else's!

That night we met up with my friend Chase, who's studying in Barcelona. It was so nice to see someone from home!


The next day we basically did a tour of Gaudi. We started at Parc Guell and then headed to La Sagrada Familia. I was disappointed with Parc Guell, It was a lot of a park and not a lot of Gaudi. What Gaudi that was there was beautiful though. And pretty much everywhere we went there was always at least one musician playing, which I loved.


But where Parc Guell fell shot, La Sagrada Familia definitely made up. It was amazing. We were mad at first because there was a huge crane doing construction, but that's because it's not finished! It's going to take 30 more years (Gaudi started on the project in 1898, I think) to complete it. It's not even at it's full height yet, and when it's done it will have a huge cross on the top that will light up! We ran into a group of kids from our program there, and they said they didn't go inside because it was too expensive. Did they MISS OUT! The inside was the coolest thing I've seriously ever seen. It was beautiful. You kind of just had a moment of "Whoaaa.." when you walk in. I just walked around for awhile before starting to take pictures. It was a lot to take in.



And the back looks like a drippy castle!

That day we also saw the apartment buildings by Gaudi, and we went to the Boqueria Market. It was a long day, with a lot of walking. We also hit that point in the family vacation when everyone hates everyone and are super cranky. Fun!