We got to Barcelona early in the afternoon on May 24th and made the trek to Alberguinn, our hostel. The hostel has a laundry room which made both of us extremely happy. We found it quite amusing that the washer and dryer are identical to the ones in UNC’s dorms (they are old school mid 80’s looking/functioning machines). We were joined in our room by an odd collection of people. Nicolas is Dutch and incredibly talkative. He informed us that he hitchhiked to Barcelona and that he routinely does his when traveling across Europe. Needless to say, we plan on sticking with public transportation. The other members of the crew were a random girl that we didn’t get the chance to meet, an old man (in his 60s which really surprised us since it is supposed to be a youth hostel), and 3 teenage boys that seemed to be traveling with the older man. Our first day in Barcelona led us Las Ramblas, the main strip of the city, which had a ton of shops, performers, and people to watch. At the end of the street we stumbled into another large rally for the Spanish social revolution (this one much tamer than the one in Madrid). There was a main speaker with a megaphone and thousands of people sitting, squished together in the plaza. The listeners would throw their hands in the air and shake their hands to show approval (much like spirit fingers or Duke Basketball fans – either way rather embarrassing from our point of view). After exploring for a few hours we decided to go to IceBarcelona (an Ice Bar on the beach) later that night in Barceloneta. They kept it at -11˚C and supplied a winter coat and gloves. The ice area was really cool (haha) and smaller than we expected. The inside had a bar made of ice, ice sculptors, televisions, and ice couches. We met a few French students and some Americans before heading back to our place for the night. Not too surprisingly the older man and his crew were leaving as we were calling it a night at around 4am (after eating Dὂner Kebabs which is pretty much the taco bell of Europe). The next day we rented bikes and explored the city. Our first stop was the Nou Camp which is Barcelona’s soccer stadium. The tradition there is immense and the stadium is the 2nd largest in Europe holding nearly 100,000 people. After spending two hours at the Camp Nou Experience we went on to see La Sagrada Familia and some of Gaudi’s architecture (Casa Battlό was amazing). Our bad luck with bikes continues as Matt got a flat tire and we had to walk for the last 2 hours of our journey. Barcelona is a great change of pace from the rest of Spain. The Catalan culture/pride is palpable (more than half of the windows have a provincial flag or FC Barcelona memorabilia) and the language is difficult, but interesting, since we have been exposed to Spanish almost exclusively.
La Sagrada Familia
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