Barcelona has such a great vibe! I mean, it's kinda dirty and it's a little shady, but at the same time it's bustling, fresh, and muy guapa! We saw pretty much everything we wanted to see...and then some!
The first day Brittany and I decided to start with the free walking tour of the gothic district of the city. Here we met Rick, a guy from Australia who's backpacking through Europe. We ran into him about 4 times in the street throughout the trip...it was so bizarre! After the tour, we walked up Las Ramblas and decided to watch some street performers who were doing acrobatics. They were ridiculously strong and limber. Brittany, of course, got plucked out of the audience do be a spectacle herself (when Rick refused to participate) and ended up like this (!):
Later the evening, the three of us were the only people who had bought tickets for the cooking class. We learned how to make tapas, sangria, and pallela from this really cute Spanish girl. Mmmm...it was so good!
That night the three of us ended up rambling up Las Ramblas again, and while we were talking, these two people walked up to Rick and it turns out they had just met a few days ago in Rome on the pub crawl! So we chatted with Ben and Bea for awhile before heading to a bar and talking some more. They're all from the same town in Australia, too. What a small world. It was so spontaneous and spontaneity is what makes for the most memorable experiences.
We came home to meet the roommates that had woken us up with their drunken hullabaloo at five that morning. They were German twenty-something hard-rock punk guys that had been paired with a couple of dainty California girls. They were far to funny and kept suggesting places for us to go where they "make good party". I had to get a picture of them to share with you all:
The next day we wanted to start with the Picasso Museum. While in the metro we ran into Rick, who was going to the same place, and why wouldn't he be? Hehe...He asked if he could continue the stalking and tag along, and so we all had a great time seeing a great collection of Picasso's earliest works.
Afterwards, we split up and Brittany and I ate at a small restaurant with a really sweet Spanish lady who kept trying to explain what the dishes were. Later on we set out on a quest to discover the works of Antoni Gaudi who was a modernist architect and did seemingly all the interesting architecture in Barcelona. Everything of his is curvy and colorful. His main ongoing masterpiece is the Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) Cathedral which is so huge and so intricate and so absolutely original that we had never seen anything like it. It might not even be completed in our lifetime.
That afternoon, after a bit more Modernist building watching (during which we got somewhat lost and some Italians thought it would be wise to ask me of all people for help...it was neat though because I actually was able to help them find their way!), I gave in to hot chocolate and churros because it's a common Spanish dish I didn't want to miss out on! The place was really popping and had a cute atmosphere. Churros dipped in chocolate are so much better than churros dipped in, well, not chocolate.
So after that we were planning on going back to the hostel to rest for a bit before going out for tapas and then to a club. However, we got totally sidetracked when we saw the fresh market off of Las Ramblas. I've been to several markets before but this one wins hands down. Everything was so colorful and so lively and so fresh!
Needless to say, we dropped our dinner plans, bought a bunch of fresh food, and went back to the hostel to make our own tapas like we had learned at our cooking class the night before! Our impromptu Friday night dinner paired with a bottle of wine made for such a fun night! So as I'm tipsily munching on salami and cheese atop tomato bread, I say to Brittany, "I'm glad we saved eating tapas out until tomorrow so I can eat meat." Then I look down at the salami in my hand and we both started dying laughing. Oh well. I actually think dinner was so fun that I didn't mind quite as much when the club experience later on bombed. Man we hate house music.
Even before we went home to eat all our lovely purchases we wanted to make sure we didnt' miss the light show at the Magic Fountain, so we took another detour, this time to Placa Espanya. Wouldn't you know it, we ended up running into the Australian couple again there.
The fountain was so cool! It's at the foot of the Catalan Museum and in the evenings they do this really spectacular light show. We watched it twice, it was so good.
The next morning on our way out we took a detour to check out the cool graffiti in the park near our hostel. There were even people tagging while we were there!
At Park Guell, we saw some more of Gaudi's visionary works. Apparently it was a flopped housing development...but it just looks like a cool park to me! There were tons of simply gorgeous mosaics littering the park. Brittany and I had a great time watching the hoards of people attempt to take pictures with this famous lizard gecko mosaic thing--all at the same time, all in different languages. It was a grand mess. Anyways, we figured we better follow suit, so here we are in all our cliche cuteness:
I had watched this French movie dubbed in Italian that takes place in Barcelona (hehe) with Azzurra and there were many shots from Park Guell so it was super cool to be there in real life. The weather was perfect...warm and clear...you could feel the ocean nearby. At one point Brittany and I were talking about the old days and fun stuff we used to do like her photo shoot with Julia, to which I exclaimed, "Why don't we do fun things anymore?!" Brittany agreed and then we looked at each other and realized, um, we're in Barcelona, and felt really stupid for our ignorant complaints. Hehe...anyways here's some various shots in the park, in which we spent a great deal of the day:
Then we went back to Las Ramblas for -Haagen Daas- woo! followed by a tour through the main cathedral, the most memorable part of which is the cloister which is outside with palm trees, fountains and geese in the middle!
Then we stopped for another snack...we're so bad! We had come across this adorable place, and so went in for tea and pastries. We decided to drop by the hostel for a little rest and warmer clothes and picked up an LA girl from our hostel, Roxy, who went out to dinner with us. We went to a place near the harbor for delicious tapas and wine, and were aided by Roxy's fluency in Spanish! We ate a great sampling of some very authentic dishes! After, we strolled the harbor and took one last tour of Las Ramblas before heading off to bed.
I had to be up for an 8 o'clock flight which permitted me only 3 hours of sleep! I just reminded myself I can sleep when I'm dead.
And finally, a special treat. Here's the video I took of Brittany with the acrobats!
Some of the highlights of Siena were the Cathedral, the Piazza, and meeting up with my friend Giuliana who was also there for the weekend.
We also took a day trip to Perugia. We had an amazing meal there of spinach gnocchi baked in the oven with tomato sauce. Mmmm.
The best part of that day was wandering the small alleys...they are all so cute! It's exciting to know that around every corner there will something new and even more beautiful! In the afternoon it got so cold it started snowing...which I could hardly even believe. It was cool though. We just ducked in for some tea and hot chocolate and then made our way back to Siena.
There's a special pasta that's particular to Siena called Pici. It's kinda like spaghetti but SO much thicker. We made a point of buying some before we left, and the guy we bought from was so sweet, offering cooking suggestions and telling us about Chianti.
The only time the weather cleared up a bit was the morning we went to climb the tower, most fortunately. We took a ton of photos to justify the price of the ticket!
I'm pleased to say that the photos don't even do it justice. Tuscany is totally what it's cracked up to be.
