Over spring break, I went to Barcelona with a group of friends. Just as I had hoped, I had so much fun there! I had never been there before so it was definitely a new and different experience. Half of my family is Hispanic so I have grown up around Spanish. Going to Barcelona, I thought that my Spanish knowledge would be enough to get me through the trip even though the spoken language in Barcelona is Catalan. I was both right and wrong. I was able to get around just fine but there were several phrases and words that were very different in Catalan. I loved learning the various discrepancies between Spanish and Catalan when I came across them.
Due to some changes in plans, we ended up staying in two different hostels over the duration of the trip. The first apartment was very nice. The girls shared a private room with a kitchen, which we made good use of. We quickly discovered that buying groceries and cooking was significantly cheaper than going out to eat. However, we still took the opportunity to go out to eat every so often. One night, I went to a typical Spanish restaurant. I had had paella before but never like this. The paella that we had was absolutely delicious!
The second hostel we stayed in was also nice but not nearly as big. The girls still shared a private room and bathroom but it was much smaller. In addition, there was one kitchen for the whole hostel. This wouldn’t have been a bad thing, except for the fact that the oven was broken and there was very limited refrigerator/shelf space. Despite these drawbacks, we managed to still cook occasionally in the apartment.
Now to talk about the things we did on the trip. We arrived in Barcelona on Saturday and took the day to get acquainted with where we were staying and the new environment we were in. We stayed on Las Ramblas, one of the busiest streets in Barcelona. This street is also well known for pick pocketing but thankfully none of us had anything stolen from us. On Sunday, we spent most of the day at the beach. The weather in Bonn thus far has been less than desirable so we were thrilled when we got to Barcelona and it was sunny and somewhat warm. Sadly, the water was still too cold to go in but I had a lot of fun regardless.
On Monday, we went to La Sagrada Familia, a beautiful church designed by Antoni Gaudi. I’ve traveled a lot with my family and everywhere we go, we stop at a church or a cathedral in the area. When we went to this church, I was in complete awe because I had never seen a church like this before. When I first saw it, it looked kind of like the drizzle sand castles that my dad and I made at the beach when I was younger. The architecture of the building was absolutely beautiful. When we went inside, I was immediately reminded of the beach again because of the colors of the stained glass windows, the light stone interior, and the architecture. This church was so unlike the churches I have been exposed to and I absolutely loved it.
On Tuesday, four of us went to Taragonna, a small town an hour outside of Barcelona. My favorite part of this town was the fact that it was not full of tourists and its beautiful location right next to the sea. While there, we explored the town a bit, and then we visited several Roman ruin sites as well as the archeological museum in the city. This mini-trip was one of my favorite parts of spring break. It was the perfect break to the frenzy of Barcelona.
On Wednesday we visited the Picasso Museum. It was interesting to learn more about Picasso’s life and how his paintings reflected his life at that time. I was disappointed that his Guernica was not at this museum, but other than that I enjoyed the museum. I was also surprised that there weren’t as many of his abstract paintings on display.
On Thursday, we visited the fortress on top of Mount Montjuic. Two of us took the gondola up while the others walked up the hill. Honestly, I don’t mind that I was being lazy because we got a spectacular view from the gondola. At the top, we walked around the fortress and then explored the inside. I was surprised to learn that this had previously served as a prison and as an execution site.
On Friday we visited Park Guell, also designed by Antoni Gaudi. When the others expressed an interest in visiting this park, I had no idea what I was in for. I thought we would just be visiting something similar to the national parks we have in the states. This park is home to beautiful architecture and mosaics. My favorite part was climbing to the top where Les Tres Cruces are. This is the highest point of the park and we had a beautiful view of Barcelona from here.
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