The final stop on our spring break tour of the Iberian peninsula was Barcelona, Spain. We arrived by plane in the early evening and took a taxi to our Russian AirBnB host's apartment right next to the beach. We didn't do much the first night besides eat dinner (a menu del dia meal, of course).
Our first full day in Barcelona started with a visit to Park Guell, a fantastic park designed by Barcelona's most famous architect Antoni Gaudi. The park had an interesting layout with plenty of cool tile mosaics. From here, we went to the Picasso museum which featured hundreds of his paintings, sketches, and pottery. Much like the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, I discovered just how prolific and amazing of an artist Picasso was. I think people often dismiss some of Picasso's work as just weird modern art (some of his pieces are admittedly a little strange), but after seeing all of his life's work, one can see how he was always successfully changing his style and perfecting his art. After the Picasso museum, we headed to the Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi masterpiece. The Sagrada Familia is an unfinished cathedral designed by Gaudi that is still being constructed. The inside was gorgeous with one side having warm-colored glass windows and the other side having cool-colored glass windows, creating a beautiful mix of colors on the floor. We had a tour guide show us around the church, and I was really impressed with her ability to roll every single "r" in every English word she said. In fact, I think she sometimes added r's to her words just to show off how well she could roll them. Following the tour, we took an elevator to the top of the Sagrada Familia which offered great views of the city, and walked back down a really long spiral staircase to return to the nave of the cathedral.
In the evening, we headed to Barcelona's famous street, La Rambla. We found a really neat outdoor market with all sorts of fresh produce, meats, and pastries. It's amazing how mesmerizing it is to watch a hairy Spanish guy clean a fish. We wandered to the end of La Rambla, then went to Plaza Espanya to get some dinner. We ended up eating at a restaurant on top of an old bullfighting ring-turned-shopping mall which had an excellent view of the art museum light display.
The next morning started with a trip to the cable car station that would take us to the top of the mountain to see Castle of Montjuïc. Or, so we thought. Apparently, there are multiple cable cars/chair lifts in Barcelona, and we happened to pick the one that only took us halfway up the mountain. We decided to hike the rest of the way, which was actually quite enjoyable. There were some really nice views on the walk up, where I took a picture, posted it on Instagram and raked in the likes. The actual castle was pretty interesting, and was the site of much Spanish Civil War fighting when Francisco Franco came to power. Rather than hike all the way back down the mountain, we took a bus back to Plaza Espanya to take some pictures during the daytime, then headed back to La Rambla. We got some lunch back at that same outdoor market, then walked to the Maritime Museum to participate in the Barcelona Beer Festival.
One of Vanessa's friends told us about the beer festival, and we were very glad that she did. The museum was packed with a strange assortment of people, everyone from old men to tourists to hipster beer snobs to a not insignificant amount of toddlers running around with their mothers. The festival had 40-50 beers on tap at any one time, and close to 400 different beers were available throughout the weekend. I tried several beers from all over the world. It's hard to say what my favorite beer was, but I definitely had a least favorite. Just for fun, I tried a Russian Imperial Stout which, as one would imagine, is colored completely black. It smelled and tasted like a combination of coffee and smoke and was a drink-tasting experience unlike any other. 4/10 would not recommend. The Barcelona Beer Festival was a really unique experience that was one of my favorite parts of spring break.
After the beer festival, we went on a whirlwind walking tour of Barcelona to try and see some of the major sites we had missed. We started with the lovely Catedral de Barcelona, then walked to see more Gaudi architecture at the Casa Batllo and the Casa Mila, took a subway to see the Arc de Triomf, and ended with the large, light-up torpedo building visible from all over the city. We ended our Barcelona excursion with a quintessentially Spanish meal of cheap tapas and beer.
Spring Break 2015 was one of the most memorable vacations of my life, and I'm glad I got to spend it with some great new friends. I saw so many beautiful landscapes and buildings, experienced 3 totally separate cultures, and made countless memories.
Due to the timing of my writing of this blog post, I think it would be remiss for me to not talk about the tragedy of the Germanwings flight that crashed last week. As most people already know, a severely depressed Germanwings co-pilot intentionally rammed a plane into the French Alps on a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, killing all 150 people on board. This is especially sobering for me because we took a Germanwings flight from Barcelona to Cologne just a week before the crash, and I would not be surprised if that same co-pilot occasionally flew the Barcelona-Cologne route. I feel so terrible for the families of crash victims, and I can't imagine what they are going through right now. I guess this whole thing is a reminder that life is precious and unpredictable, and some things are just out of our control. (Sorry for the depressing ending, next post will be happier.)
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