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2001-06-28 - 2:42 p.m. Yay - I can finally write! It has been such a hectic past few days that I was just kind of holding on waiting for today to come ... and it is here! I am so excited it might as well be my birthday! But I will come back to that later. The trip to Barcelona went well. I am very glad that we got to go after all, since it was such a problem for a while. It was just me, Candice, and Ricky. We were disappointed in that we were unable to pay extra for sleeper cars. The ride wasn´t as bad as the one to Portugal, even though there was extremely loud man in the front who was extremely intoxicated. I think he got off at a stop in the middle of the night though because all the sudden we were blessed with peace and quiet! We were so excited to see a McDonald´s at the train station when we arrived and we actually waited 30 minutes for it to open so we could eat. Hot cakes have never been so beautiful!! It was also an interesting experience because we were barely awake and everything was in Catalan. It was nice though because even though they initially spoke to us in Catalan, they switched over to Castellano (Spanish Spanish) when they realized that was what we spoke. Our hotel was nice... It was Hotel Principal/Hotel Juventut. It was kind of just around the corner from Las Ramblas, which is kind of the loud, bustling touristy area of town. It was convenient for finding food! We were able to check right in and that was nice. We decided not to lose any time and we went sightseeing pretty early. We went to Sainta Maria del Mar, a really beautiful cathedral in the ¨Barri Gotico¨ (gothic area). Afterwards, we headed down towards the water and took a cable car up to Las Ramblas. It was really high up, but it was such a beautiful view of the Mediterranean. After we got off the cable car, we started to make our way up Las Ramblas. We stopped fairly early on to eat at one of the cafés on the street. We were going for Spanish food (as you will see, that was the theme of the day ... hahaha!) and so we had some good ol´pizza! It was really good. It was funny though cause there was this guy going around singing and playing an accordian. We thought he was just part of the ambiance of the café. No. He comes up and starts playing ¨Besame, Besame Mucho¨ (kiss me, kiss me a lot...) to me and Candice and we are like ok, go away creepy guy! And then he starts playing some other song which he indicated was for Ricky. At the end, he looked at Ricky and asked for money. Rickey gave him something like 35 pesetas, which is like nothing since there is almost 200 pesetas to the dollar. We were shocked when the guy outright asked for 100 pesetas. Very interesting. We walked up the rest of the street. It was so long! We were on the cement area which was in the middle of the street for people to walk up and down. I bought my postcards for Barcelona, since we saw so many cheap touristy shops. At the end of the street where it turned into a plaza we found the Hard Rock Cafe, which we came back to to eat that night. We went to the Metro station and found out about trains so we would be prepared for Saturday. Before we went to eat, we went to visit Sagrada Familia, this very interesting church which is not completed yet which was began and designed by Gaudí, one of Barcelona´s big architects. His name was all over the city. It was a really interesting building. I thought it looked so ugly from afar that I almost didn´t want to go, but I am very glad we did since it ended up being one of the most interesting things we did in Barcelona. I think the church is scheduled to be completed in 2025. It is missing the middle of the building. It had so many interesting symbols and we really liked the face of the newer side, with really interesting carvings depicting the life of Christ. It is hard to describe, but it was definitely intriguing in a way far different from any other church I have ever seen. We went back to eat around 9 and it was wonderful. Chicken fajitas!!! So good! We didn´t get back until almost midnight because it took us a while to get a table and then to eat. What was especially interesting was that this weekend was La Fiesta de San Juan, which I believe someone said is the saint of fire. Sooooo the entire weekend, kids were setting off firecrackers. Some of them were really really loud. I am jumpy anyway, so you can imagine how I was the whole weekend! Saturday we went to the beach. We went to a city/beach called Sitges, which was about 20-30 minutes out from Barcelona. We took the train again. This time, unlike Portugal, we rented chairs and an umbrella. We got sun in style! It was so exciting to be at a new body of water. The Medditeranean sounds so fancy and exotic! The beach was very beautiful. The water was still somewhat cold, but definitely more bearable than the water in Portugal! I actually got in and stayed in a lot, because it was really hot when you were on the beach for a long time. We were there pretty much the whole day. It was very nice to relax for such an extended period of time!! We didn´t eat anywhere fancy on the way back and on the way back on the train, we pretty much just studied. I am glad we got to go to Barcelona. I feel like seeing Sagrada Familia and going to a Medditeranean beach was worth it all in and of itself! I did however expect to like the city more. I had heard it was better than Madrid, but I have to disagree. There is just so much more (I think) to do here in Madrid, and the buildings are better organized, in my opinion. But I am very glad I got the opportunity to see it.
Hotel Principal
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