Barcelona = Sun, Siesta & Sangria
Hola!
Barcelona is amazing and I could live there forever. The sun, beach, food, Sangria, nightlife, and ofcourse the Kebaps push Barcelona up to number 3 on my favourite Cities list! Behind Melbs and Zurich which don't really count because they are home.
My Barcelona adventure started Wednesday night at 11.30pm. With my housemates all tucked up in their cosy beds I set off to the airport...well to the tube into Victoria Station where I boarded a bus for the 1.2hour drive to Stansted Airport. Once there I only had a 3hour wait (between the hours of 2-5am!) before I could check in!! Oh the joys of booking 1pence flights!! Yes thats right my flight cost me 1pence! Not sure the saving is worth it when you have to camp overnight at the airport, although I must say many Londoners (or dumb tourists) must have fallen for the 1pence trap aswell because the airport was extremely busy at 2am, majority of people were sleeping then they woke up at 4am ordered a full english breakfast then got on their plane at 5am! Seems they had done this all before!
I arrived in Barcelona wearing a jumper, jacket, scarf and knee high socks! After 30 seconds on the bus I had stripped down to my tshirt. It was so warm, we had an average of 23 degrees. While it wasn't the height of Summer, compared to the 15degrees in London 23 felt delicious. Danny meet me at the bus stop, before venturing to the BCNHello hostel to dump my bag. In the room I was met by 2 aussie boys, a kiwi/aussie couple plus Danny meant it was Aussies all round! The Aussie invasion continued. But they were great and we ended up spending most of our nights together.
The first night, after Danny and I had sampled the local paella (rice and seafood dish) and drank 1.5litres of Sangria while overlooking the ocean, started with the pub crawl...which happens every second night! For 15euro we got all you can drink Sangria/Beer for the first hour, followed by a free shot (or two if you ask nicely!) at every bar. It was a great night, the Spanish definitely know how to have fun, especially when they involve European Free Pour, meaning they do not use those silly little shot glasses and instead just pour the vodka, often resulting in a glass of vodka with a dash of juice. Makes for one strong vodka pineapple. The next afternoon...we slept right through the morning...was back to the beach for a dip after a very much needed Shwarma Kebab (nearly my namesake), ofcourse the ocean revived me more than the Kebap but they always seem like a good idea at the time. After relaxing by the sea we walked down to the local market, grabbing some gelati along the way ofcourse. The market felt just like the Queen Vic Market in Melbs, lots of yummy fresh cheap foods.
The second night we took it easy, after watching everyone get quite intoxicated at the hostel we rounded up some people (6 girls & 1 Danny!) and walked round the city by night. Barcelona never stops, there was always people out and about, not to mention that the party doesn't get started til about 11pm.
After waking up early on Saturday we finally decided to do a bit of sightseeing. Started at La Sagrada Familia, otherwise known as the church they started building in 1882 and still haven't finished. Slow coaches! But the church is simply amazing, I understood why its taken so long when I saw how much detail and design has gone in to it.
Guadi was the architect and he is amazing, my new favourite.
La Sagrada Familia - A turtle holds up the columns - Construction & Bobcats inside
After the church we went onto Parc Guell. A park designed by Gaudi. This was also spectacular. He was very in to mosaics it seems with the entire entrance and main sqaure all decked out in mosaics. After hiking all the way back to our hostel we found a kebab shop, turns out or hostel was in the middle of kebab territory (lucky for us). After re-fuelling we jumped on the furnicular (a train that goes up the inside of the hill) then planned on riding thh cable car at the top. Unluckily when standing in line and down to only one person in front of us the attendant decided to close for the day. After standing there in shock we knocked on the window but it seems the Spanish just close whenever they want...it wasn't even siesta time (which is an awesome concept and one which should be embraced by the rest of the world). After missing the cable car ride we walked down the hill back to hostel and after a siesta got the night started. We ducked down to the supermarket where I bought a litre of Sangria for 99cents and the boys bought 65cent beers! Have I mentioned how great Barcelona is!
Our last night was once again a blast...from what I can remember! The only down side of the european free our is slight memory loss the next morning. Some mates also ordered vodka and coke, they got a tall glass full of vodka and a second tall glass full of coke! Only problem was they had to take a gulp of straight vodka just to fit some coke into the glass. At the time we didnt think of sipping some coke to fit in the vodka! At least this guaranteed that we carved it up on the dance floor! Our dancing was such a hit the Dj was taking requests of Jimmy Barnes.
After getting home at 5am I decided to go to sleep even though we had to get up at 6am, Danny had some trouble waking me and hence we were cutting it very close to missing our plane. After racing to catch a cab, we made it to the bus with 5minutes to spare, which took us to the airport and our flight home. We managed to sleep the entire way!
Barcelona is amazing and I could live there forever. The sun, beach, food, Sangria, nightlife, and ofcourse the Kebaps push Barcelona up to number 3 on my favourite Cities list! Behind Melbs and Zurich which don't really count because they are home.
My Barcelona adventure started Wednesday night at 11.30pm. With my housemates all tucked up in their cosy beds I set off to the airport...well to the tube into Victoria Station where I boarded a bus for the 1.2hour drive to Stansted Airport. Once there I only had a 3hour wait (between the hours of 2-5am!) before I could check in!! Oh the joys of booking 1pence flights!! Yes thats right my flight cost me 1pence! Not sure the saving is worth it when you have to camp overnight at the airport, although I must say many Londoners (or dumb tourists) must have fallen for the 1pence trap aswell because the airport was extremely busy at 2am, majority of people were sleeping then they woke up at 4am ordered a full english breakfast then got on their plane at 5am! Seems they had done this all before!
I arrived in Barcelona wearing a jumper, jacket, scarf and knee high socks! After 30 seconds on the bus I had stripped down to my tshirt. It was so warm, we had an average of 23 degrees. While it wasn't the height of Summer, compared to the 15degrees in London 23 felt delicious. Danny meet me at the bus stop, before venturing to the BCNHello hostel to dump my bag. In the room I was met by 2 aussie boys, a kiwi/aussie couple plus Danny meant it was Aussies all round! The Aussie invasion continued. But they were great and we ended up spending most of our nights together.
The first night, after Danny and I had sampled the local paella (rice and seafood dish) and drank 1.5litres of Sangria while overlooking the ocean, started with the pub crawl...which happens every second night! For 15euro we got all you can drink Sangria/Beer for the first hour, followed by a free shot (or two if you ask nicely!) at every bar. It was a great night, the Spanish definitely know how to have fun, especially when they involve European Free Pour, meaning they do not use those silly little shot glasses and instead just pour the vodka, often resulting in a glass of vodka with a dash of juice. Makes for one strong vodka pineapple. The next afternoon...we slept right through the morning...was back to the beach for a dip after a very much needed Shwarma Kebab (nearly my namesake), ofcourse the ocean revived me more than the Kebap but they always seem like a good idea at the time. After relaxing by the sea we walked down to the local market, grabbing some gelati along the way ofcourse. The market felt just like the Queen Vic Market in Melbs, lots of yummy fresh cheap foods.
The second night we took it easy, after watching everyone get quite intoxicated at the hostel we rounded up some people (6 girls & 1 Danny!) and walked round the city by night. Barcelona never stops, there was always people out and about, not to mention that the party doesn't get started til about 11pm.
After waking up early on Saturday we finally decided to do a bit of sightseeing. Started at La Sagrada Familia, otherwise known as the church they started building in 1882 and still haven't finished. Slow coaches! But the church is simply amazing, I understood why its taken so long when I saw how much detail and design has gone in to it.
Guadi was the architect and he is amazing, my new favourite.La Sagrada Familia - A turtle holds up the columns - Construction & Bobcats inside
After the church we went onto Parc Guell. A park designed by Gaudi. This was also spectacular. He was very in to mosaics it seems with the entire entrance and main sqaure all decked out in mosaics. After hiking all the way back to our hostel we found a kebab shop, turns out or hostel was in the middle of kebab territory (lucky for us). After re-fuelling we jumped on the furnicular (a train that goes up the inside of the hill) then planned on riding thh cable car at the top. Unluckily when standing in line and down to only one person in front of us the attendant decided to close for the day. After standing there in shock we knocked on the window but it seems the Spanish just close whenever they want...it wasn't even siesta time (which is an awesome concept and one which should be embraced by the rest of the world). After missing the cable car ride we walked down the hill back to hostel and after a siesta got the night started. We ducked down to the supermarket where I bought a litre of Sangria for 99cents and the boys bought 65cent beers! Have I mentioned how great Barcelona is!
Our last night was once again a blast...from what I can remember! The only down side of the european free our is slight memory loss the next morning. Some mates also ordered vodka and coke, they got a tall glass full of vodka and a second tall glass full of coke! Only problem was they had to take a gulp of straight vodka just to fit some coke into the glass. At the time we didnt think of sipping some coke to fit in the vodka! At least this guaranteed that we carved it up on the dance floor! Our dancing was such a hit the Dj was taking requests of Jimmy Barnes.
After getting home at 5am I decided to go to sleep even though we had to get up at 6am, Danny had some trouble waking me and hence we were cutting it very close to missing our plane. After racing to catch a cab, we made it to the bus with 5minutes to spare, which took us to the airport and our flight home. We managed to sleep the entire way!
posted by SHARNA @ 11:04 AM
