Barcelona Barcelona Barcelona

Well well well, 

what do I say about Barcelona? 

First impressions were a bit hit and miss, it is undoubtedly an enormous city with an even bigger population, a sea of apartment blocks, very similar to Athens, but hints of a Spanish style began to emerge the closer we got to the inner city. 

As we took the cab from the airport we took in the views of the city stretched out on one side and an enormous cemetery scattered within and upon the side of a mountain on the other. But so intricate and detailed that it was hard to see what exactly it was to begin with. 

Gradually as we got closer to the buzz we began to see the ocean and the harbour, filled with ships and also massive storage vessels within the huge port. 

We quickly realised that our accommodation was a little further out of town than we had hoped (really only a 10 min taxi ride, but seemed a lot longer on our first day!). So we unloaded our gear and asked at reception for a recommendation for dinner...... hmmmm an interesting response. 

So we followed the suggestion and headed over to the massive shopping complex just down the street (winner winner chicken dinner) where apparently there were lots of 'really nice' restaurants upstairs.

After sussing out these really nice restaurants..... it was a tough choice between mcdonalds, hungry jacks, a steakhouse or a mexican restaurant. We decided to go with mexican as we figured it was the closest to spanish we were gonna get. Quickly realising that we were kinda in the ghetto we sat down and tried not to catch any diseases off the tables..... joking it wasn't that bad, but I was totally feeling the scene in Bridesmaids where they all go to the really dodgy mexican restaurant and later end up shitting in the street and I began to really hope that my first encounter with spain would not result in me depositing my waste in the middle of the highway. THANKFULLY it wasn't that bad, H and I still laughed the whole time though, and regretted our decision to eat there when we realised that a taxi to the port where all the best paella is was not REALLY that far.

But oh well, we got an authentic spanish shopping mall dining experience..... beat that.

We did the next day when we had a delicious seafood and meat paella and a jug of sangria the traditional spanish drink of choice which is a combination of red wine, chopped fruit and a sweetener (probably not the best idea in hindsight, one glass would have been enough). DELICIOUS. But also brought back memories yet again of the last time I drank red wine, which resulted in me vomiting the contents of my stomach onto my brand new pair of yellow suede boots which my beautiful stepma later revamped with a toothbrush!!

Before we hit the food train we spent the day travelling around Barcelona on a tour bus, which stopped at all of the most impressive sights. As we were only limited to two full days we just didn't have enough time to get off at all of them, so only picked our favourites. We took the two day tour option and finished off all of our sightseeing today. The highlights being the Sagrada Familia, very weird but cool at the same time, with modern and classical architecture moulded into one (H thought it looked like a melted candlestick), Camp Nou home of Barcelona's football team their start of season match is on the 18th..... so we only missed it by 2 days!! The MNAC gave us incredible views of the city of Barcelona and surrounds and both of the ports were beautiful and gave us the best meals we had in Barcelona. My favourite part of Barcelona was visiting the small town of Gracia where they hold a street festival each year in August. During the festival each street designs and creates a different theme for their particular street, filling it with decorations and props, music and food. We were lucky enough to see 3 themed streets, a Wonka themed street filled with oompa loompas, wonka candy, the buckets all in their bed with their woollen blanket thrown over, willy wonka in his glass elevator, candy, mirrors and everything else you can imagine from the film, an under the sea theme, with all different kinds of sea creatures, beach huts and life floats, and a music themed street, with enormous instruments, musical notes hanging above your head and life-size models of conductors and musicians scattered everywhere. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before and so creative! Everything made out of recycled materials made by the people. I can only imagine how wonderful the whole thing would be. 

Tonight we topped it all off with a bang and went to a flamenco and opera show in a beautiful old theatre. It was absolutely breathtaking, the theatre was filled with classical charm and the singing and dancing was mind-blowing. The only downside...... sitting in front of American tourists who said wooooooooow oh woooooooow every five minutes and talked throughout the whole performance. I was just about to show them an Australian version of WOW but was wearing a slightly revealing jumpsuit and decided it probably wasn't the best idea..... But we were only 3 rows from the front, right in the centre with a perfect view, so close you could see the sweat spraying from the male dancers hair as we twirled around and around. 

Barcelona has been a beautiful place to visit, with a combination of the old and the new scattered into one.... so much so that sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the old and the new, particularly as the Spanish style is so different from the classical seen in Rome and Florence. 

Tomorrow we have a 6am start ready for our flight to Paris at 9!!!

Bon voyage!