"Fair land! of chivalry the old domain, Land of the vine and olive, lovely Spain!"

After Italy, I was seriously ready for an actual tourist office in the train station, a clean public transport system and wide streets. Barcelona delivered! I wasn't expecting much from it, so maybe that's why it turned out so great. Regardless, I have nothing but good things to say about it!

Our hotel the first night (long story involving weird opening hours at the second hostel) was super nice. It was located right on the water, so I took advantage of that the first morning:

It was too cold for a swim, but lovely to walk along! Once we'd figured out where to drop our bags off for the next night (another nice hostel, though slightly less posh than the hostel), we wandered down the main street in the city, the Ramblas. It was so crazy. There are all these street performers lining the road. In addition to the people, the vendors are our in full force. You can get flowers, food, and roosters. Yes, roosters. No, I don't know why. Here are some of my favorites (the scene in the back is actually a pair of women dressed in serious makeup. It reminded me of OM.)


Here's me at the beginning of the street:

We saw the cathedral next. I have no idea why this thing is not more famous. It was one of the first cathedrals in a while that I was actually awed by. There were these amazing gardens inside the walls and the inside was really unique. These pictures don't do it justice. Nicole took better ones, so when I get them from her, I'll post them. It was incredibly beautiful.


We navigated the metro with complete ease. Signs are in Catalan, Spanish, and English. Maybe it's arrogant to hope for English to be spoken and used in foreign countries, but it just makes things so much easier. They're clean and even have video monitors of public broadcast. Here's an awkward picture (the guy didn't seem to pleased, but I wasn't sure if I could legally take photos, so I was trying to get it done quickly):

The next day we went up to the Olympic Park (via funicular) to see the stadium and the Olympic museum. It was so. cool. There were video screens where you could access all the old Olympic video, so I watched loads of opening ceremonies, the Magnificent 7 (gymnasts) from Atlanta's games getting their medals, and the Thorpedo. There were histories of all the sports in the games, including those that went back to ancient Greece, which was really neat since we'd just been there. The gift shop sucked, which really was the biggest indication that we weren't in the States.

It had started pouring by this point, so we went on to the airport. I boarded my train to the airport and left Nicole to go on to see another friend in Spain. I guess it should go without saying at this point that my plane was delayed getting out of Barcelona. But I eventually made it back to London. Home sweet (sort of) home! I will say that the cold was quite a shock to my system.

All in all, the trip was a lot of fun, but I wouldn't really call it relaxing! I needed the week before classes start again to actually rest! I think that's just a family tradition though... Relaxing is overrated, right Dad? : ) We saw about as much as we could have in the time we had though, so it was a great vacation. I'm just avoiding airports for awhile.