Barcelona: The Last Stop
We arrived in Barcelona around lunchtime, and enjoyed one of
the best meals we've ever had in Europe at our hotel's restaurant—not something
I had expected. I had chicken with mustard sauce while Colton feasted on
monkfish. These were followed up by cheesecake and ice cream. Not too bad for
less than 10 euros each.
A lot of our time in Barcelona was spent napping—or in la
siesta. This was institutionalized by Spain's habit of a very late dinner (most
restaurants don't open until eight or later).
Random Europe hotel habit: two beds pushed together instead of one big bed.
No sleeping in the middle.
We had arrived in Barcelona on
New Year's Eve, something that we kept forgetting. We had planned to spend some
time relaxing in a nearby coffee shop but found that most were closing early
for the holiday and in a desperate need for food, found a restaurant and
ordered burgers.
Silly American mistake: I thought the chicken option on the menu would be like a
fried chicken sandwich, not an actual chicken burger.
Here we also experienced some of the typical behavior of the
residents. They are not the most enthusiastic bunch. Something I kept
forgetting whenever we went out to eat. The Catalans (Barcelonians? I forget
what the name is) generally give the impression of being bored and in no hurry
for anything in particular—at least those in the restaurant business.
On New Years, we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel before
making our way to the Sagrada Familia, a truly unique cathedral that has been incomplete
for over a hundred years and they won't finish it until at least 2030. On the
way we heard and saw parrots, they are about as common as the pigeons, so I'm
the sure the locals enjoyed watching us tourists stop to take photos of the
little green birds.
The line for the entrance wrapped around the building and we
learned that the wait was near three hours with only two more hours left for
viewing time (they were closing early for the holiday).
We decided to visit on
the next day and went to a nearby café and had a bit too sweet carrot cake (It
was delicious, just huge and after a while the sugar was going straight to my
head).
We left the cafe and went to visit another creation of Gaudi's
(the original designer of the Sagrada Familia)—the Gruell Park. We wandered
around its woods and climbed to the top of the hill for a fantastic view of
Barcelona, however we didn't venture into the Gaudi house so no giant iguana
statues (bummer).
That night we found some comfort food at Shanti, an Indian
restaurant not far from our hotel. At first, and for much of the meal, we were
the only diners in the restaurant, which worked out well as Colton quizzed our
poor waitress Sharan about everything from the food to her taste in Bollywood
films. The meal was fantastic and we topped if off with two cups of chai each
(crazy I know)—I ate too much and could barely make the walk back but it was
delicious.
The next day we managed to make it inside the cathedral, a
rare mix of modern design, natural themes, and fantastic simplicity (only the
inside, I would never call the outside simple). It's a beautiful structure that
is a feast for the eyes, with museums dedicated to its design and designer
underneath so you can learn how much of a genius Gaudi was (and that some
people actually do use geometry).
Then we made the hike down to the beach, where I discovered
that the Mediterranean in January is much colder than the English Channel was
in October, as these lovely photos demonstrate.
After the beach it was time to visit the aquarium, where we
witnessed one of God's creations where I'm pretty sure he just went "This
should be fun. . ."
We finished off our apparent marine-themed day with some
seafood ravioli to finish off our last night in Espaňa.
We left for the train the next day and it was hard to
believe we had managed to survive traveling 14 days, over 3,500 miles on a
train, near 50 miles on foot, visiting seven cities in seven countries.
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