Through the Spain

Hey kids!! Here we are, fresh from Barcelona with TALES TO TELL. First of all, though, I must admit a serious transgression. In my pre-trip excitement, I forgot to put Zayn in my bag. Luckily, we got to Barcelona and who should we see but Zayn, accompanied by all of the boys?? They were able to pose for a quick pic, but mostly wanted to do their own thing for the weekend.

There was a bit of a mix-up at the train station Friday morning (i.e. I missed my train), but I got on a slightly later one and met up with Riva in beautiful Barcelona only a couple hours later than originally planned. From the train station, we headed to our digs for the weekend in an area called Porto Olimpic. In fact, we weren't so much in the port area as we were in the port. And we weren't so much in the port as we were on a boat.

Yes, friends, we rented a small wooden houseboat for the weekend through AirBnB. It was actually pretty nice, considering there was no bathroom/shower/kitchen (we used the port public restrooms--hygiene, needless to say, was at an all-time low for the weekend) and we couldn't really stand up without hitting our heads. But it had a nice sunny deck and a surprisingly spacious bed down below. And it was a pretty cute boat, all weathered wood and little portholes to let in sunlight and ocean breezes. So we actually had quite an enjoyable stay.

Just a few boys on a boat!

After dropping our stuff at the boat on Friday afternoon, we spent a few hours lounging on the beach and wandering around the port area before heading back to the boat for a couple of drinks in preparation for our night out at the Barcelona beach clubs. Probably the fewer details the better on that night, suffice to say we ended up back on the boat around 6AM and slept til about 2PM the next day.

With what was left of Saturday, we had lunch at a port restaurant on their terrace overlooking the water before spending a few more hours on the beach. That evening, determined not to have wasted the whole day, we headed out to explore the Gothic Quarter and La Rambla, which was PACKED with people spilling out of their homes and all the surrounding bars, where they'd been watching the Madrid-Barcelona soccer game. Barcelona lost pretty dramatically, so there was a certain lack of enthusiasm in the air last night. But Riva and I had fun checking out the little market booths and street performers anyway.

This morning, rising at the crack of 9, we struck out for the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell, the two main places in Barcelona to check out Gaudi's stuff. Our tickets to the Sagrada Familia--the cathedral designed by Guadi--weren't until 1:15, so we did the Park first and got THE views of Barcelona since it turns out the park is set up on the very top of the city. That was a fun walk up. But yeah, that's where all the mosaic tile stuff is that always shows up if you google "Gaudi Barcelona," so it was quite an experience.

The cathedral is RIDICULOUS, like very beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, but you kind of feel dizzy after awhile. He went a little overboard with the rainbow stained glass, possibly. It is amazing, but you kind of get the feeling he didn't know when to stop. Again, Zayn didn't come along, but I'll be putting some pics up on my Facebook if you want a better picture of what it looks like.

Back in Madrid now, and we will be SLEEEEEPING tonight. Also, fun fact, the Spain version of daylight savings time was last night. Who knew?