BARCELONA

Sorry if this gets repetitive, it was typed and written a little out of order. I'll put up a better update later on.

April 13- As I'm typing this I am sitting in the common area of an awesome Barcelona hostel (seriously, this place is pretty great) next to my friend Pam as we do all of our various internet errands. I'm pretty much done with mine so rather than type a whole post tonight im just going to write up some important bits and crash, because I'm SO EXHAUSTED AAAHH. La Rambla (the famous street) is the place to be, great street performers, some even better than in Paris...costumes, sound effects. Really annoying= these guys who sell little doodads that sound like dogtoy squeakers and make your voice really high and obnoxious. They're every few feet on La Rambla, and they're nearish to the beach too (as well as other attractions). Like in Paris, there are guys selling flowers to couples, usually trying to hand it to the woman while getting man to pay. TapasTapas was a good place to eat, need to try this chicken/seafood/rice concoction called paella...awesome mercat (market) on La Rambla where the deeper in you go the cheaper (and probably more delicious) the fruit juice drinks are. Today I had mango and coco(nut) flavored...was utterly delectable. Gonna drink at least one every day. Also there is cool candy, lots of fruits and veggies, and fish, meat, cheese....all kinds of food, very crowded, very tempting. Barcelona is beautiful, palm trees, architecture, really pumped to see Sagrada Familia and other pieces by Gaudi. Saw a really great flamenco show, so powerful and passionate, was totally drawn in. It was all organized by the hostel = just another great thing about this place. Have definitely had good luck with hostels. The Irish one gave me free hot breakfast and later on, beer, and this one gives me discount Flamenco shows and apparently free live music tomorrow night. Pam's a great traveling companion too, and an excellent navigator. Nice to hand the reins over to someone. And it's been pretty easy finding our bearings here, too. Tomorrow= Parc Guell and Sagrada Familia. Sagrada Familia is this huge, crazy, unfinished cathedral that Gaudi designed. The hostel guy says they might be finished by 2030. The detail in the architecture is just amazing. Photographs don't do it justice. Apparently in the gift shop of the place sells a video that professes to be in like ten languages, but when you put it on, it's just silent. So...beware of that, I guess. April 14- Had the most scrumptious paella on La Rambla today. Pam had mixed, with chicken, seafood, pork and rice, and I had paella del senorita, which just meant all the seafood was peeled (because I'm lazy and I don't want to see the shrimp's eyes). We sprinkled some lemon juice on and it was even MORE delicious! Then I tried mango and papaya juice, which isn't as good as mango and coconut in my opinion. Also, I made a note of OVERRATED CANDY in my journal. The candy's pretty tasty, but way too expensive, so make sure you are buying something you either REALLY like of have been dying to try. To avoid getting pickpocketed I've been putting money in the side of my bra, but it seems like as long as you're attentive and careful it isn't terribly difficult to avoid getting robbed...just be watchful in the many crowded areas of the city. We also went to Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell and got a double dose of Gaudi's crazy drug-induced (not a fact, just our assumption) architecture. Journal at the end of our Gaudi adventure: It's 6 pm, I've only been out since like 11:30 and I'm freaking exhausted. We walked to Sagrada Familia and back, then took the bus (bus 24 is the one) to Parc Guell to walk around, see the view of the city and the Gaudi designs. I don't think he'll outdo Sagrada Familia....for one he's dead, plus the thing is still under construction...but Parc Guell and the various houses around the city are pretty amazing. There's a lot more I want to do and see- the Block of Discord (three awesome houses), the Picasso and Dali museums- but after tomorrow we leave for Madrid. I'd love to just stay and do everything, but I may as well see Madrid while I have the chance. I think that at the end of the semester I'm going to do a post about hostels. This one ALMOST beats the one in Belfast, but not quite...the shower was a little too temperamental and there isn't free breakfast. The atmosphere is quite friendly though, homey and comfy, there's a decent kitchen and a deck, you get a really good map that they mark up for you. I can't decide which is better. There are a lot of things I haven't seen yet, including the Agbar building, which is the resident water company's building. It looks like a beehive to me, but when Pam pointed out another way to observe the shape I couldn't disagree. Seems like every country has to have it's phallic symbol. Eiffel Tower in Paris, Agbar building here, that thing in Berlin that I can't remember the name of...and it seems like Dublin had the smallest one. It's basically a really big needle. Sorry, Ireland.