Barcelona -
The first day in Barcelona was cut short due to all kinds of strikes and protests in Athens, we were delayed getting to the air port and further delayed by 3 or 4 hours leaving for our flight because of public transport strikes, bus, tram and train drivers as well as Air Traffic Control personnel.
The night we got to Barcelona we caught a cab to our hostel because we were sick of dealing with public transport and just wanted to get there and relax. Our Hostel was one of my favorites yet, it was a college dorm that they turn into a hostel for when school isn’t running. It came with a free buffet style breakfast which we stocked up on every morning. That night we went to bed early as we were tired and exhausted from dealing with the ordeals of leaving greece.
The next morning we got up bright and early, man handled the breakfast buffet and set out on our quest to get tickets for the Futbol Match that night at Camp Nou. We walked outside to a sad sight, Torrential Downpour in Spain, this made rain in the Pacific Northwest look like a drizzle. We got off the tram for the stadium and immediately bought ponchos, stood in line for over an hour until it all became a reality, the tickets were in my hand and i was going to be attending a Futbol Match, IN spain, AT camp nou, with the love of my life!! I was BEYOND stoked, i’m not even a huge soccer (futbol) guy but this might as well have been a super bowl, i was giddy and super excited to do this. We used the rainy day to plan out the next couple. We purchased Train tickets to Paris, booked our Hostel for paris, planned our day for tomorrow and then went back to our Hostel, took a nap and got ready for the big game!
We left our Hostel about 4 hours before the Match started, In our Messi Jersey’s with our Poncho’s in my backpack. We made our way to Camp Nou, found a local pub and enjoyed a couple drinks and a couple “apps” as kayla calls them (appetizers). After pre-funking like a husky tail gate we went down toward the stadium and checked out the Team Store, purchased a shot glass for my “Man Cave” and made our way to our seats to watch warm ups. The atmosphere of the game was indescribable, the environment was electric and it wasn’t even a “big game” they were playing Atletico Madrid and from the looks of it they were Madrid’s B team. Messi looked like me playing against the team i coached when they were sixth graders. He made people look silly, and played part in all five of the goals (a blow out 5-0). Messi scored 3, assisted 1 and scored another off the face of a defender so it was scored as an own goal. This was my favorite part of Barcelona, can’t believe i got the chance to go to this game. Something to cross off the bucket list.
At Camp Nou, Looking out From about five rows down in front of our seats
The next day we got up super early because we only had one day to see all the sights in Barcelona. We made our way to the town square and purchased another hop on hop off tour, this one was kind of picky, not letting any drink or food on the bus which sucks on a hot day. The first place we stopped was the Church that has been under construction since the early 1900’s. The architect was Gaudi, which is where the term for something being to boisterous or over the top “Gaudy” came from. The inside looked like something from the Wizard of Oz, where the Wizard lives. It was insane yet very beautiful.
Sagrada Familia (Gaudi's Basilica he designed)
The rest of Barcelona was pretty amazing, with Gaudi architecture all over the city, each building as crazy as the last. Barcelona was an awesome city, we even went to the beach just to see it as we didn’t have much extra time to just lounge around. My favorite part was definitely the Futbol Match.
Barcelona as a whole 8 - I’d love to come back and enjoy the beach and the and surrounding areas.
The Spanish Language: 8 - Thought i knew Spanish “Fairly” well, i had no idea how to communicate back haha, i knew what people were saying for the most part but i had no clue how to communicate back, i was talking to a lady asking here where the ATM or Cash machine was and i threw an O at the end of bank (turns out it’s the right word) haha and she pointed me in the right direction!!
The attractiveness of the (local) people: 9 - The local people we very attractive (a lot of people just going topless on the beaches too... Not the kind of people i expected but they weren’t hard on the eyes.
Expensiveness: 8 (fairly expensive) - a mixed drink at a bar is 6.5 EUROS!! not cool barcelona... not cool!!
Sights to see: 8 - The architecture alone is worth going to see, and the coast line is beautiful
Food: 7 - nothing too impressive, but not bad either.
No comments:
Post a Comment