Gaudacious!

I am now firmly in the camp with everyone who didn't get robbed (and maybe a few that did) in Barcelona: we love it. It's center oozes "cool". For a place that gave me such a bad first impression, I now consider it among my favorite "big cities" in Europe.

Em and I stayed, primarily, at Sant Jordi Arago right off of Arago and Passeig de Gracias (a main road in town). It is yards away from the Gaudi masterpiece Casa Batllo. It's skeletal frame and soft curves with bright colors give off a vibe that is as whimsical as it is macabre.

The hostel organizes regular events (pub crawls and dinners) so on our 2nd day we headed to Frico's for the FC Barcelona vs Manchester United. It was the game EVERYONE was talking about. The ramblas were overwhelmed by ManU fans supporting their team. Every newspaper, every nook of the city was ready to explode if Barcelona could manage the upset. Naturally, we were root root rooting for the home team. Not because I care about the sport (much less the team) but because I am always a fan of people making noise until 5a. After a hard fought match, the game ended the way it began: 0-0. Excuse me while I hock up a cheek busting 25cl mouthful of loogie and spit it right onto the steps of Sagrada Familia. How can a tie for a game so big possibly be acceptable? This is the champions league! I just don't get it. Games should have winners and losers. A tie should leave everyone feeling miserable and yet there were people still in the streets reenacting parts of the game; "Remember when the guy from Brazil went like this :moves feet around: yeah!" Oh who cares...

The next day we were off to Sagrada familia, Gaudi's most famous work in progress. The Cathedral is expected to be finished in 2026 for the 100th anniversary of his death. The nativity facade is amazing in it's intricacy. It is like Gaudi decided to melt an existing cathedral. When all is said and done it is expected to be 550ft tall. To put that in perspective, the Dom of Cologne is "only" 515ft. Given our extra days in Barcelona we decided not to go inside since we would have only been able to see the first floor (no climbing the towers) and even then we had 30 minutes before it closed. So we instead marveled at it from the outside (apparently the consensus from everyone is that the inside is a bit disappointing).

On Friday, we were rounding out our final day in Barcelona with a girl we met at the hostel. We did a tour of Mont Juic (trying to catch the Magic Fountain which, outside of the summer tourist season, only has shows on Friday and Saturday. The fountain was built in the 20s but suffered from years of neglect. When the olympics were awarded to Barcelona it was fully refurbished and has been wowing visitors ever since with its mix of lights, water and music. Unfortunately, we showed up a little late and only caught the tail end of it. One more thing on the next time list...along with the inside of Sagrada Familia.

The next day we got our bus to Andorra la Vella which Em will tell you about...





--Joey

100th Post

My lil ol' travel blog has finally reached 100 posts. I feel it is particularly apropo that the milestone be reached in the city where I wrote my first post from the road: Barthelona! Thanks to everyone who has read the 99 ramblas in the interrim. Hopefully I have another 100 in me before my backpacking life ends.

Em and I celebrated our last night in Salamanca with a few of our new roommates. We had a pretty delicious Fettucini Alfredo with some veggies. Not knowing exactly how many people would show up, we prepared for a worst case scenario of everyone we invited coming and we low balled the serving size. Consequently our 12 big appetite servings, 18 for normal people, were shared among the 7 of us. Combined with deviled eggs and finished off with my ersatz bananas foster.

So with that we all sat around and chatted before leaving for a few Salamanca bars like La Chupiteria (literally, the shot place), Cubic, and a few others. Around 3am we had to decide whether to stay up, or head back. The train was at 8a, so we had to leave by 7a meaning to pack up required us back at 6a so sleep was either not going to happen or it had to happen right then. Nahhh....

Exhausted, we headed to the train station and bought our ticket to Barcelona. It was about 9 euros per person more than it said on the website for Saturday. The 12 hour train ride ended with an arrival in Estacio Sants the unofficial parliament for the pickpocketing capital of Western Europe. Ironically, it didn't feel like it. It was mostly empty (contrary to the other three times I have seen it) and but among the very few people there were Vb and Sophie who welcomed two weary travelers to the metropolis. Turned out they lived two stops from our hostel off a back alley of Plaça Reál. On day one we headed out to a greek place that offered up some of the best kebabs ever, and afterwards called it an early night.

Adieu,

--Joey