Last weekend my friends and I were sitting around talking about how we just wanted to get off campus for the weekend, get out of the gray, rainy, windy city that is Norwich, so we decided, well hey, let's go to Barcelona, no big deal...and that's exactly what we did.
Friday morning me, Phoebe, and Patsy packed our small (under 20 kilogram) bags, per Ryan Air's instructions and jumped on a plane to Barcelona for the weekend. We arrived around dinner time on Friday evening, 10:30pm, and after finding our hotel we wandered up and down La Rambla, one of the the main streets in Barcelona, looking for something to eat. We ended up finding a delicious restaurant where I had my first ever paella!
The next morning we got ready to start our day, and when we opened the window to our balcony we discovered that the sun was shining, and we would be able to spend the day without wearing our coats! We went out to find some place to eat breakfast and made two wonderful discoveries: 1.) Barcelona has Dunkin Donuts! (so nobody needs to wonder where I got my morning caffeine fix...) and 2.) There was a HUGE market with candy, fruit, vegetables, lobsters, crabs, pig, etc, literally fresh EVERYTHING you could ever want, the perfect way to start our day.
Patsy and Phoebe had both already been to Barcelona so we spent Saturday doing mostly things that they wanted to revisit, so we pretty much had a "Gaudi Day". We went to Antoni Gaudi's partly constructed Sagrada Familia and then went to Park Gull. Sagrada Familia was incredible, and learning about the history of his architectural style as well as his personal history was fascinating, but the beauty of Park Guell is indescribable. In addition to the very modern buildings that are scattered throughout the park the view of the city was breathtaking...it was the perfect picture taking location! We spent the remainder of the day wandering up and down La Rambla watching the street performers, browsing the arts and craft stalls, and just enjoying being surrounded by so much culture and warmth!
The next day we went to another Gaudi building, Casa Batillo, which again was fascinating, but we finally made the executive that the majority of our weekend had been centered around Gaudi's architecture, and there is much more to Barcelona than just Gaudi so we ventured out to Poble Espanyol, the Spanish Village. It was pretty quiet because it was a Sunday, but the purpose of Poble Espanyol is to provide a place for artists to share, create, and sell their products. There was a sculpture garden, delish restaurants for sangria and tapas, and incredibly talented artists of all shapes and sizes. While there I bought a few sketches as well as a hand-dyed scarf (the first scarf purchase in Europe!)
Walking back to the Village on the UEA campus at 2am on Monday morning it was cold and rainy, and a very quick reminder of why we had escaped to Barcelona in the first place. We were so lucky that we had such wonderful weather, and that we were in such great company! Barcelona is both Phoebe and Patsy's favorite city, and I can totally understand why. I still think London is my favorite city (after Boston of course), but I am planning many more trips for the rest of my time abroad, so I'll have to keep you updated.
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