Basking in Barcelona

After my mom and sister left for home, I spent a few fun-filled days doing physical therapy, managing to go on my first post-fracture run, and wrestling with our laundry facilities (we’re 1-1 right now, they made me bleed, but I managed to get 2 loads done, it’s a long story), then I went on holiday as it’s called here, to Barcelona!

Theme of the trip- that's 72 ºF

How do I even describe the feeling of being warm, truly warm, after 3 months straight of mostly cold, grey, evil, gloomy weather? My body felt like it had been flooded with drugs. I got sunburned (and subsequently learned how to use sunscreen quickly after that), I took a nap outside, I sweated, all which would be considered small miracles in Scotland.

This singer sounded like Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam

To be honest, I knew little, if nothing about Barcelona before this trip but with the help of my guide book and an extremely and knowledgeable hostel host, my friend and I managed to see what seemed like the best of Barcelona in three and a half days.

Cool structure on the beach

The attitude of the city reminded me of other Spanish-speaking countries I’ve visited: a much slower, relaxed pace, friendly and outgoing locals, and still figuring a few things out. Like the tap water situation, for example. In many places, the tap water wasn’t potable, or even worse, the locals didn’t really know for sure if it was potable. Which led me to have a mini breakdown at first (I never drink bottled water, in summary I think it’s a waste of money and unsustainable), then the last day to succumb to my dehydration high on a mountain and buy bottled water, then to wonder why much of Barcelona doesn’t have clean drinking water or why the locals don’t even know if it is clean. 

My face at drinking bottled water

Though the city was pretty flooded with tourists, we got to see La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral designed by Gaudi, a famous architect. Construction started on it in 1882, and it isn't projected to be completed until 2026! Talk about a slow pace, Spain. We also saw some of Gaudi's other works; I could list them all out but if you're anything like me, you're probably not interested in the names. But in summary, all the buildings and parks he designed were really whimsical- almost like caricature buildings.  I'm not sure why more architects don't take risks as extreme as Gaudi had. As weird as his work was, the uniqueness of it all was a breath of fresh air. 

Building by Gaudi

Another treat we got in Spain was... seeing the FC Barcelona team! Their infamous soccer team, of course. No, we didn't go to one of their games, but we had the privilege of watching them be herded from a hotel they were staying at onto their tour bus, along with hundreds of other fans, all of us held back by police. What a crazy experience! Later that night, we wandered over to the stadium to try to buy tickets from scalpers with no luck so we headed to a local bar and watched the match on tv with a handful of other locals. Seeing grown men jumping with joy after Barca scored made it all worth it :)

Police with the FC Barca bus in the background

 Our last day, weathered by days out in the sun, we ducked into a free art museum and stumbled across an awesome exhibit- out of hundreds of ribbons, all printed with different wishes written in English, Spanish, and Catalan (another official language in Barcelona), you could choose one wish and tie it around your wrist. Beautiful.

The Spanish ones here say "I wish that politicians weren't corrupt" and "I wish that my father would find work"

Our last night in Spain we met up with one of my friends from Cornell who's studying in Barcelona and  were mesmerized by a spectacular fountain/light show. It truly felt like summer!

Cool shot of a museum building

Now I'm back in Edinburgh just for a few days. Tuesday I leave for my hitchhiking trip to Croatia! You can support me here if you're interested. You can follow our journey here- we'll check in at least every day by 4pm UK time (5 hours later than EST). Myself and my teammate David Leeds are group number 212. And of course, I will be sure to blog about our travels once we arrive back in the UK, which will be the night of Friday, April 26th. Can't wait to start our journey!