I’m going to be blunt, and may be hated a tiny bit by some, but Barcelona was not my favorite city. The time I spent there was priceless and deeply insightful (and at times fun, too), but it just wasn’t my scene – all the people and tourists and tour guides and maybe a few habitants, all the streets with the same stores repeating over and over, the tall modern buildings with little to no historical beauty or character, the overwhelming sense of no one caring. I realize now that these are the traits of a large city, and I probably missed it the few days I spent in Madrid, but it was too much too anonymous too big too too too… I’m convinced I was just exploring the wrong areas, I think I’d have preferred to wander around the various non-tourist neighborhoods of Barcelona. Next time, inevitably there will be a next time.
Besides my overwhelming overview of my overall impression, I have neglected to mention thus far that I went in the company of my dear friend Rachel. Well, friend is making our relationship sound simply defined, though in actuality our electrically giggling friendship drove our other friends mad. Not to sound cliché, but that is another story.
Day 1: I wake up at 5am, arrive at the bus station at 6:20am and wait till 7am to board my bus to Málaga (I prefer to have spare time and wait than panic about being late and missing any means of transportation). 9:00am: I arrive at the Málaga airport go through all the moves and wander through the terminal till my gate is announced. After the always interminable wait for boarding and takeoff I arrive in Barcelona at 12:20pm and am greeted by the lovely Rachel! We then proceed to navigate our way through the airport and towards the train station that will eventually take us into the heart of the city. After getting lost due to the confusing arrows (since when does an arrow pointing down mean go straight? They really need 3-D arrows or color-coded lines on the floor) we buy our tickets and get on the train and wait, and wait and hope that we figure out the right stop. Which we eventually do and find the connecting metro, after having to go through the gates twice due to inattention to signs and labels. =p
After almost getting lost again we finally find our hostel, check in, set our things down and set out once more to explore a bit. We check out the immediate area which turned out to be a Cathedral and a thousand little shops of chocolate and knick knacks and clothing stores and cafés and bars with a few museums thrown into the mix, decided to grab some lunch from a grocery store and snacked on sandwiches, cheese cracker sandwiches, apples, and juice on the steps of the cathedral. Where I almost got my purse snatched. Living in Granada had set me at ease, and the plaza was far from crowded, so imagine my surprise as I hear a brushing noise and someone yell "hey!"(thank you someone, you were awfully nice to help bring my attention to this) and then to see my purse slowly moving away. I immediately start repeating the "Hey!" and picking up speed, fully intending to tackle this guy, only to find my purse safely back in my hands and only slightly disappointed to have had been deprived of my action scene. And it was a nice wakeup call, I kept everything very tightly and closely secured next to my person for the remainder of my stay.
Then we just wandered around into the night and found ourselves passing through La Rambla the major market street that had a hundred living statues and dozens of men trying to sell flying glowing helicopterish things and we were dodging them as they flew down to earth.
Found some food right down our street of just ever so slightly undercooked chicken kebabs that actually tasted really delicious and had the texture of scallops, a dish of green beans, bacon and garlic, and finished with tomato topped toast. Exhausted we headed back to the hostel, cleaned up, talked for a couple hours then passed out. =)
