Barcelona

  Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands
Saturday, July 19, 2008

So, I went to Barcelona this weekend!  I took taxi to the bus station at 3:30am, my bus left at 4am!!!  I arrived in Barcelona at around 8:30am.

I stayed in a hostel!  For those who don't know, a hostel is an inexpensive lodging where people share rooms with other people, all though you can request a private room.  I stayed at Paraiso Travellers Hostel.  It's located near the Gothic quarter and near Las Ramblas, the famous rode in Barcelona, a big tourist site.

I checked in around 11am and sat in the common room waiting for my room to be cleaned.

Name of hostel

Paraiso is really nice and colorful, I'm glad I stayed there.  While I waited in the common room, I talked to 3 boys from England, a guy from Scotland, and one girl from Canada.

Common room in hostel

Everyone was really nice.  Interestingly, the guys from the UK knew more about 9/11 conspiracy theories than I did, a lot more.  Also, the Scotsman said that the whole "europeans hating americans" thing is really overhyped.

After I got settled in my room, I went to the gothic quarter for a few hours.  It's the old part of Barcelona with (as the name implies) gothic architecture.  There were a lot of people performing music and selling their CDs in different areas.  One woman was sitting on a chair and singing opera.

Quaint area where I ate lunch

  I loved all of it, it set the mood. 

Also, I donated money to an organization for death children, lol.  Basically, a woman shoved a piece of paper in my face and pointed to the English.  It seemed legitimate, so I scribbled my name down and was going to donate 5 euro, to be a good person (hahaha).

Cathedral in gothic quarter

But, I couldn't find a 5 euro bill in my wallet and the lady was being nice, but pushy.  I pulled out a 10 euro bill and gave it to her.  She said she'd changed my donation number on the sheet.  Thinking back on it, I think she might have been trying to pickpocket me, but I'm not sure.  I checked a few minutes later and I still had all of my money and belongings.

Next, I went to a museum that shows the remains of an old archeological site located under the Gothic quarter.  It was really cool.  It's called Museu D'histroria de la ciutat.

Inside Museu d'historia de la ciutat

I visited some other places that I can't remember now because it was really hot in Barcelona and I kind of just walked passed some of the sites, lol.  Seriously, it was hot.

At night, I hung out with some other travellers I'd met at my hostel and others on the beach.  One of the guys, Cory, told us a story about how he was basically forced to pay 120 euros for a shot of vodka at a club in Hamburg, Germany by the huge bouncer.  The bouncer wanted more money and even grabbed Cory's wallet and tried looking for a credit card, luckily he didn't find it.  Moral of the story, Cory said: always look at the prices before you buy anything.  And if it looks shady, don't buy anything, even if they try to force you.  Apparently, in Budapest, people have been swindled out of thousands of dollars by feirce bouncers.

We got back to the hostel around 2am and we all went to sleep. 

Next morning...Now, I never actually officially met the 3 other people I was sharing a room with.  All I heard about them was that they were a family (2 parents and a son).  When i went to bed, I was very careful not to make too much noise and I used the light from the hallway to move around.  However, this family was not so nice to me.  They made a lot of noise in the morning while packing and spoke in normal speaking voices (no whispers).

Bedroom in hostel

I never figured out where they were from, all I know is that they weren't speaking English or Spanish.  I managed to fall back to sleep after they left.  I woke up and discovered two highly annoying thing:  1. the wife (who slept under me in the bunk bed) removed the ladder from the top bunk (I have no idea why, I guess to get the sheets off more easily).  So i had to jump down off the top bunk.  (2.) And most annoyingly, they didn't even close the door after they left!  I rolled over in the morning and saw the door wide open.

They didn't ruin my hostel experience or anything, I was just surprised at how rude they were.  I would have expected that more from a bunch of people that are my own age, not from 2 parents and a son.

I spent more time sight-seeing on sunday.

Living statue

The hostel let me keep my bag in the hostel after I'd checked out.  I walked all of Las Ramblas.  It was awesome.  Full of street performers like magicians and live statues.  There were shops for clothes, souvenirs and flowers up and down the middle island.  And at the end of the street, to my surprise there was a band of men singing Native American music, they were even dressed up as Native Americans.  That's one thing I didn't think I'd see in Spain.

Native American performers

  They were trying to sell there CD.

Overall, Barcelona (which is located in a different region of Spain) is a lot different from Valencia.  Being a huge tourist attraction, there is always something to do and all different kinds of people dressed in many different styles (i saw a lot of dreadlocks).  One girl from my program said she even saw a naked man walking along the sidewalk.  Also, it's much more crowded in the tourist areas of Barcelona than it is in Valencia.

I didn't see as many sites as I could/should have.  But, I didn't do much research beforehand.  I thought I was going to be meeting up with another group of people from my program, but that didn't work out.

Arc d'Triomf

Still, I'm glad the way it went.  I met a lot of interesting people staying in a hostel and talking with them.  I'm glad I got to do that more than anything else really.  I can understand now why backpakcing across Europe is popular, you meet a lot of interesting people.  I talked to people from America, England, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, and Brazil.  It was amazing.