barcelona sandwich

After the train ride from hell (a 2 train, 7 hour journey that became a 3 train, almost-10 hour, impossibly hot journey), we arrived in Barcelona. After checking in to Center Rambles we met up with Clare and Lucy (Burgess, who for the purpose of non-confusion will be referred to as LucyBu) on Las Ramblas, a big central street in Barca. We drank Sangria like it was water to drive away memories of our awful day at their hostel and then went for a wander, swapping stories of our trips so far.

The next day, Clare, LucyBu and Franny went to the Picasso museum and we all met up in the afternoon to go to Park Guell. Park Guell is designed by Gaudi and it is pretty amazing. You can climb right to the top for an amazing view over the city, and we were lucky enough to be serenaded by a busker with ripped jeans and really cool dance moves. He seemed to sing the same song with different lyrics, either "I love you, Peggy Sue" or "Wake up early, Susie" and the song was pretty catchy as we (and even some people we passed further down the hill) were singing it for some time after.

That evening we went to dinner at Origen, which had been recommended to Clare and it was pretty yummy. Some of the translations on the menu were slightly questionable, such as nuts being translated to "you countersink" and a very confusing paragraph about something being stung by milk...

The next morning we went to the markets near our hostel to buy our traditional train picnic. The markets are amazing, there are heaps of stalls with piles of beautiful fruit, or bread or juice for €1 (if you are clever enought to walk past the €2 juice at the front of the market). Our train journey to Madrid, we later decided, was karma/payback/god/whatever you want to call it. After our journey from hell, we were reluctant to even step on a train, but this one was properly airconditioned, comfortable, clean, and even had a TV with headphones like a plane, on which they played Nim's Island in Spanish which was, unsurprisingly, easy to follow despite the language barrier. At the end, a lady came round with sweets, and we decided that Europe's trains had paid us back for our bad day, if not in full, then as a first installment.

After checking into our hostel (hilariously named Mad Hostel), we spent evening wandering around the city.We went in to a little store near Plaza Mayor to buy a pair of earrings and left with the earrings, a little paper flower each, a flower hair clip given to Fran as a gift (seen here in her hair) and an ice-cream each, which we thought was a pretty sweet deal. Without planning it, we managed to inadvertently see heaps of famous sights including the Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol and Prado Museum.

The next day, we went to the Royal Palace of Madrid and spent a good 2 hours there, almost justifiying the exhorbitant €9 we payed to get in. We visited the Almudena Cathedral which is right next door which was really beautiful.

We had an early dinner, and went on the Essential Madrid walking tour in the evening.

Our guide was hilarious, pointing to pretty much every building we passed and describing it as "luxury" apartments or offices, saying things like "perhaps in 7 years, you will come back to Madrid and meet me here and it will be a hotel for the Olympics" (apparently Madrid is pretty keen on hosting the Olympics in 2016) and claiming that there are 48000 cafes and restaurants just in Madrid, totalling more than the Netherlands and Germany combined. That evening, we made some friends at the hostel (all Australian or Kiwi) and went to get churros con chocolate.

The next day, we went to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (possibly, that last word is spelt entirely wrong or slightly made up) and saw the Matisse exhibition which was really, really good. We spent 3 hours there in total, looking at art from the15th Century and earlier, up to modernist works.

LucyBu and Clare joined us at Mad Hostel that evening, and we went out for tapas with a group of new friends from the hostel, before LucyBu, Clare and Franny went on the pub crawl (of which details are inappropriate for this medium) and I, being super mad and exciting, went to bed.

On Saturday morning, we went to the Parque de Retiro and lay on the grass eating our very cheap lunch and groaning in pain periodically. After several hours (this is no exaggeration), we headed to Museo de la Reina Sofia which is a modern art museum. It was pretty cool, and we saw a few Dali and Picasso, including a huge one (cant remember the name, famous enough to have a line that you cant cross in front of it...) where we got in trouble for using flash and were threatened by an officious woman who wanted to have us thrown out by security.

That evening, we cooked a fairly unsuccesful dinner trying to utilise limited resources in an impossibly hot kitchen. Basically, what was intended to be fried rice ended up being rice soup... As you can see, there was a hilarious sign on the wall encouraging proper kitchen ettiquette. Don't worry guys, we did our dishes, we really didn't want to look suspicious.

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We ended up eating our dinner with some people who of course turned out to live in Sudbury (which, for those of you who don't know, is where Franny was working and living in the UK), which led to one of those endless conversations where everyone recounts every coincidence that has ever happened to them.

The next morning we headed back to Barca to meet Iona and Vee, who were luckily staying in the same hostel as us. We intended to some sightseeing together, but all we ended up doing was sitting in a sandwich store and catching up for about an hour and a half, before leaving only to sit in another cafe for a similarly stupid length of time. There was just so much to say. That evening we headed out with the intention of finding some shot bar that LucyBu and Clare had told us about, but all we ended up doing was getting delicious pizza and wandering around for a few hours. We did meet some cool babes who invited us to drink with them and promised to take us to the best club in Barcelona before disappearing shortly after.

On Monday we went to Sagrada Familia, which was truly amazing and definitely worth a visit. We had no idea what it was before we arrived, and so were annoyed by the presence of the perpetual scaffolding that seems to be on every monument in Europe this summer. However, we realised shortly after entering that it is in fact still under construction, so we were entirely mollified and impressed by Gaudi's magnificent work. We also visited another Gaudi building called the apple of something or other which was equally cool but cost about €14 to enter so we just admired the facade and the photos of what was inside.

That night we had a picnic by the Catalunya fountains, which was lovely despite the close proximity of many, many mice and the numerous offers from the hawkers, which began with beer and got more and more clandestine as the volume of their voices decreased. Vivienne and Franny headed out while the boring ones went to bed. We met some Irish guys in TravelBar, who, again, promised to take us to the best club in Barcelona (of course, of a different name), which was closed. We went to another which cost €20(!) and from which we were turned away for wearing thongs before finally settling at a slightly seedy and sexual-orientation-ambiguous place on the water. It was a really fun night.

Vee and Iona headed off the next afternoon after a slow morning eating cherries on the steps of a cathedral. I had a much needed nap while Lucy went off on a shopping expedition, and we regrouped that evening for a cooking class (more of a demonstration really, but never mind). There was heaps of tapas, unlimited sangria, delicious paella and a hilarious teacher who talked about Tasmania in wistful tones for unknown reasons. All in all, a winner.

Beatrix and co. arrived that evening, exhausted and hungry, so they ate some tapas at a place on Las Ramblas and we spent the evening hanging at the hostel chatting etc. It was great to see her and meet her friends Amanda and Emily before we headed off to....

Tune in later to find out! Next installment follows in only a matter of days! (hopefully...)