I Got Lost in A Cemetery…. Don’t Ask How

Monday, February 21, Day 4

After waking up around 8 am we all showered and got dressed and were ready to go by 9:30. We started out by having a quick breakfast of coffee and a chocolate pastry – nothing glamorous but absolutely delicious – and thus began our experience of eating our way through Spain.

The Streets of Barcelona remind me of New York, wide busy with cars and throngs of tourists. The buildings lining he street are primarily early 20^th century that but still with amazing and beautiful details that establish and set a distinct personality. Its an interesting mix between wandering tourists referencing maps to people on their way to work and who know exactly how to get there. Barcelona however is beautiful as palm trees line the sides of the road, vibrant flower beds, beautiful fountains make the busy active city feel like a tropical escape. 

 We first went to St. Josep La Boqueria, which is an enormous market with stands selling everything from delicious fresh fruit, seafood, meats, breads, spices, nuts. It was a total sensory overload and absolutely incredible. I wish that I could shop here everyday we did get a fruit juice that the girl on the train had recommended. There ere so many to choose from and so many interesting combinations. I was brave and tried her favorite “Mona” blackberry and banana. It was so good and refreshing. We the hoped on the subway to go to Monjuic and the castle as everyone says that it is beautiful. We got off the subway and started heading up the mountain. Beautiful gardens and fountains line the stops. As you climbed higher up the mountain you get to a museum (I skipped this as I only have a day in Barcelona not enough time to go there plus its way too nice to be indoors). We then continued u to Olympic park where the 1992 Olympics where held. It’s in a beautiful spot overlooking the city. It is around here however that we made a wrong turn that resulted at us ending up at the entrance of the cemetery. We were hoping that there would be an exit on the other side so that we could “cut through” so we went in. One the cemetery was huge, I am pretty sure that anyone who has ever died in Barcelona is buried there. Secondly everyone is buried on “shelf’s that are built into the side of the mountain. The cemetery kept going and going and going… it was incredible. After accepting the fact that the cemetery wasn’t continue to have an exit that would be right by the castle we started searching for the exit. 

St. Josep La Boqueria, the enormous outside market in Barcelona

colorful inside of St. Josep La Boqueria, Barcelona Spain

Delicious and extensive variety of fresh fruit juices at St. Josep La Boqueria

Olympic Torch of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona Spain

Steps leading up Mont Monjuic, a series of museums and the Olympic park are built into the side of the mountain.

 It was an absolutely beautiful day – bright blue skies – nice warm sun. After several miles (we made some kind of a wrong turn) we were starting to get desperate and jokingly even considered catching a ride from a student driver. We eventually made it to the castle, which was ell worth the journey. I had no idea of how large the city o Barcelona was until standing onto of the mountain. It is smushed between the mountain range on west and the sea on the east. After exploring for a while we headed back down. Along the way we passed amazing parks and charming playgrounds. When we finally arrived back in the city we attempted to find the restaurant that the girl on the train had recommended. We quickly discovered that her map was neither drawn to scale and was missing some major streets. Caroline eventually went tint a hotel where the concierge found the map hilarious; he told us that it was about a 15minute walk away. As we were all famished we decided that we would go to a restaurant in the area. This ended up being a brilliant decision as the food was absolutely amazing. We all chose three Tapas where are different types of small dishes so you can combine different ones to make your own customized meal. (We learned a couple days later in Madrid that story behind Tapas. Apparently when Spain was mainly small towns with poor farmers the Farmers would come into town for Lunch and wouldn’t be able to buy both lunch and a drink at the bar so they did the next logical thing and just got a drink. This inevitably began to hurt the local productivity of farmers so the king at the time made it a law that if a bar tender served an alcoholic beverage he also had to serve a small amount of food – hence Tapas.

Monjuic Castle, a fortification over looking the city of Barcelona & the port

Left to Right: Annie, Caroline & Megan overlooking the city of Barcelona Spain

View from the top of Mont Monjuic over looking the city of Barcelona Spain

Attempting to orient ourselves using our hand drawn map that the girl on the train drew for us

 I chose green pepers, which were amazing, asparagus and squid. The best tapas however were the fried potatoes. The outside was crispy and it literally melted in your moth. It was one of the best things that I have had in Europe thus far. We also got a pitcher of Sangria, which was delicious and officially my new favorite drink. All and All not a bad afternoon. After lunch ended I was ready for a siesta however we keep exploring as we had such a small amount of time in Barcelona. After a quick stop for gelato we began to just wander around the city.

My favorite spot was the Placa Reial. I though that it encompassed the culture entirely – very laid back and intellectual with people causally sitting around and chatting. I loved Barcelona the man streets lie La Rambla are wide bright an airy with shops lining the sides, pedestrians walking everywhere. It’s colorful, energetic and vibrant. And then when peering downside streets they were narrower, buildings having tons of balconies covered with plants, flowers, laundry. They seem more mysterious and yet oddly charming. 

Placa Reial a beautiful square off La Rambla in Barcelona Spain

Typical side street off La Rambla in Barcelona Spain

 The highlight of the afternoon was stumbling upon the best park in the world (none of us have been able to figure out what it was called) It had an incredible fountain that was actually reminded me of a pond with plants and trees incorporated into it with cascading stone waterfalls. 

Our favorite park in Barcelona, and beautiful fountain.

 If I were to describe Barcelona’s defining characteristic it would be parks – which is something that I absolutely loved about the city. After this I was ready to head home and enjoy a quick siesta, everyone else wanted to see the ocean (not like we weren’t just in Nice, however they all live in landlocked states so I’ll let them see the ocean). Overlooking the ocean at twilight was beautiful and I fell absolutely in love with Barcelona as it is the perfect mixture of university, city and ocean.

Enjoying one of the beautiful parks in Barcelona by writing in my journal

The beach at dusk in Barcelona Spain.

We got home around 7 pm and took a quick rest as we had dinner plans! A good friend from high school is studying abroad this semester in Barcelona. We made plans to meet up with her and her roommates for dinner. Claudia and her friends (one girl was also from Cornell and the other girl was from Greece) met us at our hostel at 10pm (I have decided that the Weinschenk Family isn’t weird but is instead just Spanish. In Spain restaurants don’t open till 8:30 at the earliest and most people eat dinner around 9 or 10 pm. The reason why you should always met up with a friend who is studying locally is that they know the bet local haunts with amazing food at an even better price. I had a delicious dinner of Paella, an appetizer, wine and desert for only 10 euro. It was a great group and everyone got along with everyone else great so it was a great opportunity to meet other people.

We got back to the hostel around 12:30, Caroline really wanted to go out however because Annie wasn’t feeling well I stayed in with her while the other two went out (I also don’t like clubbing enough to spend 20 euros on it). Staying in actually turned out to be a really fun experience. There were seven or eight other people and we were literally from all over the world. With the exception of one other guy from California everyone else was from a non English speaking country. However as everyone spoke different languages (there were people from Belgium, Germany, France, Hungry, Brazil, Slovenia) everyone spoke in English. It was an amazing evening and I really enjoyed myself this is every bit what I imagined my time in Europe to be like. Meeting up with old friends halfway around the world, meeting people from around the world – seriously when will I ever be able to do that again in my life?