Euro Tour – Barcelona, Spain – Day 1
July 25, 2015
Today I woke up and checked out of the hotel I was staying in with Sarah in Barcelona and she and I parted ways as she returned home and I headed to the train station to collect Harrison!
First, I accidentally went to the wrong terminal and it was a mess getting to where Harrison actually arrived. Once in the right place it took another hour or so before Harrison appeared from the baggage claim…with no bag in hand. The airline had lost his luggage during the tight transfer in Amsterdam to Barcelona. Not good…
Once we were together we caught a bus back to central Barcelona. Then we had to head to the hotel that was holding my baggage (an insane amount since I had repacked my bags to mail things home and now it wasn’t condensed anymore but in several bags). Then we had a several block walk to our hostel, Casa Gracia, on Passeig de Gracia past Diagonal. So pretty far…
After lots of struggling with my bags, we finally made it to our destination! The outside of the hostel was so cute with lots of ironwork and the restaurant attached to it had a very extravagant entryway of a crystal chandelier, iron, glass, and vines. We got checked in after a little confusion and headed up stairs to drop off our stuff. We got a single room with two twin beds for the next two nights because I felt like I could use a little break from so many people everywhere. The room was pretty simple, but perfect. It had an AC which was awesome, but it dripped nonstop and created an enormous puddle all over the floor…
After checking in we headed to find some food. We decided on some tapas at Vi Ni Tus, one of my favorite tapas restaurants – they seriously have the best tapas (mmm eggplant chips). We ordered a few of the most popular Spanish tapas so Harrison could try it out. Then we headed out to explore Barcelona. We decided to go to the gothic quarter so that Harrison could see the famous Gothic Cathedral. Then we went exploring in the gothic quarter and ended up at La Rambla. La Rambla was just so hectic though so we popped into La Boqueria the famous mercat.
After that we headed back to the hostel to finish getting checked in since our room wasn’t ready before. We took a little nap because I was tired from the night before and Harrison was feeling the jetlag.
After a nice bit of rest we headed over to Mont Juic to see the Magic Fountain show. We got there a little early and had to wait for the sun to set more before the show could start. The show was super cool and the water shot really high up into the sky. The fountain was coordinated to a song by the lead singer of Queen and Lady Montserrat that was written for the opening games of 1992 in Barcelona.
When the show finished we decided to head to the beach/Port Olimpic for some paella. Another classic Spanish dish. We went to the place where the farewell dinner was hosted. We got ourselves some sangria and some paella de marisco (seafood paella). It was reallyyy good!
Then we went home to change for the night because we were planning on meeting up with Katrina at Razzmattazz since she was visiting this weekend. We got back and Harrison passed out for a little while and then we headed to Espit Chupitos. Unfortunately it was too crowded and we weren’t down to wait in line so we went next door to Espit Taverna. After that we headed over to Razzmattazz. Unfortunately we never found Katrina, but it was a fun night.
xoxo J