Friday, April 24, 2009

Barcelona Baby!

In an interesting turn of events, we arrived in Barcelona to Irish weather (and have been since informed that the weather in Ireland was wonderful). Despite this, our time here was incredible and we had some great times (dont worry, there was one BEAUTIFUL day)!

Toni met us when we arrived at the bus station and kindly showed us what metro ticket to buy and how to get to our hostel, then when we were settled in he showed us around a bit of the city!

This is where our street met with one of the big shopping streets.

Plenty of Gaudi architecture to be seen.


We even found a Dunkin' Donuts (or Dunkin' Coffee as it's known here). Funny that my first Dunkin' Donuts experience would be in Barcelona of all places...

The Plaçe de Catalunya.

Toni with Kelly's traveling gnome.

Toni in his University.

They have orange trees in their courtyards...this place is insane!

Did I mention that it's over 500 years old? And absolutely beautiful!

He took us to a restaurant for dinner that distinctly reminded me of Fresh Choice, just with Spanish food. Absolutely delicious!

Rambla de Sant Josep.

Sant Josep Mercat.




Day 2, started by finding the Arch de Trionf.

Random Barcelona street.

They are big into their motorbikes here.

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (the Catalonia National Art Museum).

Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya (the Museum of Catalonian Archaeology)

View of the city from the national art museum.

Inside of the art museum...absolutely beautiful ceilings.

Sagrada Família

Looks better through the trees...cant see as much of the construction stuff.

Day 3 dawned beautiful and sunny!

On the trek up to the botanic gardens I again went past the national museum and it's view...looks a lot better in the sunshine.


Went through plenty of random gardens to get up to the botanic gardens.


Past the Olympic Stadium.

Past the California sign.

Finally I get inside and I feel like I'm back home...

Then I turn around and see the incredible view of Barcelona!



Grabbed lunch at this little place called the Luna Bar. I had a bacon queso sandwich...simple, but oh so good!

Some wanderings through the beautiful streets!


That night we went out with a couple of girls that we met at our hostel. They are from New York and studying fashion in Florence. In this picture, left to right: Kelly, Alex, Andi (she's one of the girls we met).

On this side of the table, left to right: Jenna, Laura, Me, Kristi (the other girl we met).

The waiter kept bringing us snacks...this was a mini Spanish omelette thing.

The last day (or part day) was cloudy and rainy, but we still wandered around a bit. It was also Good Friday so nearly everything was closed.


That was the last we saw of Barcelona, then that evening we flew off to Paris!

We definitely had an amazing time in Barcelona and no one managed to get mugged (though there was one close call with Kelly at the Sagrada Família)! It was hard to leave, but we still had nearly a week and a half of traveling left to do!

1 comment:

marbea said...

Wonderful pictures!!!

Things went well w/ Dad'd project.