We arrived really late Friday night to our hostel the Feetup Yellow Nest and went straight to bed with plans to explore some of Antoni Gaudi's most famous works of architecture the next morning, Park Guell and La Sagrada Familia.
This was the first time either of us had ever stayed in a hostel so we were both a little nervous but I was pleasantly surprised. The beds were made of memory foam and you got a locker, a blanket, pillow and a sheet on your bed plus the staff was really nice and always available to help you with 24 hour reception.
On Saturday morning Rachel and I took the metro (by the end of this trip I became an excellent metro navigator) to Park Guell and made it to the correct metro stop without a problem, it was after that when we got lost for like a half an hour. you'd figure a giant park with mosaic tiles all over the place would be blatantly obvious but no such luck, we walked around trying to follow the sparse signs toward Park Guell until a shop owner took pity on us and helped us get to the right place.
The park was beautiful and huge! There was a lot to see and Gaudi's mosaic tile work is really fascinating. All throughout the main part of the park I recognized things from the movie Cheetah Girls 2 which was kind of ridiculous but neat at the same time. You can see all of Barcelona from the top of Park Guell, the view was beautiful.
After Park Guell we headed to La Sagrada Familia, a Roman Catholic church that was designed and started by Antoni Gaudi in the 1880's and still isn't finished to this day. Even though Gaudi is long gone the church is still set to be completely finished with construction in 2026 (hopefully I'll get to go back and set the church again after it's completion.
La Sagrada Familia was absolutely amazing, there was so much detail both on the outside and inside the building that the beauty of it was impossible to capture in one picture.
It is one place that I suggest everyone should see for themselves at least once in their lifetime, it was truly breathtaking.
There was so much to see that I probably could have stared at all the stories carved into the walls for hours.
Later that night we met a bunch of interesting people from our hostel by participating in a pub crawl, we even met two guys who had just finished traveling for a year in Florence and they gave us some great insider tips about studying there.
Barcelona is famous for their night life so we figured we would check it out and we definitely had fun and met some really amazing people, there was a group of 12 students all on holiday from Germany (hey Dad, I got to practice a little German before we visit the family), 2 girls from Australia who saved up 20 grand in a year so that they could travel all across Europe and South Africa in a summer, and two guys from Washington DC that had just finished studying for a semester in England. I heard some great stories, met some amazing people and had a blast.
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On Sunday Rachel and I took a free guided tour around the Gothic District of Barcelona and learned a lot (did you know there is an entire Roman city buried under Barcelona that is still intact in some places?) and headed to the beach with some girls we met on our tour Elise and Lauren (did you know that the beaches in Barcelona are actually made of Egyptian dune sand?)
It was a great tour I felt like I got to see most of the city in just a few short hours and I learned a lot of history behind the Spanish and Catalan culture dating all the way back to the Romans, plus we had a great tour guide who recommended a great place for lunch where I was able to get traditional Spanish paella, tapas (kind of reminded me of Aperitivo in Florence, it was basically anything you want served on top of bread in a buffet style) and sangria (I definitely recommend the sangria, it's delicious).
Later that night after the beach Rachel and I walked down the infamous tourist trap more commonly know as Las Rambles and headed to the Magic Fountain for some cheesy pictures and show of water and lights.
Barcelona was beautiful, I met some amazing people and learned a lot both about myself and Spanish and Catalan culture.
It was really hard to navigate the differences between being in Italy and being in Spain because though they are both very different there are similar things about them too, for example, the languages have a lot of overlapping words, and its easy to get lost in both places.
There was still a lot that I wish I would have had time to do but, I'm glad I went and I can't wait to go back again someday.
Adios!
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