We back at it bois and truth be told, it hurts to see money leave my account. I have to plan everything early, and even tho I have the money to plan and execute the trips I want, it hurts to see money leave my account so quickly. Thankfully, most of this stuff is a one time thing, like hotel and flights that are prepaid before I leave for the trip, but then I have to pay for food and stuff and transportation and its a mess!! Well, I had my trip to Barcelona this past weekend, overall a very, VERY fun trip, but before I get to the messy start that was at 4:30 in the morning, lets talk school (cause that is the entire reason why I’m here in the first place).
School
We are finally signed up for our Signals class, however there is a small problem: we did not get the section we wanted. The section that we wanted, and what we have been going to, was a lecture on Monday and a recitation on Wednesday. However, the section we have now has its recitation on Thursday instead of Wednesday. Which now means we have one class on Wednesday and 4 classes on Thursday. Lets just say that one cup of coffee will not cut it that day, and I wish that I had Awake chocolate again, cause I grossly underappreciated its benefit in my life.
It gets even worse because loading all the classes on Thursday drains me of all energy for traveling on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (a good example of which, I will tell you later).
Other than that, classes are going well. I have my first test next week, I have my first lab this week as well, I understand most of the things in my classes, so overall I have no complaints. There is still that one teacher (I am literally writing this blog post in his class rn) who I just don’t pay attention to anymore cause he is horrible at describing stuff, but that’s fine. I will survive. Now to the fun part…
BARCELONA!!!
It all started Thursday night. God whispered into my ear that night, “pack all your stuff tonight, as you will not have time tomorrow morning.” Since I do not question the ways of God, I proceeded to pack my stuff the night before. I also set an alarm since my taxi to the airport was at 4:30 in the morning. I proceeded to go to sleep, peacefully unaware of the grave mistake I had made.
Jump to the next morning, and some buzzing from my phone woke me up. I looked at my phone, and saw that I had 2 missed calls from some random number. I proceeded to look at the time, and my jaw dropped at my stupidity: it is 4:30 AM, and those calls were the taxi company telling me that they were here. I rushed to change out of my PJ’s, didn’t bother to brush my teeth or hair, and grabbed my stuff an ran out of the house. I got into the taxi, and was driven to the airport. First problem – solved.
However, a second problem quickly arose. When we got to the airport, the taxi driver turned around and asked me to pay 30 Euros for the ride. Not that much, but I thought when I reserved the taxi, I had already paid. So, since I was grateful that I had caught a taxi to the airport, I paid and went into the airport. I checked in, went through security, and proceeded to my terminal for my very early flight. When I sat down and had a moment to think about what had happened this morning, I realized I had done a very dumb thing. When I was looking at taxi’s, I found a site where I could reserve a taxi and did not have to pay. I thought that since I could not pay for the taxi already that it wouldn’t come, and continued my search, and I paid for another one. However, in my morning fiasco, I did not think about that, and when I left the house, I saw 2 cars, one of which was the taxi I already paid for. I proceeded to go into the taxi that I hadn’t paid for yet, not thinking at all. So all in all, I paid for 2 taxi’s that morning when all I needed was 1. Moral of the story, I am dumb.
And in all that, I forgot all my meds, so I was sneezing like crazy the entire weekend.
After that, everything was fine tho. For now…
The city was beautiful, very clean, and had lots of good cafes where I could recharge my brain and my laptop. After I checked into my AirBnB, I found some of my friends (who you will see in the vlog for this trip), and we went to the Picasso Museum!
After that, we grabbed an amazing dinner at a place near the museum, and then had a long walk to the beach to see it at night. The cold night air was refreshing, so the walk wasn’t bad. We hung out at the beach for a while and talked about what we wanted to do the next day, and then we went home for the night.
Alright, so lets talk about the AirBnB real quick. So I got to Barcelona at 9:30, but I couldn’t check into the hotel until 2:00. I knew that before I got there tho, so I found a Starbucks and edited my vlog there for 3 hours, then walked around and got lunch. Come 2:00, and I’m tired as hell after walking the entire day with all my stuff. I text the host that I have found the apartment, and he texts me saying that he was at work, and is now having a hard time getting back to the apartment because of student protests, and he suggested I wait in the bar that is around the block. Im like ok, so I go there, order my 4th coffee of the day (1 at the airport, 1 at starbucks, 1 at lunch, and now this), and proceed to wait until he gets back to the apartment. 2 hours later, he finally texts me to come up, and so he starts showing me around the apartment and showing me to my room. First off, there is no fan in my room and the only window I have is facing the interior of the building where construction is happening. So there is no moving air in the apartment or my room, I cannot open my window, and then he tells me that I have certain times when I can shower. Apparently, due to noise complaints of the neighbors and the host’s schedule (yes the host is living in the apartment with me), I can only shower between the hours of 9:00 AM and 10:30 PM. Mind you, I get back to the apartment around midnight, and want to leave around 8 to miss the morning rush of tourists and get a decent breakfast in before I do what I want. So, for the morning after the beach, the Sagrada Familia opened at 9, and my friends wanted to get into the line at 8:45, which is fully understandable. However, since I got back to the house after midnight, I couldn’t shower until the next morning. But now, I will have to go to the Sagrada Familia after sleeping the night in a furnace and sweating like a horse, then come back to shower before I can continue my day. Not the best idea to me, and sadly I only have myself to blame cause it was on the listing for the house but I did not read it (STUPID STUPID STUPID!!!). So yea, that was not the most fun.
Enough rant, lets see the goods!! So the first place we went to the next day was the Sagrada Familia. Here is a picture.
After that, I got a super cheap breakfast (coffee number 5) and went back to the house to shower. After that, I took a quick little nap and met up with everyone at this market called La Bloqueria, which had a bunch of local vendors selling anything from sweets to fresh fish to fresh fruits and nuts (sadly, of which I did not partake of).
After our market trip, we went to the Parc Montjeic, which is like the Central Park of Barcelona. However, unlike Central Park, Parc Montjeic has a freaking CASTLE that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea (take the New York). We did not go to the castle tho because it cost money and I was tired and I knew I was going to spend money later, so I went home until dinner time.
So I met up with everyone back at the beach, where we had a quite expensive seafood paella dinner!! Gosh it feels good to be able to buy wine and no one asks any questions. We were able to buy a bottle for all 7 of us, and have it cost 2 bucks for everyone, and there was more than enough for 2 glasses per person.
After that, we journeyed over to the festival happening right across the street. For the biggest part, you will have to wait until the vlog to see, cause I only took videos. This festival was the Festival Mayor of Barcelona, and this specific event was allegorical readings of all the demons Saint Michael had slain (I think, cause im not very good at understanding spoken Spanish, and there was a chance they were speaking in Catalan, so there is also that). But to celebrate, they had a bunch of fireworks at the end of pitchforks and mascots, and it was very fun cause people in the crowd were going and dancing in the sparks as someone else was reading the stories in a microphone. It was just super unexpected, and thankfully we got to see it.
After that, there was a state fair-type strip across the street of the fireworks, with a Ferris wheel, fair games, roller coaster, and rides that made me want to throw up from nausea just from looking at them. That part was super fun, and the fresh churros I got were about the closest thing I could get to funnel cake, so I am not complaining.
After a little more exploring I ventured home to get ready for the long day I knew I would have the next day. I didn’t have anything planned except wake up and go to breakfast before 11. So I did just that. The first place I went to was the Contemporary Art Museum, which was again a very enjoyable experience. Of which, one of my favorite art descriptions was “The boxes are lined with pictures of Swiss people obtained from obituaries that the artist collected. Since nothing is more normal than a Swiss person, the artist is implying something far worse – these are us.”
After that, I proceeded to the Natural Science Museum of Barcelona. By far, a 10 out of 10 experience, and probably would have been better if I was not a total idiot and go through the entire exhibit backwards. But despite that, I enjoyed many rocks, science stuff, and interactables that made this experience really cool!
After that, I just walked around the city center until it was time for me to catch my flight back to Madrid. Had a wonderful Neapolitan pizza (puppatella aint got nothing on Barcelona), saw a beautiful park, and bought some souvenirs.
A couple things I have learned between this trip and Sevilla. 1) Traveling alone is not as fun as traveling with others. In Sevilla, I had Panth and Isabella to keep me company, and here I had my new friends from Vanderbilt, but there were still times in Barcelona that I was on my own, and I know that I could have enjoyed more if I was traveling with someone else. So sightseeing trips like these two are better enjoyed in diverse company. 2) Be prepared for far more walking than you think. In Sevilla, my legs betrayed me and by the end of our second day there, I could barely walk to even get dinner, and we still had another full day left. From that trip, I bought some extra clothes that were supposed to postpone my legs from giving out, however it still happened (much later though), and by the time I got back home in Madrid, my legs were dead. So take 5x precaution to avoid this. 3) Do a little more planning. There were two wonderful Gothic churches in Barcelona (Sagrada Familia and the Barcelona Cathedral), and since I did not buy my tickets ahead of time, I only have pictures of the outside. I was super disappointed in that, and because of that, I bought my tickets for the Vatican literally half an hour ago. So yea. Also research public transportation before you go, cause taxi’s are expensive as hell. and last but not least, 4) Try to limit how much you carry around your carry-on. The time before check-in was hell cause my backpack was heavy and I couldn’t relax since I had to constantly worry about not losing my stuff. There is a wonderful website I found called BagBnB that keeps your bags for you for the day while you explore. That goes for after check out too, so that is why I suggest, if you can, to pay for an extra night at you hotel and leave the following morning. Thankfully that is what I’m doing for Rome and Zermatt, so I don’t have to worry about that as much.
All in all, after all the ranting and lesson learning, I loved my trip to Barcelona. The people who I hung out with were awesome and really rounded off the experience, and then the museums there were simply amazing as well. There was a Chocolate museum as well, but I didn’t have the chance to go to that. Big sad. But thanks for reading my really long blog for this week. See you next week, where I will write about Segovia, and hopefully get my cathedral fix there.
Brennan's Semester in Spain 