In late February I visited Barcelona. I've traveled a lot lately, but the prices are good and the weather isn't horrible. I also was given some advice to start traveling early, because the time over here passes by so fast. This is so true: I'm already halfway through my trip. It's surreal.
Anyway, I'll start with Barcelona! We flew out on February 28th, a Friday morning. However, our flight was really early in the morning, so we had to spend the night in the airport. That was... interesting. There was basically nowhere comfortable to sleep, so we found a back corner and set up camp. The lights were on all night and about every 20 minutes, there was an announcement to protect our belongings. Here's a picture of the morning after breakfast at McDonalds. If you weren't there, this picture isn't really funny, but we were honestly exhausted, freezing, and starving. And it was like 5 AM.
Our flight was super bumpy, but fine. Once we got to Barcelona, we bought tourist passes, so we paid a set amount for 3 days of transportation. It saved us a lot of money! On the first day in Barcelona, we just walked around and did a lot of sight seeing. We found some beautiful buildings: Barcelona really does have amazing architecture!
Found this beautiful Cathedral in the Gothic Quarter!
Another beautiful building by the coast.
We loved the look of this building!
Hanging out with a giant anchor near the coast!
After walking around the Gothic quarter and some other areas, we found the coast, and took a boat out for a tour! There was no one else on the tour, so it was just the five of us on the boat. We were allowed to sit on the front nets of the boat and watch the water move underneath us. It was a glorious hour worth of sailing around the Barcelona coast.
All five of us on the front of the boat!
The girls sitting on the net!
On the docks!
Abby and I with the Barcelona coastline
Strikin' a pose
Friday night, we had an awesome dinner. It was actually my first time having Paella in Spain (because it typically is really expensive) but we got it for a great price.
Saturday, we went to the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia. We spent a lot of the day there, because it was absolutely beautiful. Definitely one of the greatest architectural feats that I've ever seen. They're still working on it, and it won't be done for awhile, but its one of those buildings that everyone should get the chance to see in their life. It was amazing. Pictures definitely don't do it justice.
In front of the Basilica
We had to take a Gig 'Em picture!
The inside of the Basilica
Beautiful stained glass windows, the ones on the far right haven't been finished yet!
The ceiling
After we finished at the Basilica, we tried to find the Carnaval celebrations we had heard so much about. They were impossible to find. Finally, we saw someone wearing costumes, so we followed them, and we ended up at the kiddie version of the festival. If I was 10 years younger, it would have been awesome.
We gave up on Carnaval and went to find the beach, which we did! It was beautiful, but the water was freezing!
We climbed on this giant spider web playground thing!
On Sunday, we went to Guell park! This is a really famous park designed by Gaudi. It looks like candyland on the inside, and it houses a lot of his most famous architectural designs.
All in all, Barcelona was a great weekend! We had a blast and got to see some super cool sights. Can't wait to go back someday!
