Well, here we are… 9 months
later. Unfortunately, I (and Sarah)
never finished out the blog from last time.
So, let’s revisit our last leg from our trip, Barcelona. We’ll start with the trek to Genoa,
Christopher Columbus’ birthplace. We
woke up early in the morning in Monterosso, walked our way down to the train
and hoped on to head north. After about
a 2 hour train ride, we ended up in the train station in the middle of
Genoa. We had some time to kill so we
hit up our last kabob stand that we will see.
We didn’t wander far, but we returned to the train station to get the
bus to the airport. We arrived at the
airport, and to our surprise, we’re like 4 hours early for our flight. I had read the itinerary wrong, thinking the
flight left at 6:30, when in reality we only need to be at the airport at 6:30. So we tried to check in to no avail, we had
to return to the desk in 2 hours.
Awesome… where was this time when we were running through Gatwick
Airport trying to catch the plane to Amsterdam?? Oh, and you know what made it even better?
After an hour or so playing cards and eating airport food, our flight was
delayed about two hours, so now we’re in the airport just waiting another 2
hours. Fun…. Luckily we had half a card deck to entertain
ourselves for a while.
Alright, so now it’s finally come
time for us to check in, so we walk over to the desk, and the lady decides to
weigh our bags, and they’re over weight.
She won’t let us carry them on.
So now what? We’ve only got these
bags, we aren’t checking anything in, it’s 100 euros to do so. Well… here we go… pull out all the clothes
you can and put them on. So here we are,
the middle of the Genoa airport, pulling out three pairs of pants, six shirts,
jackets and everything else we can fit onto our bodies. Go back to weigh the bags… and we’re under
weight, looking like someone from Antarctica in the middle of a hot day in
Italy, but we made it through, laughing at each other’s waddle the entire way
through security. They check our bags
for weight one more time before we get on the plane and then wedge us into our
seats on the cheap flight we booked from Genoa to Barcelona. Mind you, wedged in is putting it lightly,
these seats were close, and the guy in front of me was basically sitting in my
lap.
We land in Barcelona, it’s about 1
AM. Try to get the train into the city,
no dice, it stops running at 11PM. So
cab it is, into the city, exhausted from traveling all day. Get to our hotel and check in. Lesson learned, when in Barcelona, the hotels
aren’t that expensive so spend a little more, a cheap hotel is just that.
Uncomfortable beds, crappy showers, thin walls, etc.
The next morning we walked down
stairs to see what our included breakfast was, and it was disgusting, that’s
exactly what it was. So, we left to
catch another one of the New Europe walking tours. That was great. We learned a lot about the city, Saw the very
steps where Christopher Columbus first told the king of Spain of his new found
riches in the new world. We
saw the new artsy areas of the city, and ended right near the zoo. It was really great.
Something that Sarah still won’t let
me live down: Walking around, we keep seeing all these yellow and red stripped
flags. Our tour guide proceeds to tell
us that these are the flags of Catalonia.
Apparently she is a big fan of flags, and there is going to be a vote
for Catalonian independence. (How are we
always around during these succession votes?) Well, I walked up to her and
said, “Don’t worry you’re not weird, I like flags too. But what are all the
Catalonian/St george’s cross flags doing around?” This is the flag of the city of
Barcelona. And to this day, Sarah will
still say to me, “I like flags, do you like flags?” in a voice similar to
“there’s something about mary” – I like Baseballs.
After the tour we caught the train,
which getting around Barcelona was really easy, up to the Sagrada Familia,
Gaudi’s most famous work. A chapel that
has been under construction since the 1860’s and is still going. In fact they just finished closing in the
ceiling last May. Crazy to think, but I
guess as far as huge European cathedrals go this is relatively quick. It’s a beautiful building, very interesting
architecture and unbelievably ornate.
We also went to Gaudi’s Park Güell to see his vision of a rich gated community. It’s pretty cool, look a little like
Whoville, but very interesting none the less.
We also went to see one of his famous Apartement buildings that he
designed. We showed up and well, it was
being renovated so we at least got to see a printout of what the building
looked like. They covered the
scaffolding with a printout of the building.
I guess that’s one way to do it.
That night we had tapas at a very good restaurant and went back to the
hotel.
The next day we woke up and wandered
up the street to the market on Las Ramblas, the main street right through the
center of town. The market is
fantastic, lots of lovely fruits and vegetables and lots of dead animals. The ham is to die for, Iberico ham is the
best ham in the world, and they serve Iberico “snow cones”. Very tasty.
We ventured out to the Olympic
village, from the 1992 Olympics. Funny,
we ended up in like 5 Olympic host cities, (London, Berlin, Innsbruk, Munich,
Barcelona) and only visited one site of them.
But this one was kind of special, because it’s really the first one that
I paid attention to, you know with the Dream Team and all. So we walked through the Olympic stadium, and
the village, saw the torch, it was really pretty neat to walk in those
footsteps.
We went looking to try and get into
a restaurant that was suggested to us by a friend from Spain. Apparently, this restaurant is rather famous,
it is run by the guy who started the small plates movement. The place is called
Tickets and anyone who is anyone in the restaurant world, knows this place,
well anyone but us. We walked up and
asked about a reservation, and the girl looked at us like we had three heads,
“When did you book it? We’re booked up
for 3 months.” Oh, Ooops. So we went to the bar next door and sat
trying to figure out where to go. While
we texted with our Spanish friend back in the states, we were talking to the
bartender about where to get a bite to eat.
All along we should have gone into this little dive bar, the bartender
works at another place right down the road, that is wide open, and just our
luck the owner of the place is sitting at the end of the bar getting a drink
before going in for the evening shift.
We went to dinner with our new found
friends and they took care of us, and the food was amazing, and right next to
this super expensive swanky place, but way less popular, and probably way
better. The pulpo (octopus) was great!!
After our venture to Barcelona, I
was super excited to eventually sometime in the future make a trip back to
Spain to see more of the country…
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