Barcelona trip part two
Saturday I slept in until noon (which was much needed) and spent the afternoon exploring La Rambla and some of the side streets that surround it. La Rambla is a 1.2km long pedestrian street that begins at Placa de Catalunya and stretches all the way to the water front, ending at the Monument a Colon, a statue of Columbus on top of a tall pedestal. La Rambla is always packed and there are some really interesting street performers that line it. There is a market, Mercat de la Boqueria, that is HUGE and was great fun to explore as well. Any type of shop you are looking to find (including XXX ones) you are probably going to find on La Rambla.
In my wanderings I ended up finding this Gothic church, the Church of Santa Maria del Pi, whose origins date back to the 10th century.
Saturday night was the all important FC Barcelona vs Sevilla Spanish Cup Game at Camp Nou. Camp Nou is supposedly one of the best stadiums in Europe and it is also the largest. It has a capacity of over 120,000 spectators!! The boys were especially excited to go to the game. It was sold out and the noise was deafening. People don't leave the game early like they do in the States so it was packed until the very end. Of the 23 people on the Spain World Cup squad (for those of you living under a rock Spain won), 7 came from Barcelona so that, by proxy, makes Barcelona one of the best soccer teams in the world. The final score was 4-0 Barcelona. Lionel Messi (considered one of the best players in the world) scored 3 and Pedro Ledesma (who was on the World Cup team) scored 1.
After the game I went back to my hostel and ended up having a repeat of Thursday night with some people from my hostel. We went to Espit Chupitos and Shoko and although it wasn't as fun as Thurs night was, I still had a blast.
Sunday afternoon I hit the beach again with some French guys from my hostel. Olivier and I laid on the beach while the others went swimming and it was super relaxing. Once again, many topless women on the beach. It's not uncommon at all in Europe. People just aren't as shy here as they are in the States.
I started not feeling well that afternoon and stopped at a Spanish pharmacy on the way home. I managed to find somebody who spoke English (not very many people do in Barca I discovered) and she gave me cough syrup that tasted like banana laffy taffy. It actually wasn't bad.
Monday morning we left for Girona. I spent the entire day in bed sick as a dog and spent all of Tuesday in bed as well. I started feeling a little better and managed to drag myself out of bed to go for a last dinner with Nick, Daniel, Lacey, and Nikki. From what I saw of Girona that night it was gorgeous. It was quiet and had a more upscale feeling to it than Barcelona did. I would've liked to have been able to explore it for an afternoon.
Wednesday morning at 4:30am we left for the airport to fly back to Aarhus. We were all sortof ready to come back, mostly because we had run out of clean clothes and wanted comfortable beds again. We got off the plane and were blasted by 55 degree air. Quite the difference!
I'm still sick and I miss the excitement of Barca but I'm glad to have my own bathroom again and it was good to see everybody again. I made an appearance Friday night to the party here at Vilhelm so I could see all my other friends. I'm also really appreciating being able to actually communicate with people here and not being paranoid I'm going to get robbed at any moment.
Classes start at the university tomorrow. My first class isn't until Wednesday so I've got 2 more days of freedom. It's been cold and cloudy here. Fall comes a lot earlier here than back home! I've already had to turn my heat on overnight.
See Flickr for some pictures! (I can only upload a certain amount per month so lots more will be added on Wednesday)
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