Barcelona!

What a weekend! After about 7 hours on the bus (which went by surprisingly quickly) we (we being a group of students from my school) found ourselves in Barcelona! We arrived Friday evening. We checked into our hostel (the first hostel I'd ever stayed in) which was extremely nice compared to what I'd been expecting! Even people who'd stayed in hostels before said this was a really nice one. Luckily there were some rooms of 8 available and I happened to be with 7 other girls I knew so we got a room all to ourselves which was nice! After settling in we went to check out one ofGaudi's houses called La Perdrera. (I had never really heard of Gaudi before this but he is a famous architect who lived during the late 1800s/early 1900s who designed many buildings in Barcelona. We chose La Perdrera because it has a huge terrace. We got there JUST as the sun was setting; it had a great view. And the terrace was... don't know which one word can describe it but definitely the most unique terrace I've ever seen! It was really neat. There were quite a few students (art students I imagine) sketching there.. it was so cool. There were even families still living in the building! We got to look at one of the "show" apartments - amazing. So nice, and huge! I was getting lost it was so big. After La Perdera we went in search of a tapas bar. We found a really good one and shared a variety of delicious tapas (my favourite were the croquetas - it had a breaded outside with a mashed potato kinda thing on the inside - it seemed more American than Spanish but it was amazing!) After dinner we headed back to the hostel as we had to get up pretty early the next day and we knew we'd be going out the next night.

Saturday we woke up on the early side and headed for the Sagrada Familia (which translates to the Sacred Family), a Cathedral designed by Gaudi. It has been under construction since 1882 and isn't supposed to be finished until about 2030! It was pretty pricey to go inside (9 euro to get in and then another 2.50 to take the lift to the top) and although the inside wasn't all I'd expected (the construction materials really detract from the overall design of it all) but the view made it worth it. Again I don't really have just one word to describe the church... it was kind of insane looking! Definitely unique and amazing in a lot of ways. But crazy at the same time! After La Sagrada Familia, Laura (our Spanish friend from Madrid) helped us find a place to eat some paella. We ended up finding a place where you could get a tapa, paella, sangria and dessert for about 11 euro which was an awesome deal.. the food was really good! After lunch we did some walking around - to the old city area and down to the port. Barcelona is a very pretty city! Although it seems that a lot buildings (La Sagrada Familia, other buildings we saw) are under construction which is kind of too bad. After walking around we headed back to the hostel for some down time before going out - clubbing in Spain doesn't start until around 1 AM! So we left at about 12:30 to make our way to "Razzmatazz", an enormous club that is known all over Spain. It was huge - essentially, there were 5 different clubs inside of one! We didn't even get to see all of it. It was a lot of fun though, they had great music! We got home at around 7 AM (and then had to be up again at around 9). I had never, EVER been out that late (or, early) before! So after an hour and a half - ish of sleep we were up to go to Parc Guell, yet another work of Gaudi. This was probably my favourite spot I saw all weekend. Tons of palm trees, beautiful mosaic benches and nice views. It was a beautiful park. Then we were back on the bus (to sleep!). Great weekend, over super fast! Luckily I have no plans this weekend so I can rest up a bit, because then it's off to Brussels and then Paris! :)