Homage to Catalonia

This is the first instalment of my trip to Spain - a crazy 11 days of sun, art, partying and travel mishaps!!

Firstly, when we arrived at Aarhus airport to catch our plane to London (it's cheaper to go with Ryanair this way - we spend the night in Stansted, then fly out the next morning), Ashley and Alison, 2 of our Canadians, discovered that they had booked the flight for 10:30 am, rather than 10:30pm, so they had missed their flight!! All the flights were booked out, so they eventually ended up catching a bus to Berlin and meeting us in Madrid on the Tuesday, so they missed Barcelona entirely, which was a terrible shame.

However, undaunted the 5 of us (Ben, Mel and I as the Australian contingent, Jade as our Canadian representative, and Charlotte our English rose) continued to Barcelona. It is a gorgeous city, lots of old cobbled streets and old buildings, and a really great feel to it - not too touristy, and a great place to spend time - I could actually envisage living there!



Lovely little cobbled streets

On Friday morning we arrived, found our way from the aiport to the bus, from the bus to the metro, and then the metro to the apartment we had booked. 5 flights of stairs later, we found an amazing apartment awaiting us - 3 bedrooms, 17th century mosaic tiles in the living room, and situated in the centre of everything.
Our apartment - see the lovely old tiles!!

We immediately embraced the Spanish lifestyle, having a siesta before an evening snack from the local market of cheese, ham and bread.Two other Australians, Cam and Craig, had joined us, which actually worked out quite well, as we had 7 in the apartment as originally planned.
Jade, Ben and I went to a concert that night, a Canadian band called Final Fantasy, which is this guy playing the violin and singing - very funky, especially as he had someone moving pictures on an overhead projector - hard to imagine, but very cool to watch! We ended up going out for tapas at 1am - love the Spanish lifestyle!

Saturday we went to the beach! This was particularly exciting, as we had left Aarhus in rain and 16 degrees, and we found Barcelona at 27 degrees and clear blue skies!! So we sunbaked, and the weather was even warm enough to swim! We then meandered our way home via the local markets, where we were able to purchase a great lunch of fresh bread, ham, cheese and fruit for very little money, around 2 Euros each, and eat it relaxing in the apartment. Our beach holiday then embraced some culture, as we visited the Picasso museum after lunch. This museum mostly contained his early work, including sketches and ceramics, which weren't quite what we expected from Picasso, as they were quite traditionalist, however there was still some great work to be seen.

On Saturday night we ate at a Mexican restaurant, with lots of other Spanish people, and after a few drinks at home,we ventured out at 2am to happen upon a cool indie dance club, with lots of great music and lots of Spanish people, so we were able to interact nicely with the locals, not getting home til 6am!

This meant we were quite tired on Sunday, however we had to get up early to go to the Dali museum, which is in Figueres, about 2 hours by train from Barcelona, and as it was closed on Monday, and we would head to Madrid Monday night, Sunday was the day!! It was a bit hard to find the necessary train, our Spanish not being particularly good, however it was well worth the trip, as not only was the countryside beautiful, (see below) but the whole museum building was Daliesque! His surreal perspective on life was great.


The beautiful Spanish countryside


Dali's work


Dali buildings


Dali painting himself

Sunday night we relaxed, and had our first Spanish paella, which was great, until we discovered that the bread we had been given, without ordering, was charged on our bill at 7.50 Euro!!

Monday was unfortunately our last day in Barcelona, and the weather continued warm and lovely. We visited the Arc de Triomf (it appears that Spain has one too!!), and stopped for some lovely thick hot chocolate.
The Arc
We then walked through the town on the 'Gaudi walk', which is basically the main street with lots of buildings which have been designed by Gaudi, an architect/artist from the 19th century who designed very imaginative buildings.


This walk culminated in the Sagrada Familia, which is an unfinished cathedral that dominates the Barcelona landscape, and is a sight to see, with lots of animals and decoration that looks like dripping wax.




We then visited the Park Guelli, which again had lots of Gaudi buildings, as well as great views and an outdoor escalator!!


The lovely view of Barcelona
The outdoor escalator
Me outside a Gaudi building
I want to live in one of these gingerbread houses!!

Barcelona is in the Catalan district of Spain, and they actually speak Catalan, which is a dialect similar to Spanish. On Monday night, we found ourselves in a Catalan restaurant devoted to Harrison Ford, pictures on the walls and everything, with only a Catalan menu, so we just had to guess what we were ordering! It all turned out very nicely, however, and we had a lovely meal!

We then hopped onto the overnight bus for Madrid, which is in the next instalment :-)