Barcelona with the Cousin

As I said goodbye to my parents on Saturday (Nov. 24^th), a whole new adventure was about to begin with my cousin, Alex. The two of us were off to Barcelona! Neither one of us had been there before which made the anticipation extra exciting. We booked a flight which was probably the best way to travel to Barcelona because the flight is only one hour and twenty minutes whereas a bus is around eight hours and a train is five hours. We also flew with another airline other than RYANAIR!!! Woooo. This meant we had to use terminal four instead of terminal one which is the usual terminal to travel out of. At security I completely forgot to take my laptop out of my backpack so the security lady asked me to put it back through separate once again. At this point I already had my boots on and she did not tell me I needed to keep them off until I asked her. I got mad because she literally watched me put them on only to tell me to take them off again. I then proceeded to ask her if she spoke English and she said no why do I need to speak English? So then I told her because you work in an airport with people coming from all over and everyone else that works here speaks at least a little bit of English. She continued to argue saying “But we’re in Spain”.  Eventually I stopped talking and put my stuff back through the X-ray machine with no problem. The funny part is that during this whole argument, Christmas ads and music was playing on the speakers IN ENGLISH! Anyways, a few hours later, Alex and I arrived in Barcelona. We checked into our hostel and got straight to sightseeing. We walked towards Las Ramblas which is a busy street with a lot of vendors. We stopped at the market as suggested by the receptionist at our hostel and had some amazing fruit smoothies. I also advised Alex that she needed to try jamón serano which is cured ham (ham preserved with salt and not cooked at all so essentially raw pig sushi). She loved it! I personally am sick of jamón. It’s everywhere including the flavor of a bag of Lay’s potato chips. In one of the shops we met a store-owner who can speak eight different languages. That is crazy!! We walked all the way down Las Ramblas to the water. The harbor was gorgeous with a ton of sailboats docked instead of the average motorboat or yacht. After that we shuttled our way via metro to Parque Güell which is a world famous park designed by Antonio Gaudí.

  The time of day we picked to visit was perfect because we were able to view the whole park during daylight, then watched the sunset from one of the various mountain views which overlooks the entire city of Barcelona. At the park we ran into this little boy who could not have been more than two years old. He said a mouth full of words in Spanish to us, but I couldn’t really understand. As he walked away with his family, I said adios! He said adios back and his family told him to blow us a kiss so that is just what he did. We blew him one back of course. This was the cutest thing ever. He melted my heart, but I am sure we did not melt his… While watching the sunset from the highest point in the park, these Asian people asked me to take their picture. Their way of thanking me was with a bow. I felt so special getting bowed to! I thought this only really happens with high authority people. Anyways, when exiting the metro to come home, we ran right into Casa Batllo. Casa Batlló is the result of a total restoration in 1904 of an old conventional house built in 1877.  Gaudí used for it the typical constructive elements of the Modernisme (Catalan Art Nouveau) that include ceramics, stone and forged iron.  Even though it was highly criticized by the city during construction for its radical design that broke all the bylaws of the city, in 1906 it was awarded by the Barcelona City Council as one of the three best buildings of the year. This was an awesome surprise!! It was lit up beautifully. After the park we went home, showered, and concluded the night with dinner and a taste of the night life!