Hi all! I’m back from Europe once again! The past two weeks were absolute perfection! And now I’m back to the hecticness (Yes, I made up a word to describe the amount of crazy) that is the spring semester of my Senior year in college…
So, I got back a few days ago, and immediately jumped back into school. It’s taken me a while to get back to the blog, and I’m sorry. But, I’m back now! And full of new travel adventures to regale you with!
So, we left from Barcelona on the 4th, at 8 in the morning. The ride to the airport was fine. Getting through security was fine, minus one TSA pat-down (Note to self: double check for underwire in your bra next time!). We left from Buffalo airport, and landed in JFK for a five hour long lay-over. We got some food, and all charged our phones. I called my mother (because I’m that person (and so is she)). Eventually, at about 10 p.m. we were allowed to board and we began our flight to Barcelona!
Now, this was the most turbulent flight I have ever been on. It was terrifying! I half expected the plane to fall out of the sky! And I didn’t sleep much (Thanks turbulence) so when we landed in Barcelona the following morning, I was basically a zombie.
We got off the plane, went through customs, grabbed our bags, met our tour guide, and headed off for the hotel.
We were lucky enough that all our rooms were ready for us, so we were able to check in and get a few minutes to freshen up before our walking tour began.
We took the metro to the city center and were set free to explore Las Ramblas for a while.
We got some tapas for lunch, then met the rest of the group for our walking tour. Our guide, Blanca, was wonderful, and showed us some of the attractions around the city center.
I think I cleaned up pretty good for only getting about three hours of sleep in the past 48 hours!
The lovely Font de Santa Anna!
This is the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia! It’s lovely. We didn’t get the chance to explore it that first day in Barcelona, but we came back another day to check it out!
One of my favorite parts about Barcelona were the narrow, twisting streets. It’s the kind of city where you want to get lost so you can keep wandering down these streets!
We stopped at the Museum of History of Barcelona, so we could see where it was, in case we wanted to come back later.
When we left the museum, we went out into the courtyard behind it, which housed a lovely church, the Saint Agatha Chapel.
From the museum, we headed towards Barcelona’s City Hall.
Since the Christmas season was still in full swing in Barcelona, it was wonderful to still see all the Christmas decorations around the city!
Next, we went and saw the chicken wire sculpture that was dedicated to the Castellers, or the guys who make really big human towers!
From there, we walked to the Santa Maria del Pi! I liked this area a lot. It had a little market that featured local produce!
We were then lead back across the city center to the restaurant where we were going to have a very early dinner.
As we walked, we saw Casa Batllo, designed by Barcelona’s most famous architect Antoni Gaudi!
We got to the restaurant, Mussol, and settled in to eat a real Catalan style meal.
As we were eating, Blanca told us all about the holiday that was happening that night. It was called Three Kings Day, and represented the day the three magi made it to Jesus. That night there was to be a big parade, and all the kids would get more presents, the biggest and best of all the presents.
We managed to catch some of the parade on our way back to the metro to go back to the hotel.
We watched only a little bit of the parade, since we were all exhausted. We decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.