Bienvenidos a Barcelona!

Greetings! We took the train with Caitlin (our DG sister) from Valencia, which was much more enjoyable than our Ryanair flight. After three hours we arrived in Barcelona and made our way to the Metro where we guarded our bags with our lives because we heard about pick-pocketers. We met up with our host Jan and he brought us to his lovely flat. We were relieved when he showed up on the corner to direct us after a day of traveling a little confusion.

On day two we decided to do some sight seeing. We met up with two of the guys we had met in Madrid and walked to La Plaza de Torros. This is the bull fighting ring and there is also a museum that has traditional bullfighting garments. The next stop was Sagrada Familia. It is a massive church that is still under construction and was designed by Gaudi. The church is expected to be under construction for another 25 years. After the church we trecked over to Parc Guell, which was where Gaudi spent his last 20 years. He lived in a pink house (see pictures). The park was originally designed as a private yard but due to lack of funds it was turned into a public park. At the top you can see a great view of the city and the ocean. It was quite the climb and we defintely got our workout in!

After going to the park our exhaustion and hunger set in so we took the bus to Las Ramblas to get some food. Las Ramblas is one of the most famous streets in Barcelona comprised of pet shops, street performers, and vendors. According to Rick Steves (our savior and tour guide), La Boqueria market is a great place to get food and Steves was right! The market offers an array of fresh fruit, cheeses, seafood, and vegtables.

Following our daily afternoon siesta we met up with our friends again and headed to the beach to watch the Spain game. It is always a good night when the home team wins! After the game we walked along the beach and followed the sounds of techno music. It turns out that party crashing isn't just for the movies. We crashed a huge private gay party at a nice resort on the beach. Let's just say our guy friends were not thrilled...

After a late night out we decided to have a relaxing day on the beach. All day we heard "massages," "coconuts," "henna tattoos," "cervezas" from the vendors. The three of us decided to get a 15 minute, 5€ massage and Angela unfortunately went first. The massages were great, however, Angela's included a special finale at the end, consisting of the small Asian woman picking up Angela's arms and bouncing Angela up and down, while her swimsuit was undone. Shock set in, as Angela started screaming, unfortunately drawing more attention to the situation. Luckily being topless on the beach is accepted, and the other two of us were able to communicate that we would not be wanting the last "move."

At the end of the day we headed back to Jan's and thought that a home cooked meal was in order. We went to the supermarket across the street and bought corn on the cob, salmon, and rice. Jan really liked dinner and we were glad that we could give back after all of his kindness and hospitality! Tonight we will wind down with a movie and get some good rest for tomorrow. In the morning we plan on going to the Picasso Museum and some other tourist stops. We will add pictures soon! Thanks for reading.

Ciao, Ciao, Ciao, Ciao!

P.S. We were talking about how to end this post and Angela thought of "ciao ciao ciao ciao" because Jan always says it. Christian of course says, "wait is that spelled c-h-o-w?" HAHA