Barcelona 1

So, for Winter Break this year Colin and I headed to Barcelona, Spain. Before leaving, I truthfully had no idea what to expect. Though I had heard it was amazing, pretty much all of Europe is amazing and that wasn't enough to prepare me for the righteous week Colin and I had. We flew out of Charles de Gaulle on Tuesday afternoon and made it to the hostel in time to grab some beer before heading out. The hostel we stayed at in Barcelona was incredible and not very expensive. Every night, one of the guys who works at the hostel takes a group out to a bar and then a club in the area. Since the hostel was in the middle of downtown, that turned out be a very nice opportunity to see nightlife there. If you ever are in Barcelona, you must stay at Sant Jordi Barcelona- I kid you not, it was a perfect experience. Here are the pictures of our first full day in Barcelona!

Colin's first feature in a magazine!

This is a picture from the Barcelona Metro and, yes, those are bathrooms on the train.

Cathedral de Barcelona by Gaudi. This church and Sagra da Famillia were just unspeakably beautiful More detailed than most things in Paris, and unclassifiable in style. I guess one could described it as roughly art noveau, but his architecture is seriously like nothing else. I'm sure without Gaudi the architecture of Barcelona would be nothing like what it is today (and what it is today in Martian. Absolutely alien.)

Organ!

Cool roof on a market that Colin and I went through.

Gigantic chair! For all that booty in Barcelona!

So, Colin and I walked around one of the harbors where the sculpture of Christopher Columbus is. After we got bored with that, we decided to keep wandering. This hill(?) looked interesting so we headed in that direction.

Colin and the view from about a third of the way up. At this point, we started to "get" why people love Barcelona so much!

Just to give you an idea of the steepness of the hill... wasn't too bad, though it was wet outside.

I think this was the last little bit of the city up the hill. The cool thing about Barcelona is that the hills on each side of the city are parks so building up the sides is limited.

GAH! So beautiful!

Losing my mind at this point...

But wait! There's more!

Is this place real?

One of the only major cities I've been to with such an extensive amount of trees!

And what was at the top of the hill? Our first glimpse of the Atlantic from a European perspective and, y'know, a castle. Not a big deal!

Colin exploring the castle and exclaiming "Barcelona is soooo cool!"

Barcelona by night!

I was only in Barcelona for 3 days (Colin for 5) so I had to make sure we got Sangria, Tapas and Paellla. This night we had amazing Tapas and a classy Spanish restaurant and it wasn't even that expensive.

The only thing I cared about ordering on the menu... fried cuddlefish. Though Colin was a bit apprehensive at first, it was his favorite part of the meal. TOO delicious.

Spanish omlet that was cooked kinda like a pancake, though it was much thicker. Great, great, great!