Hello! I just got back from walking around and exploring some more so I'm pretty exhausted and I just want to relax for the rest of the night, because tomorrow we have a daytrip to Montserrat. That's one thing I don't think I'll ever get used to about Barcelona (or any other big city); people are out all day AND all night. I can't do both, and even if I only go out at night, I can't stay out all night. I'd much rather stay out all day and then come home and unwind with dinner and alone time. I'm pretty much an old lady.
Yesterday was La Diada which is the National Day of Catalonia. I already posted a spiel about it on Instagram, but it was seriously amazing to see basically the entire population of Barcelona out on the streets. The 4th of July ain't got nothing on La Diada. Flags were everywhere, huge crowds were chanting, and all the big streets (Avenida Diagonal and Meridiana, etc) were blocked off so people could walk in them. The big thing I noticed was that there was no negative energy anywhere; like, no one was running around being angry and yelling about Spain not letting Catalonia be independent. Okay, I'm sure there were SOMEWHERE, but I didn't see any. The fact that there were Mossos everywhere probably helped that too. The Mossos are the Catalan police. There's the Guardia Urbana, who deal with things like petty theft and traffic violations, and then the Mossos walk around with automatic rifles and deal with more important things. They're basically like SWAT. You aren't supposed to interact with them. I wouldn't want to anyway, because they're super intimidating.
Photobombed by a random person haha
I don't think these pictures really convey how many people were out in the streets. I think Ryan said the number is somewhere in the millions.
Giant Catalan flag
At one point, everyone started holding up these pieces of paper and cheering. I think it was for an aerial photo because there were a ton of helicopters. Anyway, I definitely missed the memo and had no idea what was going on. That's a recurring theme when studying abroad, by the way.
I've only lived in Barcelona for two weeks, and this is a very strange image. There's usually cars zooming down the avenida, and to just walk up and down the streets without worrying about getting run over was really weird. That's another thing about Barcelona, the drivers are insane. The motorcyclists are the craziest, but pretty much everyone runs red lights here, so you have to wait a few seconds after the light turns green before you cross, because there's about a 60% chance someone is going to illegally speed through the intersection. Daniel was like, "That's crazy! Everyone drives safe in Amsterdam. Why don't they do anything about that?!?!" That's a good question...
Ahhh, I've been reunited with Calippo Cola ice creams. I ate probably forty of these (exaggerating) when I was in Italy, so it's pretty exciting to have access to these again.
After watching the rally, we stumbled upon a dog park. There's so many more dogs than I anticipated here, and they look much scruffier/dirtier than dogs in the US. Still adorable.
Finally, I got to see Parc de la Ciutadella (citadel park)! It's incredibly beautiful (and romantic... missing Daniel, mental note to bring him here when he visits) and it has the famous Gaudi fountain depicting King Neptune. We took so many pictures there it's not even funny.
Beautiful steps!
At one point I was wondering if they painted the floor of the fountain, because the water looked incredibly blue...
When I get married I want to take my wedding pictures here. This place is amazing!!
A pond where they had white geese and paddleboats.
We left the park after it got dark, and were basically hit in the face with this crowd. Seriously, there were so many people and so much trash, I felt really bad for whoever has to clean all that up. However, I went back to this area the next day (AKA today) and they did a pretty good job.
We watched a concert and then made our way to the side streets to find some food. We had to go into a handful of places because they were all either too crowded or too expensive.
Finally, we ended up at this... bar? Restaurant? It had the vibe of a dirty, late night Spanish diner. It doesn't look that crowded, but it was really busy and it took longer than it should have to get our food. We got patatas bravas, croquetas, and some meatballs. I shall not explain further but they left my digestive system feeling less than superb the rest of the night...... basically I was sipping ginger tea (thanks Lina) and video chatting with Daniel the whole night until I went to sleep. It was a bummer because I was all ready to go to the karaoke bar.
Today, I rolled around in bed for a while until I finally decided to get dressed and go explore again. When you're not feeling too great and also feeling homesick, the best thing to do is just get out of your room and go get some fresh air and take in the sights. I like to do it alone because I'm just that kind of person, and I always feel better when I come home. I walked all the way down to Arc de Triomf because I wanted to go to Parc de la Ciutadella again (they're about a quarter of a mile away from each other).
This dog came out of nowhere and just sat next to me for twenty minutes. I'm not gonna lie, I'm totally a dog person so it was really nice to have a non-human companion for a little bit.
I feel ya, buddy...
Back to this place again!
After sitting near the fountain for a while, it began to rain so I started to walk out of the park towards La Rambla. I discovered the El Born district (I know El means "the" in Spanish so that's a little redundant) and I fell in love right away. There were so many cool shops and restaurants. I initially kept going into them to hide from the rain, but I ended up finding a lot of cool stuff.
Hmm... okay. No comment.
I kept walking until I ended up right at the Jaume I Metro station, which is the stop you get off at when you want to go to the gothic quarter. I guess this is where El Born becomes El Barri Gotic.
A really cool candy/chocolate shop I found on Carrer de la Princesa. I also went to La Boqueria because I got hungry, and I got some Iberian ham and some freshly squeezed orange juice. I don't really take pictures when I'm there because the risk of opening my bag and getting my phone/wallet stolen is not worth it.
Tomorrow is my day trip to Montserrat, which is a monastery on a mountain a few miles from Barcelona. I'll take lots of pictures, don't worry ;) But now it's time to relax and browse Reddit and eat some chocolate.
