Barcelona!

Barcelona, Spain, is my new favorite European city. Not that I don't love Paris. But at a time when it's rainy and gray and everyone wears black in this city, who wouldn't trade a weekend for some sun, a beach, and a pitcher of Sangria?
Our two-and-a-half days spent in Barcelona were some of the best I've yet experienced in Europe. Our arrival at Gothic Point hostel was the first representation we got of this colorful city--walls all a-paint with bright greens and reds and yellows, funky art hanging from the ceilings, people from all over the world looking for a good time.


We were situated right in the heart of the city, in the Gothic quarter, so it was fitting that our first adventure was to the Cathedral of Barcelona, a beautiful Gothic-style church with a huge open courtyard in the middle that looked like a rainforest. We took an elevator to the roof of the Cathedral, which is under construction, where we got a beautiful view of the city and our first glimpse of Sagrada Familia, the impressively unique cathedral designed by the genius-architect Gaudi, which has been under construction since 1882 (and counting...).


The city itself is very walkable. Our walk to the Sagrada Familia brought us further to the outskirts of the downtown area in less than 25 minutes. This cathedral is so impressive it's intimidating--architecture like you've never seen, and all way before its time (refer to pictures). Gaudi had quite the imagination.

The people of Barcelona are awesome. For one thing, they speak Catalan. The sister of Spanish, Catalan is a beautiful language, and I never tire of hearing it. Except when I'm trying to order tapas with a non-English speaker, and my limited Spanish vocabulary consists of "si" and "queso." This proved to be a problem when, at a tapas restaurant on the wharf on Saturday night, I ended up ordering potatoes and..potatoes. mmm...

Bombas, actually, are superb potatoes. A fried ball of potato and meat mush layered with some special spicy sauce on top. Now that was delicious. What's also delicious is finding 1 euro dinners at the local Travel Bar. Especially when it's so spicy that I find it essential to buy a pitcher of Sangria to quench the thirst.

The shopping in Barcelona is fantastic. For one thing, you can find things that don't cost a million euros, like everything in Paris. On several streets downtown, there are hundreds of these tiny little colorful shops that sell all sorts of unique clothing and jewelry and the like. Hence, I found it absolutely necessary to buy a messenger bag that says "Vespa" on it. If I can't have the Vespa, at least I can have the bag. Right?

I have a list of some things that will forever be, for me, Barcelonian. It starts with Flamenco dancers and ends with classical guitar players in the street, palm trees everywhere, good-looking Spaniards, plazas, hanging laundry dripping off of tiny balconies on the skinny streets, 16-person jungle-like room hostels, leather boots, Cornesas local popular sausage-sandwich station, "this is L.A., 2,000 years ago"--(Kate, my friend from L.A.), chocolate & churros, pitch-black bus-rides to and from airports, free walking tours, the toaster lighting on fire at breakfast, the best showers of my life found in hostels, meeting a surfer at night on the Mediterranean who used to live in Rancho Santa Margarita, sand, sun and the guy playing saxophone in the paradise-like Park Guell created by Gaudi.

I am in love. With a city and a culture and a people. Barcelona is beautiful, and I'm going back.