First day in Barcelona! Ole!

Note: The stuff in this post occurred on 6/24, was written on 6/25, and was submitted on 6/26. I have had no time to write, which is unfortunate as I really don’t want to forget all of the things we have done! Hopefully I can get better at writing faster or taking notes or something. But here you go!

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First day in Barcelona was a success!

Yesterday morning around 0730 we docked in Barcelona! Steven and I went to eat breakfast outside on the 6th deck and got to watch the ship dock. Our ship is so puny compared to the big cruise ships! There’s a ship here called “The World” and apparently people buy/rent condos on the ship and they just live on the ship and sail around the world. Sweet life! Even though our ship is small, it’s so pretty at night when the string of lights is lit up. Pictures will come at some point….eventually. I really wish I could be visually sharing these things instead of just talking about them!

So at 1100 I had a poetry FDP on the ship. A Spanish poet came to talk about poetry along with a doctoral student in the local university. Unfortunately they came about 20 minutes late (apparently Spaniards are late to everything…like me) and I had a tour leaving at 1300 so I had to leave early to scarf down lunch and run off the ship with Steven for our city tour! This was a 4-hour motorcoach tour through all of the major sites of Barcelona. We got down four times, I believe, to look around at the different places. The first place was Montjuic, which is a mountain overlooking Barcelona. It is covered with palm trees, ferns, and other exotic plants. When we got to the top, we got out to take pictures of panoramic Barcelona (of course I utilized the awesome panoramic feature on my camera…captured all of Barcelona and the port in one amazing shot!). We saw our ship from the top, and there were a bunch of fountains and gardens (got a picture of a dog drinking out of a fountain, very cute). Up on Montjuic was also where some of the buildings were for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992…too bad I don’t remember that one! After the top of Montjuic, we headed down the hill to the Pueblo Espanol. To our surprise, the price of our tour included the (expensive) ticket to get into the village! We had 45 minutes to explore. Pueblo Espanol is basically all of Spain in one village. It was built for the World Fair when it came to Barcelona (unsure of the year) and it contains architecture from every major area in Spain. It’s set up like a village, with streets (just for pedestrians though), shops, restaurants…each sector represents a different area of the country. It was a little disappointing that the whole thing was fake, nothing was original, just replicas of existing buildings, but it was very cool to see all the different types of construction and architecture there is in one country. In the middle of the Pueblo, there is a big plaza with a concert stage set up. Apparently Bob Dylan was playing there last night, and people were FREAKING out. Seriously? I don’t get it. On our way out, we spotted a gelateria and of COURSE had to get a gelato! Strawberry cheesecake!! Soooo yummy. It was a good treat after walking around in the hot sun.

After Pueblo Espanol, we went to La Segrada Familia! Our tour guide was so great…he knew the story behind every single sculpture on the cathedral (and there are a lot!) and even pointed out hidden components of the sculptures. Hopefully I can remember most of them for when I make a scrapbook (I took a picture of every sculpture he talked about). The building is a work in progress and is supposed to be finished in 2027…I foresee a trip back to Barcelona when it is completed!! It is apparently supposed to get 10 more spires, and four of them will be twice as tall as the ones that are there now! That is really freaking tall! Definitely going back when (if) it gets finished! We didn’t get to go inside, but we’ll be going back on Saturday to do a tour of the interior. We went around the entire cathedral and looked at all of the sculptures. It’s such an amazing piece of architecture! Along the tour, we also got to see Casa Batllo and La Pedrera (two more Gaudi buildings) and hopefully we’ll get to go back to La Pedrera this weekend to tour it and go up on the roof. There are so many things to see and do, and we only have 3 more days!! Ugh! I guess that just means we have to come back…hehehe….

Our final stop was at the Barri Gothic Cathedral. We had 45 minutes to go around the Cathedral and look around. Again, our tour guide was amazing in explaining the meanings of the different altars and sculptures! After the cathedral, we went back to the ship. Unfortunately, our guide was so good at explaining things that we returned half an hour late, and we didn’t have time to go up to the ship and change for the trip to see a flamenco show. I was bummed that I couldn’t wear the dress I brought for the show, but it was better than being late for the trip! This trip was called “Flamenco at Night with Dinner.” It started off with a one-hour tour around Barcelona, and it went to pretty much the same places we went to earlier in the day. We had a different guide who was actually Catalonian (our first guide had a British accent) so she had some different things to say and we still learned a lot. When we got to “Palacio de Flamenco,” we got a seat near the front. It was sort of like a dinner theater where you eat first and then watch the show from your table. So…the food! Our first course was seafood paella with a side salad. Talk about delicious! Each paella had 2 shrimp (complete with head and eyes), a mussel, and squid. I also got Steve’s seafood =) The side salad had green olives, and I hate green olives, but I tried these and they were AMAZING. Dr. Gies had told us that if we didn’t like olives in the states to try them here and our idea of olives would definitely change. In the US, olives are soaked in brine. Here they are soaked in olive oil (makes sense?) and they are delicious! I am an olive-eating machine! Anyway, the paella was delicious! As soon as we finished the paella, the show started. While we were watching the show, our 2nd course of chicken and sautéed vegetables came out. Since Steven gave me all of his seafood, I gave him the majority of my chicken. Such a good girlfriend I am! =) The show, like the food, was amazing…there were many different acts including both women and men, young and old. There was a man probably in his 50s dancing and stomping extremely fast! We enjoyed the end of the show while eating chocolate flan, a perfect end! The music was really good, I tried to follow the words and I knew they were telling a story, but I guess my Spanish wasn’t good enough. =(

After we got back to the ship, we got ready to go to Las Ramblas for tapas (this was a couple of hours after we finished eating at the flamenco show). The day before was the summer solstice, which is apparently a HUGE celebration in Spain (for instance, the Picasso Museum is only closed December 25, January 1, and June 24…it’s a major holiday here!) and people were apparently hungover and not out. Las Ramblas was dead! Very few people were there. We sat down outside of a little restaurant and ordered our sangria and croquetas. After I got used to the taste of the sangria, I really liked it! I definitely approve. The croquetas were good too =) We just sat and sipped our sangrias and watched the drunk people stumble by. Quite an enjoyable life. I could get used to this. Too bad we only have 3 more days here.

There were TWO stupid questions yesterday! The second one was the best one of the trip thus far….

“Where is the terminal?”
“Can we get off both sides of the ship?” (The Voice responds “Yes, but I think you’ll find the starboard side to be a bit drier”)

So…that was the first day! Tomorrow is Montserrat and a night tour of Barcelona! Hopefully that post will be up soon……right now it is 3:45am and I am going to bed!