Barcelona, to me, is the best city in Spain, and I might go as far as to say the best city I've visited on my trip yet. Having just passed the halfway point on our trip Zac and I had a surge of 'carpe diem', sensing that our time remaining might fly past.
As always, it seems, we had trouble finding our hostel at first, not because of our poor navigational skills but because of misleading signs like "blah blah blah metro" (spanish stuff) and an arrow, which it turned out translated to "Not the entrance to the Metro". A truly useless sign. We arrived at Las Ramblas, the main tourist district where our hostel was. I knew immediately that I liked the place when instead of the normal sewerage smell of Europe we were greeted by a strong and persistent scent of waffle cones and flowers. A guy can get used to that... We spent some time wondering and rambling (yes, i'm making the pun) down Las Ramblas, investigating the extensive bead district (who knew the bead market was so booming, and in this economy!) and falling in love with a vegan store in the hippy district called Juicy Jones where we had many a fresh fruit and veggie juice, and Zac had a three-course vegan feast. The streets of Las Ramblas are flooded with people, and as a result with men trying to sell the same annoying stuff, but as soon as you decline their souvenir junk they move straight on to peddling drugs with the same pitch of "hashish, marijuana, cocaine?". It wasn't until learning that men under thirty in Barcelona have a 50% unemployment rate that I came to see these men for what they were - not seedy drug dealers, but immigrants, mainly Indian, trying to put food on table as best they can. They are actually genuinely nice people too, offering us directions on many occasions.
We took another free walking tour with another Australian guide, the highlights of which, for me, was a cathedral where eleven geese have residence for some bizarre historic reason. A few days later we took a free Gaudi walking tour with a different company - Runnerbean Tours. If ever in Barcelona avoid this tour at all costs. Lamest thing ever. The tour guide had a piercingly fake laugh at the end of every sentence and treated us like kindergarten students, so Zac and I, as well as half the group, fled to make our own tour. We visited Sagrada Familia and Güell Park where Gaudi's nonsensical architecture got us quite lost, something I'm sure he'd be quite proud of.
Barcelona's nightlife is awesome, particularly the beachside clubs and themed bars. We visited a bar named
Dow Jones where the prices of drinks fluctuate based on supply and demand just as in the real stock market, with computer screens and graphs displaying the latest changes and trends. I found myself more caught up in the statistics than anything else, but was unable to buy drinks low and sell them high - something about buying a drink second hand scares people off? They'd be eaten alive on Wall Street.. Next was Chupitos, the Spanish word for 'shots', aptly named with a menu 300 shots strong. Many shots were on fire, many others were interactive, including the particularly crude Monica Lewinski, which made more sense once I had researched who she is. On another night we took a pub-crawl which ended at an amazing beachside club where we met up with Daniel and Matt our British buds from Marbella (there you go Matt, you got your mention).
Our experiences after dark weren't all party-based. We took a paella and tapas cooking and tasting tour, the first and only paella I had in Spain. It was a delicious event, but what made it for me was seeing the chefs passion as he spoke about the intricate and delicate process of cooking Spain's signature dish and about the fresh produce from the local market we visited to buy ingredients. On our last night we followed a fellow backpacker's advice and visited the 'magic fountain'. We didn't expect much of it, but it was the coolest damn fountain I've ever seen by a long way. In front of a grand palace of sorts and surrounded by a mass of onlookers the giant fountain came to life, with walls of water dyed yellow and blue and red by lights moving and swelling in sync with a backing track of (for some reason) Star Wars tunes. After the display we visited a shopping centre built in what was once a bullfighting ring, bullfighting being thankfully banned in Barcelona. I can't say the shopping centre was fantastic, but hey! - it beats torturing animals for sport.
On the topic of animals, Zac and I visited the zoo on our last day in Barcelona, frolicking with the animals who at this stage in our travels smell a bit better than us. Viewing all those delicious animals made me hungry, so I made some steak for dinner at the hostel, breaking my personal best with 800 grams of meat. I think I can go a kilo soon. What a proud day that will be.
Now I fly to London to see Addy and Briany, but I'll always have a soft spot for Barcelona, the first city yet I'm sad to leave.