On Saturday, three friends and I took a 5pm flight to Barcelona out of Dublin. It was a long day of traveling between the bus to Dublin Airport and the flight, and then a train ride to our hostel, but we got there safely. It even felt a lot warmer right when we stepped off the train to find our hostel. We stayed at the Mediterranean Youth Hostel (luckily wasn't as scary as I have seen in the past- yikes). We got settled in and made our plan for Sunday, as we were planning to take a Barcelona City Tour Bus to see as much as possible. In the morning, we stopped at Cafe Zurich for breakfast. The Spanish breakfast didn't seem to be what we're used to. It seems that little sandwiches with chorizo or cheese are more common, with different pastries and coffee drinks. We caught our City Tour Bus in the city at Placa Catalunya and headed to our first stop along the harbour at Port Vell. We walked around the harbor area along the water, and it was nice and warm. Especially compared to Cork, it almost felt hot at points. The whole morning was sunny and nice, and then got a little cloudier in the afternoon. We then walked around the Barceloneta area and walked along the beach, Platja de Barceloneta. It was so nice to be near a beach and near the water, especially on a sunny day. The next stop on the bus was Torre Agbar, which is a 38 story skyscraper that marks the technology district of Barcelona. We had lunch at Panchito's, where I got guacamole and a burrito. We got back on the bus and drove by Sagrada Familia, which we would go back to on Monday to get a better look at it. Unfortunately, there was a lot of construction and rebuilding going on outside of Sagrada Familia, so it wasn't as easy to see everything. The detail in the Cathedral was so intricate and really cool to see. Our bus then stopped at Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau that used to be a hospital for the sick. We passed by a lot of FC Barcelona Shops, as the sports team is a really big deal for Barcelona. Everywhere we looked, someone had on FC Barcelona attire. Our next stop was Parc Guell, where we stayed for a while. This also has all Gaudi architecture and designs, and the mosaics everywhere were really something to see. There was some construction in some part of the Parc as well, I'm assuming because of the off-season. We got to overlook the city of Barcelona, as well as sit on the mosaic benches. Afterwards, we headed back toward the direction of our hostel after a long day, and stopped at Cachitos for dinner. We got seafood paella and tapas. We tried to decide what we wanted to see on our next full day in Barcelona before we went to sleep. We got breakfast at a little cafe near our hostel in the morning, where no one spoke English. Otherwise, we didn't really have a problem with the language. We were able to navigate the public transportation, including the bus and multiple trains. After breakfast on Monday, we planned to go to Montserrat. The mountain peaks were beautiful and we got a completely different feel than being right in the city of Barcelona. We took an hour train ride over to this area, and then a cable car up through the mountains to get to the top, which was pretty high up. The views were incredible and it was so different to see. We ate lunch up there and then headed back down to take a train to the next couple things we wanted to see. We stopped back at Sagrada Familia to get to take some better pictures, and then stopped to get churros as a snack. We walked along the streets for a while and walked down Las Ramblas, which is the main street in Barcelona with a lot of shops, restaurants, and vendors. We then got to see Barcelona Cathedral, and we went inside to take pictures. The cathedral was so pretty and the inside was really intricate as well. Even the buildings we would walk by on the way back to our hostel were so pretty. For dinner, we ate at our hostel. Our hostel offered a meal that a Spanish chef came in to cook, however, we didn't end up eating until 10pm, since dinner is a lot later in Spain. We got to see some really different things and a lot of things packed into a smaller window. We flew out early Tuesday morning to head back to Cork. Barcelona is definitely my favorite city we've visited so far, and I really loved this trip! We have two weeks until our big Spring Break trip!

P.S. We walked 9 miles on both of our full days in Barcelona!