Barcelona, what a crazy, funky and hip city ! Apparently it is not a part of Spain it is actualy Catalan.. he people of Barcelona consider themselves catalans not spanish and speak a completely different language would you believe, so Ryan and my language book otherwish known as our troll book is not very handy at all haha .. when we receieved a few blank looks we soon realised they didnt consider themselves spanish ! especially when i noticed the flag was completely different.

We arrived in Spain after a decent bus ride, it was 8 hours long. We travelled all the way from Nice in France, through Andorra which is a small country bordering Catalonia which I thought was Spain haha ! ... to think we covered 3 countries in one day on a bus is rather amazing and exciting for us .. all the different sites, landscapes and foods alongside wines and beers.

We arrived in Barcelona rather nervous alongside the rest of the bus after all the warnings everyone had been given about the dodgy theifs and the professional pick pocketers ! WE WERE READY for them though haha

Our first night was spent in MAMBO TANGO hostel where we met EGO a brazilian dude who ran the place, absolute champion.. we had a 8 bed dorm with brazilians, canadians, a german girl, and few aussies. This place had a great kitchen about 1 square metre haha but ryan managed to cook an absolute storm up... spag bol and mushrooms with herbs and other goodies.. wow wow wow 3 euro for dinner .. I was more than satisfied
.. From dinner we went on a pub crawl, we were wrapped on arrival to find out Ryan myself and one other fella named Josh were the only guys haha ... we got taken to some really cool little bars which were hidden jems ... one was inside 3 different door ways which led to a forest like scene with water features and light, trees and benches.
it was a fantastic night making many news friends.

Day 2 arrived and we had MIKES FAT BIKE TOURS booked at 4pm, luckily as the heat in Spain is fairly intense but starting to ease up around this time of the year ! During the morning we checked out the market called 'Market la Boqueria' wow this was insane, fresh fruits, smoothies, lollies, nuts, seafood of all kinds, and Tapas :)
my sort of place .. food food food I suddenly luvd spain even more !

The Bike tour was a blast, an aussie guy ran it who had moved to Barcelona long term and was a history buff so it made things funny, interesting and stick in our heads all at the same time ! it started out at the town hall Casa de la Ciutat, there is actually 2 town halls which divide the town, one for catalan people and the other just spanish...from here they headed to the cathedral which was an amazing site, standing very tall, an unbelievable piece of architecturer.... I soon would realise this was nothing in comparison to sites to still come !

The facts about the cathedral were very interesting, we learnt about tortures that were conducted under the command of ISABELLA a catalan ruler... she seemed like a massive b**** to be honest... just ordered and killed people ! There were gargoles carved from stone, which the catalans use to pour hot oil into and it seeped out onto those who didnt obey Isabella.

After this we rolled to the Arc De Triomp, barcelonas version, the famous one is in Paris! this was on a long stretch of wide footpath leading through a parc, where there were gypsies and other random characters.... from here we rode to the Parc de La Ciutadella where there was a huge fountain piece... the europeans sure know how to build a fountain.. it was like a waterfall .. huge site was big arches. other sites we saw were the Place De Toros. the bullring ! it was awesome but we are saving our actual bullfighting experience for Madrird where it is less touristy and more a cultural experience..... bullfighting is actually banned in Spain, however they dont seem to follow the rules and it has continued every weekend since 8 years ago ! ...

THE most amazing site we saw was the Sagrada Familia... wow I cant explain this thing. it is ultra wacky... Gaudi a famous architect designed it when he was stonned on mushrooms apparently ... so you can try imagine that he was out of his mind ! ... it is all different shapes... standing 95m tall and should stand 180m by 2026... this is scary as it was built so long ago, and actually shakes when the metro goes near it ! .. they are now thinkng of building a high speed rail from Paris to directly underneath the monument ! .... Really ? they all discovered a river flowing underneath it earlier this year ! I cant wait to posts photos of this site .. it was amazing

After this we had a leisure ride down to the beach, port olympia. The beaches really do make me appreciate what we have in Australia, it was a little dirty, they pump the sand back onto the beach every summer ... so its actually a man made beach ! ... but still it was nice along the water... with bars and cafes ! .. we had a bar which served us Sangria, a famous spanish drink which is red wine, orange juice and oranges.... served chilled .. WOW I LOVED IT !... I drank it all that night at different bars we went to ! ...

After the bike tour we rushed back to Be La Ramblas our new hostel ... it was a private room, really clean and fantastic to have our own space ... without having to worry about luggage theft etc... We went to a TAPAS crawl, I was in heaven, pepper stuffed with cheese, cheese rolled in fresh salmon, olives, mini sausages, calamari, spanish ommlettes to name a few... testing food could be a new career for me ! ,... Alongside all these foods the SANGRIA was going down a treat.

Today being our 2nd full day here in Barcelona, home of the Catalan people, we hit up the market, after ryan had a slow hungover start to the day haha ... I got my washing done, and dropped his off ! ... the market was amazing again, we had lunch, helping ourselves to 3 smoothies for 1 euro each, fresh fruits and other deserts haha .. We then wandered well well up La Ramblas the famous strip down the centre of Barcelona with street performers, thousands of people and crazy men who make duck noises ! .. but no theifs were in site ... we were very very careful due to the crowd, ryan had one man attempt, but he brushed him aside.

The sites we saw this after noon were called La Pedrera and Casa Batlio, these buildings are architectually designed without any straight lines in them at all .. so all cuves,.. little like our waist lines atm after all the lolly shops and great tapas and drinks here in Barcelona haha ... they were designed by Gaudi the druggy artist and definately could tell this by the trippy cruves and design.

We are loving it here.. ryan will also do a blog and photos are to come... get excited. Tonight we are heading to Montjuic which we ride a cable car to the top and see the entire city from here ... :) Ross xo