April 24th, 2013 - Barcelona Trip
Fresh fruit juices from La Boqueria
For our final 10-day trip we started out on Thursday evening around 4:30 to catch a train to Milan, a bus to the airport an hour outside of Milan, then we finally made our flight to Barcelona. Since we didn't get to our hostel, St. Christopher's, until close to midnight, we stayed in and got some rest.
Friday morning we woke up to a not so great weather day in Barcelona but we made the best of it and did some exploring. Our hostel was right by the street "La Rambla" which is a huge street in Barcelona lined with shops, vendors and restaurants. We walked through La Boqueria which is a HUGE fresh produce, fish, vegetables, meat and everything in between market. The picture on the left is from there and I tried my first drink of horchata which is a Spanish drink made of ground almonds, sesame seeds, rice, barley and tigernuts (whatever that is). It sounds weird but it was really good! It kind of tastes like coconut milk. After some site-seeing we found a small restaurant for a tapas lunch and some sangria! We stopped by some of Gaudi's famous sites like the church La Sagrada Familia (it reminded me of the "dribble" sandcastles you make at the beach) and also Casa Battlo. Then we walked over to Park Guell which is another one of Barcelona's sites that was designed by Gaudi. Unfortunately as we made it all the way to the top of the hill, it down poured...so we planned on going back the next day. For dinner we ended up eating at our hostel since it was so cheap! Then we went out to a bar called Espit Chupito's. This place had over 600 types of shots, it was crazy!! I had been to the Espit Chupitos in Paris so it was fun going back there again.
On Saturday we continued our site-seeing and spent most of our day back at Park Guell with some shopping in between at the mall beside Barcelona's marina. Everyday we went back to La Boqueria (the market) to get the fresh fruit juices since they were so good! We ended up starting our night out again at Espit Chupito's and went to the bar at our hostel called Belushi's.
Unfortunately, on Sunday we realized that basically everything closes down like shops, so we strolled along La Rambla and enjoyed some paella, which ended up being a little bit more expensive than we planned, but oh well! Sunday we stayed in and packed because we had a 6am flight to Seville, Spain!
(Continue to the bottom of the page to see the next part of my trip in Seville!)
Friday morning we woke up to a not so great weather day in Barcelona but we made the best of it and did some exploring. Our hostel was right by the street "La Rambla" which is a huge street in Barcelona lined with shops, vendors and restaurants. We walked through La Boqueria which is a HUGE fresh produce, fish, vegetables, meat and everything in between market. The picture on the left is from there and I tried my first drink of horchata which is a Spanish drink made of ground almonds, sesame seeds, rice, barley and tigernuts (whatever that is). It sounds weird but it was really good! It kind of tastes like coconut milk. After some site-seeing we found a small restaurant for a tapas lunch and some sangria! We stopped by some of Gaudi's famous sites like the church La Sagrada Familia (it reminded me of the "dribble" sandcastles you make at the beach) and also Casa Battlo. Then we walked over to Park Guell which is another one of Barcelona's sites that was designed by Gaudi. Unfortunately as we made it all the way to the top of the hill, it down poured...so we planned on going back the next day. For dinner we ended up eating at our hostel since it was so cheap! Then we went out to a bar called Espit Chupito's. This place had over 600 types of shots, it was crazy!! I had been to the Espit Chupitos in Paris so it was fun going back there again.
On Saturday we continued our site-seeing and spent most of our day back at Park Guell with some shopping in between at the mall beside Barcelona's marina. Everyday we went back to La Boqueria (the market) to get the fresh fruit juices since they were so good! We ended up starting our night out again at Espit Chupito's and went to the bar at our hostel called Belushi's.
Unfortunately, on Sunday we realized that basically everything closes down like shops, so we strolled along La Rambla and enjoyed some paella, which ended up being a little bit more expensive than we planned, but oh well! Sunday we stayed in and packed because we had a 6am flight to Seville, Spain!
(Continue to the bottom of the page to see the next part of my trip in Seville!)
April 24th, 2013 - Seville Trip
Since we had literally less than 24 hours in Seville, we packed our day in like you wouldn't believe so here's a run down of what we did...
Monday April, 8th - Tuesday April, 9th
(Click on the PORTUGAL tab at the top of the page to see the next part of my trip!)
Monday April, 8th - Tuesday April, 9th
- 12:30 - 3:30am: Sleep
- 3:45am: taxi from hostel in Barcelona to airport
- 6am: flight from Barcelona to Seville
- 8am: arrive in Seville
- 9:30am: check into hostel
- 10:30am - 2pm: Seville sitseeing
- 2pm - 4pm: tanning/napping on the roof of the hostel
- 4pm - 6pm: showered and got ready for my friend Steph's birthday dinner
- 6pm - 7:45pm: Dinner
- 8pm - 9:30pm: Free Sangria happy hour at the hostel
- 9:30pm - 10:30pm: Flamenco dancing show
- 11:00pm - 5am: Pub crawl
- 5am - 6:30am (Tues) : quick nap...sleep through alarm and almost miss our bus...oops
- 7:30am - catch a bus from Seville to Lagos, Portugal
(Click on the PORTUGAL tab at the top of the page to see the next part of my trip!)