We got off the ship..FINALLY...and went to the train station and took a train to a city called Seville. It was really picturesque and reminded me of something from a movie. It felt like "authentic" Spain - it was a pretty quiet city. We all ate lunch together. The wine was good but the food was just ok..I don't think we went to the right type of restaurant for what we were eating. We went to this cathedral that is supposedly the biggest gothic cathedral in the world and it was sooo nice. 4 of us accidentally got separated from the group so we just kind of wandered around and got some ice cream which is more like gelato and that was amazing. ALL the food in Spain was sooo good minus that first meal. After awhile we went back to the hostel and met up with everyone else again. Most people wanted to do a pub crawl but Nicky and I really wanted to see Flamenco so we went to a show at this bar where supposedly locals go a lot. According to Nicky this bar looked like it was someone's barn and it really did. It was so much fun though - the Flamenco show was by far one of my favorite things that I did. We ran into 2 other people from our group who ended up not doing the pub crawl either so we hung out with them and had some sangria which apparently Spain is famous for. The people who did the pub crawl didn't even seem to like it that much so I definitely made the right choice there. We got home around 1 and went to sleep and got up at 6 to get ready to leave for Barcelona. When we first got to Barcelona, it took over 2 hours to get to our hostel from the airport. We weren't that good at the train system so it was kind of hard. That was kind of annoying because there were so many of us and any issue turned into a huge debate about what was right and wrong. All 16 of us never did the same things while we were in the cities but traveling from place to place we were all together and that was a little intense. When we finally got there we were starving so we all ate lunch at this outdoor tapas bar and the tapas I had were amazing. A lot of restaurants here have a "menu del dia" which is usually 1-3 tapas (really small portions of appetizer-like food), paella which is a weird mix of rice and meat and pretty much anything else, and a glass of sangria so I got that there. After that everyone kind of split up. 6 or 7 of us went to the parc guell. I'm not that knowledgeable about art but maybe some of you guys have heard of this artist Gaudi. He designed some cracked out stuff. The famous cathedral in Spain, the Sagrada Familia, was done by him but some of his stuff feels like you're in some alice in wonderland drug world and that's how this park was. It's really hard to explain but it was really nice and we walked around it for awhile. After that some of us went to a soccer game which was INTENSE. Spanish people are crazy for their soccer. When we got back, everyone else wanted to go to sleep but Nicky and I wanted more tapas so we got some. People in Spain eat really small meals all day long - my kind of place. The next day there were about 6 of us that really wanted to see a lot of things so we got up around 9 and got ready. We went to the Sagrada Familia which was beautiful on the outside but under major construction on the inside. We did take this elevator up though so we got really cool views of the city. After that we went to the Picasso museum which was cool because they were his actual works. There was another famous cathedral nearby so we went but it was also under construction. I swear everything in Barcelona was under construction. The Sagrada Familia won't be done for years but really random stuff was under construction. After that we took a taxi to the stadium they used when they had the olympics there in the 90s. Mentioning a taxi reminds me how funny I found it that in the 6 or so people I was hanging out with, most of them did not understand the subway system at all. I guess being so used to Philadelphia and DC, I don't consider that most people never use subways...the map there looked a lot like DCs so it was easy to decipher but even when the people could understand how to read it they didn't get that there were 2 directions for each line. Nicky and I were pretty much the subway leaders that day. Anyway, after the stadium 3 people went back to the hostel to take a nap but me, Nicky, and this girl Mandi wanted to see some more of Gaudi's crazy buildings so we went and got a mid-day snack which is really like a small meal. We saw 2 more of his buildings from the outisde but didn't want to pay to get in them so we just took pictures. Mandi told me that the word "gaudy" came from Gaudi's last name because his designs were so out-there. After that we met up with my roommate and other friend Jordan (they had gone to Barcelona a day earlier than us) and the 5 of us went out to dinner. Me, Nicky, and Mandi split a meal that was a whole bunch of tapas meant for 4 people. It was sooooo good. There were between 8 and 10 tapas and I liked all but 2 or 3 of them. After dinner we went to a bar that is famous for the FUNNIEST shots. One was called a "boy scout." The bartender lined up the shots, poured something on the bar around them, lit the bar on fire, then gives you a marshmallow on the end of a stick and you roast the marshmallow, stick it in the shot, eat it, and then take the shot. The bartender was really nice and I tried to speak some spanish to her and whenever we would tip her she would give us free things. Tipping isn't popular in Spain - you usually give whatever coins come from paying your bill but if you tip as much as we do in the USA, it is seen as looking down upon the person's occupation. This bartender would take the tips but then give us something for free, I guess to feel like we weren't just giving her money for nothing. It was a win-win situation. Everyone in Spain was so laid back - they NEVER bring you the check at restaurants. You always have to ask for it and it usually takes at least an hour to eat there. On the 2nd Barcelona day when me Nicky and Mandi went to get coffee (which by the way Spain has AMAZING coffee) and a small snack, after the waiter brought out our sandwiches he disappeared for forever. When we finally saw him, he was sitting down at a table eating with someone. No one there is in any rush to do anything which is kind of nice. Our quick snack turned into an hour and 15 minute thing because we didn't want to interrupt him eating but once we got up and started moving around again we felt sooo much better and less tired than we did before so maybe the Spanish and their no sense of time have something going on there. I LOVED SPAIN!!
Here are a few pictures in a random order because they wouldn't post right:
the "boy scout" shot at the shot bar:
Mandi & I drinking delicious Spanish coffee:
6 of us in front of a weird monument at the olympic stadium:
what a plate of tapas looks like:
one of the Gaudi buildings:
fans at the soccer game in Barcelona:
Nicky and I in front of the Parc Guell (Gaudi park) in Barcelona:
some of us at the first restaurant we ate at in Seville:
one of the most detailed walls of the cathedral in Seville:
a typical side street of Seville:
the whole group of us that traveled together right after we got off the ship:
Mandi & I drinking delicious Spanish coffee:
some of us at the first restaurant we ate at in Seville:
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