Barcelona, Spain--Part 1

Once again, after getting off the plane we had to cross over the entire airport to the train station, where a kind worker helped us decide which tickets to get and where to go. We did a lot of switching between trains and metros again, since our hostel (INOUT) was kind of OUT of town. By the time the train dropped us off at our final stop, it was about 10:30am. We followed the abundant signs toward our hostel, which was up a small road. And kept going, and going, and going. Did I mention that this (rather rough) road is up a very steep and winding hill, with no sidewalk for the convenience of rolling suitcases? By the time we reached the top it had started raining big drops, and I was annoyed due to lack of sleep and the strain of dragging my suitcase up that ridiculous hill. No wonder this hostel was so cheap!

Once there at check-in, the woman pulled out the email we had sent the night before about not being able to make it for the first night of our reservation. She also pulled out the print-off of our reservation, which had a big NO SHOW written across it. She then proceeded to tell us that they had gotten our email, but we hadn’t specified which date we wouldn’t be there for. I pointed to the email. “The date is right there on our email. We sent it last night, as soon as we found out we couldn’t make it.” She laughed what I like to think was a nervous laugh and said, “Yes, but we didn’t know when you would get here.” I bit my tongue and refrained from pointing out they had our name and reservation date IN THE COMPUTER, and instead settled on thinking in my mind how she was making herself look really dumb and incompetent right now. She still charged us for the previous night since we hadn’t cancelled 2 days prior, and a 10% fee because we weren’t members of the “Hostels Club” or some nonsense like that.

As if the trek up the horrid hill wasn’t bad enough for their reputation, the actual rooms and “restaurant” were even farther up the hill. We did find our room of 10 bunk beds nice and clean. The surroundings really were pretty, as we were up on a hill with a lot of trees, technically in a park of some kind. I assume it’s a lot nicer in the summer time. The hostel did have good reviews, and for the most part, other than that hill, I could see why.

Lunch was somewhat challenging. The staff is mostly all comprised of people with Down’s syndrome, which I think is really cool. However, that combined with the language barrier made ordering for lunch a bit more difficult, as you had to buy a ticket at a different front desk, then present it to the workers serving food from a buffet. The other option was to look on a menu at the front desk and order what you wanted…which we originally did. I ordered lasagna and Shane ordered pizza. But through a lot of language barrier confusion, the lack of lasagna in stock, and the discovery that they serve frozen pizzas instead of homemade, we opted to choose the buffet option. This consisted of noodle soup, fried chicken, salad or potato chips, and fresh strawberries. We got full enough, but decided that other than our free breakfast the next morning, we would seek food elsewhere.

After lunch we settled in for a nice long nap until about 4pm, when we decided we needed to get out and do something productive in Barcelona, or at least eat supper. I felt I could have slept the whole night through. But since we had lost a whole day basically, we felt we had to at least do SOMETHING with our evening.

We ended up going downtown and eating at a cafeteria type place that offered an all-you-can-eat buffet of salads, main courses, desserts, and drinks all for a little under 9 Euros each. I got plenty full and satisfied, which made getting out of bed worth it to me. Because it was still raining and we were just plumb tuckered out still, we decided to head back to the hostel for the night and just plan on a full next day. I slept like a baby again.

The next day we ate breakfast, which in my opinion wasn’t the best. We set out for town kind of late, around 10 or so. Thankfully we were blessed with a sunny and pretty warm day, which was a welcome treat from the harsh coldness of Milan and Paris. We set out for the most famous cathedral in Barcelona, Santa Maria del Mar. It’s free between certain hours in the morning and evening; otherwise it’s 5 Euros each to go inside. We found it and entered what looked like a mildewed, dank church that really wasn’t that spectacular. Five minutes and maybe five pictures later, we were thankful we hadn’t spent five Euros. Upon looking at a map though, we realized that this wasn’t the cathedral at all! Whew. So we found the actual cathedral, which still looked mildewed but at least was much more elaborate. Still, we were glad we were getting to see it for free because it still didn’t evoke feelings of being worth 5 Euros.

Next on our list was the Ramblas, which is a touristy, quaint, wide walkway in between two streets sporting everything from pet shop stands to painters and street mimes. (I have several pictures which unfortunately aren’t shrunk to post yet, but soon they will be up on my Facebook and Photobucket.) As I walked along this lively street, I fell in love with Barcelona. I actually have to say it is the best thing I did there. The bunnies in the pet shops were adorable, the mimes were superbly entertaining, and the painters’ artwork made my heart skip a beat. The thing to watch out for, however, are the thieves that are most likely to con and rob you on the Ramblas. We have proudly not been robbed or fallen for any cons of any kind, but we have been tried. One man approached us on the Ramblas with a frantic look on his face. “Speak English??” (In a Spanish accent, nonetheless.) We looked at him and passed by without saying a word. Behind us, we could hear him following us for a few steps. “Please, my bags have been stolen!” We kept on walking and eventually he gave up to try his lame tactic on some less suspecting soul. I mean, let’s think this through. If you have an accent, and you’re in Spain (aka it is probably safe to assume you speak Spanish), why would you ask some random tourist to help you with your stolen bag problem…in English!? We laughed at his dense con logic and saluted ourselves to once again escaping the naïve tourist pothole.

Next stop: Segrada Familia, an extremely unique, unfinished cathedral funded solely by donations and the fees from tourists to go inside. Fees being 12 Euros to go in, and 2.50 to go up the lift to the top. We paid this 14.50 Euros apiece. And our recommendation is: don’t do it until the building is finished! When looking at pictures of the outside, you would think that the inside is normal, with perhaps a bit of extra work still to be done. Not so. There is a single tiny walkway around one half of the inside for you to look at the ceiling. The rest of the space is taken up by top to bottom scaffolding, building materials, machinery, and concrete dust. Oh, and the jackhammer busting up a hole in the concrete, which made it so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think, much less carry on a conversation. I felt bad for the people who paid for an audio guide. When we did get to the top of the tower after waiting in line for a good 30 minutes or more, it consisted of a tiny space resembling a castle top with tiny openings to look out on. It held about 5 people, max. The view wasn’t even that great. The only cool thing about it was the endless winding staircase to get to the bottom, which made you feel claustrophobic and a little fearful of falling through the hole in the middle. All in all, it wasn’t worth the money, but it will be amazing to see when finished. We’ll just go back in 20 years.

Last on our list of things to see (that we could get to or afford) was the sea. Tons of sailboats spotted the bay, and we walked across a bridge full of people lying in the sun to get to a shopping mall. That was nice, because there really aren’t many malls in Europe. Of course this was small compared to America’s, but decent for Europe. While there I bought two shirts for 1 Euro each.

Since we didn’t have anything else to do, we strolled along the sea walk, sat on benches in the sun, and people-watched at the Ramblas. During one of our siestas on a sea wall, I looked up to see two guys slowly strolling by, staring intently with smirks on their faces. And they didn’t look away, even when I stared back and pasted a glare on my face. When Shane caught one of their eyes, the guy laughed and kept walking. But after a ways they both looked back. In my opinion, they were walking too slow and staring too deliberately for it to be a simple attraction issue. It was more like they wanted to rob us blind. It was actually the second time while sitting there that I’d caught a guy blatantly and rudely staring. Whatever it was, we decided to make our way to a different spot. I couldn’t help but keep looking behind me to make sure they weren’t following us. For some reason they really weirded me out.

We settled on eating at a small place that Rick Steves recommended in his guide book. Juicy Jones was a small, quiet little vegetarian restaurant that served fresh fruit juice and a 3-course meal for a little under 9 Euros. The owner was very friendly and translated the menu for us. Between the two of us, we got potato soup, homemade hummus, a tasty plate of rice and Indian curries, gluten shish kebabs, chocolate pudding, and apple crisp. By the time we were finished, we were absolutely stuffed! The food was delicious and it was really nice not having to worry about picking out strange meats out of our meal. We went back to our hostel after that, fat and happy.

To be continued…