So last weekend, we managed to pull off a trip to Barcelona with eight people from our group. We got out of our Thursday night cooking class so we could make it to Madrid on time to catch the overnight train to Barcelona. The train from Salamanca to Madrid was fine; we all got to sit together. While waiting in the Madrid station, two Americans asked for help finding which platform to go to, and as it turns out, they were on the same train as us. When we got on the train, we could not find out seats. There was a dining room in our car, so there were only like 40 seats in it. The numbers went from 50 to about 90, and we had seats in the 100s. We kept walking back and forth between two cars asking the workers for help, but they just kept sending us back the other way. Everyone else on the train thought we were dumb American tourist that couldn’t find our seats. After about twenty minutes, one of the workers decides to actually show us where are seats were, and it would turn out that he could not find them either, mostly because they didn’t exist. After about 20 more minutes of waiting along with a worker and some security guards, a higher-up worker comes and upgrades us to the next class, which with the extra space turns out even better for us.
Rebecca and I planned to stay with her aunt’s good friend Ashleigh, who lives about an hour’s train ride from the center of the city. However, we decided to stay with the group on Friday until we left to go out to the house. From the train we got directly on a metro that took us to where their hostel was. Within 20 feet of the exit was a Starbucks, which several people had to go to, so that was breakfast. How American. Then it was off to the hostel to drop luggage off. Upon arriving, they find out that they booked one bed, not one 8-bed room. Luckily, the guy was nice enough to call around and ask other places he knew of if they had room, and when that didn’t work, he let them use the hostel’s internet to look for a hotel. After about an hour, they found a much more expensive hotel, a little bit further out, but it was a place to sleep. By the time we finished all of that, we walked around for a little bit and ended up eating lunch at the Hard Rock Café because some of the people haven’t quite grasped the idea of embracing the culture while we’re here, but I will admit I had an excellent burger. Then we walking some more, stopping to shop, mostly at store that are also in Salamanca, followed by ice cream and walking down Las Ramblas, a well-know street for its shopping (although with a little bit more Spanish culture) and beautiful buildings, ending up taking a coffee break in a mall.
At four, they decided they wanted to go back to their hotel and nap. I couldn’t say that Rebecca and I were disappointed that they left. To give you the full picture of why, we didn’t see them for the next two day, and when we got on the train to return to Salamanca, this is what they told us about their weekend: most of the group went out the first night, all of the group went out the second night, they ate at McDonald’s twice, Starbucks again, a few meals in their hotel, they saw the Sagrada Familia and spent a few hours down by the port. My only thought was you paid that much money to come to Barcelona and do nothing. Well Rebecca and I proceeded to give ourselves a self-tour of part of the city, during with we saw lots of pretty buildings and plazas, Parc de La Ciutadella, Hivernacle, the zoo, Mercat del Borne, Museu de la Xocolate, Palaus Meca, Cervelló and Dalmasses, Museu de Picasso (which we didn’t know it was there and just thought the street was absolutely packed), Arc de Triomf, Sant Pere, Monument a Casanova, Palau de la Música Catalana, and La Catedral.
Then we made our way out to the house we were staying at. About half of the hour train ride was along the Mediterranean Sea and was absolutely beautiful. So here’s the run down of the family that we fell in love with. Ashleigh is the mom. As it would turn out, she graduated from TCU and she had no idea about us and we had no idea about her. Go frogs! She use to own a gym before she had their daughter, and she’s a bit of the overbearing mother type. Her husband Alec was really goofy, and another random connection, his mom was from Salamanca. The two of them met in the States while he worked there for over 10 years. After they got married, they decided to move to Spain, and then a few years later had their daughter, Arielle, who is now three. She’s an only daughter, is absolutely precious, oh and knows three languages and is kind of learning three more. Their house is on a mountain over looking the Mediterranean Sea. Needless to say, I was a little jealous. Every time we came home, they had tapas (Spanish appetizers) waiting for us, and water and snacks on our bed. I’d relate it to a 4-star hotel plus some meals for the price of three €6 train tickets.
The next day we got up early to start our day. We went to the Sangrada Familia, which was enormous and very different from every other cathedral I’d seen. We wanted to go inside but the line went down the street and around the corner and was not moving, so we decided it would be better worth our time to go do the other things on our list (the night before we consulted the family on where we should go and got insider information). From there we took a metro to a train to a street cable car to a funicular to reach the top of a mountain on the outskirts of the city. Tibidabo, the mountain, had a beautiful church that Rebecca and I fell in love with. In the church, we took an elevator, stairs, and then more stairs to climb to the top were we stood at the feet of Jesus (there is a giant statue of Him on the top) and overlooked the entire city of Barcelona and the sea. It was such a God-filled place, and we did not want to leave, but after stopping for a quick lunch, we made out way back down the mountain to go to another mountain Montjuïc. There we saw Plaça Espanya, Plaça de Toros les Arenes (an old bull fighting ring that was converted to a shopping mall), took pictures outside of el Museu Nacional D’art de Catalunya, went to Poble Espanyol de Barcelona (which has replicas of many important site in Spain, so it’s like we have been everywhere, but it was a little bit of a let down, but we’re going to say it was just our low point in the day), Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, and finally Castell de Montjuïc (by way of air cable car).
When we got back to the house, Ashleigh and Arielle were already asleep, but of course there was delicious food and snacks waiting for us. Alec was watching the Spain vs. US fútbol game and asked us several times if we wanted to grab a beer and watch with him. I took him up on the game part and watched until half time, but by then it was after one, I was exhausted, and I still needed to shower. It didn’t really matter because the US ended losing pretty badly. The next morning they informed us that they wanted to take us to do stuff in the city that day until we needed to leave. It was then that Rebecca and I decided that we were like their grown-up children that never come home but when they do, the parents do everything they can to make it the best trip ever. First we went to Parc Güell, which was interesting but crowded. Then we drove around the city for a little bit. We saw the Estadi del FC Barcelona (it’s humongous!). Then we had lunch at a local place. For once, we weren’t in tourist central, but we kind of ruined that when we took a picture while leaving. But this place supposedly has the best patatas braves in the whole city, so it was legit. After driving around for a little bit more, we had coffee on top of the bullring converted into a shopping mall on mountain Montjuïc. They left us after that because Arielle was worn out after the long day. Rebecca and I went back to the main part of the city and walked around for a couple of hours before we headed to the train station to meet up with the rest of the group (so sad to be leaving…) . In all, it was an amazing weekend- a nice, quiet break from the rest of the group, feeling God’s presence in a dark country, and hitting all of the main spots in Barcelona in two and a half days. We seriously lucked out with how everything worked out perfectly.
No comments:
Post a Comment