Barca Barca Barca!
The weather in Barcelona was more of the summer weather I’m
used to with a plus side, low humidity.
We didn’t arrive until Tuesday night, so we went right out to eat dinner
and look for pubs and clubs. It was a
bit of a failed night in that area, but still a good time.
Wednesday we went to, Barceloneta, the main touristy beach for the whole
day. It reminded me of a relaxing
segment of spring break. We got a volleyball,
racquets, and a tube…and of course ice cream.
(Actually I think that day we had ice cream as pre-breakfast as well). I may have my days mixed up, but after the
beach I think we walked along the boardwalk and then around the city a
bit. We found a park with a version of
teeter totters, a tire swing and ‘balancing’ balance beams.
Wednesday night Ciara, Síobhan and I were the
only ones that ended up out at the clubs.
We got in free and received two free drinks- woot!
Thursday we all went on cable cars that overlooked the city
and went up to a castle. We hopped off
at the castle and looked around for a bit, ate lunch, took some fun pictures,
and went back down the cable cars. The
plan was for us to split up, which we did, but half of us were to go to Las
Ramblas and walk around and half go to a water park in Barcelona. I was in the water park group, but it turned
out it wasn’t going to be open for another couple of days. Síobhan wanted to make the most of her trip
and wanted to do something adventurous, so we talked to the nice information
man and we went on a train to a non-touristy beach. It was so nice; it was pretty small and
secluded. Our plan was to rent paddle
boats, but we ended up mainly just sleeping.
After we finally got our stuff together and headed back in, we ate
dinner and got ready for a night out.
Everyone went out that night except Megan, because the poor thing was
burnt to a crisp. We found this row of
about 20 different clubs that were all free in, so we just went down the line
and went into each one. Some of the
clubs were quite interesting, nonetheless a good time.
Friday was Dόnal and Síobhan’s last day, so they didn’t really
have time to anything before hand. Our
plan was to go to the secluded beach, Garraf (or Giraffe as we called it). The train ride was about a half hour- about
the same as the Barceloneta beach. Dόnal and Síobhan left before us so they could get something to eat and leisurely
walk to the train station. We ended up
seeing them and saying good bye about four different times. At the grocery shop, the train station, the
ticket area, and the platform, we just didn’t want them to leave.
Our days at the beach were really just the same, go to the
beach, sleep on the beach, get in the water a couple times, head home make
dinner, and maybe go out. Friday we
stayed in though because we were all wrecked.
Saturday we went to Camp Nou, Parc Güell, and Las Ramblas. Saturday night we went out to the clubs and
before we knew it, it was almost 6am, so we decided we would just go home for
breakfast and head straight to the beach.
I slept in quite a few different places in the span of a few hours that day: on the metro home, in the sitting room for a
few minutes, at the train station, on the train, at the beach, and on the
platform between the train tracks. The
last one was because we beat the sun to the beach and it started raining while
we were sleeping. We debated a bit
before getting up, but then headed to the train. As we were waiting for the train, it started
to get sunnier, so we delayed our train ride back. (I was asleep during the
majority of these conversations- only waking up when a train zoomed past me and
scared me half to death, along with Breda’s screams). We ended up deciding it’d be worth it to
stay, yet still proceeded to lay on the platform for a half hour. It was cloudy but we all got a bit burnt that
day, except Iain. He was the only one
the whole trip to not get burnt at all. After our eventful previous night we decided to stay in Sunday night and rest up
before our journey to Port Aventura Monday.
Shona and Megan sat out for Port Aventura, so there was five
of us going to the theme park. We went
on all the roller coasters, some not quite as thrilling as the others. The park had Europe’s largest roller coaster,
which we went on about four or five times.
It was our favorite by far. The
highlight of the park was getting stuck on the log ride. I don’t think any of us are sure who’s idea
it was to go on the ride because during it we all hated and wanted it to end because
we were getting wet. All five of us went
in the same log. There were about four
hills to go down and when we got to the last one, the largest, we got stuck
right before our downhill expedition. When we realized we were actually stuck,
we were thrilled. We were hoping we
would get escorted down, so that we wouldn’t have to endure the massive splash. However, when they did come up, we didn’t get
escorted down by foot, just sent down in our log. There were about seven logs behind us when our
log started to move again. It was
actually hilarious.
Tuesday was our last day and another typical day at the
beach. We ended up never using the paddle
boats even though we had intended to from day 1.
All right, the last eventful story of the trip, and maybe
the best. However, I think those that
weren’t there will not appreciate it fully.
Our last night we wanted to be memorable, so we decided to go out to the
clubs. Breda, Iain, Lorraine, Shona, and
I were the victims (Ciara had left for her next destination in Portugal). We wanted to head out in time to get the
metro to the clubs and make it in free before midnight. We set out a little
after eleven, but did not make it too far.
We had climbed into the lift and intended to arrive on the first
floor. However, there was a lady that
had called the lift down to the parking garage with a key. She was giving us dirties, so we thought oh
we’ll just get out here. Bad idea
(arguably a good idea, though)….we couldn’t get back into the elevator because
we didn’t have the right kind of key. We were stuck in the parking garage. We
thought okay we’ll just call up to Megan and ask her to send the lift down to
us (this was actually after about twenty minutes of skipping around and taking
pictures on motorcycles) …BUT there was no button to the parking garage. She tried them all and failed, so was forced
to ask the neighbors to help (we were in a big apartment complex). One man apparently said that he would go get us,
but never did. So were walking around
trying to find an exit, but there is NO exit.
We tried to lift unscrew the garage door and lift it, but that wasn’t
really working out for us. Iain and I
were having the bants, while Breda, Lorraine, and Shona were a bit
nervous. Quote of the evening by Breda, “Megan,
we don’t know what to do. We are running
out of oxygen.” This was completely
false. We could actually go outside, but it was enclosed by walls and
apartments. It was quite stuffy down
there though, so Iain had to take his shirt off to cool down. Iain also used what little resources we had,
maybe 100mls/~.5 cups of water. He was doing pull
ups and his hands got greasy, so he needed to wash them.
Our escape was due Iain and his half-nakedness
craziness. After over an hour of being
down there we had no escape and thought we would actually be sleeping there all
night. So Iain went to the outside
segment and climbed up on this thin roof.
To make matters better Iain wasn’t wearing any pants because his jeans
were too restricting to climb up the wall.
So due to all the ruckus, this Spanish man came out seeing Iain on top of
a roof in only boxers and shoes and started yelling at him to get back. After a while we managed to communicate with
him that we were stuck with no way out, so the man came down and rescued
us. (Side note: at the start we had all
brought down bags of rubbish and recyclables to put in the bins. I don’t think very many actually made it to
the bin, but the man saw the bottles of alcohol and thought we had been
drinking down there.)
The only down side of Barcelona-I acquired food poisoning at some point in the trip,
but luckily it didn’t really hit me until Wednesday, the day we were leaving.
It was the best trip abroad from being abroad. Fun was had by all!
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