#35. Barcelona

(i like the bassist! left one with white fedora)

at 2 a.m we arrived at Barcelona. thanks to Ryanair, the most punctual airline, we got to search our hotel in a dangerous time of the night. all the people that boarded on our plane mostly also had to take the same night bus as us, even the cabin crews so it was a safe ride until i read the instruction on 'how to get to the hotel' page. stop a the first bus stop near the police station. we did that. all the people inside the bus looked at us curiously and i think i know why. the first bus stop was really close to the airport, logically there'd be nothing to find near it. honestly, we're also affraid that we got off the wrop stop but the stop was near a police station, so maybe we're on the right track.

we walked the road according to the map i printed at home and after a view confusing blocks there's a man walking his dog (at 2 a.m). he's wearing his pajamas and his wife's sandals (unless his taste was a beady sandals with flower as decoration) and his little dong that wont stop barking at strangers. he tried to calm that dog though. so we asked him about our hotel. in English. he answered in Spanish. cute thing was we talked! of course the body language involved but we talked. i think what he was saying was that he needed the number so that he could help us, but we had no number, then he said "if you have no number how could i help you? without numbers you'd be blind." but he tried his best to show us the right path before he turned to his home. muchas grasias senyor!!

we were lost for about two blocks. Tell you what, being lost during the day was fun, during the night was terrifying. we also got our huge backpacks on our back and both of us had planned to put it down and run as fast as we can in case the worst thing happened.

we found our hotel 15 minutes later. and it's a hotel. i remembered mia looked astonish and ask "Lit, how much do we have to pay for this? can we afford it?" the answer was it cost 23 euro a night for one person. for that amount of money we got: nice welcoming doorman and reception, private bedroom with airconditioner and private bathroom, nice beds, towels, linens, balcony, breakfast (and not just the standart coffee-milk-bread-breakfast, real breakfast!), nice guidance from the receptionist to visit Barcelona. the best hotel in this trip really. it's quite far from the city but so what? it only took us 40 minutes and 1.50 euro to get to the city center. not a big deal, right?!

we went to parc guël first. turned out Barcelona was famous for one of it's artist namen Gaudi. i don't really know what he's done actually, but i think it involved a lot of mozaic pattern with ceramic (please, correct me if i'm wrong for i haven't research anything about this guy). this park located a bit to the north and it's a hill. we could see the whole Barcelona from above and it was amazing! to get there (up there) we were accomodated with escalators, maybe back in the days the tourists are complaining a lot about this so the escalator's finally featured. but to get down, stairs'all we had.

next stop was Sangrada Familia. it's a bit too small compare to the one i have in mind. it didn't really wowed me so i'll move on to the next thing, the casa-something in Catalunya. this building's qiute famous, i think Samantha Brown has been there before because it looked familiar to me. i think this building is what Gaudi's style's all about. next to this building was a pavement, and there's a pledge on it said "the modernism walk".

Mia's a big spender today, she bought a Swatch watch. after she cleaned up her wallet we walk through Rambla. a famous street (don't ask me why) that located right at the end of Catalunya. one thing i just realized, not only the British guys that fit my eyes, the Spanish does too! there're good looking, really. (for my eyes i choose Spanish, for my sanity and fun i choose Italian, for my ears and eyes i choose British. yeah, i'm greedy.)

it's a long day for us, because we only got today to visit Barcelona. we found a chinese restaurant on our way to Rambla and had a luxurious dinner contained RICE! at night we finished Rambla with a glass of Mojito by the sidewalk, then to the marina, then home. i seriously love our hotel.