Barcelona, Spain... or is it Catalonia?

Day 5 (continued):

Our train ride to Barcelona was a quick 3 hour ride because we took one of the fast trains that could go up to 186 mph! And it was actually quite interesting ride as well. Sarah accidently dropped my sunglasses on me while she was shuffling luggage around and I was sound asleep. I startled awake and apparently had the most terrifying look on my face and was asking so seriously if we passed our train stop, what was going on, was I okay, etc all rapid fire style. Everyone was so confused and got scared because of my reaction. Afterwards they said it was one of the biggest overreactions they had ever seen haha.

Then something even weirder happened. Sarah went to the bathroom and came back out with a mixture of concern and laughter… but she was making a scene she was being so loud! Her first words “The toilet exploded on me!” and oh man it did! The blue liquid inside of the toilet was all over her legs, destroyed her shoes, and was all over the floor and toilet seat in the bathroom. And she tried to get it off, but it was essentially died into her skin for a day or so. Never seen anything like that happen before, it was so funny I was crying and she laughed it off too!

We arrived in Barcelona around 9 that night and went straight to our hostel to check in. We got in, dropped our luggage off, had a quick bite to eat, and then passed out. An early night with relaxation was what our bodies really needed.

Day 6:

 This day was very interesting. It was our first full day in Barcelona and it was raining for most of the morning and into part of the afternoon :/ Also, something we had not planned is we happened to be there on the day of La Independenzia de Catolina, which is a holiday in Barcelona and throughout Catolina (I’ll explain it in just a bit.)

So since it was a big holiday that meant every store was closed. We walked around for most of that morning, but it was hard to find stuff to do. It was a little offsetting, but nothing we could do about it.

 But… this day happened to be the best possible day to be in Barcelona! September 11^th has a whole different meaning here, it is la Diada Nacional de Cataluña .We heard there was a big “political rally” as it was translated to us, so we headed towards the main square called Plaça de Cataluña to check it out. 

There started out being a only handful of people around so we stood in the middle of it waiting for whatever was supposed to happen. Within a half our or so, it got more and more crowded, until it was packed with people all wearing the Catalan flag on their backs like a cape. And we found our selves right in the middle of it… literally right in the middle.

 

I had at the time mistakenly thought it was going to be much like a 4^th of July celebration in USA because everyone was talking about la Independencia de Cataluña and screaming chants of it… expect here in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, they were still fighting for their independence from Spain. They do not consider themselves part of Spain. They consider themselves Catalans and have been fighting for their own nation for decades. They speak their own language, have their own culture, have their own history and traditions.

A choir of students and instruments proudly blared their national anthem as everyone held up their flags. At one point during the demonstration, a recorded video of the speech by Pablo Casals called "I am a Catalan" played. When it did, I looked up and saw people around me getting emotional and crying. It made me get emotional to see the passion everyone had. I imagined this video being played to young children throughout their school years and every year at these political rallies. I was so moved. (And to anyone reading my blog, I highly recommend watching this video online. So much can be learned from just this one speech.)

It was one of those rare once and a lifetime experiences. I’ve been to plenty of Virginia Tech football games and felt a part of the immense amount of pride we have, but this was nothing like it. I have never seen a group of people have that much pride in their homeland and striving for that big of collective a goal. The hundreds of thousands people of Catalonia joined hands to form a human chain 250 miles long, from the border of neighboring France to the region of Valencia. It is their call for Madrid to recognize Catalan Independence.

Even though at the time I didn’t understand all that was going on, I could not have been more grateful to be apart of it. They fight peacefully in their struggle for independence. I hope as more people learn about their situation and pressure continues to be put on Spain, that Catalonia will find itself to be an independent nation.

After the main demonstrations, we left the area to see a bit more of the city. What was awesome about the day is there were live concerts all around the city since it was a special day! Jenny and I stopped by one of them for a bit, then took a walk to Barcelona’s most famous central park called Parc de la Ciutadella. There was a section with a lake people were boating in and also a beautiful, elaborate cascade fountain we spent some time at. 

We all met up later and had dinner together. The place we went happened to have cheap dinner deals only for Wednesday nights! Again we lucked out! I got three yummy little sandwiches (part of their tapas menu!) and a big glass of sangria.

Our hostel had a pub crawl set up for those who stayed there and we decided to go out with them! It’s just easier than trying to figure out what to do at night in a city we don’t know. Our first stop was a bar called The Black Sheep and then to a club called Razzmatazz. It definitely was a crazy, fun night and we all had a good time!

Day 7:

Today we had two main sites we wanted to see: La Sagrada Familia and Park Güell. First we traveled by metro to La Sagrada Familia. Boy, it was a long wait to get in. But we took turns grabbing lunch at a shop nearby, so the wait really wasn’t too bad. And it was definitely worth it. 

Officially a basilica, the church has been under construction for more than 130 years. It began in 1882 and the expected completion date isn’t until 2041. The church was Antoní Gaudí’s project; meaning extravagant and colorful designs would be throughout the whole church.

Just trying to fit the outside of the church in a picture was a struggle… it was huge and intimidating. By far the biggest one we’ve seen. And the construction going on in the background is pretty evident in my pictures.

  

  

Once we got inside, it was breathtaking. I was truly in a place of beauty. Expansive, high ceilings with columns were staggered all throughout the inside. Gaudí made sure when he was designing to have plenty of windows for light and color. The stain glass was so artistically and masterfully blended from color to color. What I thought was interesting about this church was evident symmetry with the column structures and window spaces, but none of them were mirror copies with the other side. So looking at two windows directly across from each other, the stained glass might be fadings of red, orange, and yellow on one side, while the other side was green, blue, and purple. And the glass didn’t form any pictures, just beautiful colors. We easily spent an hour or two in there, and my neck started hurting from looking up at the columns, ceilings, and high windows haha.

Afterwards, we went to Park Güell! Another famous design of Gaudí, this park had so many different and wonderful elements to it. We walked through paths and different plant life; it was very relaxing.  

Our first stop was to the top of all the paths in order to reach a beautiful overlook of the city. I sat there for a while just looking out at it all.

 

We then walked to the bottom of a park… and I felt like I had entered candy land. There were buildings with some of the weirdest structures and bright tiles on them and the pathways. It was so bizarre haha but really cool at the same time!

We had wanted to go to the beach after Park Güell, but unfortunately we had run out of time… so what did we do with the time we had?! Got churros and chocolate!!!! Oh my gosh, they were so divine. Melt in your mouth perfection!

 

Before going back to our hostel, Sarah and I did some shopping along the famous Las Ramblas! Full of people and noise, this day was so much livelier than the day before and we both got a few things :)

We went back to our hostel then to get ready for the night. Our first stop of the night was the Magic Fountain Show!! I had looked up earlier what to do in Barcelona and online it said the Magic Fountains was a must see. Luckily we were there on a Thursday night so we could see them!

They were much like the fountains at the Bellagio in Las Vegas as far as timing the fountains with music, but was different is this show included colors. They had showings every half an hour that were basically back to back. The one we saw all of was with pop American music, so it was awesome we could sing along and were really into it! We caught a little bit of the next showing as well, and it was some classic oldies music from America!

 

We had wanted to go to a Flamenco show that night as well, but it just didn’t work out for us… but we did have some great plans for the night. We met up with our whole group again from Riva!! There were about 20 of us that all got to meet up in Barcelona for the night! We went to this bar called Il Gatto Nero (The Black Cat... it had pictures of cats all throughout the inside.) Something that sets this bar apart from others, it has over 200 different shots! It was funny to look on the wall and read some of their names, like Finding Nemo, Osama Bin Laden, and so many other random titles. That was again a really fun night because we were all together and were able to tell one another about our travels thus far! 

Barcelona was a very eye opening experience. I learned so much about the city and its culture, things I had never even heard about before. The sights we saw were amazing and overall I really enjoyed my time here! It is an overwhelming big city, but we saw what we could and had a fun time :)