Barcelona!

This past weekend a friend and I took a last-minute trip to Barcelona...I couldn't live in Spain without seeing it! We left Friday at noon and arrived at about 1 in Barcelona...needless to say we had a feeling it would be an adventure, we had booked a hostel room to be shared with 10 other people...strangers. Upon our arrival, my luggage was lost (great start to the adventure). Completely in Spanish I communicated with the gate-clerk to find out that my luggage was sent to Bilbao, Spain. They had it sent to my hostel, and it ended up arriving a few hours after we did! On Friday we explored the surrounding area of our hostel, which had a great location, in the heart of downtown Barcelona...we could see Gaudi Casa Mila from our window! A little background info on Antoni Gaudi: a Spanish architecht who practiced ArtNouveau style. His main monuments are located all throughout Barcelona, and are beautifully confusing and unique! Friday night we did a tapas/bar/discotech tour with the hostel that led us to a great discotech on the Mediterranean! It was very beautiful, and packed full of people! Friday night coming back to the hostel room, where the 10 other people were already sleeping was interesting to say the least. You know when you are trying to be quiet but the harder you try, the louder you are? That sums up our attempt.
After a hearty 4 hours of sleep we were up to get to see all that we could of Barcelona! We started with the Las Ramblas, the "main drag" for tourists in Barcelona. THere are weird little shops set up that sell parakeets...most of you know, I am not fond of the bird breed, but still cool to see. Also on Las Ramblas, are a TON of street performers, it is quite the spectacle, every 10 feet another interesting person trying to earn some money. Las Ramblas ends on the coast of the Mediterranean, there is a pier to walk along and as you look behind you, you see the skyling o f Barcelona and at the same time, cliffs, and mountains...very beautiful. There is the most amazing food market I have ever seen on Las Ramblas too, it is called La Boqueria. They sell everything and anything there, and it is the freshest of fresh! We saw a HUGE fish being butchered! After this we went to the Sagrada Familia; a church built by Gaudi. It was started in 1909...and is still under construction. It is one of the most confusing, strenuous to look at, pieces of architechture that I have ever encountered, but truly breathtaking. Barcelona is really a city of Architecture, you can see modern mixed with gothic, or Gaudi, or ancient structures also. Next on our list of adventures was Park Guell...also designed by Gaudi. This park is at the top of a huge hill in Barcelona...that we climbed! The views are breath-taking as is the park itself. There is a huge plaza like area that is full of street vendors, tourists, and bands! It is really cool. This was my favoite site in Barcelona. We took a much needed nap after the morning of sight-seeing and ended our day going to view the Gothic Neighborhood of Barcelona. Also very architechturally interesting. There are a lot fo cool shops around there. Since Barcelona is on the coast of the Med. we decided a seafood dinner was in order. We went to an area called Port Vell and had an authentic Catalunyan Paella...it was delish! We ended up staying up all night Saturdya because we had to catch a bus to an out-skirts airport at 3am. RyanAir, although very inexpensive, flys out of inconvenient airports most of the time. This trip was extremely short, but such an adventure and I loved every minute of it!