After a late entry into the Spanish metropolis of Barcelona, the first thing to be found in the morning light was food. A whole warehouse size market of every food to be imagined, to be more exact.
Knowing my feelings on food, you have to imagine I was pretty stoked on this vast array.
Just look at the dozens and dozens of empanadas available to me, what could be more exciting?
Ok, well I guess one thing was a bit more exciting than empanadas: BROOKE AND LINDSEY IN EUROPE!!!
"Oh happy day mama!"
Ladies of my own heart, we obviously spent the first hour of Barcelona Day 1 eating our way through the market.
The three amigas together again!
We set out aimlessly, and slightly mislead by an upside-down map, into the streets of Barcelona.
As I've said before, there are different types of traveling, largely depending on who you are traveling with, or not with, as the case may be. Traveling with your two life-long best friends, well that's a whole new level of traveling
That level of ridiculousness stated, it only took about two miles and reaching this interesting building for us to stop and realize we were just a wee bit lost.
Though on the positive side, when Squirt gets lost (unlike when Gilligan navigates) we end up in a fun, if wrong, location.
The first site, the Arenas de Barcelona, a former famous bull ring, now turned shopping mall.
Through the Venetian towers of the Plaça d'Espanya, the sites only grow in size and grandeur.
Dozens & dozens (seriously Barcelona has a serious abundance) of fountains line the walkway to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.
At the end of the path of unpretentious fountains, is the big daddy of them all, the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc. It's pretty impressive, but we'll come back to the "magic" part at a later date.
The thing with Barcelona (like many other European cities) it seems that "bigger is always better" is the motto to build by.
After a group decision to skip the actual interior of the art museum (I'm sorry art world, we had to penny pinch somewhere), we veered to the right to see what splendor laid beyond the ginormous museum.
There we found the 1992 Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys or as us English-speaking folk say, Barcelona's Olympic Stadium.
Did I mention there was a bit of a colossal theme going on, architecture wise?
You could practically see the whole city from our vantage.
Refueled, we started downward, pausing for a group self-timer shot that went pretty hilariously.
Snap one: trying to arrange bags out of sight of the photo.
Snap 2: Brooke knocking my purse of the ledge and slightly down what was luckily a hill and not a mountain.
Snap 3: me realizing this and Brooke & Lindsey finding it beyond hilarious.
Snap 4: smile for the dang camera before we have to jump down the hill to get the bag.
The bag was recovered, all was well, and we went to check out what these weird pole things were.
I'm going to be honest, I've not a clue what the purpose of these things are. Best conclusion: they exist to look cool.
As does Colombo. Or whoever this fellow is. His purpose is also to look snazzy.
I bet you can't guess what these strange wave things' purpose is? Again, aesthetics. Obviously.
Despite all these architecturally stylish things in abundance, there was also this guy floating in the bay. His purpose? Being creepy.
In case you haven't gathered, Barcelona is, more or less, known as one of the "cooler" travel destinations. The mare magnum shopping central seems like yet another building trying to emanate this reputation.
I can't say we didn't appreciate all the quirky, trendy architecture, but really, as everyone knows, Barcelona is really about the nightlife (and the Gaudi architecture, but that's another day).
Our snacks could no longer hold us over when dinner time rolled around, so we set out to find some of the tapas that Spain is so known for. We stumbled into Travel Bar, sucked in by the chalked up quotes that served as the decor.
We went for the full tapas plate of prosciutto, bread, croquettes, spicy green peppers, and our personal favorite for the week, patatas bravas.
After dinner, we were full, but not stuffed. We took a minute to walk around and look at an ornate cathedral and some art, while we decided what to do next.
Turning a corner behind the cathedral, we found a cute little cafe that promised dessert.
And if the food hadn't been enough to rope us in, the cheap pitchers of sangria they were advertising was.
We loitered at our table far longer than most, indulging in our dessert and sweet (dangerous) punch. It was maybe our best night in Barcelona, just talking and laughing, catching up on the months we'd been apart, and mostly just lamenting over the fact that we had somehow actually managed to get ourselves to Europe for the backpacking trip we always imagined.
Yours, Kenna
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