Barcelona

This marathon day started nice and early at our apartment in San Sebastian. After putting the final touches on our packing we headed out to our airport transfer and ended up at the tiny San Sebastian airport with enough time before our flight for breakfast. When we finished eating Hannah and I fell back asleep on the table, desperate for the sleep our alarm clock stole from us. Eventually we were woken up to get through security and onto our flight going to Barcelona. After about an hour we landed and waited for what seemed like ages for our shuttle to arrive to take us to our hotel. Once we were at our hotel we dropped off our luggage since our room wasn’t ready (it was 10 am) and started to plan out our day. We knew we had a bike tour at 2:15, but we weren’t sure what to do before then. We tried to eat lunch at the hotel, but there weren't any options for me, so we moved eating to the top of our priority list in our planning. We found a vegetarian place on yelp that was relatively close to Barcelona’s olympic area so we hopped in a cab and left for the day. We had some time to kill once we did arrive at the restaurant because it didn’t open for thirty minutes. We ended up walking around and figuring out where the nearest metro station was. We made a plan to go two stops down the line to get to the Olympic Area after we ate and then go another two stops to get to our tour around 2. With that plan in mind we headed back to the restaurant and still had about five minutes before it opened. Hannah tried the door, but she couldn’t opened it so we just stood outside and waited. Minutes ticked by and eventually it was 12:32. I decided to try the door again to see if it unlocked without us noticing and it opened. When we got inside we saw people in the restaurant that we didn’t see walk in, which means we were just standing outside of an unlocked door for seven minutes… whoops. Apparently everyone inside could see us and was laughing at us when we finally got in.

We sat down and started ordering, each getting an appetizer and main meal because that was the system the restaurant had. We ended up ordering basically two meals each because of the size on each dish. we gorged ourselves and barely made a dent. More than full, we hopped on the subway according to our plan and headed to the olympic area. We did’t have much time, but decided to test out our transportation cards by using the tram that actually took us all of the way to the olympic area. When we got there we had about five minutes and we didn’t really see much before we had to go back down. Using the tram was the adventure I suppose in that outing. We rode the tram back to the metro and rode that to our tour meeting place.

I was very excited when we got to the bike place and found that our group was just the four of us and that we would be riding on ebikes, which are basically normal bikes that help you petal. The first few minutes on the bikes were a nightmare of weaving in and out of pedestrians. After we got out of pedestrian central though, it was so much fun. It felt like the bike was pushing us up the hills and down the streets. We were lucky enough to get to go back to the olympic arena on our tour and really see it. We saw the diving and swimming area, basketball court, track/soccer field, torch, and later the olympic village. Beyond the olympic hubbub we got to see the botanical gardens, beach, the designer clothes and food section of Barcelona, the gothic section. Between stops we also wen

t through an enormous park that held the World Fair over 100 years ago. There was a beautiful fountain in the park that was made for the World Fair to make the park more beautiful, which it certainly did. Our tour wrapped up and we brought our bikes back to the shop.

Since we only had one day in Barcelona we decided to make the most of it and take the metro directly to the famous La Sagrada Familia Church, which is still under construction. The church’s original design had absolutely no straight lines and the old side of the church certainly fit the plan. It had pillars like palm trees, beetles on the doors, fruit sticking out of the top, and not a single straight line that I could see. The church was gigantic too. The newer side, which we think is still being constructed, had many straight lines and was led by a different architect after the original one died. We think the reason there were so many straight lines was because it isn’t finished yet and only the rough detail is there. I suppose we will know in 9 years, when it is predicted the church will be complete. When it is finished it will be very interesting because the church is unlike any other church I’ve seen. Typical churches of this one’s size are usually very old and all of them start to look the same after being to a few. This one, however, was a nice break from that with its projecting stained glass windows, pillar forest, and ever present curves. After wandering and wondering for a bit we walked out of the church and reentered through its crypt. I think this area is used more for worshipping than the one above because there were people praying and a group singing, which was different than above, where there was no one but tourists, security, and construction workers. Tuckered out from our long day we decided to hit up a Mexican food restaurant, which I in no way regretted. I got some delicious tacos and some guacamole to subdue my avocado withdrawal. Full and exhausted, the metro took us back to our hotel. We still hadn’t seen our room so when we walked in and found an enormous sitting area with two rooms off of it I was really happy. I was even more happy to see the first two king beds of the trip. With such a huge bed there was nothing I could want to do but sleep, so I did.