16 May Barcelona and Gaudi designs

Lets start this entry by saying that we ate complimentary dinner in teh hostel (pasta in olive oil witih applies in it). We ate with our new Barcelona friends Jae and Alicia. I met Jae because he was wearing a GT basketball shirt earlier in the night (a GT grad!!). He and Alicia were traveling alone and met that day. They toured the old city (basically the same thing we did). At 9.30pm all of us left for a pub crawl. Ethan and I went back to the hostel (a good walk away) after 4 bars. It would have been nice to have stayed out later, but I didn´t quite know where I was on the harbor, and it was the time of the night when people start to hookup, so the group dynamics were changing. It was a fun evening of course and I had wanted to go out in Barcelona. They were good people to go out with too.

Then the next morning I ran into Jae at breakfast. Then Jae, Alicia, Vlad (from the bars the night before), Ethan and I went an a whole day of Gaudi. We started at the unfinished Sangrata Familia which was strange looking for a church, but would be amazing if it were finished. I don´t think it ever will be. Then we went to la Casa Mila which was also designed by Gaudi. It was an inner city apartment complex that took 40 years to build. The geometry was amazing! We saw that other Gaudi house from the outside but didn´t go in since it was 13 € and would probably be similar to the other. By this point we were starving, after walking through an expensive area for a while we got on the Metro to go eat in Parc Guell (also a Gaudi design). We went in a supermarket and bought sandwich stuff, took it up to the top (400 m up mostly be escalator) and ate. The picnic was very nice, filling, and very needed by that point!

We went to the beach for a few hours. Ate dinner at a small bar like place just for the paella they advertised. It was not good. It came out of a freezer in the main room (it was hidden under the ice cream!). Most other paella places in the city must serve the same frozen food since they all have the same pictures on display.

We traveled everywhere either on Metro or on foot. Its safe to say that we walked four miles that day.

Random thoughts:
-rick steves was in Barcelona the day before this. at dinner the night before a girl had a picture of him here and the whole excited to see him filming story
-cars in barcelona are larger than london and paris. more sedans and 4 door cars. i have even seen 2 minivans. many more audi´s, bmws´s, and mercedes too (and not just the small hatchbacks that were so common before).
-the spanish people are the plumpest yet but still not fat
-the city is much calmer feeling than london or paris, slower paced is nice
-a liter of wine can cost about 3 € and is cheap per glass in a restaurant
-i am really glad to have traveled with other people for a few days in barcelona. it was more like my previous trip abroad
-metro is much cleaner than paris´
-there were naked men on the beach and one walking down the street, but he looked like he had drawn in a speedo on his behind. it was very strange.
-weather has been beautiful here. i would say in the 70s. they use celcius
-we hung out in the lounge of the hostel last night. our feet were tired, and it was quite a busy place. there was a huge soccer game for spain on too, so that added extra commotion.