can't sleep [ so much on my mind ... not even funny]... so here goes some Spain action

By 9:00 on the 27^th I was sitting on the Air plane headed to Barcelona. As the landing gear pulled away from the ground and headed back into their cubby holes, the view of the city filled my tiny oval window. At that point my heart sank; this amazing city was no longer going to part of my daily life, but now just a memory.

On the plane I was seated next to two Canadian guys. One was Arabic and was taking up my entire arm rest, the other guy was an Asian wearing a Compton hat, and I kind of found that funny. His voice reminded me of that of a radio announcer for monster truck rallies. It was deep but at the same time, cheesy.

By the time the plane landed in, and our luggage was picked up, I was so excited to get out of the airport and to our hostel. After one bus ride, three metro stops, and three blocks of narrow sidewalk, we hade made it to Barcelona Dream Hostel, great name if a say so myself. Shortly after getting settled we managed to make our way to the Gran Via, a long mostly pedestrian street with shops, street performers, restaurants, and little kiosks selling every postcard known to man and random souvenirs ranging from giant pencils to stuffed cows. We found a place to eat and after chowing down and wandering some more we headed back to our hostel via the shadiest street ever. For the two and a half blocks Chris and I witnessed, prostitutes looking for their next pay check, drug dealers making their sales and the users reeling from their merciless high. I held close to my purse and kept my eyes from wandering too far from my feet hitting the pavement. Upon reaching our place I headed down to the lounge and while waiting for a computer, I watched the daily football highlights. It was then I met a man named Robert who was traveling with his daughter, both from Australia, however Robert seemed to have more of a Polish accent rather than one form the down under. I spent about 15 minutes talking to the pair and was glad to get some Barcelona tourist suggestions from them.

Upon recommendation from Robert and Clair, we visited the Andy Warhol exhibit next to the main Cathedral in the city Center. The exposition was pretty good with some of Warhol’s most famous works including the Marilyn Monroe, the Campbell’s soup dress, and Liza Minnelli.

The Barcelona cathedral was pretty nice it had horrible lighting so all of my pictures turned out kind of orangey yellow. However the pictures that I took while meandering through the cloister turned out beautiful. The clear blue sky and the green palm trees really gave me this feeling of paradise and peacefulness despite the crazy bustling world that lay just beyond the stone walls.

Another favorite museum of mine was the Picasso Museum. The pieces ranged from the beginning of his education to the completion of his life’s work. They had many of his sketch books and practice paintings. It was great to see that even the masters such as Picasso try their out ideas out more than just once and master pieces are made from hard work and practice, not just luck.

for the next few days we discovered what the city had to offer. One of the sites was the church of the sacred family. As it turns out the church was still under construction and had been for the last 100 some odd years. But I have to say it was most impressive to see the construction workers put this massive truly authentic cathedral together, block by block a piece by piece, as opposed to steel beams and dry wall like most of the new churches are build today. It was a new world church with the craftsmanship of the old world.

seriously what have they been doing for the last 100 years?

Next we hit up the beach, only after spending all day in a museum and in mies van der rohe’s Barcelona pavilion [which was pretty cool.] The beach, though nice, was packed! Every square inch filled with flesh. While we didn’t really spend all that much time at the beach we dipped our toes in the water and dodged sun bathers littering the hot sandy coast line.

Soon we made our way back to the hostel to get our selves sorted for our meeting with Luke and Mackenzie. Tonight would be our last night [Chris and I] in Barcelona, but the first night for the dynamic duo from Wichita. We meet up near the Grand Via and scouted out some good locations to have our last meal together. After finally settling for one of the outdoor venues we partook in some sangria and Spanish delicacies. Except for me, I choose to have what turned out to be the horrible, horrible cannelloni…I am a sucker for cannelloni. After we finished our meal together we walked back to our hostel and continued to have drinks on our roof top overlooking the beautiful city. It wouldn’t be too long before Chris and I had to get up at 6 in the morning to get to the airport for our early flight to Madrid, the last and final stop.