¿Que hacemos en Barcelona?

Okay, I´ll be honest. I wrote that title just because I really wanted to use the upside down question mark that´s on the hotel keyboard in Barcelona. ¿How fun is that?

This will be a picture-less post, unfortunately, because the WiFi is horrible here, which means I´m stuck using the hotel's computer. Pictures will have to wait until we´re back in Paris. Even so, I wanted to post a quick update about our time in Barcelona so far.

Our plane landed in Barcelona yesterday at 9pm. Trevor researched the best options for getting to our hotel from the airport, and decided that the quickest and most economical option would be to take the train and then transfer to the metro. We were a bit confused at first, but I busted out my Spanish and asked somebody for help. Whew...even though my Spanish is definitely a little rusty, I managed to get my point across, and even incorporated a bit of Spanish lisp on my ¨gracias¨ (only on the ¨c¨ of course). When the train arrived at our stop, we got off and looked for our metro correspondence. Strangely, there were no signs to get to the metro, only signs to exit. So we followed those, figuring that they would somehow lead us to the metro. No such luck! We ended up on the street, at the top of an escalator, with the stairs to go back into the train station closed off by a gate (because it was already 10:40pm at this point, and the last train was at 10:30). We felt a little lost, but eventually found the metro entrance we were looking for. Apparently, the train and metro aren´t connected in the way they are in Paris. But, we found our metro line and barely made it on because of the hoards of people dressed up in their clubbing clothes who were just getting ready to start their night. It was a bit surreal, even though I was expecting Barcelona to be party central.

We ended up finding out hotel around 11:30pm, checked in, got settled, and ventured out to find a place for dinner. Had we been travelling to any other city, we probably would have eaten before leaving, but we had heard that restaurants don´t start serving dinner until 9pm here, so we knew we´d find something when we got in. As soon as we turned the corner from our hotel, we saw a long avenue, with an island in the middle of the road, filled with tables, which were filled with people. The most amazing part was that there were people of all ages, including some very small children, just sitting down to dinner...at 11:45pm. Wow.

We chose a tapas place, ordered some food and enjoyed. The prices were much cheaper than Paris, which was a welcomed break (we´re talking 1,90 € for a beer...not too shabby). The food was okay- nothing fancy, but not bad- and the service was just like in France. They serve you and then leave you alone. Overall, we really enjoyed the first night!

We finally went to sleep at 1:30am, and rolled out of bed at 11am this morning. Quite a different pace of life! We found a cafe near our hotel and had some breakfast at noon (where several locals were also enjoying breakfast!) and walked to a nearby beach to stroll around and people-watch. After a while, we sat down at a beach-side cafe to have a drink (sangria!). Then we walked around the city, took pictures in a big, beautiful park, and pretty much had a very relaxing day. Now (7:15pm), we´re heading up to the pool for a swim and will probably go have dinner in a couple of hours. Ahhh...this definitely feels like vacation!