Five Days in Barcelona

Mehek and I at Gaudi's Park Guell in Barcelona

Mehek, Dan, Jürgen, Janine and I all went to Barcelona recently. We had a wonderful time enjoying the warm weather and sunshine. We got some nice souvenirs, saw the Mediterranean Sea, and even ate a little seafood.

Day 1, Tuesday:

We took the train from Paderborn to the Dortmund airport, and then we flew to Barcelona. We took a bus from the airport to one of the main town squares and wandered around with our luggage looking for the office to pick up our apartment keys. That was a fun little adventure. After getting the keys, we hiked to our apartment. Yeah, it was really in the ghetto. It was on a dead end street next to a park. With the number of needles and people lying down on the sidewalk in the park at night, we figured that heroin was the recreation of choice in that neighborhood. A great place for tourists. It was, however, only two blocks of the major tourist strip. So that was pretty nice. We abandoned the apartment after a while to get some dinner. There was an Indian restaurant around the corner from our place, so we went there. Since none of us had much Spanish speaking under our belt, Mehek tried something else. She spoke Urdu (Hindi something). She ordered our dinner for us and later when we went shopping most of the souvenir shops were owned by people who also spoke Urdu. Mostly we spoke to them in English, but when ever they would talk amongst themselves, Mehek could understand them. Then she would heckle with them over prices saying that she was Pakistani and that their prices were just too expensive. We got pretty good deals on everything we bought.

Day 2, Wednesday:

We started our “photo tour” with La Cathedral then went to the Arc of Triumph, Sagrada Familia (a new cathedral by Gaudi still not quite finished) and a few other houses, and points of interest. This took most of our day, so afterwards we went back to out apartment for a bit. Janine and I stayed there and Jürgen, Dan and Mehek went out on the strip to see a bit of nightlife. Dan and Mehek ordered sangria at a little café on the strip and when it came it was in a fish bowl sized glass. One for each of them. The also paid 10 euros for them. They were surprised about both the size and the price, so they brought half of it home and Janine tried to drink some, but it wasn’t great sangria, just the cheap stuff they sell to the tourists.

Day 3, Thursday:

We toured the winding road through the Olympic quarter and saw arenas and the old torch and all kinds of Olympic related stuff. It was pretty interesting. Dan and Jürgen decided they wanted to go up one of the mountains (by train) to see an old fortress and we girls decided to go shopping on the pier. After we met up with the guys again we all had dinner at a Tapas bar. We’d done a lot of walking that day, so we decided to stay in for the night. Mehek didn’t feel well anyway.

Day 4, Friday:

This was the day we went to Park Guell. It’s a really cool park all designed by Gaudi. I’ve got some great pictures of it. We spent most of the morning hiking up part of a mountain to get there and then spend a couple of hours enjoying the park. After that we got lunch and climbed the rest of the way (or as far as we could go on foot) to a train which was supposed to take us to the top to see a great view of the city, but the train was closed. At this point, Mehek felt quit sick and she and I went back to the apartment while Dan Jürgen and Janine went to the beach. Mehek laid down then we took a pair of pants (which she’d bought on the pier) back because she grabbed the wrong size. After returning her pants, we asked some guy at a smoothie bar to tell us where to get a good Spanish meal. He pointed us in the right direction and we had a great seafood/paella dinner. We paid quite a bit for it, but most of the places we’d eaten at all week didn’t really give us enough food for a the walking we’d done, so it was nice to be really full with something that actually had substance.

Day 5, Saturday:

Mehek was feeling worse, so all we did was pack up and go to the airport. Nothing much exciting about that, but it was part of the journey.

One week later:

Mehek is still a little sick, but I took her to a doctor yesterday and they gave her some medication and told her to come back on Monday if she’s not well by then. She feels better, but she’s still not healthy. I guess sometimes that’s the price you pay for having a vacation.