Barcelona, Spain //

Oh hey hi there hello. It's Amy, remember me? Yeah, I used to blog here back in the old days. That was, hmm, two months ago? Only 2015 kids remember. So, just to get warmed up again. I'm going to re-introduce y'all to my blog with a quick post about my recent(ish) trip to Barcelona, Spain. I can almost feel your excitement flooding through my screen. Almost, not quite, but we're getting there.

Not too long ago, it was my Dad's birthday.  Our last holiday had been in August, with only little trips to Wales and the south of England to keep the wanderlust at bay - and wanderlust had hit both my mother and I pretty bad. So, as a "birthday present" to my father (although mainly for my mum and I because he prefers colder climates) we booked a weekend away in Barcelona. Hopefully, by now you all know the story about my parents meeting in Tenerife, a small Spanish island, and my near miss at being an official-born Spaniard, and if you don't, well frankly you should pay more attention. Gosh. 

When I went away to Barcelona, I decided to take notes on a small notebook that I carried around with me, so that when I got home I could organise them into something I could comprehend. However, guess who didn't do that until everything had been forgotten? I'm  currently left with notes saying, I quote, "security, vodka, battle (flaus), windows less time than No Tears, 20 mins?!" So let's see how much I can distinguish out of those.

So, we all awoke early on Friday, took a taxi down to Gatwick Airport (driven by my uncle, v convenient), where we waited for our plane to get ready. During our wait, I managed to run over one guy's foot with my suitcase and nearly trip up over someone else's myself, so that was a brilliant start. We soon boarded, and after only a mere few hours (almost half than it would take for me to take a coach to Swansea) we were in the West of Europe, excited and anticipating my first time in mainland Spain.

The first thing I noticed about Barcelona was the vast amount of street art visible on almost every shutter we passed. In fact, one of my favourite things about just roaming the side streets was seeing modern graffiti on doors made in probably the 1920s, as it clashed really artistically. Our hotel apartment was situated in a little corner off Las Ramblas, which is a very tourist-esque 'outside mall' with a boqueria at one end and the gothic quarters at the other, and we were at the centre of street performers and native Spaniards alike. We had a small balcony which gave us a cute view of the buzzing atmosphere below, which was complete with a water fountain that seemed to be a meeting place for the locals. Breakfast was served each morning in the basement of the hotel - a dark, wide room with towering ceilings, which although would have been a perfect set for a horror movie, also turned into a bar in the evening.

Our first evening in Barcelona was spent with us just trying to get a hold of where we were in this famous city. We ate at a small restaurant in the square below where we met some people from Ohio and California who were inclined to be as enthusiastic as possible about my dreams to travel to Oregon, asking about football teams and other things I have no support for, whilst I gorged on some definitely-not-lactose-free churros and dip. 

One of the main reasons that my family and I wanted to visit Barcelona in particular was so that we could see Gaudi's work in real life. For those of you who don't know, Antoni Gaudi was a Catalan architect who designed the most beautiful gothic buildings in Barcelona, and had all these great, incredibly intricate ideas for towers and spirals that he never got to see finished. So, when we walked down to a few of his most famous creations, we were definitely disappointed. Although the work was fantastic, all the crates and scaffoldings that were being used to complete the work completely obstructed the view. Of course, this was to be expected as certain buildings like the Sagrada Familia are too complicated to finish in a mere few years, but we had thought that to some degree we would be able to appreciate all the blood, sweat and tears put into the flawlessly designed architecture. Saying that, what we did see was fantastic, with every little detail expertly crafted into beautiful little projects of their own, and if any of you guys get a chance to visit Barcelona, you can't miss Gaudi.

As some of you might know, Spanish is probably my favourite language in the world (including variants like Italian and Mexican), because I love the way that the words roll off your tongue. I've been studying Castilian, my most favourite dialect, and like to think that I'm half way to becoming fluent. So, when one evening whilst out at dinner, I asked for the bill once we'd finished, only to call it "la cincuenta" instead of "la cuenta", meaning that I'd actually asked for "a fifty". The waiter stared at me whilst my family and the people we'd been chatting to, just laughed. It wasn't my best showcase of the language.

Whilst out for dinner one night, we met a really nice Ukranian woman, who actually works in the travel industry (which is the dream - to travel and get paid for it). She told us some truly heart-wrenching stories about the fright she feels every time someone knocks on her front door, due to the current ongoing war, as she fears there will be an official standing there calling her husband out to fight. It was so interesting talking to her and finding out more about her story, and at the end of the conversation I gave her one of my business cards so that we can stay in touch.

Barcelona is commonly known as the 'city of art', and a much more relaxed version of its sister, Madrid. Due to this hazy, creative atmosphere that constantly surrounded us, we visited every museum and gallery and Gaudi building that we could. A lot of the simple architecture reminded me of that in other cities like Cardiff and even some parts of London, with the wooden beams and incredible, underrated detail in the frames, and they all seemed to share a very vintage-esque, grunge aesthetic. This meant that I had three times more photos of bricks and cement that I had meant to. We went into, I think, two cathedrals, with both having that classic look about them that you would expect of a Spanish 'misa'. The detail in the stained glass windows and roof were absolutely beautiful, a perfect staple of this little city. 

As you all know, Spanish is famous for its flamenco, a style of music played with guitars, with dancers twirling and clapping, and, as the classic tourists that my family and I are, we went to watch the local dances one evening. The good thing about the flamenco that we saw was that it wasn't holidaymaker-orientated, meaning that it was performed as a true portrayal of Spanish culture, not with plastic dresses and over-played Enrique Iglesias songs. The main dancer was a true professional and danced absolutely flawlessly, whilst the band behind her rolled their r's and hit the high notes against their guitars. I could have watched the show over and over again.

In downtown Barcelona, there is a small chocolate shop called 'Be Chocolat', where truffles and bars are made in front of you (which is always a nice touch), and I can't recommend it enough. Despite the fact that I'm lactose intolerant, I had great fun gouging on the mounds of chocolate truffles that we had bought. There are also lots of small, dainty shops filled with brightly coloured pots and handmade souvenirs, that really differ from your average tourist-in-mind businesses. I tasted some (slightly awful) tea in a little tea shop, and took some photos with the vibrant and bold person-sized-people-models, and it was a good day. We passed many, many street performers, many advertising their CDs and websites, giving Barcelona its over personal background music.

On our final evening, after having dinner at Las Ramblas, we went down to Barcelona marina as the sun was setting. I absolutely adore boats and anything ocean-related, and it was nice having a stroll down by the water as a warm breeze ruffled our hair and hugged our bodies like sleeves. It could have been improved by some candle-lit cafes overlooking the water, but all in all it was a cute little place to journey to, which I could imagine walking down to quite often just to admire the beauty of sunset-filled waves.

We left early enough to catch the Barcelona sunrise as we boarded the coach back to the aeroplane, which was truly stunning, as it lit up the beautiful architecture and palm trees around us. The pinkish haze of the busy city was a truly great vision to end the trip on.

All in all, I really enjoyed my time in Barcelona, and I would definitely go back there, even if only to check out places like Park Guell. I plan on getting back into regular blogging, so you should be seeing that from now on, and I'm sorry for having left for centuries. So, again, as always,

Have a great day, y'all!

Amy~~

Also, a sidenote - the layout of these photos is awful, I know, but sh, if we don't pay attention to it then maybe it'll just go away