With the three day weekends I have here, I need to take advantage of the cheap(er than the United States) and easy travel. My friends Ellie, Hannah, and I decided to take a weekend trip to Barcelona this past weekend and we jam packed the whole weekend.
We left early Friday morning and were in the city by 10 a.m. We immediately began a one hour trek through the city to Park Guell, where we got a sprawling view of the coastal city. The park is very artistic and there are lots of mosaic decorations that line the railings and mosaic buildings around the park.
After we went to Park Guell, we began another hike to the Picasso Museum (we walked to most places during this trip. In the two days we were there, we walked an average of 12 miles each day!). The Picasso Museum was very impressive. Picasso was a very innovative artist for his time and while he is famous for his paints of people’s faces, he was a talented artist in many mediums. Throughout the museum there were sculptures, paintings, and sketches. Like the Vatican, we were not allowed to take pictures of the art, but the rebellious side of me captured a few images of his art when I could.
There is also a famous giant cat statue in Barcelona so since we had time between the Picasso Museum and our check in time to our Airbnb, we headed to see the cat. To be completely honest, I still have no idea what this statue symbolizes, but it made me miss Olive.
If you are comparing our Airbnb this week to our Airbnb last week in Venice, it was in a much better location. Appearance and living condition wise, it was worse. It was a room inside of someone’s apartment and since there were three of us, the entire room was beds crammed together to have three people sleep on. It also did not have air conditioning, was on their fifth floor of a building with no elevator, and the shower wall was a window to outside. But as a group we decided we value location over living conditions since we just sleep and shower there. Glamorous college living.
After we checked into our Airbnb we headed over to La Basilica de Sagrada Familia. No pictures that I took can do the building justice. It was the most incredible structure that I have ever seen from the inside or the outside. It was designed by Gaudi and his tomb is in the building. La Sagrada Familia is expected to be finished in June of 2026 so hopefully someday I can go back to see the finished building.
What you don’t see in the tourist photos that are taken of La Sagrada Familia is that surrounding the building are a bunch of chain restaurants. My friends and I were overwhelmed by the amount of Starbucks coffee shops, McDonalds, and Burger Kings (the people of Barcelona love their Burger King). This is an embarrassing confession but for dinner we went to Five Guys and celebrated the American food and for the first time in three weeks we felt relatively normal.
I’m coming to realize that there is not a lot about this study abroad experience that feels normal. We were thrown into a foreign country. We don’t speak the language. We have never lived on our own before. We need to learn how to cook. We are unfamiliar with our surroundings and this city. We don’t know the culture. We are adjusting to college school work. We used to spend our weekends watching high school football games and now our weekends are filled with plane flights to other countries. Nothing about this experience is “normal” but I love it. I am so glad that I am here.
Later on that night, as we were walking back to our Airbnb, we passed by a department store and decided to pop in. It had an escalator in the back, so we decided to go up another floor, then realized there was another floor, and another, and another, and we kept going up until we were on the eleventh floor of the building. On the eleventh floor there was a sprawling food court and we got traditional churros to share as we overlooked the city of Barcelona.
We jam packed our second day almost as much as we had packed our first day. We started our morning with a “free” two hour walking tour of the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. I put free in quotation marks because a free tour is actually not free. You just pay what you think the tour guide deserves at the end of the tour. I think this is a pretty decent system because our tour guide was great so we paid her well. She was informative, loud, and had a good walking pace. College tours made me realize what makes a quality tour guide and she was very good one.
After our tour we started walking toward a very famous food market but got sidetracked when we spotted a Dunkin’ Donuts and all started jumping for joy in the middle of the street (literally). Fun fact: international Dunkin’ Donuts also sell beer along with coffee and donuts.
After Dunkin’ Donuts we went to the food market and then did some shopping. For dinner that night, we walked to the beach and ate dinner at an asian restaurant (we thought it was going to be traditional Barcelona food but then sat down outside and it was the outside seating area of the asian place…). It was delicious and we tried the sangria though and it was amazing!
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