Checked in to our hostel, Sant Jordi Diagonal, (there are 5 Sant Jordi hostels in Barcelona that do pub crawls together) which was a very nice place but had seemingly no atmosphere. They did a pub crawl every night at 11pm but before then nobody was in the common rooms, people just turned up at reception at 11, which seemed odd after our previous experiences where everyone would hang out and pre drink together. I call it a pub crawl but in reality it was 1 bar where the people from each Sant Jordi hostel met up and then everyone going to a club about 1:30-2.
Spent the afternoon watching European Championship football with our roommate Josh and a crazy black frenchman.
Went on the pub crawl alone, as Lewis was working and Macky tired... Befriended a group of 4 Irish blokes from the hostel on the walk to the bar and when we arrived we discovered it empty aside from us. We grabbed some pints and a booth and played a drinking version of 20 questions, only to discover the bar suddenly full when we went for the next round. Got separated at the bar and started talking with a pair of sisters from perth and their friend from Boston and hung out with them until at 1am we were moved on to our destination club. The club itself was pretty shitty and I spent the rest of the evening alternating between the Irish guys and saving the girls from a very determined group of creepy French guys.
We all left together and as we did another guy made a very... physical... move on one of the sisters so I walked them back to their hostel. It was at this point that I realised that it was 5am and I was drunk, alone and lost in a foreign, non-English speaking city, so I just grabbed the first cab that came past who drove me 100m up the road, turned a corner, drove another 100m and dropped me outside the hostel for $4.
Slept in and when I awoke we, along with Josh, went and grabbed a kebab for lunch before bumming around the hostel for a few hours while Lewis worked. At about 5 I rallied the troops and we all headed up to Parc Guell, a nice park on a hilltop overlooking the city and filled with cool little winding paths and cacti with little red fruit growing on them, which tasted like very flavorsome but pip-filled watermelon. The hill up to the park is very steep but luckily this was solved by outdoor escalators. Genious!
Got back to the hostel and went on a mission to find a nearby recommended Paella place but ended up spending about an hour wandering around the area it was meant to be in and coming up empty so, starving by this point, we grabbed some burgers. Turns out there is no Paella place in our area whatsoever, they are all on the waterfront.
On the way back from dinner we stopped in a corner store for some drinks and discovered the best thing about Spain. 1.5L of 7% sangria for $2. Had some drinks in the hostel before once again attempting to pub crawl with the others. Lewis working. Macky booking tickets. I headed out all on my lonesome again.
First pub this time was a massive, beer hall themed place playing old school rock music. Much better. Hung out with the Irish guys again as well as the rest of the group from the hostel, a very cool guy from Miama, Meggie from Melbourne, Katie from Canada and a few others, including an Iraqi and an Israeli who befriended one another through the wonderful medium of beer and declared their country´s war a "politicians war the people don´t want". Very cool. The pub also served giant 4L tubes of beer, which between the 10 or so of us we got through 5 of.
At 2am we all moved on to the club of the night, Razzmatazz, which the Irish guys had been to the previous night after the other club and had encountered a bunch of people doing cocaine off one anothers shoulders, but was actually pretty tame. Headed back to the hostel about 4:30 and hung out a bit more with the Israeli and Miami guys before bed.
Up at midday and went and got some of these amazing sausage in pastry things I had had the previous night from up the road before spending the afternoon being lazy, reading and listening to music while Lewis worked and Macky complained of boredom. Should have come out with me the previous night and booked tickets now.
In the evening we went up the road to the hostel´s recommended Tapas place, "BO", which was really good and relatively cheap, all sorts of tasty little dishes and the best sangria we had in Spain. After dinner headed back to the hostel and while Lewis worked Macky and I spent the evening playing drinking games with Meggie and a couple of others and finished off all our remaining beer and sangria.
Hung around hostel with Lewis, Macky, Meggie and Josh until about 1 when, joined by Josh´s friends Pauline and Nadine, Dutch and Italian girls studying together in Bristol, we went up the street to a $10 all you can eat Japanese buffet place. Best place ever, more variety than I have ever seen, huge tables of sushi, noodles and rice, seafood, veggies, dim sums and spring rolls, meat, plus a bbq where you filled your plate and a chef bbqed it for you and ice creams, cakes and lollies. Stayed for about 2 and a half hours before we separated and I lead Macky and Lewis on another Hugh-designed walking tour.
First stop was the giant palace on the hill, fronted by a very cool boulevard, the "Magic Fountain", which lost some of its magic due to being turned off, a columnade and another set of outdoor escalators. From here we moved on to Estatua de Colon, a massive statue on the waterfront surrounded by smaller statues of lions at its base, which Macky had to ride before we walked up the main tourist street, stopping only to watch a street vendor/artist doing spray paint art.
Worked our way through the backstreets of the gothic quarter (architecture, not a whole area dedicated to goths, as hilarious as that would be) which was cool and emerged onto a large boulevard, next to a little area set up for the locals to play a variation of bowls on. The boulevard ended at the Barcelona Arc de Triumphe which was very impressive but not quite as beautiful as the Paris one.
Took the metro to our final stop, Sagrada Familia, the huge Catholic church designed by Gaudi and still under construction, showing an interesting colouring where the old, darker stone meets the new light stone. Sagrada Familia is intensely beautiful, awe striking with its very different style of architecture, lots of spires and traditional church statuery but combined with lots of smooth curves and also cubist style sculptures and with the spires lined with animal carvings and many of them with trees or fruit for the pinnacle.
Headed back for Thai dinner, which was very good although somewhat concerning as we were the only patrons, before Lewis and I (Macky´s legs being too sore) met up with Pauline and Nadine and joined the pub crawl group briefly at a pub called "La Gata Negro" (The Black Cat) which was so cool. The pub had I think 250 shots on offer for $2.50 each and every shot involved some sort of spectacle, be it fire, breathing through straws while drinking, melting fruit, bartender interaction or sexual themes and jokes.
Stayed there for a couple of shots before we went for a wander and ended up buying 6 beers off a street vendor for $6 and chilling on the beach. The beach in Barcelona was the first sand beach we had seen since Aus and it felt so good, and quite nostalgic, to be able to sit on a sandy beach again. Stayed there until about 5 when we walked back to the metro, said our farewells and headed back to the hostel.
Slept in until 10, checked out and headed to the station. Got there a little early so had coffee and donut breakfast before jumping onto the train to Madrid.
I really loved Barcelona. I can´t explain why exactly, be it the weather, atmosphere, beaches, architecture or whatever but it has a very Sydney feel to it and I felt more at home there than at any other city we had visited.
Spent the afternoon watching European Championship football with our roommate Josh and a crazy black frenchman.
Went on the pub crawl alone, as Lewis was working and Macky tired... Befriended a group of 4 Irish blokes from the hostel on the walk to the bar and when we arrived we discovered it empty aside from us. We grabbed some pints and a booth and played a drinking version of 20 questions, only to discover the bar suddenly full when we went for the next round. Got separated at the bar and started talking with a pair of sisters from perth and their friend from Boston and hung out with them until at 1am we were moved on to our destination club. The club itself was pretty shitty and I spent the rest of the evening alternating between the Irish guys and saving the girls from a very determined group of creepy French guys.
We all left together and as we did another guy made a very... physical... move on one of the sisters so I walked them back to their hostel. It was at this point that I realised that it was 5am and I was drunk, alone and lost in a foreign, non-English speaking city, so I just grabbed the first cab that came past who drove me 100m up the road, turned a corner, drove another 100m and dropped me outside the hostel for $4.
Slept in and when I awoke we, along with Josh, went and grabbed a kebab for lunch before bumming around the hostel for a few hours while Lewis worked. At about 5 I rallied the troops and we all headed up to Parc Guell, a nice park on a hilltop overlooking the city and filled with cool little winding paths and cacti with little red fruit growing on them, which tasted like very flavorsome but pip-filled watermelon. The hill up to the park is very steep but luckily this was solved by outdoor escalators. Genious!
Got back to the hostel and went on a mission to find a nearby recommended Paella place but ended up spending about an hour wandering around the area it was meant to be in and coming up empty so, starving by this point, we grabbed some burgers. Turns out there is no Paella place in our area whatsoever, they are all on the waterfront.
On the way back from dinner we stopped in a corner store for some drinks and discovered the best thing about Spain. 1.5L of 7% sangria for $2. Had some drinks in the hostel before once again attempting to pub crawl with the others. Lewis working. Macky booking tickets. I headed out all on my lonesome again.
First pub this time was a massive, beer hall themed place playing old school rock music. Much better. Hung out with the Irish guys again as well as the rest of the group from the hostel, a very cool guy from Miama, Meggie from Melbourne, Katie from Canada and a few others, including an Iraqi and an Israeli who befriended one another through the wonderful medium of beer and declared their country´s war a "politicians war the people don´t want". Very cool. The pub also served giant 4L tubes of beer, which between the 10 or so of us we got through 5 of.
At 2am we all moved on to the club of the night, Razzmatazz, which the Irish guys had been to the previous night after the other club and had encountered a bunch of people doing cocaine off one anothers shoulders, but was actually pretty tame. Headed back to the hostel about 4:30 and hung out a bit more with the Israeli and Miami guys before bed.
Up at midday and went and got some of these amazing sausage in pastry things I had had the previous night from up the road before spending the afternoon being lazy, reading and listening to music while Lewis worked and Macky complained of boredom. Should have come out with me the previous night and booked tickets now.
In the evening we went up the road to the hostel´s recommended Tapas place, "BO", which was really good and relatively cheap, all sorts of tasty little dishes and the best sangria we had in Spain. After dinner headed back to the hostel and while Lewis worked Macky and I spent the evening playing drinking games with Meggie and a couple of others and finished off all our remaining beer and sangria.
Hung around hostel with Lewis, Macky, Meggie and Josh until about 1 when, joined by Josh´s friends Pauline and Nadine, Dutch and Italian girls studying together in Bristol, we went up the street to a $10 all you can eat Japanese buffet place. Best place ever, more variety than I have ever seen, huge tables of sushi, noodles and rice, seafood, veggies, dim sums and spring rolls, meat, plus a bbq where you filled your plate and a chef bbqed it for you and ice creams, cakes and lollies. Stayed for about 2 and a half hours before we separated and I lead Macky and Lewis on another Hugh-designed walking tour.
First stop was the giant palace on the hill, fronted by a very cool boulevard, the "Magic Fountain", which lost some of its magic due to being turned off, a columnade and another set of outdoor escalators. From here we moved on to Estatua de Colon, a massive statue on the waterfront surrounded by smaller statues of lions at its base, which Macky had to ride before we walked up the main tourist street, stopping only to watch a street vendor/artist doing spray paint art.
Worked our way through the backstreets of the gothic quarter (architecture, not a whole area dedicated to goths, as hilarious as that would be) which was cool and emerged onto a large boulevard, next to a little area set up for the locals to play a variation of bowls on. The boulevard ended at the Barcelona Arc de Triumphe which was very impressive but not quite as beautiful as the Paris one.
Took the metro to our final stop, Sagrada Familia, the huge Catholic church designed by Gaudi and still under construction, showing an interesting colouring where the old, darker stone meets the new light stone. Sagrada Familia is intensely beautiful, awe striking with its very different style of architecture, lots of spires and traditional church statuery but combined with lots of smooth curves and also cubist style sculptures and with the spires lined with animal carvings and many of them with trees or fruit for the pinnacle.
Headed back for Thai dinner, which was very good although somewhat concerning as we were the only patrons, before Lewis and I (Macky´s legs being too sore) met up with Pauline and Nadine and joined the pub crawl group briefly at a pub called "La Gata Negro" (The Black Cat) which was so cool. The pub had I think 250 shots on offer for $2.50 each and every shot involved some sort of spectacle, be it fire, breathing through straws while drinking, melting fruit, bartender interaction or sexual themes and jokes.
Stayed there for a couple of shots before we went for a wander and ended up buying 6 beers off a street vendor for $6 and chilling on the beach. The beach in Barcelona was the first sand beach we had seen since Aus and it felt so good, and quite nostalgic, to be able to sit on a sandy beach again. Stayed there until about 5 when we walked back to the metro, said our farewells and headed back to the hostel.
Slept in until 10, checked out and headed to the station. Got there a little early so had coffee and donut breakfast before jumping onto the train to Madrid.
I really loved Barcelona. I can´t explain why exactly, be it the weather, atmosphere, beaches, architecture or whatever but it has a very Sydney feel to it and I felt more at home there than at any other city we had visited.
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