Barcelona and the book that led us there

So once upon a time I had this pretty sweet spanish teacher in high school. Before I left I told him I was going to Spain and he mailed me the book he used when he last traveled to Spain. I didn´t think much of it until last weekend when it saved my life...

There I was sitting in class learning about Pretérito Imperfecto de Subjunctivo and fuming at a certain he who must not be named. My phone lit up with a text message: "Sorry love, can´t make it down there this weekend I´m snowed in at work." I softly cursed the Brits under my breath and then turned coyly to my lovely friend Lori who was staring blankly at the conjugated verbs on the board. "Soooooooo Lori..." She grunted something to acknowledge she had heard me and then I said quickly "Wanna catch the next train to Barcelona and get out of here?" She nodded in agreement and after class we found Nicole.

-"Nicole, we´re going to Barcelona."

-"When?"

-"Now."

-"Oh"

Nicole took a little more persuading but I took the bus home, ran inside, and found Zoeller´s book. I used it to find everything we needed and four hours later we were standing at the train station buying our tickets for the next morning.

I have to say, Barcelona is pretty sweet. Without the book we would have been completely lost. We had maps of all the different parts of town, a map of the metro, had found a Hostal close to La Rambla, and were able to find all the cool places to see.

When we got there we wandered down La Rambla taking in all the street performers, then rode to the top of the Cristobal Colon monument to see all of Barcelona at once. From there we hopped on the met and quickly found the Picasso Museum. The museum was awesome because you start at the beginning of his career before he goes all weird and then each room is the next period of his life. My favorite was his study on Las Meninas in case you have any idea of what I´m talking about. We used the book to find the most popular restaurant close to us called... El Quinte Nit... or something.. I can´t speak catalun so half the time I had no idea what the signs said. I finally learned that the language I am learning is called Castellano. Es el mejor. Anyway, the hostal we were in was really nice. Apparently you can´t book one of the hostals where you sleep with strangers at the last minute. Instead you get a personal room and bath with three twin beds shoved in there and you have the most comfortable nights sleep yet. Who knew?

The next day we went straight to La Sagrada Familia. It was incredible. It was one of those instances where you don´t really know what to expect so when you get there you just stare openmouthed and blinking rapidly kind of like a frog. Then you take more pictures then you will ever need of it, but it´s okay because you have a digital camera and you can delete all of the unnecessary ones later. We walked down L'Eixample seeing more of Gaudi´s work and stopping in little cafés to eat chocolate filled croissants. We were moved into an apartment because the hostal couldn´t find us another room (darn it?) so we HAD to sleep in a giant feather bed all together with our own kitchen and bathroom. After we "moved in" we headed to the history museum which I had found in the book, but hadn´t read the description. So, we get there and head to the first room,`politely looking at the ancient artifacts and then we can´t find the rest of the museum. I find an elevator and we all climb inside.

-"Uh, guys?"

-"Yeah?"

-"There are only two buttons. One says 'Barcelona' and the other says 'Barcino'.. what do I do?"

-"Just push one."

So I do and the elevator starts going down and a disembodied voice tells us that we are now going back in time. We get off and a whole Roman city lays in ruins before our feet. It was by far the coolest museum EVER! We were able to walk through the whole city on suspended glass platforms so we could see everything and we had an audio tour guide that was able to tell us a lot too. Above (when we got back to Barcelona from Barcino) we found ourselves in the throne room where Ferdinand and Isabel received Columbus after his journey to America. Sometimes... history can be reallly cool.

For good measure we went to the nearby chocolate museum. After we went and changed then headed to a Flamenco show. I had never seen anything more passionate in my life. A woman sitting next to Lori had burst into tears halfway through one of the songs. I swear on my life I will never be able to appreciate another guitar player ever again unless he can play some darn good spanish guitar. AND dancers of the tango and tap have got NOTHING on Flamenco dancers. I was very impressed.

The night proved to be fruitless besides the fact that Lori got an egg thrown at her and I got proposed to by a very hairy German man and Nicole was asked three times if she was Jamaican (which she is) by three different Jamaican men.

Overall the trip was very successful. I am no longer mad at the men in my life.. at least not the British ones (ahem, Adam) and we never would have gotten anywhere with our spontaneousness if it had not been for Zoeller´s book.. which we call simply: The Bible. So, thanks Zoeller for thinking of me. Someday I will send you something random in the mail and it will prove useful months down the road.

Oh and thank you to Lori and Nicole who go along with my impulsiveness when I need them the most:

For more pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027116&l=de4de&id=23709871