Sensational Barcelona

 Before I start talking about the time I went to Barcelona I just want to say that time is flying here! It's just now finally starting to feel like fall. 70s and showers, cooler at night and in the morning. I can't believe next week is already November and I'm going to be a big 22 year old lady in a matter of days. Unreal. 

Equally unreal was my adventure to Barcelona on October 9th- 11th. To start, we flew into an airport that turned out to not actually in Barcelona...others in my group were very much aware of that, I had failed to look up its location. We took a train into the city to a main train station where we were going to walk a few blocks and take a bus to near our hostel. Well turns out that bus only runs late at night, and it was only mid evening when we finally found the stop. What to do?! We found a copy shop that dusted off an old Barcelona map for us and got to walking. The hostel was about 40 blocks away but we only had backpacks and lots of optimism. It rained briefly, during which we gladly ducked into a cervezeria for a break and a drink. 

 

Along our walk we came across one of Gaudi's architectural works of art known as Casa Batllo. We stopped to take some pictures and admire its colors and curves.

We finally made it to our hostel where many other CIEE friends were waiting. We ended up in an apartment style hostel room where we had a shared kitchen, living  room, and balcony. We wasted no time in grabbing a bite to eat (fruit from the fruteria across the street) and getting ready to go out. We ended up at a newly opened discoteca but went home early (relative term) out of exhaustion from traveling and anticipation of the night to come. 

The next day we went for a long walk (40+ blocks the day before was not enough), this time to see some of Barcelona's famous sites. We went first to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's gothic style Roman Catholic cathedral/masterpiece. Gaudi began working on the church in 1883 but unfortunately died in 1926, leaving the cathedral mostly unfinished and with minimal written plans. Its construction is funded mostly by private donations and now tour and entrance ticket sales, so the process is slow moving and it is expected that the cathedral may finally be finished in 2026. Regardless, the place is enormous, dripping in intricate and excessive details. It can't be captured in a photo but I sure tried.

 

Next we walked to the Arc de Triomf and took in its majestic beauty, as well as attempted many goofy artistic photos (my favorite of my buddy Matt below).

 After we walked through a lovely park (more about this park in my next blog about Barcelona) and made our way to the Barcelona Marina. On the way we passed an awfully fancy post office, pictured here:

We dangled our feet over the wall by the marina for a bit and admired the boats.

  

 

The whole reason we went to Barcelona in the first place, though, was to attend the exciting and crazy concert/rave/insanity/don'tknowwhattocallit that is Sensation White. Really the only way to convey any idea of what it is is you watching this video on their website: http://www.sensation.com/spain

In summary, we all dressed up in white, went to a giant stadium-esque concert venue and jumped around and danced for many hours. Here's my only photo evidence of the night which wasn't even taken by me.

Getting ready in the hostel...nearly everyone staying there was in town to go to Sensation

My gal pal Hayley and I dancing

I finally got home from the concert around 6am (it was still very much happening when I left) but I had to leave the hostel at 6:45am to catch a train to catch a flight to get back to Sevilla. Upon returning I slept alllll dayyy long. All in all, SENSATIONAL weekend.