La Pedrera by Destroth on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Barcelona - Rainy Beich and Gaudi

My first trip from London.

I went to Barcelona to meet up with my friends from Malaysia to travel around Spain. The weather was a bitch, raining almost everyday, or was it everyday? Slightly in a bad mood, trying to escape London's shitty weather to end up in Barcelona and couldn't go to the beach.. we even stayed in La Barcelonetta (beach part of the city).. damn!

But, that didn't stop us, we still manage to move around Barcelona and enjoyed ourselves. Paella Paella and ... "I feel like a pig cannibal eating pork or, wait pork is from cow right?" Lol .. I will get to that later.

Day 1

Arrived in the evening and then went to the beach, right after the rain so its not really that happening, so we just move on to the harbor and it started pouring again. Deciding not to go out at night, we bought some canned seafood from the supermarket and made our own seafood paella (well my friend did, I just wash the dishes), surprisingly the seafood is freaking damn good, never expect anything like it, thumbs up!

Day 2

The first half of the second day was dedicated to Gaudi. Went to the Sagrada Familia (didn't enter, will go again in the future when it is completed), La pedrera (where this picture was taken), and Casa Batllo. His work (Gaudi's) is just so exotic, strange yet in a good way, all based on the nature itself. Whoever who visit Barcelona will definitely have a taste of Gaudi, it is all over the place.

Moving on to La Rambla and had my first Spanish paella in Spain (gosh is delicious) but a bit pricy as expected from foods around La Rambla. Walked around the Gothic area of Barcelona, really nice ... never seen anything like it, at least during that time. The narrow alleys, the building, and the best is the cathedral, or maybe I was new to it, my friends was telling me after awhile they all almost look alike (as in the other cathedrals all around Europe), well I still liked it XD.

We went to the harbor and I swore the wind could blow me away... where is the sun? ... well apparently I summoned the cloud with Sui-Jutsu (water based ninja technique) and got rid of the sun. Okay, putting that aside, I was also impressed with the Colombus Monument and Colombus' discovery of the New World (which later that image was tainted with something I've read from the net).

Since we couldn't chill out at the beach, we actually covered a lot of ground that day, Palau de la Musica Catalana, Arc de Triomf, and Gaudi Fountain are the other few we went to. Yes, Gaudi is so significant that at one point I wondered if the entire city of Barcelona was designed by him. Yet, with his contribution he still died a rather sad death in Barcelona. That night, we cooked again cause the previous dinner was just so good we have to do it again!

Day 3

More of Gaudi, we went to the park, Park Guell. Frankly, I loved that park, first of, you get to see the entire Barcelona from the top of the park (not the best view in Europe but still worth it), and the entire park is just so exotic and yes its all Gaudi's design, every inch. There is also a dragon which is kind of like a symbol of Barcelona at the park. Do not miss it if you are there, but you have got to queue if you want to take a picture with that tiny dragon (more like a lizard, really). Hunger for more paella, we saw a guy with a sign, Paella 10 euro and so we went over and asked him where is the restaurant, he pointed and there is a big sign "Restaurant" ... just how blind can we be? The squid was good but the paella...eee... 10 euro and its the frozen Paella which taste horrible, made that mistake twice, another time in Madrid, but please don't ever have those Paella, you will regret it.

Then, its Camp Nou! Not a big football fans and didn't want to enter at first, but one of my friend wanted to so we thought we would just wait for him outside but at the last minute.... what the "f" was i thinking, its the legendary Camp Nou.... and I went chasing in after him leaving the other friend waiting alone outside.. sorry! Camp Nou is awesome, 'nuff said. Any football fans must visit this stadium, unless they are your sworn enemy .

Then its the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (awesome) and Olympic Stadium (slightly less awesome but still awesome) also where the magic fountain is. But there was an exhibition there that day and we couldn't see the fountain show , we surely come back for it and Sagrada Familia. Then we went back to La Barcelonetta to meet up with "Katon no Jutsu" a name we gave a girl we are supposed to meet up for dinner. She have a picture dressed in Akatsuki Cloak blowing fire as her profile picture .

There was apparently some miscommunication and by the time we reached the restaurant they are almost done (her and her boyfriend). We spent most of our time searching for her actually. Nevertheless, the restaurant although expensive served one of the best seafood paella I've had, and the cockles was so good, that I ate it (I don't eat cockles, just to let you know, at least when I was in Malaysia) !

Yes back to Katon no Jutsu, we sat at different tables and while half way through our dinner she came by and said she is gonna leave as she just came back to Barcelona after an Europe trip, so they are really tired. While she was saying her goodbyes the best thing happened. Her boyfriend who was just telling us how good the meat were in Madrid and he blurt out something that got us laughing (after they left) for the entire trip in Spain, even until now (refer to the quote at the start of the story), just epic.

I didn't sleep much that night, and before dawn I took a bus down to Madrid.

Even without the beach, Barcelona was still a good place to go. Not my favorite but its still good . And lastly, my friend who took the train instead of the bus did managed to chill at the beach before departing to Madrid cause it was sunny the day i left to Madrid and guess what was waiting for me in Madrid? Yes, more rain.....