Spring Break Part 1 - Barcelona

We started out waking up at 3:30 am on Friday morning, going to catch the train into Bremen and then the tram from the Bremen Hauptbanhof to the Bremen flughafen (airport). When we got to the Shonebeck train station, however, Jimmy realized that he had forgotten his wallet, including his semester ticket, which we needed for trains, and his keys in his room. The rest of us proceeded as planned to the flughafen and got there around 5:30 for our 6:30 flight. As we got through security, the check in counter for Ryanair was closing (meaning Jimmy would not be able to get tickets for the flight) and there was no sign of Jimmy. Turns out Jimmy had rad back to Jacobs, gotten his roommate to let him in, and then taken a taxi to the airport, getting there at 5, before our tram even left. We then had a 2 hour not-so-comfortable plane ride to Bacelona-Girona, with a lovely sunrise as a perk. When we got to Girona, we had just missed the bus that we needed to take to get to our hotel, so we ended up taking a taxi for about an hour until we got to our hotel, Hotel Miliets in San Pol de Mar. The town is directly on the beach, and there is an amazing view of the Mediterranean from anywhere nearby. It was also supposed to rain on Friday, but it held out and the weather was beautiful. Our first mission was to find food, since we hadn't eaten all day. This actually proved quite difficult as none of the restaurants were open at the time. Eventually we found a supermarket and enjoyed a meal of muffins and orange juice. Afterward our rooms in the hotel were ready (the 6 of us were the only ones there Friday night) and we proceeded to quickly fall asleep. We woke up a little later and took the train, about an hour, into Barcelona. We wandered around to get a feel for the city, and hit up a couple of the famous Gaudi designed buildings, as well as the famous La Sagrada Familia. The next morning, the hotel staff had breakfast ready for us and then, still exhausted from traveling and the night before, we sunbathed/took a nap on the beach. The weather once again was absolutely gorgeous, and after a second supermarket lunch we headed into Barcelona to meet with Lindsey's host-brother who lives there and he showed us around the city. Once again, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I definitely like Barcelona the best out of all the cities we've been to, much more than Berlin. Part of it could be the fact that the city is absolutely beautiful, that and it seems much more inviting than other cities, much nicer to walk around than the ridiculous hustle and bustle of NYC. It was a little difficult finding the right metro / train stations, and we walked around one main square multiple times first trying to find the right metro station, and then a second time trying to find the right train station. London definitely wins in the best public transportation category. Our hotel is pretty nice, we have balconies where we can see the sunrise and Mediterranean from our beds. It's not exactly luxurious, but the extremely friendly and helpful staff make up for it. It's really nice tiny town, and i think i much prefer it to being in Barcelona itself.
On Sunday we left San Pol de Mar right after breakfast and headed to the Arc de Triomph to meet some friends from Jacobs and go to the Picasso museum. We found the museum easily enough, after wading through a crowd of marathon runners, but unfortunately the museum is free on the first sunday of every month, so there was a ridiculously long line to get in, and we decided that it was such a nice day that there were definetly much better ways to spend our time. The six of us (3 Lafayetties, 3 Jacobs kids) instead went up to Parc Guell, the park designed by Gaudi. The park is on top of a hill overlooking Barcelona, and offered an excellent view, it would have been even better if there wasn't so much fog. After seeing the park, I am officially a fan of Gaudi's work, all of it is very cool looking. Afterward we got some lunch and then went down to Barcelonetti (near the water). On the way there we walked down Las Ramblas and were highly amused by all the people in ridiculous costumes and street vendors trying to sell random things. One little gizmo was a little plastic tube, which if you kept in your mouth, you could make noises that sound like birds or animals screeching. One of these vendors had a garbage bag with a cat's tail sticking out, and as we walked by, he made what sounded like a cat screech and shook the bag, thoroughly scaring Lanie and causing her to jump quite a bit. There were tons of street performers by the ports, and most of them were actually talented, unlike the ones in Germany. If you keep wandering through Barcelonetti for a while, you get to a nice beach. This one was sandier than the one in San Pol, which was nice in a way, but also more annoying because then it would get all over you. We made a quick stop by the girl's apartment, which was right in the city, and then grabbed the rest of their group for a Spanish restaurant before catching the last train back to San Pol for the evening. Overall it was a really fun and beautiful day. The next day we spent doing some more exploring in Barcelona and also some more relaxing on our beach, We were able to trade in our extra train tickets for tickets by train to Girona, where we could take a bus to the airport, saving us the trouble of having to take a taxi back to the airport. Due to the train schedule, we got to the airport with plenty of time to spare to catch our flight to Dublin. Tom had left earlier that day headed back to Bremen to meet up with his family, leaving just 5 of us.