Second half of my Barcelona trip.
Day 9 continuation
After some wandering around, we found there was some sort of
Catalan festival happening in front of the Barcelona Cathedral. For those of you who don't know this, the people of Barcelona identify themselves as Catalan rather than Spanish. The language may be similar in some sense but they like to think of themselves as an independent country rather than being part of Spain. So there are certain cultural things that are more associated with the Catalan culture.
One of it is a Catalan castle. It's basically a
human pyramid that usually goes up to nine levels with the castle being considered complete only when a child gets to the top and raises their hand. If I was the child I'd be way terrified to be so high up. There were a couple of teams around with different teams in different colours cause I think they were having a competition.
The base is usually men.
The middle levels are young women.
The top are the children.
The little girl must have been terrified.
When they did it in front of the town hall the next day, they also walked a good 100metres with their full formation where one team also made a turn. The balance is just amazing.
Day 10
Morning was spent looking at two of Gaudi's most famous buildings. Casa Mila (aka La Pedrera) and Casa Batllo. Kinda pricey to go in so we just admired it from the outside.
Casa Mila looks like a sandcastle.
The metalwork must have taken ages.
Casa Batllo is a lot more colourful.
Looks like a paint palette exploded over it.
Next door to Casa Batllo. But not by Gaudi.
Gothic architecture is so pretty.
Traditional Catalan dancing.
With a live band.
Some more wandering around later, found this shop that rents these 'vehicles' out which are like bikes but cars? Don't know what they're called or how to actually describe them. It was a four seater thing where the two behind cycling and steering. So we got into it and the guys cycled and steered across the road (we feared for our lives) and into Parc de la Ciutadella which was just across.
Twas a good one hour.
Steering and cycling was difficult. Sonia and I tried for a while but we couldn't go as fast as the guys.
Wanted to go boating as well. But didn't in the end.
We got so many people looking at us cause we were laughing so loudly. Well funny. Walked towards the beach to check it out. Had dinner along the way in this family run restaurant where the woman who ran it was this nice old lady who didn't speak any English and we didn't speak any Spanish so ordering involved a lot of pointing and hand gestures.
The really yummy paella.
Spent my time on the beach collecting shells.
That I just left there.
The beach wasn't that impressive. But it was gonna be a day out to Sitges the next day so wasn't fussed.
Day 11
Day trip out to Sitges. Aside from the fact that it was suppose to have nicer beaches than Barcelona, wanted to check out Casa Bacardi over there where you could learn about how rum is made and learn how to make a cocktail properly.
But when we got there, the place was closed. Sad sad sad. So instead I spent the day napping on the beach while the others dug holes and played in the sea. The wind on the beach was so strong that I kept getting covered in sand. At one point I seriously thought it was a sandstorm. However as I was going to find out some time later, it was actually Sonia and Wilson 'throwing' sand at me.
Sort of rushed back cause we had a concert to attend at the Palau de la Musica Catalana. The only other way to get into it is to attend a guided tour. In the end we decided that watching the symphony orchestra there would be more worth our money rather than attending the tour.
More stained glass.
The mosaics were prettyy.
Quite enjoyed the music.
The place was a lot smaller than I expected it to be. And everything was so colourful, from the walls to the ceiling. Overall a good experience so I do recommend watching a performance there.
Day 12
Last day in Spain. Wanted to visit Casa Batllo but in the end couldn't be bothered and instead went to visit Camp Nou. Home to the Barcelona football team. There were so many people there going for the Camp Nou experience or just buying merchandise. Jerseys were a lot more expensive than I expected it to be with the price being somewhere around 70euros. What a ridiculous price.
Getting to the airport was an experience in itself. Ended up on the wrong train that took us out of Barcelona. So we had to get off and wait for another train back before waiting yet again for the right train to take us to the airport. Thankfully we made it to the airport in time. The staff at the ryanair counter did not make things any better though. Pretty sure there were quite a number of people who missed their flights because one of the counter staff decided to take a coffee break when the line was still massively long.
So with all that travel stress aside, was pretty glad to be on the plane back to the UK. Even though I've been living in Manchester for less than a year it feels like home.
And that's the end of my Spanish experience.
