SPAIN

June 2019

MM and I planned this trip to celebrate our 5th anniversary. Deciding on a destination is never easy due to the long list of “Must Go” and “Must Must Go” and “ASAP” places that I can’t wait to go to, but I had had my eyes on Morocco for some time and MM was more interested in Europe and wanted to visit Spain, so we planned a trip to see a little of both countries!

Barcelona had very broad walkways, sometimes way wider than the car lanes!(perfect example: La Rambla). A lot of streets have average-sized sidewalks on each side followed by 1-2 lane streets and a huge walkway/bikeway in the middle of the street. And there were lots of tall Platanus Orientail trees (Chinar tree!<3)

J-walking is very common; people usually wait for a few minutes and just suddenly all decide to cross!

La Rambla: A huge “sidewalk” full of cute little kiosks with 2 tiny streets (for cars) on each side followed by 2 more normal-sized sidewalks and countless narrow magical alleys on each side. I was looking at one of the colorful buildings, going through each window when I saw Marilyn Monroe waving from one of the windows! That building was the “Erotic Museum”.

Mercat de la Boqueria: Exciting fruits such as miniature strawberries, big, small, yellow, orange and red apricots, miniature pears and miniature plums to name a few; cool colourful juices and smoothies, lots of deep fried food, empanadas and so much more

The Hotel: Our hotel had a normal elevator which we never used, and an antique one which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t! You had to manually open a glass door with a gold metal frame, then open the main door which was a double sliding glass door with a wooden frame. Then choose your floor, close the metal frame door, then the wooden frame door and repeat the process once you get to your floor. Except that sometimes before arriving at your floor, the elevator would decide to go down and stop somewhere between floors with the view of a brick wall; hence, 90% of the time we just took the stairs. But since we had been walking for 7-9 hours a day, it was mostly crawling upstairs! Our hotel’s breakfast buffet was served in a big room with all kinds of hot and cold entrees, hot and cold beverages, freshly baked bread, all types of milk, and pretty much anything you could think of! You could order your eggs in many different ways with a side of sausage, bacon, or just tomato and avocado.The room itself was big and beautiful with interesting lighting. We kept hearing the sound of happy excited kids coming from our little patio and naturally we thought they’re coming from the pool at the hotel (which we didn’t get a chance to check out the first 2-3 days). In our heads we had imagined a nice area up on the roof with the pool and lots of young people. When we finally found a way to the pool, we found out the pool is actually tiny and there weren’t many people there; turns out the sound was coming from a nearby school 😀

Historic buildings and landmarks we visited: Casa Battlo, Casa Mila, La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell

• Casa Mila: First time I ever listened to one of those audio tapes with information (persuaded by MM) and it was the best! I learned so much about Antoni Gaudi, the famous architect who created most of the amazing buildings in Barcelona. This building belonged to the Mila family and was apparently not a popular one as people found it tacky and not fancy enough for the neighborhood. We learned all about it up on the roof and by the time we went inside and in every floor, we felt really connected with its history. In fact, I ended up becoming a big fan of Gaudi! He was mostly inspired by nature and I couldn’t relate to it more.
• La Sagrada Famillia: More explanations coming soon~

Boutiques: United Colours of Benetton, Mango, Desigual, Oysho, &Other Stories, 2bis Artesania.

Biking to the beach: We took the bikes from our hotel that I had my eyes on since day one. MM took charge of directions and did a great job. The streets of Barcelona are well designed for biking; there are many streets with proper lanes and lights specific to bikes on either the 2 sides or just one lane in the middle. Some other ones are part of super wide sidewalks that exist on the 2 sides and the middle of the wider streets. The path we took to the beach was almost all flat making it great for biking. We passed through some nice streets with tall Chinar trees on each side, a nice train track on a grass field and later were surprised by the sight of Arc de Triomf which we hadn’t even planned for!  There was a really nice wide street with a few people making giant colorful bubbles. The beach itself was also great! To my surprise, it was a topless beach and people seemed pretty comfortable with it! MM deserves an award cause he didn’t notice any of the hot girls until I told him! We had to be careful of people constantly trying to sell us water, beer and beach blankets. We took off our shoes and walked on the wet sands and the shallow parts of the water. There were shiny glass-like gems of mostly green color on the beach so I had a bit of a treasure hunt! And I managed to find 3 small seashells as well. We then biked further onto the beach and got to a nice area with patios and an outdoor gym. And an area that was closed off with signs of no walking, no fishing and no swimming, all of which were happening passed that point! There were also interesting carvings on the rocks that made them look like creepy creatures.

Food: The food was really reallllly great! Mostly tapas with really good flavour combinations. People seemed to have dinner at a much later time than what we’re used to in Canada. We once waited in the line up for a restaurant that MM had found through good review for a good 1.5 hours and it was well worth it! And of course, it wasn’t just the good food, but also the fruitful Sangria that came with it!

Full Photos (with captions):
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOCOTLZ1uS81AOQJxPhzS-0ZaJWjHCqKUTXHWDNAdqgF2eDl3jczOnmsQjBwOiv0Q?key=LUJZTWxWQXBVWkY2SnVfZzhxckkyS3otOTdUWHdR

P.S. Most photos have captions, make sure to read them!