I took last Thursday and Friday off work to go to Barcelona for the weekend, it was an incredibly fun weekend, one of the most party filled weekends of the summer. There were supposed to be six of us going but Joe had to cancel due to the lovely German bureaucracy causing him problems, so I ended up going with Breagh, Carolann, Danielle, and Kaylen. I'm starting to wonder where the other guys are on the weekends. I met Danielle and Carolann on the train to Baden-Baden where we met up with the other two and caught the bus to the airport. We met a guy on the bus from the states who is also in Germany doing an engineering work term, he was also heading to Barcelona for the weekend. We had a an hour and forty minute flight to Girona airport which is an hour and a half from Barcelona. I slept for most of the flight but couldn't do the same for the bus ride; I had a headache and the smell was terrible on the bus. I was glad when we finally arrived in the city around 5pm. We navigated our way to the subway, passing by the Arc du Triomf, and finding our hostel off the incredibly popular Las Ramblas. This was definitely the most centrally located hostel we've ever stayed at. We put our stuff in on lockers and headed down into the Placa Reial, or Royal Plaza, over which the hostel looked, and had supper. I had a mixtures of 8 different tapas, most of which were pretty good. We walked around a bit after supper before partying with some Australians and Americans we met in our 26-bed dorm room. We ended up getting back to the hostel between 5am and 7am, and I only had one person attempt to steal my wallet as I was trying to enter the hostel, thankfully I had my back pocket buttoned so he couldn't get it!
Arc du Triompf
Placa Reial
Placa Reial
Las Ramblas
The next day, or later the same day, after waking up, we headed to the market with the three Australians, Joe, Scott, and Ronnie and a Californian, Will, where we had something to eat before walking around the marina/port area on our way to Barceloneta Beach. We spent the afternoon at the beach and had a ton of fun. The waves were huge, and the water was a great temperature. Nobody got really burnt so that was a bonus. Once we got back to the hostel I went out to buy a pair of pants, because I had discovered the night before most bars in Barcelona don't let guys in if they're wearing shorts. I found a pair for 25 euros, and we didn't end up making it to a place that I even needed them, but I now have a pair of jeans from Barcelona. We partied in the hostel for the night, and got to bed at a reasonable time, about 2 or 3am.
I got up earlier than everyone on Saturday, got my free breakfast downstairs, had a shower, and was almost ready to go before anyone else was up. I really wanted to see the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's church, and I knew that not everyone else was feeling up for it. Carolann ended up getting ready in a hurry and came with me. It was an incredibly impressive church, I like the design style inside as it is unlike any other church in the world that I have been to. The pictures don't even do it justice, if you go to Barcelona you have to visit this place, even if the wait to get in is an hour!
Should be finished between 2030 and 2050
The hat look was unintentional
We looked around the church for a little while before catching the subway back the hostel where we got a free tour of the Gothic District of Barcelona from one the employees at the hostel. There were only us five and one girl from France in our tour group, and the French girl left early so it was like a private tour. It was the first tour I've been on with a guy as the tour guide and he was hilarious, we didn't see the typical world famous sites, but the humor made up for that.
The tour was only about 2 hours, ending around 3pm, so we then headed to Park Guell. This is an amazing park developed by Gaudi, and includes the world's longest park bench. We spent a couple hours at the park before heading back to the hostel. We went out for supper with four guys from Florida that were staying in our room, Will, Adam, Ryan, and Alex. We had a very entertaining dinner at a tiny place called 'Restaurant' that claims to serve Barcelona's best sangrias. We had four or five pitchers between us, and I had paella with chicken to eat, it was extremely filling, but pretty tasty.
We bought a few drinks and headed to the Magic Fountain by the Royal Palace with the Australians to watch the fountain show. It was very impressive and we all had a great time among the thousands of people. Once it began to shower it was a mass migration to the subway and we had a very entertaining trip back to the hostel.
We partied in our room at the hostel with a bunch of people that joined us from the next room before catching cabs to the club Razzmatazz, the largest club on mainland Spain (the largest in Spain is on the island of Ibiza). We had a great night partying at the club, as you may have seen in the facebook pictures.
Once we got back to the hostel around 5am we tried to find food, I forgot to eat supper, but did not have much luck, and had several prostitutes/gypsies chasing me and cornering me to try and steal my wallet. I didn't really have much money left at this point, but I managed to get away. We found a black market in the square our hostel was in where presumably stolen stuff was being sold, I bought an FC Barcelona scarf for 3 euro, not sure why, but it's a good souvenir. We gathered up our stuff and said goodbye to our new friends before heading to the bus station to catch our bus to the airport. There was no time to sleep. We missed the bus by 20 minutes, I thought they ran every 30 minutes, they did not. We begrudgingly took a cab to the airport at a cost of 170 euro, because it would have been much more expensive had we missed our flight. I slept for the whole cab ride and the whole flight, getting back to Schwenningen at about 4pm. I then proceeded to sleep for 12 hours before going to work the next morning. It was definitely a weekend to be remembered, we had some great laughs, and met some awesome people, I definitely could have stayed longer.
This past week was pretty uneventful, many people at work are on vacation, my supervisor is away for three weeks, and the head of the department will be gone for at least two weeks after next week. Some of the businesses around me have shut down for most of the month, it's very strange. It explains why there are no holidays in July and August. All workers in Germany get a minimum of three weeks of vacation, but many get several more. I slept for three hours when I got home from work on Friday, did some laundry and went back to bed. I got up early Saturday morning, I just can't sleep in (jetlag is going to be killer), so I did laundry, made breakfast, and went to the market all before 8:30am. I went to Lake Titisee for the day where I met Laura, and Carolann and her friend joined as around 2pm. It was a great day, I got pretty burnt but it's not so bad today.
We left Titisee around 7pm, I went with Carolann and her friend who had a car to the Feldberg, the highest mountain in the Black Forest and the highest mountain in Germany outside of the Alps. It was a terrifyingly exciting drive in the 'Batmobil' as the decal on the back said. It was the tiniest car I've ever been it, it stuggled to climb the hills, the fuel gauge was on empty the whole time, and during the descent the breaks started to smell horrible, I'm glad we survived. We were able to drive to an elevation of about 1250m, and then we walked up the last 150m. It was a great view and because the sun was setting, there was hardly anyone there. We left the Feldberg around 8, I was dropped off at a train station in some small town where I waited an hour for a train before taking two trains and a bus, finally arriving back in Schwenningen after 11:30pm.
I managed to sleep in today until 9am and I spent the afternoon in Rottweil, the oldest city/town in Baden-Wurttemburg, just a 15 minute train ride away. I met Greg at the train station and he showed me around as he had been there before. It was a very picturesque town but there is not much to do in any German city on a Sunday unless it's a major tourist destination. I got back home around 3:30pm and decided I should finish this blog since I've been putting it off long enough.
Hard to believe the first day of classes is just a month away. I am definitely not prepared for that!
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