Travel Day from Hell

We got on a Ryanair flight from Girona to Pisa at about 10:30 at night. I am definitely not a fan of flying, for whatever reason the older I get the more nervous I am when getting on an aircraft.

So the story of travel day from hell starts.

First we had to line up to get on the flight, as it was every man for themselves to grab a seat. Think Allegiant Air. The interior of the aircraft was in cheap yellow and royal blue, definitely an eye sore. The flight only cost 19 Euros which probably explains why they had to advertise for the entire duration of the flight. Food, drinks, perfume, lottery tickets, and yes, cigarettes! The flight landed an hour later to an airport in Pisa.

We did not want to chance having to walk too far in the middle of the night, so we got a cab to the hotel. 500 metres, and TEN Euros later, tah-da!

We were greeted by a reception desk probably built in the 1950s, which was ironic because the hotel name was Hotel Moderno. We wanted a place close to the train station and was cheap because it would be one sleep and out we go, but a room without a toilet was not something I was prepared for. UGH!

We got up and saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa, yes it was neat, and yes I did take the picture everyone takes but instead of holding it up, I tried the tipping over pose.

But this town will always be remembered as the place I paid 4 Euros for a can of coke!

After the tower, we jumped on a train to head for Florence, only to get a ticket on the train because we had forgotten to validate the ticket at the station!

When we arrived in Florence, we had thought it would be easier to walk to the hotel since it didn't look too far (should have really done my homework) but Ended up dragging my heavy bag for an hour hike, AN HOUR!

When we finally got to the hotel, we checked in to room 601. The room was on the sixth floor, and oh yes of course the elevator only goes to the fifth!

Once we entered the room, it stunk like cigarettes! Could we catch a break?!?!

We finally just dropped everything and decided to head into town, but only to be told that the easiest way was by bus, and there we were on a bus and had no idea where it was heading until finally a girl helped us with the stop we wanted.

Sigh, seriously, another few weeks of traveling left? I could have totally ripped out all my hair with the last 24 hours!

Away to Smaller Spanish Towns

Our trip in Barcelona included a couple trips out to its neighbouring towns, Sitges and Girona.

Sitges was like a small version of Miami, with its nice sandy beaches and a long enjoyable seaside promenade. We stayed in a nice smaller boutique hotel outside of town within 2 minute walk to the beach. I have to say the weather was not great while we were there but there was one day where we got to go out to the beach to further my tan that will probably last me till summer 2014!

The centre of town was by a church on the water. Although what was a bit alarming is that the church had a cannon... umm... what for??

The town itself is also known to be the Gay Mecca, and believe me, we saw a lot of "family members" out and about in the centre of town, and on the beach. Matt and I felt like prey to the "wolves" and "bears" in town as the centre square is filled with older men just sitting around drinking and well...starring.

I had some time during this keg of the trip and I started to laugh at one point as I turned to Matt and said "look how accomplished I am as I reach 28! No job, in debt, no car....truly a model citizen".

The town was really beautiful. The waves were huge as they crash onto shore. The surfers out every morning and dusk really had their appetite filled with the crushing waves, and I have to say kudos to not having changing rooms around the beaches! Lol..... No but honestly they were terrible to look at ;)

What I did also get to enjoy here is the famous Spanish Tapas. I have to say, the Brava Patatas are delicious! Also the vermicelli was great as well. Some other things were a bit of a miss, but hey, gotta try it before judging it right?

We left Sitges after a few days and headed for the town of Girona.

After a train of an hour or so, we arrived to meet the heavy rain. Eventually when the weather moved inland, we were pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful old city with an amazingly preserved city wall to hike on.

The town was a bit bigger than Sitges and it is situated inland from the coast. We took a city tour on a car train and saw the sights in the old town. On top of the hill sat a church that has been there since the 11th century. The inside of the church was spooky. It was dark, cold, and empty! What was interesting about the place is the coming together of four different architecture styles over the last thousand year.

Girona was also close to the town where Salvador Dali's museum is. The museum la
Ies in the heart if Figueres, a half an hour train ride away.

I have to say, before this I have not heard too much of his work, but he is one strange dude after visiting his museum and seeing his work. I'll let you be the judge of what you'd make of his art.

What I did like that came along with the museum ticket was a visit to Salvador Dali's work in jewelry design, some of the pieces were exquisite, wouldn't mind having one of two of these!

What I liked the most is in the video, I don't know how he did this, but isn't it gorgeous?!?!

Our flight now leaves for Pisa, as we start the Italian leg do our trip!

The Never Ending Project

So I was cutting it really close! The last morning before we depart from Barcelona was my last hope of seeing the inside of this Gaudi work, the Sagrada Familia.

I went, alone again, early morning attempting to avoid the line up, but when I got there at 9:30am, the line up was around the corner again. I was not to be turned away this time though cause who knows how long until I'm back in Barcelona again! The line up moved quickly and within 15 minutes I was near the entrance gate. I got up near the ticket booth and realized, CASH ONLY. YIKES!

I quickly went through my wallet and saw I had exactly 13,50 Euro left and looked back on the price of the ticket, 13 Euros! Perfect! However, due to the lack of cash on me, I was not able to afford an audio guide, so I was on my own.

Even though I had no audio guide, there were signs in both Spanish and English to explain the different features of the place.

The exterior was impressive. The detailed sculptures are so memorizing with each having a different emotion and facial expression.

Upon entering the church, you see pillars of columns that rises to the ceiling. Apparently, Gaudi wanted to give the impression of being in a forest with trees of different height. The inside was well lit by natural lighting and windows of both clear and colour stained lined the sides. It was really beautiful inside.

The picture I don't think does any justice to what it actually looks like. Definitely not a sight to be missed.

Casa Batllo

Since we did not go into the Casa Mia, I decided that I must go into one of the buildings Gaudi designed when I am here, so I visited Casa Batllo sans Matt.

While in the line up, I started chatting with a Polish woman. She was telling me about all the places I should visit along the coast where her and her partner had just been. It was nice to have her to chat with in the line up, not expecting anything else when we get in, but she insisted on waiting for me and going through it together.

Well it wasn't long till I had to ditch her because the audio guide was lengthy and since they did not have a Polish audio guide, she just wandered.

The inside of this apartment building was pretty spectacular. Without boring you, apparently Gaudi was always inspired by nature. The designs of the roof was his way of expressing waves of the ocean. One very interesting I learned about him and his work is that he used a lot recycled material from torn down buildings to create his work. Sustainability, very impressive, definitely ahead of his time.

I was very impressed also by his attention to detail. The apartment building had a light shaft that run from the top of the roof to the bottom floor allowing nature light into the entire building. Along the walls of this shaft were blue tiles. Gaudi took into consideration the way light reflects and how the light would be obviously brighter the higher you go. So to ensure to the naked eyes that the tiles were all the same colour regardless how close it was to the top (more light) or the bottom (less light) he had tiles line the shaft with darker blue tiles near the top and slowly fading in colour to the bottom. To the eyes, it does look like they are the same blue tiles!

What also was amazing was his ability to manipulate material such as tiles. His work is very flowing, without much rigidity, so you can tell when tiling around rounded corners, he was able to break tiles up into pieces and tile the rounded corners perfectly. Truly a master.

I was definitely glad I went into this building to see his work. Here are some more highlights of the tour.

Football Anyone?

So since Matt is a huge football player/fan, he decided to treat us to watch the Barcelona Football Club (FC Barcelona) game.

I must say, I was not over excited about this having been bored every time it comes on TV at home. I suppose though, when you're in Barcelona, this is one of those things you have to do. Apparently the team is the best team in the world? Anyway, so we bought tickets for the night's game that starts at 10pm! That's usually when the Canucks game ends!

We wanted to get to the stadium earlier, one to account for the possibility that we might get lost, and second, to snap some pictures without the crowd.

When we got to the stadium stop of the metro, there was already a ton of people and this was 2 hours before the game started! We attempted to find some fast food around the area, and trust me, was very tempted by this McDonald's Walk Thru! That's right! WALK THRU! We should totally have this at home. Just imagine a world where McDonald's could be bought while you're drunk out of your mind walking home, and without having to actually enter the restaurant. Ahh I miss that Chinese take out window on Davie.... mmm black bean pepper on rice!

So we eventually found a hotdog stand by the stadium, but only it was much more expensive than the Costco hotdogs that we love so much.

After two hotdogs each, we entered the stadium. It was, I'll admit, quite amazing. The stadium was huge! Our seats were perfect, centre line second level, great view of the entire field!

The atmosphere was buzzing. The stadium was so big I think it would be hard for security to make sure people were all at the right spots, and of course, throughout the first 10 minutes of the game, I saw a few young couples being asked to move as they were not in the right seats. You would think after being asked once they would go to their own actual seats but no, they continued to find seats that I assume were better than what they spent their money on, but only to be asked 10 minutes later again to be moved. How embarrassing.

Oh forgot to mention the hotdog I had inside the stadium with fried onions on top! It was MAGNIFICENT!

The game was surprisingly exciting. It was definitely a passionate crowd. Even though I can't speak Spanish nor understand it, I could tell what the guys were saying! "Just shoot it"!

The game was tied after 80 minutes, and you can really feel the crowd getting frustrated. The visiting team was attempting to waste time the entire game and the crowd was really getting annoyed, and they show it by whistling and jeering! I wondered how it would sound like with 100,000 people booing.. hmmm

If you saw me the last 10 minutes of the game, you'd think I was a big football fan. The game got real exciting with many more shots on goals, spectacular saves by the goalies.

Finally the home team scored, TWICE!

The crowd went crazy!!!

This was definitely a great experience and something different on our trip.

Oh, and yes, the crowd also went crazy on the metro! On the way home, the metro was packed to the point where I had to get off and take a taxi. It was grossly humid, and all the young people were drunk and falling all over the place, spilling the drinks you had in the hands, just not a good place to be if you're sober.

Barcelona Beach

Today was a beach day!

We went exploring around the waterfront of Barcelona! The beach here lasted for miles! People were tanning all over the place!

There were also some volleyball nets set up around the area. Totally missing volleyball at home!

There was also some tournament that was being played at the beach, and it was good beach ball!

We were in search of the gay beach and walked what seemed like forever!

We eventually had to stop for lunch an had some decent Mexican food.

The beaches in Barcelona are really nice. There are some amazing architecture along the waterfront as well.

What stood out was this fish like iron work over what seemed to be a shopping centre.

There were also two tall high rise office towers by the water, well I assumed they were office towers! Must be nice to have that kind of view from your office eh?

After lunch we finally found the beach, and it wasn't just a gay beach, but a nude beach!

Having been to Wreck Beach it did not take me long to get used to the walkers and leg spreaders on the sand.

Today was a total relaxing day at the beach.

Oh and for dinner, paella! It was delicious! Risotto with seafood cocked in some heavy sauce... Who can say no to that?!?!

Busy Barcelona

We arrived in Barcelona after two flights from Mykonos-Milan-Barcelona. The best part of the flight was watching the male flight attendant doing the safety demonstration with eye rolls every other second. He did NOT want to be there. LOL I attempted to capture his enthusiasm, but was sitting too far back.

We landed in Barcelona late at night when the airport was emptied out. We proceeded to catch the train that took us into town. On the Metro map that I had downloaded showed that the train from the airport ended at a metro station in city centre, but boy was I wrong! The train kept going, and since the map did not show me any station names on the train, we stayed on until I got the sense that we were far from city centre as the buildings became more scarce and the lack of city lights also gave me a hint we were no where close!

We finally got off the train at a random stop but luckily, a metro station was nearby and so we were headed to our hotel.

When we got off at the station where the hotel was, we were met with the equivalent of what East Hastings looked like, minus all the people! The place looked sketchy! For the first time on this trip, Maps on my iPhone failed me! We arrived at the red drop pin, but there was definitely no hotel in sight! Grr technology! Oh and I forgot to mention, we were hungry and it was 11:45pm!

Finally after asking around a bit, our hotel was a block away from where the red pin dropped on my map (remind me to take this up with the Genius Bar when I get back!).

What a difference a block makes! Our hotel was nicely finished, and was huge in size!

Even though we were hungry we decided perhaps just staying in would be best and wait for the morning before venturing out.

The next morning, I dragged Matt a few stations away to see the famous La Sagrada Familia. Exiting the metro station, the church immediately towers over you! It was quite the amazing sight! What was even more amazing though was the amount of people in the line up to get in! We did not want to wait, so decided to come back later as a lady informed us that later in the afternoon the crowd dies down.

So instead, we decided to walk around and look for one of Gaudi's masterpieces, the Casa Mia.

Before getting there, we came across the FC Barcelona Shop and went in for a look. At the back of the shop, Matt spotted the ticket sales booth. He decided he was going to treat us to watch the best team in the world play. Now I am in no way a fan of watching football, have actually always founded it to be boring, but went with it anyway. I guess the saying goes "when in Rome (Barcelona)".

The Casa Mia, one of Gaudi's masterpiece, which supposedly has an amazing rooftop, but at a price of 18 Euros? Forget it! We took a few pictures outside of it and visited the gift shop. We were once again on our way.

We then took a trip out further north of the city to visit Park Guell. Gaudi took over the unsuccessful commercial residential sight and designed it into a park. The park stood out for its unique design. I have to say, context is everything. Being in Barcelona makes this park unique and special. If you relocate this park to say, Las Vegas, I'd probably think of it as cheesy and lame.

Oh and did I forget the mention, there were a lot of people? At the entrance of this park was the famous lizard statue that everyone takes a picture with. There was no sense of order, just seemed like you get by the lizard, you get the picture. So I went for it. I got through the crowd and Matt had the camera ready, but before he could snap a shot, some lady shoved me aside, and said something in Spanish. Not knowing what was going on, I tried again to pose for a picture. This time, a harder push came with her hand.

I have always thought of what I would do in certain situations such as this, probably not appropriate to post here, but when it actually happened to me, I was in shock. I thought "Is this really happening?!". Looking back I probably would have told her "Touch me again and DIE!"

The rest of the park was truly worth exploring. You walk through some spectacular designs.

At the top of the hill, there is also a great view of the city all the way to the beach.

I have been warned how late dinner started in Spain, but even after adjusting and getting to a restaurant at 8:30pm, the place was still empty. Since it was empty, Matt and I sat down at a table. Before we could get comfortable a woman asked us in Spanish and signing "two?". We replied "Yes" and then were abruptly commanded to move to a table for two as we were sitting at a table for four on an empty patio. I thought, "sweetie how about you fill this place up first before being rude to your only customers!" 30 minutes later, the place was packed. LOL.

Mmmm spicy tripe!

Oh and be careful when ordering sangria here, a pitcher is huge! When there is only two of you, LOOK OUT!