After Paris we made our way to Barcelona. We arrived very early in the morning at our hostel, which was prime location, but pretty gross otherwise. We slept in a room with 7 beds and I awoke at 8 am to our two German roommates greasing themselves up with suntan lotion in their teeny tiny bathing suits. But we didn’t spend much time in our rooms and instead hung out on the beach, walked around the city, went to an amazing produce market and watched Spain beat several teams, advancing further and further towards the World Cup finals. A highlight of the Barcelona leg was visiting Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. I was awestruck. It had such a profound impact on me, not just because of its enormous size or the bizarre combination of Gothic and Modern elements in the architecture. It was the fact Gaudi had taken this on as his last project, devoted himself to it, lived on site, and worked on it for forty years, that really made me speachless. He died before it was completed in 1926 and construction has been ongoing since. I wonder if I’ll see it finished in my lifetime?
Having already used trains, and planes, Andrew and I embarked on an adventure taking a bus from Barcelona to Madrid, stopping for a night in Zaragoza to visit some of Andrew’s friends. I’m not a big fan of busses in general – they tend to make me nauseous and irritable – but I figured we’d rough it and be just fine. We had to wait 3 hours because the bus we planned on taking was sold out. But once we got on it, things went smoothly. We joined Andrew’s friends for tapas and then walked around Zaragoza the next morning, and saw pretty much all there is to see in such a small city. Once we reached Madrid, I finally felt comfortable. Having visited my friend Sarah there this spring, I knew my way around and knew the sites. And I also knew that I had seen the Reina Sofia and the Prado and that Andrew was going to see them with his group, which took the pressure off …we were pretty museumed out at that point. We spend our days wandering the streets and seeing all the different plazas, and even took a boatride in the pond in Parque de Retiro. It was also gay pride week while we were there, so we took in the crazy dancing and partying going on in the streets! Everyone was having a blast until…someone dumped a bucket of water from his balcony down to the street where I was unknowingly conveniently waiting to be majorly soaked. Great times, great tapas, and a great way to end our trip of brother and sisterly bonding.
