Barthhhhalona - Happy Halloween!

I woke up to my alarm at 4:10 Friday morning to get ready for Barcelona.

That was… ROUGH. I am never going to book a pre 8 am flight again.

I probably will cause they’re cheaper but that’s beside the point.

So anyways, Liv and Liz picked me up in an uber at 4:45 am and we headed to Orly to catch our flight to ~Barca~.   We got to our AirBnb early that morning and had the whole day ahead of us, so we dropped our bags off while the apartment was being cleaned and headed out to brunch. We never actually met our AirBnb host… but he was buds with the people in the hostel downstairs so he told Liv to pick the keys up from the hostel desk.

Side note we had a KILLER airbnb crew for the weekend. It was me, Liv, Liz, Louisa, Caroline, Emma, Isabel, Maddie, and Willie and Izzy hung out a bunch.

Federal Café: I had seen instagrams of this place before (classic) and Liv’s friend recommended it so we decided why not. It was like a classic Durham brunch spot. Got avocado toast which was great cause I never get it in Paris. However, bread was pretty tough…. Though overall a good meal. And we got a chocolate banana power smoothie which tasted… healthy. I think I’m out of the “healthy delicious brunch game” and a little too used to my baguettes and wine. Or maybe I just ordered the wrong things. I’d still say it was good.. but I am also a little jaded because there was apparently this AMAZING brunch place called Brunch and Cake that everyone was RAVING about and the pictures looked amazing but we never went because the lines were always like 2 hours long.

Market: I forget what this market is called but it’s a HUGE food market not too far from our apartment. They had the BEST almonds I have ever had in my whole life. And I am a nut fanatic so that’s saying a lot. We got salted almonds and candied almonds. There were tons of stands with different types of nuts, bright colored smoothies, seafood, cured meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables… anything you can imagine. We went twice the first day haha because once everyone else arrived they wanted food and I wasn’t opposed to going twice.

So after brunch/the market we met the rest of our friends back at our AirBnb to let them inside. However, the key didn’t work. I went downstairs to ask what was wrong with the key but my Spanish was not very good. The hostel man didn’t understand me and instead asked my name. I told him and he gave me another set of keys. Confused. The new keys worked so we were wondering what in the world the old keys were for…. Until we tried them in the door across the hall and found out they opened that apartment. So someone screwed up and gave us the keys to the apartment of 6+ 30 year old men across the hall. Don’t worry we never did anything bad with the keys……

That afternoon we walked to the beach and it was BEAUTIFUL. It was so warm and the water and sand felt wonderful. I was so happy to be in the sun. I knew Barcelona was on the water but I didn’t realize the beach was so big! We sat down at one of the restaurants along the beach and ordered some Sangria and a delicious bruschetta bread type thing. Very relaxing.

After our little happy hour we walked to the W hotel because we wanted to see their rooftop bar which is supposed to have an amazing view. Unfortunately, they were closed for ~siesta~. Typical Spain. So instead we looked out the water on their back deck which was still incredibly beautiful.

Then we walked back to our apartment to take a little siesta ourselves before dinner which was much needed.

Lascar 74: This was a SPECTACULAR tapas restaurant that Liv’s friend again recommended. The waiter knew what was up and said he would just bring us all the best dishes. Which he did. We started off with these cheesy clam things that were really good and then a lot of fish/sushi things and some potatoes and guacamole and I can’t even remember what else but it was good. We also all got these really good drinks called pisco sours. Apparently Peru and Argentina fight about what a true pisco sour is. Peruvians put an egg white in theirs and Argentinians don’t. Since it was a Peruvian tapas place ours had egg white in it which I have come to like in my cocktails. It adds a nice light foamy texture and doesn’t have too much of a taste. The drink was a little sour, a little cinnamony, and very good.

 

tasted better than it looks haha

­­After dinner we went to Opium, a club on the beach, which was really cool. We got there early so we beat the lines and soon after the club was packed. We hung by the bar at first, then moved to the dance floor, then out on to the beach, then found ourselves in the ~bottle service~ section. Since it was so packed it was easy to lose people, but I stuck with friends and loved hanging out on the beach it was a beautiful night! Got home around 430 which we thought was late.. later found out it wasn’t.

Slept in till like 12:30 on Saturday, which was much much needed. Wanted to go to Brunch and Cake but it was packed. Tried to go to Milk but it was packed. Ended up going to this sandwich place Willie saw that looked good, and afterwards we realized it must be famous cause the line was out the door. They ask what kind of meat you want and then whether or not you want everything on it (I assume, I speak zero Spanish this was all Willie). I got a killer chicken sandwich that kind of reminded of the falafels back in Paris. We then sat and ate them on the steps in the woooonderful sunshine.

Isabel and Maddie couldn’t exactly enjoy the sunshine cause they were.. I’ll say… struggling. Lol.

So Emma, Louisa and I left them by the water while we decided to head to some palace Liv, Liz, and Caroline told us they were going so we decided to meet them, we had no idea what this “palace” was.  But we wanted to do at least something touristy. So I plugged the address in to my phone and found “Chateaux de Juipe” and we began our journey.

Apple maps (the gem that it is) led us in to this park, which was very beautiful, but also very hilly. We get up our second large hill and can’t see any way down the hill. Isabel texts me and asks where we’re going… “Chateaux de Juipe!” I say. We assume apple maps must be wrong and switch to Louisa’s google maps. Google maps was no clearer, we ended up going up and down the same hill a few times until we finally found our way to a hotel. “Weird! A hotel all the way up here! Maybe they’ll have a way down!” They didn’t. We finally found a main road and kept going up. We passed lots of beautiful parks and fountains as I started sweating bullets. Keep in mind I was “struggling” a bit as well. About an hour later we finally reach the top of this awful mountain and arrive at our destination. Turns out it is a palace that is at one of the highest points in Barcelona that was historically used as a look out point and is known today for its great views of the city and the water. Would have been GREAT if our friends had told us that before we made the trek. But in the end it was worth it and after sweating out some of that tequila I think I felt a bit better.

Also turns out it’s called “Palace de Juipe”… but since my apple maps is in French, it called it a chateaux so I was going around calling it a chateaux to everyone sounding like an idiot. I should have known “chateaux” wasn’t a word in French AND Spanish.

We also found out there was a gondola that takes you to the top of the mountain from the other side… HA HA.

The Palace was cool. It had a big courtyard outside and a large courtyard on top. But we were overwhelmed. Barcelona isn’t that pretty from up top haha sorry eep. There were a lot of barges and construction machines surrounding the palace right at the foot of the mountain so that was a bit of  a bummer.

 

so happy to be at the top!

how we actually felt at the top

After getting down the mountain we went on a hunt for ice cream.. We stumbled upon this gelato place near our air bnb where I had AWESOME fig and ricotta gelato. Unexpected but nonetheless delicious.

We all had a bit of a conundrum on Saturday since it was Halloween and none of us had a Halloween costume. Luckily there was a bizarre little vintage shop across the street from our apartment. Louisa and I grabbed some western looking vests, slapped it over a black dress and called ourselves cowgirls. So creative I know!

 

liz stayed very in character lol

Then comes the next ~siesta~ !! I’ve gotten really good at napping here.

Our dinner Friday night was delicious but considering the effects of Saturday morning we decided we needed a dinner with more sustenance and much more carbs.

Tucco: Tucco pasta and empanadas was the solution! It was a 2 minute walk from our apartment and rated #1 on trip advisor or something like that. I got yummy ravioli, an empanada, a brownie, and a glass of wine all for 8 euros! My wallet loves Spain!

Razzmatazz: Everyone and their brother was going to Razzmatazz for Halloween. Everyone had bought tickets online and the line was OUT of control. There were metal fences and tons of security guards to handle the crowds. It turns out the club had oversold over 1,000 tickets. My friends and I had to split in to 3 different cabs, so I arrived with Liz, Liv, and Caroline around 1:30 am. There was a little opening in the fence so we snuck our way in. Because “we don’t do lines”. Ha. After about 20 minutes and a lot of pushing and shoving later we made it in. We later found out or friends who arrived 5 minutes later were not as lucky, didn’t get in to the club, and got pushed over in the line L Turns out a lot of people had the same issue so a lot of Duke people went to another bar. There was nothing we could do about it that point so we took our free drink tickets to the bar. For your free drink ticket (comes with entry) you could only get a shot. Razzmatazz clearly knows what’s up. The main room was a huge warehouse looking thing with long bars on either end and a DJ on a stage at one end. We danced for a while, I ran in to Nick and Parker from high school, some other duke people, and danced some more. There was a second level that overlooked the main room so we assumed that was where bottle service was. I ran in to my friend from my dorm freshman year who I hadn’t seen in over a year at Opium the night before, and he told me he had bought a table so we went to look for him. However the stairs didn’t take us to bottle service, instead they took us outside to a cool spot surrounded by brick buildings with even more people.   We then found ourselves in ANOTHER room that was small and narrow with big windows and lots of Halloween decorations. They were playing all the top 100 american songs which is rare in Europe so of course we went wild for that. They also released confetti in the room at some point which was sweeeet. We got pretty tired around 5 and called it quits. While walking to find a cab we ran in to a distraught looking girl dressed as an angel who turned out to be one of my sorority sisters hey! She was incredibly pleased to see us as she apparently had lost her friends (who I could have sworn I had seen 5 minutes earlier in my walk).  She was a sweetheart and once we finally found a cab we put her in it and sent her home. It proved pretty much impossible to find another cab so we just walked home. Took almost an hour but it was warm so we didn’t care. Then liv and I ate an avocado, I broke a glass, and we went to bed at 6:30…! I wanted to stay up for the sunrise but then I realized that was at 7:30 am and that last hour just wasn’t gonna happen.

We hung out there for a little until we came back inside and were greeted with another room very similar to the first but maybe half the size (which is still huge). Turns out this was the room with the famous DJ that was DJing who I didn’t know. But it was apparently a big deal. And I danced a ton in that room so I guess I liked him! After leaving that room we wandered in to yet another room with another DJ and another bar and another Duke girl who I don’t know but nicely offered to buy me a drink!

Sunday morning it was my turn to “struggle” while running on 4 hours of sleep.

We ended up going to a random brunch place. I ate an omelet which I think was good?

Sagrada Familia: This is a church designed by the famous ____ Gaudi. It is unlike any church I’ve ever seen. It reminds me of a sandcastle that we used to make when I was little by dripping wet sand to make the towers. And inside it had the most BEAUTIFUL stained class windows. The sun was shining through the orange/red side which made the whole church glow like it was on fire. The columns weren’t traditional columns and instead fanned out on the ceiling a bit like palm trees. The church is also still under construction, it’s notorious for never being finished. The church was beautiful but I was dead so I took a nap on one of the stone benches while everyone else walked around. It was a peaceful nap..!

Park de Guell: This park was also designed by Gaudi and was also on top of a huge hill.  It was very lush and had beautiful mosaics interspersed throughout the park. The view from the top was also beautiful! Again, not sure if struggling Kelly really thought it was worth it though.. Really liked the park minus the climb though. I really do like Gaudi’s work though. His colorful mosaics are bright and happy and pretty. I really wanted to get a souvenir with the gaudi mosaic cause they had anything and everything mosaic there. But I made the mistake of thinking I could find the same assortment in the airport and ended up with a weird little keychain.

Milk: Sunday night we finally went to the famous milk brunch restaurant, but for dinner. Liv and I split some delicious smoked salmon potato cakes and an Asian chicken salad. Then after we went to the awesome gelato place and I got churros which were warm crunchy and DELICIOUS. But the pot of chocolate they gave me with it was huge and I couldn’t finish it.

Also shout out to Brian for completing the NYC Marathon this weekend!