First Two Days In Barcelona

I am sitting on the bus back to my town of Novy Bydzov here on Monday morning at 5:45, which I guess is the official end of our last long holiday breaks from school until the end of the school year on June 30th. We do have one more, long weekend at the end of March, beginning of April, about five days and we are debating whether we are going to travel to Paris or Krakow, Poland. So, I know I don’t have too much to complain about. How many people get a chance to say they have travelled to all the places we have travelled? I count myself as one of the lucky ones and I am so grateful I have had a chance to experience this adventure. I know this already sounds like a final signing-off kind of post and I don’t leave the Czech Republic for another five months. I am sure there will be plenty of experiences I will be able to share. However, it seems like we have done the bulk of our traveling over the last month and half. With both my parents and Andrea’s Mother and Brother coming to visit us here in Europe, to break down a quick list of the cities we have been too, just to show how busy, in a good way, we have been, and all this while I was attempting to apply to graduate school. Without saying anymore here is the list, not to make you envious, but rather to show you what I will be discussing in my upcoming blogs; Barcelona, Prague, Munich, Brussels, Brugg, Antwerp, and Prague again. Of course, with relatives coming in we had to spend time not only in our country’s main attraction for several days, but I also, have some stories about bringing the family’s to Hradec Kralove and even bringing my parent’s to see my small city of Novy Bydzov.
The amount of fun and trails of our patience have been endless it seems and I am going to try my best to recap them for you. And like I said I am going to start with our most recent trip with my parent’s and work backward. To say the very least, Barcelona, was so far one of the hardest personal tests of forgetting about bad situations as quickly as possible to enjoy the good, the unbelievable ones. One thing I have learned while travelling, whether it be abroad or even on annual trip to Florida, never let bad accidents ruin something you have looked forward too, planned, and probably spent a whole lot of money fall apart at the seams because you have a few bad moments, and these can be very bad moments. These moments will pass just like everything else in life, just like the vacation will pass, but if you let an experience like being in Barcelona pass without enjoying yourself because you could not let that bad moment pass, you will be sorry in the long run.
So, let’s look at Andrea, my parent’s and me in Barcelona. First, you have to think about the journey to Barcelona for both Andrea and I from Prague, which actually went as smooth as you can ask, but anytime you are traveling for nearly a whole day it can be tiring. We left Prague about 6 pm and arrived in Barcelona at about 8:30, but we had to leave for the airport three hours before the flight. Then it took about two hours to get to the apartment my parents had rented for us. I would say we got settled in Barcelona close to ten. However, when you only have three days in a place like that, you want to make the most of it. So, we actually went out to a nice dinner after resting our feet for about 5-10 minutes. It was a great dinner. Barcelona, it seemed though, doesn’t quite have the variety of foods Prague does and me being the picky eater I am, I did have a little trouble eating the whole trip. That first night I got a steak and fries. However, and this an example of my pickiness, was undercooked. I ended up switching meals with my father and we both ate happily. Wiped out, that was the end of our first night in Barcelona. A good meal, everyone else shared some sangria, and we went home to bed.
Here in the Czech Republic the television watching has been very, very limited and my parent’s had brought Andrea and me DVD’s from the home. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to watch television again. So, I popped in Semi-Pro with Will Ferrell, great movie, watched the whole thing and didn’t end up getting to sleep till late that night. Even with the late night, I set my alarm for eight the next morning; I wanted to make the most of our stay. However, when I awoke to the sound of my alarm I found I was the only one awake. I went out got some essentials for the apartment like coffee, milk, sugar, etc. When I arrived back to the apartment everyone was still sleeping. My parents, still jetlagged, and Andrea, just worn-out from a long travel and an even longer week at school. Finally around 9, 9 thirty, I started to wake everyone. By the time everyone was ready to walk out the door it was near eleven. This goes back to my point, I would have like to be stepping out onto the streets of Barcelona at around nine, but when I looked at the bigger picture I was still walking out onto the streets of Barcelona, period. We made our way to the main street of Barcelona, where we found ourselves at the most famous Market in Barcelona. It was there where we had a tremendous meal. Everyone enjoyed what they got in this open air market. From this point, the day seemed to take a turn I didn’t really foresee. It seemed to become all about shopping. First, in the open air market, which I declined to walk around because I just wanted to stand on the main street and people watch, Andrea came out of the market with my four year anniversary present, chocolate boobs. Nice! And they were delicious. The shopping did not stop at the open air market. We walked down this famous street in Barcelona and it was lined with shopping for Andrea and my mother. So, they shopped while my father and I people watched for what seemed like a few hours. Not exactly what I had in mind for my time spent in Barcelona, but once again, I was in Barcelona. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and it felt like an early spring day.
Waiting for them to finish their shopping was a bit irritating, but you just got to let those things slide right away or it will weigh your whole trip down. And if I would have let the frustration get to me I would not have been able to enjoy the next thing we did, which was truly profound. We went to a church designed by Gaudi. The church was truly a marvel to be seen. Gaudi’s architecture was like nothing I had ever seen in my life. If you have never seen anything created by him, Google him and look at some pictures, or just look at the pictures which may already be up on Andrea’s Facebook account. To walk around and look up in awe at the genius of such a man takes one’s breath away. We weren’t able to see too much of the actual church as it is still under construction. It is being built with nothing more than personal donations and the cost of admission. So, it has been a slow process. They expect it to be completed in the year 2040. I joked with Andrea and told her, “Once it was finished we could get married there.” She didn’t think it was too funny. Underneath the church, however, they had a museum dedicated to the construction of the church with sketches from Gaudi, all types of interesting things. I left out while shopping we did get to see a couple of Gaudi’s completed buildings. It was interesting, on one block, some architects had competition to see who could top the others building. Of course, Gaudi’s blew the others out of the water.
Well, by the time we finished with shopping and the church it was getting dark. One of the things I really wanted to do while we were in Barcelona was go to a FC Barcelona Football match. They had a match, but they weren’t playing in Barcelona. So, my father did some research and found some sports bars to watch it. I thought the bar would be packed, I was wrong, there was really no need for us to get to the bar an hour early. I think it wasn’t crowded because FC Barcelona was playing a crummy team, which they ended up dominating the entire match. The bar did end up getting a little crowded and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I think everyone else had fun as well and it became a running joke, our bill at that sports bar ended up being the most expense meal we had the entire trip, both in Barcelona and in the Czech Republic.
It wasn’t too late by the time the match ended and our waitress spoke decent English. We got directions to a place, which would have live music. She must not have spoken the best of English, though; we walked around for nearly an hour and never found the place from her directions. My mom and dad headed back to the apartment and Andrea and I went to one bar for one drink. It was called Traveler’s Bar, everyone in there it seemed spoke English. I helped a couple of girls, part of bachelorette party, in the bathroom buy a condom out of a vending machine, which I spent the majority of the rest of the night watching them proceed to blowup and then rub it on each other with girlish screams resulting. Then playing a fun game of volleyball with it until it exploded, once it exploded it was the end of our night. Me and Andrea walked back to the apartment and of course, me being so television deprived, had to watch another movie. Up way too late again.