Hola.
Wednesday: Got up at 4am to get to the train station in Sheffield. Didn't get much sleep as I stayed up most of the night packing and making sure I had everything.
Forgot to mention that on the Tuesday, I went out for lunch with Ian and Beth (his GF) and got to meet the third member of the Spanish trip; an Irishman named John Campbell. Not to be confused with the TV presenter back home.
Not much to report travel wise - caught the train, got on a plane and woke up in Spain. Pretty simple, really.
Luckily for us, John is fluent in about 4 or 5 languages; English (duh), Spanish (yay!), Portuguese, Korean and possibly one other. A very handy man to have on the trip.
Caught a train from the airport to our hostel which, despite being a wee ways from the hub of Barcelona, is awesome. Great facilities, really modern and clean. The three of us are in one room sharing with a guy from Finland but more about him later.
John took a nap while Ian and I went for a wander around the streets and see what Barcelona is all about. Found a tapas cafe run by some Chinese people and ordered our food in Spanish. Neither Ian nor I are very good at it. Speaking Spanish itself isn't that difficult as it's phonetic, the difficulty is when people reply in Spanish and you have no idea what they're saying. I have enough trouble understanding people who speak English, so you can imagine I've struggled a little. Spaniards speak pretty quickly.
So Ian ordered some mushrooms and I ordered the Tacos de queso marchegas, thinking that I was gonna get something a bit like Tacos back home. A plate of cheese wedges arrived first, which Ian told me was complimentary starters. After about a half hour, I started to wonder if the cheese was in fact my meal. Ian assures me that in Spain, 'they don't rush things here', often bringing out meals in parts. After about 45 minutes it's pretty clear that I've ordered a plate of cheese. As if my blood pressure wasn't already high enough! Ian couldn't stop laughing. 6.5 bloody Euros for a plate of cheese. Aye Carumba!
That night we all went out for some tapas, and this time John helped us order. Tres Cervesa (three beers) was quite commonly said and we tucked into some tasty Spanish cuisine. We had bombas (a kind of stuffed potato, very tasty), patata bravas (potatoes with mayo and hot sauce), a seafood dish with mussels and prawns and of course, chorizo (spicy Spanish sausage). John ordered a collection of mediterranean dishes - an assortment of fish dishes and we nibbled at that too. Not a single wedge of cheese in sight.
Weds night was spent at the hostel chilling out and drinking beers. Played a little poker and learned out to play Cribbage. Turned out to be a much larger night than originally anticipated. John is practically a semi-pro poker player so he left to go to the casino and try his luck at 2 am. He won 4000 pounds in a poker game last week, so he knows his shit. Our Finnish roommate was really trashed and talking loads of garbage(once people start bringing up World War 2, you know it's time to hit the hay). However, he's built like a brick shithouse and probably on steroids by the looks of him so we just ignored him.
Thursday: Woke up feeling a bit worse for wear, but a lot better than John who stayed in bed until about 6pm! Ha ha ha! What a waste of a good day. The sun was shining so Ian and I got onto checking out the real Barcelona. We went down to a boulevard called Las Ramblas which is a great street of stalls, artists, hawkers, street performers, crazy people, food stalls and of course, tourists.
Then we went down to the waterfront. Very picturesque made even better by the 34 degree heat. To be honest, it's probably not as nice as Darling Harbour - you kinda forget how attractive Sydney can be at times. From the waterfront we ventured down some streets to Barri Gotic, or, the Gothic quarter, filled with heaps of beautiful and historic old buildings. Took some good footage on video which I'll edit when I get a chance.
Evening came around and John finally woke up and joined us for a meal and beers again. We were gonna head into the city centre but we were pretty knackered from walking around all day. Had another tapas dinner and mixed with a few people we met in the hostel.
Beers flowed pretty freely. Again. And our dreams of an early start the next morning were stopped dead in their tracks. The others are still sleeping as I type this. Sat around and chatted with Justin, another Irishman we met the previous evening and a couple of young American guys who despite being incredibly geeky were great fun. One of them looks like the guy from the 'I'm a mac, I'm a PC' ads and was a borderline genius. He's currently in some kick-ass polytechnic and should be getting into Harvard School of Medicine. Jesus.
Anyway, today we're gonna check Nou Camp, which is the Barcelona FC football stadium, supposedly one of the biggest in Europe and La Sagrada Familia, a famous cathedral. I'm gonna wake up the others now as it's bloody 11:20 and they haven't moved.
Hope all is well with y'all. Will upload pics at some point but it's a bit slow on this site, so you'll just have to be patient. However, I have been editing a video of my trip, so will send that on DVD when I get back to London, I reckon. Speaking of which, I'll be traveling back to London via Sheffield from Spain. Will visit France another time.
Until next time...
Joe
