First day in Barcelona

February 16^th:

I woke up with half an hour before the train was scheduled to stop in Barcelona. We arrived shortly and soon got a bus to our hostel. We signed in and stored our bags in the hostel and decided to go out to get some food. We stopped at a café nearby and Pat got an unsatisfying sandwich. We chilled and read there for a while but soon we decided to explore. We wanted to see if we could check out the beach but as we departed it began to rain so we headed to the hostel. I grabbed some nachos there, taking advantage of the discount for people staying there and used the wifi for tv until 2pm when we could get up to our room. Once up in our room I unpacked a bit before heading pretty quickly to sleep. I hadn’t slept that well on the train the night before.

I woke up around 5 and as I left my hostel room ran into a five students studying abroad in Sweden, four of whom were Canadian. After some introductions they asked if I had any plans for the night and said they were seeing a hostel affiliated flamenco show at 8 and would be meeting in the hostel lobby at 7:30. I got back to my hostel room and Pat hadn’t managed to get any sleep but was hungry so we headed out to Wok to Walk so he could grab some dinner. After the meal we wandered a bit to find a grocery store to check out wine prices and look for plastic cups since we left our last ones in Paris. At the second supermarket I found something I never expected to find and bought it instantly. Johnnie Walker Green Label, for the uninformed on scotch news is the reportedly best value for money of the Johnnie Walker brand but it had tragically been cancelled months ago before I had ever gotten to try it. You will never be able to by in the LCBO again but I had found a couple 200ml bottles for 15 Euros apiece. I was super pumped to be able to taste this fabled scotch and as we headed back to the hostel I was elated.

Pat was tired from not napping and the food had pushed him over the edge. He decided the flamenco show wasn’t for him and headed to bed as I went down to meet the group going for the show. Tickets were 27 Euro but included all you can eat tapas and sangria after the show. The dancing was phenomenal and I was really happy I got to see it. The food was great too and the company I maintained made the experience even better. After the meal we headed back to the hostel. It had become a bit chilly and I had begun to regret wearing a t-shirt and flip-flops. So I changed back into my boots. As it turns out my largely Canadian group was staying in the room immediately adjacent to mine. After a few drinks we were ready to go out for the night. We headed to this bar with 500 different types of shots. The whole thing was a show and many involved displays of fire. Really cool. After a while there we decided to head back to the hostel quickly before heading to a club. Lucas, a really fun guy from PEI and I told the group that we were popping upstairs for a nip of wine but by the time we got back down (we took maybe 10 minutes) they had already left for a club that they weren’t dressed to get into. Knowing they wouldn’t get in and having no way of contacting them we decided to head out and take advantage of our hostels prime location to wander around Barcelona and see what we could see. It was really nice night and after a few hours of walking we made it back and called it a night.