Sagrada Família and Parc Güell

February 17:

I was woken up at 9:30 by my alarm. Breakfast was only till 10 as it was at so many places and I needed something to settle some of my stomach’s misgivings. A few of my Canadian friends, Lucas and Lindsay managed to reach breakfast just as it was wrapping up around 10. We ate slowly, and talked of our previous night’s adventures and our plans for that day. I was interested in heading on a walking tour but it left the hostel at 10:45 and Pat was still asleep. They planned on seeing the Sagrada Família that day and I said Pat and I might tag along depending on when he got up. We all went back to our rooms to clean up for the day and Pat arose during this time. Once we were all ready we headed out to check out the church. It was unbelievable. Huge in scale and highly unconventional in design.

We walked around it but we were all hungry and there was a huge line so we decided to hit up an all you can eat buffet nearby. After lunch we started the trek to Parc Güell, a park on a hill that offered a beautiful view of the city. It was a gorgeous park with beautiful views, architecture, and vegetation.

As we reached the top of the park we saw some people taking a path to the top of the hill so we followed them up and were witness to stunning views. I have not of yet mentioned the weather of the day which was glorious. It was partially cloudy and we were at times threatened by rain but when we were in direct sun light it was wonderfully warm. We had all brought jackets at least for rain if not, as the girls had, for warmth but for hours we were compelled to walk around in our shirts, absorbing all the sun we could.

After hanging out on the hilltop for quite some time soaking in the views we bussed home, tired and hungry from a long and busy day. Back at our hostel we grabbed food and headed to bed to sleep or rest with a plan to reconvene later and do something that night.

Once we got up and going we met up with our neighbors for a few drinks. They were pretty excited to go to this club, which they heard was amazing. We taxied there to find that it was closed. A group hopped into another taxi and went to the Olympic Village where clubs were supposed to be open. We hopped in a cab after them but our cabbie didn’t know where the Olympic Village was so we got out and decided to walk back to our hostel. This took a considerable while but was a lot of fun. Pat and Lucas talked hockey all the way back to the hostel. The group that had headed to the Olympic village said that though stuff was open it wasn’t very good and they arrived back just after we did. It seems our plans were a bit ambitious for a Sunday night, Once we got back we grabbed some drinks and hung out. Some people played some pool. After a while people started getting tired and pat and I went out in search of food. Of course nowhere was open at 3am on a Sunday night, even in the heart of the tourist district of Barcelona. We ended up buying some sandwiches from a vending machine in our hostel and heading to bed.