Market

February 22:

We woke up around 11:30 today, little worse for wear. The order of the day was to find a place to stay tomorrow night because the inconsistent hostel wireless had hindered our last attempt to sort things out. We looked into trains to Lisbon and found that there was only one option, an overnight train. We would need to go to the train station to sort out our tickets, but first, food. We headed out in search of nourishment in no particular direction and had soon stumbled upon a store selling 5 euro sunglasses. The lens had popped out of the ones I brought while we were still in Paris so I picked up a pair. Sunglasses were a necessity for this chilly but amazingly sunny day. It soon hit us quickly that instead of finding a random café we should head to a market. We went back to the hostel and found out about one close to us. We went and it was really neat with lots of interesting foods but they were all relatively pricey so we searched around it vowing to come back for a snack after our breakfast. We found a place that sold noodles and ate them up. A creamy mushroom sauce really hit the spot and eased my somewhat uneasy stomach. After our meal we went back to the market but nothing appealed to us and we decided to make our way to the train station. Once there we were able to reserve our tickets for the next evening in a matter of minutes and were soon on our way back to the hostel.

Almost there we grabbed some snacks from the corner store and settled into the room. I had been eyeing a hostel with 90+ rating on hostelworld which was billed as a party hostel with large beds, free pancake breakfast, free family style dinners and 5 Euro all you could drink beer before 11pm. It was also the cheapest hostel in its range where other well rated hostels were 12 or more euros a night this one only cost 9.99.  So we are now booked for a four night stay starting the 24^th at the hilariously named Gspot Hostel.

After booking the hostel we kept it low key chillin and planning to have a low key night after the excitement of the last one. For dinner we went to a place called Café and Tapas, which I think is a chain. Food was really good if a bit pricey. After dinner we chilled and fought the shoddy internet to load shows that we then watched and headed to bed.

Museo Nacional del Prado

February 21:

We had no need to get up early today as there was no complementary breakfast and once we awoke we idled around the room. Around 11:15am we decided to go out and grab food. The hostel had advertised a 12:45pm walking tour of the city that we though would be a good way to use our first full day in the city. We ended up getting food and a nice little café called Colby. I ordered hot chocolate and churros but was a little surprised by what I got. You see the hot chocolate was the most literal hot chocolate I have ever seen. I would say it would be best described as chocolate fondue in a coffee mug. After a bit of a struggle and some using it as actual fondue for my churros I decided I could not finish this thick and sweet beverage.

We went back to the hostel in a bit of a hurry but made it there for 12:40, unfortunately the tour had already left. It was not a pleasant day out and it had been spitting intermittently as we searched for food so we decided it would be a good day to stay indoors. A few minutes walk took us to Museo Nacional del Prado, one of the world’s foremost art galleries/museums. Unfortunately I was only able to get a few pictures from here since they were pretty strictly against them.

After three or four hours there pat and I were both utterly exhausted. I grabbed a Monster energy drink from a corner store and we headed out to find some food. I grabbed a slice of pizza for 2 euros though Pat was uninterested so our search continued. We ended up back at El Tigre and after I had a small beer and pat had a large we were both stuffed to the brim. We headed back to the hostel to rest and recover as we had hoped to do a pub-crawl that evening.

After a few hours of just recovering from del Prado we started preparing for our night out. I drank a bit of whisky and did some basic work out exercises because I have missed my appointments with the gym greatly. At 8:30 Pat joined me and we drank the second of our two boxes of wine. The pub-crawl convened at 9:45 and cost 12 euros. We would go to three initial bars for forty-five minutes apiece before heading to a club. The first bar had unlimited sangria and beer for us till 11 and the following 2 bars would each have a free tequila shot for us. As some may have anticipated I took all you can drink to be a challenge but after chugging two beers upon arrival I though better and sipped on a beer or 2 for the remainder of our stay. The next two bars were relatively uneventful the first being noteworthy because one of the girls we were with didn’t want her tequila shot so I got hers and the second being of note because that was the point where Pat decided he had had enough to drink and was going to head home. The club wasn’t spectacular but it was fun regardless. 

To Madrid

February 20:

Today was an early morning. My alarm was set for 8:30 this morning because my stuff was a mess and I had a lot of packing to do before I was ready to leave. I slowly packed and sorted for an hour before grabbing breakfast at my usual 9:30. Breakfast was a glass of orange juice and 4 slices of white bread. After breakfast I returned to our room and finished packing all but my day bag. During this packing the lid of my locker happened to swing down to bonk me on the head giving me quite the bump. Once we were both packed we headed to the train station. Fortunately there was a section for today’s tickets that we found. There was no line when we got there so we got served quickly though in the few minutes it took us to get our tickets quite the line had developed behind us. It was then 11 and we were able to get tickets for 12pm train. We had an hour to kill so we went to grab sandwiches for the train and read for a while. The train gave us no issues, though after about half an hour of reading I was soundly asleep. Two hours later I awoke. I tried to read some more but was only partially successful because I was distracted by the gorgeous Spanish countryside flying past me. Rolling hills and red soil interspersed with farms and forests made for a beautiful sight. I attempted to take some pictures but it was flying by and I doubt I did it justice.

Our train pulled into the station and we used the station wireless to figure out where our hostel was and how we get there. Turns out it was only three stops down the metro line and then a two minute walk. Super convenient. The location of the place seems really good but despite the high ceilings of our room the bunk beds only rise to my sternum giving my bottom bunk a good 3 feet of clearance. Only gigantic sums of luck will keep me from adding more welts to my forehead to match the one I gained earlier today.

After a time getting acclimatized to the hostel and doing blog posts I decided to check out the rest of the hostel. This one actually has a public kitchen and refrigerators which is nice and definitely gives us different options for food. We were getting hungry and decided to go out to pretty famous place called El Tigre, that pat had heard about online. At this establishment you get free tapas with purchase of a drink. Being the thirsty young’un we are we opted for a large beer and were greeted with liter glasses of beer and plates of tapas. Done our initial 2 plates and beer we were a bit hungry still and thought about going out to get more food when the waiter brought us more tapas! We started into it but could use something to wash it down so we got small beers, approximately bottle sized. Large beers were six Euro and smalls were 2.50 Euros. We ate our fill and had about 4 bottles of beer a piece in equivalency for 8.50 each. Not to shabby. Heading back to our hostel it was still pretty early and we considered whether we would like some drinks for the evening. We picked up some discount brand wine.  Liter tetra packs were 98 cents and we bought some cups too and then headed back to the hostel to drink and watched tv for a bit. After a while we split off to do our own individual things before heading to sleep.

Why see the world when you've got the beach?

February 19:

My alarm went off at 9:30 as per usual but I decided today I wanted to sleep in. We were both slow to rise. It was cloudy out and the weather forecast said it might rain in the near future. We had planned to try and see the beach but with the weather we were unsure. We headed out in search of some food wandering parallel to Las Ramblas until we reached La Boqueria. We hadn’t explored this famous market yet. It was really cool to grab food and wander around the market while eating calzones. We got delicious fresh fruit smoothies for a euro before leaving.

We headed down Las Ramblas towards the Mediterranean. They have a mall out on the water we considered walking through but by the time we reached the water it was sunny out and we decided to hit the beach. It took us a couple of hours to get to the beach and walk the length of it. I dipped my hand in the Mediterranean! On the way back we stopped by the train station to see if we could get tickets to Madrid but apparently we had to go to another station for that. We headed back to the hostel tired and sore from all our walking. After a rest we tried to see if we could get tickets from the other train station. When we got there we took a number but after 40 minutes of waiting and the queue barely advancing we decided we would have to get the tickets the next day as we had plans for the evening.

Our plan for that evening was a cooking lesson arranged through Travel Bound, the company who ran the walking tours. We first went with the Chef to La Boqueria to buy fresh prawns, muscles, clams, and squid. After touring around the market for a bit we went to the Port Bar. There we learned how to make some simple traditional tapas and consumed tapas and sangria. The chef cooked us paella in front of us using the freshly acquired seafood and explained why he was doing what he did. Once he finished and the paella was left to simmer we got a lesson on how to make sangria. After our meal we stuck around for a bit, hanging out and talking with the people from our table but after a while were tired and decided to head home and to bed. 

Walking Tour

February 18:

I was woken up at 9:30 by my alarm and headed to breakfast. When I got back to the room Pat was up and we started getting ready for the 10:45 free walking tour that was offered in association with our hostel. It was run by a company called Travel Bound and was really good. We got a lot of info about the history and culture of Barcelona and the whole Catalan district. The tour ended at a bar where we got some lunch. By the time we got to the hostel it was about 3pm. I was tired from the last night’s adventures and napped till 6. At 6:15 we met up with Jess, a girl who we had met on the walking tour, and went to grab some dinner. We went to this place that was supposed to have a cheap fast food version of tapas called 100 M. Their tapas was in sandwiches and was a bit weird. Getting back to the hostel we grabbed our laptops and reconvened in the bar to figure out our respective plans for the coming days. We figured out Madrid was our next stop and soon called it a night.