Barcelona

The morning we traveled to Barcelona we got up at 4:30 in the morning, and from there it was a very long day. We got on our first train in Bordeaux, which took us to Narbonne. Then we waited for two and a half hours and got on our second train to Figueras. We were now in Spain! Then we waited for over four hours for our third and final train to Barcelona. We spent more time waiting in train stations than we did on actual trains that day. Once we got to the train station we figured out where we needed to go and caught a taxi to our hostel. It was good to finally set our things down and have a bed. We spent the rest of that day settling in and resting. We went to the grocery store and got some food. And then that night we went boarding. My favorite part of Barcelona was boarding everyday. That night we realized just how hot and humid Barcelona was. In Barcelona the local preferred language is not Spanish, but Catalan. We found that most people speak Spanish, but they prefer Catalan.

That next day we decided to explore some of the parts in Barcelona that we saw the previous night, and then some. Austin and I grabbed our boards and headed for the beach! We skated around for quite a while and eventually made it to the beach. The beach was very crowded. We looked for a less crowded part of the beach and eventually spotted one in the distance, so we headed that way. When we got there we realized why there weren’t as many people. This section of the beach had a large group of completely nude people. Most of them were between the age of 50 and 80. Most of them were also male. Needless to say we moved on from that area quickly. We moved down the beach and set up shop in one of the more crowded sections. We quickly realized that a certain amount of nudity couldn’t be escaped on the beach in Barcelona. So after chilling on the beach for a while we took our boards and continued our adventure. We skated around the waterfront and the city for a while longer. Eventually we made it back down to the beach for another go at the waterfront. This time Austin actually got in the water, but we didn’t stick around for a long time. At this point in the trip Austin and I were both pretty much ready to come home. We still very much enjoyed Barcelona, but there were little things that pointed towards us wanting to return to America; like the fact that we had Burger King for lunch. We had a late lunch and came back to the hostel to rest a little bit before dinner. Every night we had pasta for dinner. Dinner was nice and slow every night. It was a time to relax. Then after dinner we went out for our nightly ride.

The next day we grabbed our boards and headed inland, away from the beach. We decided to be touristy and check out some architecture. We went to several Gaudi buildings. First we hit up La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s famous unfinished work. Complete with cranes in middle of the structure. Yet another building that I have seen countless pictures of, and got to see it in real life! It reminds me of the hive-like structures in “Pitch Black.” Very impressive, and very different. From there we went up to Park Guell. It looked like something straight out of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My theory is that every time Gaudi sat down at his drawing table, he first took an unhealthy dose of hallucinogenic stimulant. From there we also visited Batlló House and La Pedrera. Both as uniquely interesting as I would have hoped, but could not have imagined. With that we called it a day for the Gaudi tourism. We went and got some lunch at McDonald’s. Like I said, we were both ready to come home. We went back to the hostel and I rested as Austin went out to skate. I wrote a blog post and worked on some music playlists. It was a very relaxing afternoon, and one that was well needed. Austin got back and then we made dinner. That night we went out to board and I filmed Austin. It was interesting trying to keep up with him and keep the video from being too shaky at the same time. By the time we got back and showered it was pretty late.

That next day instead of skating around to different places, we decided to rent bikes. We walked down to the beachfront, which took considerably longer, and rented our bikes. We then headed up a mountain to check out Montejuïc Castle. The ride up there was a lot longer than we expected it would be, and the ride down was quite a bit shorter than we thought it would be. The castle was quite impressive. It was a military installation; there were never any royalty that had lived there. The castle overlooked the Mediterranean Sea, which was extremely calm. It was quite the view. The castle was fairly simple, but that did not detract from the experience. There were a couple of large canons and several newer large coast defense guns. When we were done adventuring the castle we both had a hot dog and I had some ice cream. I’m pretty sure I had ice cream three times that day… it was a good day. That night after dinner we skated around the beachfront like normal.

The next day we walked down to Las Ramblas, which was an area with shops that we hadn’t been to yet. It turned out to be one of the most touristy places we visited. There wasn’t a lot to do other than walk around, but we made the most of it. We found a small shop that even sold Cannabis seeds. Don’t worry mom, we didn’t buy any. We had another lunch of McDonald’s to keep up our theme of looking forward to America. We spent several hours just sitting and talking. We had some good conversations. It was nice to take it easy and get to talk. We’ve been going so much that an easy day is exactly what we needed. That night we went out to skate and ended up watching some other guys skate for an hour or so. It was an easy, relaxing day. It was a nice last day in Barcelona.

The next day we took our time heading to the airport since our flight didn’t leave until a little after 2pm. We got back in to London and even England felt more like home than Spain. It makes sense because we spent a month there, but it was a strange feeling. England was still fairly new, but even the little bit of familiarity that we had with it was comforting. That night we stayed at the same youth pastor’s house that we did before flying to France. It was good to stay up and talk with him and his wife. Then after a few hours of sleep I woke up, walked to the train station, took a train to the airport, and spent the rest of the day on planes trying to get home. I eventually made it and have been resting here in the heat of AZ. It was a very good trip, but I am so very glad to be back in the States. Oh, and if you want to see photos, check out my facebook. That is all.