When it rains in Barcelona...

Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona
The time had finally come for spring break. Months of relentless dreaming of far away European travels were not in vain as I spent my first five days of break in Barcelona, Spain. The reason Hannah, Laura, and I went there of all places was because we were able to get cheap flights there, and from there, to Malta, our next destination. We really had no idea of what there was to do in Barcelona, but to quote an old popular show, the price was right! So, on Thursday afternoon, as soon as Hannah got out of class, we headed to the train station, went to Stanstead Airport, and were on a flight to Barcelona… and we weren’t disappointed. For despite the fact that we knew next to nothing about the city, we had a blast there, and here’s why…
Day One (Thursday)
We arrived at Girona airport at 8:30 pm. From there, we took an hour-long coach ride into Barcelona, found the metro, and attempted to find our hostel. We didn’t have to try very hard; we easily found the hostel, thanks to very detailed directions from the hostel website. Our hostel was really nice; the staff was extremely friendly, the kitchen was clean, the bathrooms were nothing to cringe at, and the rooms were small but tidy, with no butcher knives lying around. Plus, there was free Wi-Fi, which is always a plus, especially since all three of us decided to lug our laptops with us for our Easter Break Adventure… glad to know it wasn’t all for nothing. So, yeah, after a long day of travel, it was good to find a safe, comfortable place waiting for us. We were asleep in no time.
Day Two (Friday)
We slept in and then took our time getting ready for the day. After all, who wants a demanding time schedule when on vacation? We found a small supermarket, grabbed some random food to go, and then found a nice spot in a park to sit down and enjoy our meals. With gorgeous, warm weather and random food, our trip started out amazingly. When our bellies were full and happy, we wandered around to Espanya and to this huge museum on top of this hill – that we took outdoor escalators to get to! - which provided us with an spectacular view of the city! Views tend to make my heart sing, and this time was no different. From there, we meandered through some gardens, took some crazy awesome “band” pictures (a new obsession of ours in which we take timed pictures in ridiculously ace places that make us look like a band), and just enjoyed being there. The gardens brought us to a road that when crossed, lead to the place where Olympics ’92 were held. The place was enormous, almost empty, and completely futuristic looking! Several hours were spent there as we took for random pictures and walked around, in awe of being at the Olympics place. Once we novelty of being there began to remotely wear off, we headed off in a random direction in hopes of finding the beach. What we found was a sketchy part of the city that was off our map, so we took a bus back to the Espanya. By that time, it was getting to be early evening and we were getting tired, so we headed back to our hostel, stopping at the market on the way to buy some food for dinner. Once we were back at our hostel, we spent some time on the internet and eating, and concluded our evening by watching Across the Universe. I had never seen the movie before, and I loved it. So as we prepared for bed, we blasted the soundtrack and other Beatles music. It was fabulous… but probably not for our neighbors. Haha.
Day Three (Saturday)
It rained pretty much all day Saturday, which was a little bit of a bummer. Due to the bad weather, we had a slow start to the day. We went to the market again, where we discovered squizable nutella. We ate our breakfast in the same park as we had the day before, but that time it wasn’t quite the same. Dreary, drizzly weather does not make for epic breakfasts in the park. Once we were done eating, we went back to the hostel to put warmed clothes on, then wandered around Las Rambas, were we saw tons of random pet vendors, florists, and human statues on the street. Off of that street was this fresh market, with fruit, bread. We all bought some fresh fruit juice – I had kiwi, which was more delicious than I could have even imagined! – and fresh fruit. We then proceeded to go to McDonalds so that we could have a warm, dry place to enjoy our fruit loot from the market. We also bought French fries there, and ate them with our new best friend, the squizable nutella. French fries weren’t the only thing we ate with the nutella, either… we put it on our fruit and rice cakes and bread and cereal. We found such simple joy in just eating nutella on random foods in a random McDonalds in Spain, of all places. I’m pretty sure everyone there thought we were insane; Insane, but extremely happy. That evening, after more wandering around the city, we ate our dinner and watched What a Girl Wants. Only fitting since we ourselves had been to London recently. That evening we went out with some people from the hostel to The Black Cat, where we tried a Harry Potter shot. That is, they line the drinks on the counter, places lemons on top of all them, then light them on fire with this crazy display of some fire baton-looking thing. After that we went to an expensive, sparkly dance club that we were able to get into for free because we went with staff from our hostel. We also received free champagne, which I could not stand, so I dumped most of mine into Laura’s flute. We then salsa-d the night away.
Day Four (Sunday)
We slept in until noon, got ready, and had breakfast/lunch on the rooftop terrace of our hostel. By the time we left our hostel, it was 2 pm. We went to Park Gueill, which was insanely cool. We spent several hours there, then went to Barceloneta beach. We stayed there for several hours, walking along the shore and taking sunset pictures. Then we went back to our hostel, bought some chocolate and Sangria, and watched The Notebook (another first time movie for me)… it was an epic girls night.
Day Five (Monday)
We ate food, went to the beach, froze at the beach, went back to Las Rambas to admire the pet vendors again, and went to Starbucks to warm up. I had a caramel macchiato and a big slice of white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Then we went back to our hostel, ate, spent some time posting pictures online, skyped home, and took siestas. At 9, we went back to the big hill with the museum on top, admired the city view at night, and had a dance party in the rain. We also took more random band photos and music videos. It was the perfect ending to our stay in Barcelona.

Day Six (Tuesday)
We left for the coach that would take us to the airport at 10 am. We were on the coach at 11:30, and at the airport at 12:30. Our flight didn't leave until 5, so we spent 4.5 hours in the airport. Then we had a forty minute delay, after we had already borded the plane, due to rain (of course! although bad weather did make it easier to leave Barcelona) during which I fell asleep. At 7:40, we landed in Malta... where the weather was warm and the sky was blue.

When it rains in Barcelona, it shines in Malta!