My Spanish Adventure

I am soooooo behind!! And if I don't at least try and catch up little by little, then even more time will pass and I'll be buried alive. :) 


My goal was to write about Spain, city by city. So even though it's been over a month, and everyone has heard all of the stories, I'm going to proceed so that I have a record of our amazing trip!!


Seattle - San Francisco - Atlanta - Barcelona

I flew from Seattle to San Francisco on Wednesday night. I flew on Virgin American airlines for the first time and I'm happy to say it was awesome! Very nice accommodations. I flew with them is because it was cheaper than any other airline - on par with Southwest, but Southwest didn't have any direct flights to SFO. So it was definitely worth it. I fit everything into my one checked bag and was pretty proud of my ability to do so (I am the queen of overpacking) and it was even under 50 pounds!. We arrived almost an hour late because of the San Francisco fog... but nevertheless, the vacation had begun. I had gotten Dad & I a room at the Hampton Inn near the airport (for a steal of $29!), so I took the shuttle and met him there. 

Thursday - alarm at 5am to get us to the airport a little before 6. I didn't have an assigned seat for some strange reason, but they said I could get one at the gate. We went to go through security and the line looked a mile long. It moved fairly quickly at first, but that was just the main line. It was awful! Dad had never seen it so bad there. Delta agents kept coming through asking if anyone was on a certain flight - whichever one was leaving next. We waited in line for 45 minutes before they came through asking about the Atlanta flight. And it seemed that all of the passengers for that flight were still in line. They took us to another line and we finally made it through security and to the gate at 7:15... for our 7:25 flight. Luckily, they had reassigned us two seats together. 

Flight to Atlanta

The flight from Atlanta to Barcelona wasn't bad. I didn't sleep much (probably too excited!) and we got to Barcelona at 8am local time. We took a shuttle to the subway station and then took the subway to the hotel. We stayed at the Hilton Diagonal Mar in Barcelona and it was right near the beach... and we had a great view from our room! Luckily, the room was ready when we got there so we could drop off our bags and change clothes. Then we were ready to see the city. 

What a welcome!

View from our room

Plus... the hotel had this!

We started off by seeing the Sagrada Familia which is a cathedral and the most famous work of architect Antoni Gaudi. And despite the fact that they've been working on it for over 100 years, it's still not complete. It is rather incredible to see. Everything about the place is symbolic and I kind of just stood in awe, amazed by what people are capable of doing. 

After the cathedral, we stopped for lunch at a place nearby, but clearly we should have walked a little farther. The chicken was very sketchy. :) We thought we'd go to Parc Guell (a park with Gaudi architecture) after lunch, but got a little lost. The locals were very nice however, and just kept pointing us in the right direction. We finally made it and got a fantastic view of the city. 

We went back to the hotel for a nap... which actually turned into bedtime. Dad fell asleep at 6pm. I stayed up for a little while uploading photos, but gave in about 9:30 and then we slept until 9:30 the next morning! Guess we were tired. 


Saturday - We didn't even make it out of the hotel until almost noon, and then when we did, we went to Starbucks for a leisurely cup of coffee. We even stayed there to enjoy it. We turned European in 1 day!

Finally we headed to La Rambla... which is a street lined with shopping. They had tons of booths set up, selling all kinds of things, and there were street performers all over too. It was a lot of fun and we even bought a few things.

La Rambla 

La Rambla was the beginning of our walking tour which included:

The Opera House

-Gran Teatre del Liceu - Barcelona's grand Opera house
-Palau Guell - one of Gaudi's buildings
-Placa Reial - the square where we enjoyed a really delicious lunch of Italian food)!
-The Catedral - one of Barcelona's most magnificent Gothic structures
-Roman Walls - or the remains of :)
-Esglesia de Santa Maria del Mar - another Gothic church

The line for the Picasso Museum

-Museu Picasso - The Picasso Museum... mostly of his earlier work. The line was really long to get in, but admission was free today! Bonus! 

After the Picasso Museum, we stopped for some tapas. We sat outside at a little table by the door. While we were eating, a man came and stood next to the wall behind dad. I was watching him because he was so close and he made me a little nervous. Another man went to the front door behind me and looked inside the restaurant, then turned back around and asked me for the time. I didn't have a watch so I said I didn't know, but right then it hit me that he was probably just distracting us and I immediately turned back around and grabbed dad's bag which was down by his feet. The guy that had been behind dad had just started crouching down... I'm sure to take the bag. When I grabbed it instead, both men took off.

I had read in the guide book about scams and things to be aware of and I think that helped me in that moment. The guy made me nervous anyway, but I still think it was on my mind because of what I read. Hooray for reading guide books!

Having tapas

Sunday - Dad & I went to the hotel gym so I could run a little bit, then we had a quick breakfast at the hotel and headed to the subway to get to the train station. Barcelona has a great metro system and we were pros on it by the time we left.

We took the high speed train from Barcelona to Madrid which travels over 180 miles per hour. Dad had bought us first class tickets and they were well worth it! More room than an airplane and a meal is included. It was actually pretty good food too and afterward, they come back around and serve coffee and drinks and even chocolates!

On the train 

I definitely like traveling by train!