Emotionally damaged in Barcelona. The first 2 days.

Day 1:

5am Alarm: Frantically, we race around the room packing the last of our stuff as Dave (Kel's Dad) arrives 5 mins early to kindly gives us a lift all the way from Newquay to Bristol – a whopping 2+ hour journey one way. Cheers Dave!

After a sneaky Bulmers cider and BK Burger, we board the plane in a rather dazed state where we both snooze most of the way to Barcelona with our hoods up over our eyes.

Arriving in Barcelona, the Airports nice, the floors look kinda wooden with gum in the groves, but we think its marble/stone. There's also a nice Horse statue with chunky legs. The information guide gives us good directions to the train, and a huge map.

It's pretty easy travel on the train from the airport to Passeig De Gracia.

To get to our stop 'Barceloneta' we take a massive walk through a tunnel to find the right metro train.

Somewhere during this time of trying to work out the metro, understanding the Euro, working the ticket machines and generally not knowing what's really going on, some thieving bastards take the opportunity to rob the shit outta me.

Brilliant.

I don't realise this until we are well out of the metro and as I open my bag to phone our apartment fella.

Basically, we think it happened on the Escalator as it stopped and started to make some commotion, and this guy was way to insistent on carrying my big bag and cuffuffling around.

Basically I kicked the street a bit and cursed the world. As you do.

Our next drama was to find our apartment, and after a few teary phone calls and going in the wrong direction we eventually get there.

The apartment is really nice, quirky and clean, in a great location and has a comfortable bed.

Barceloneta is bound by harbour on one side and the Mediterranean on the other.

Emotionally drained, we still need to file a police report about my lost money and passport. So back to the tubes it is. We stop to ask if anything has been handed in.

Through the horrific language barrier and after a phone call or 2, the lady tells me that someone – somewhere has my passport.

A surge of energy now running through my veins, my eyes welling up with happy tears, I'm now the happiest person in the whole metro circulation!

Little did we know we would be spending the next 3 hours walking the halls trying to find this 'person' who has hold of my passport. Its a blur really, but I do remember - in the midst of trying to explain to yet another metro worker (by using very bad hand signals and sign language), finding this lovely lady on her way home from university. We never asked her name. She was our blessing, generously helping us with her time and interpretation.

We find the passport.

It really sucks being robbed. Make sure you lock your bags up tight. Kelly, you were an angel, thank you for putting up with my 'besidemyselfness'!!!!

We did get to see one of the major Gaudi buildings afterwards, Casa Batllo. A very colourful and strange looking building that looks like it is made of skulls and bones, the skulls being the balconies and the bones the supporting pillars.

On the way home we walked down Las Ramblas in all its glory, raging with tourists, markets, buskers, and random men selling light-up blue flying things, and mouth pieces to make stupid duck noises.

We ended the night with some dinner bought from Spar, Chips, Bread, herby cheese spread, beer and cyder. Not the best day of our holiday.

Day 2:

So today we woke up after an average sleep, but in a much better mind setting.

A beach walk was in order, so we walked down the gorgeously hot sands to see the The Barcelona fish (Piex) and balancing ball thing.

Sunbathing on the beach would have been really relaxing if not for the Thai ladies who march up and down the beach yelling 'hola, massagey?'(a 5euro massage on the beach) 'they come all the once...like buses!'

The culture here is interesting, we found that the abruptly rude people outweighed the insanely nice people. We also noticed the different groups of people, these African men who sell rip off brands on the side of the street on a white sheet with rope tied to each corner, and when their 'spotter' says there is a police officer approaching, they pack up in a split second and move on like nothing happened!

Then there's the buskers who form in groups, like this one band that played a full length song through the restaurant we were eating at.

And there are very alternative people who really like their piercings and brightly coloured hair. 

 

Next on the agenda was to file that police report.

In the 3 hours that we were in the station waiting for that piece of paper to be printed out, we met a Kiwi who's mate's jacket got stolen from the back of a chair in a restaurant. Also, a former English soldier who got mugged in the street by 3 guys. And a poor Swedish guy who had 3 hours until his flight but had just lost his passport and everything that goes with it.

Basically the station was full to the brim of tourists with something missing.

On the way to our daily ice-cream stop (this time consisting of chocolate/hazelnut, Oreo cookies and cream, white choc, blueberry, Oreo cookies and cream – meant to be cream caramel, and toffee) We walked down Las Ramblas and came across a full on 'pet store' in the middle of the street. It had Chipmunks, baby ducklings, ferrets, and turtles.

At the end of Las Ramblas is a monument of Christopher Columbus pointing out to sea. It is surrounded by yawning lions, and of course being the tourist I am, I had to have a photo on the back of one.

The streets lead to Port Vuell where the Imax cinema, Aquarium and a couple of really nice restaurants are. We had a nosy around and ended up finding a reasonable restaurant for pizza and a large jug of Sangria.

Back at the apartment, my good old pal Luke and his girlfriend Liz showed up for a little while to say hello or probably G'day as they are both Aussies! Both with tired eyes, as they had just arrived from Singapore. They are off to Girona for the Grand Prix. It was lovely to see a familia face and as always get a really good hug from Luke!

The night ended well, with a walk through Parc del Paraiguel where we found huge temple that we would later re-visit, and the Arch de Triomf. This area was also home to some cool local bars and dinky little streets.