La Sagrada

La Sagrada
Thursday, July 16, 2009
10:00 PM
I took a long walk from the Hostel to drop off my bags at Anna's apartment. From there we cruised down to La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral that has been under construction for over 100 years, which was as impressive as it looked in pictures. Then we went to dinner at a place that she frequented and met with the crew from the beach and also Joan, a native Catalan, and Oscar who was from Puerto Vallarta by way of London who was living in Barcelona. Dinner was excellent and the place was packed even at 11PM. After dinner we cruised down to a fairly novel bar, Dow Jones, which had its drink prices rise and fall based on the amount bought, and on occasion had 'crashes' where every drink price went down considerably. After that I got my bags and started my trek to Turin.

Sitges

Sitges
Thursday, July 16, 2009
2:14 PM
From the Consulate General I met a guy who raved about Budapest although he had a strange experience wherein his hostel was filled entirely of Americans and Aussies. He took me down to Nord Station where I met up with Anna, who was a friend of Kim's friend who had shown Kim around Barcelona when she was here in March. From the station I met Kelly who was visiting from London and Kendra from the Bay who also worked in Barcelona. Kyla joined us on the beach.



We went to Sitges which actually had a real beach and was pleasant in a very Mediterranean way. I had a wonderful sandwich from a very quaint shop on the way down to the sand which was great. The water was absurdly warm and we rented a paddle boat with a giant slide which was more enjoyable than I would have imagined.

Consulate General

Consulate General
Thursday, July 16, 2009
12:47 PM

So I woke up a few short hours later and I figured that losing my passport would cause me to miss my flight to Turin which was at 630am the next morning. I ventured to the US Consulate General with limited hopes, especially considering their inability to answer the phone and interesting 9am to 1pm business hours. To my complete surprise I walked out with a new (3-month) passport in 30 minutes, God Bless America.

Beach and the Evening

Beach and the Evening
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
8:00 PM
So as I was completely checked into the hostel I decided to take a stroll/jog around Barcelona, hitting Las Ramblas and the coast to get a feel for the city. The Ramblas was as vibrant and touristy as I could have imagined. It also runs right into the Barcelona Marina which is an eyesore of a public works project at best.

From there I ventured down the beach coastline which was fairly overcrowded and looked like a marina, not a beach. I soon found out that it in fact was not a natural beach and all the sand was imported, regardless it is still nice to have usable coastline. At the end of the coast I asked a cop about how far it was to the cross-streets of my hostel, he said 2km, ended up being more like 5 which became 8 when I got lost but that was cool.

Once I got back to the hostel I went to grab my laptop out of my locker and found that my passport had been stolen out of my locker. Great form to drop the big one within a few hours of arriving in the city. Thankfully the thief, who I assume was the guy who checked me into the hostel (didn't see him again even the next day and in hindsight he made a big deal about me staying only 1 night), was kind and passed on both my iPod and Laptop.

Ah well, after searching through my bags multiple times (I tried hard to hope that it had simply been misplaced although I knew it wasn't), I came to the conclusion that it was a lost cause. I was encouraged by some new friends in the hostel to join in for the night out instead of sulking like a douche. At midnight everyone went out to a fairly well put together club called Hyde, and we got home around 630, it was a good night.