Barcelona

Barcelona topped the must see list for both Christine and I.. our original plan was to see the city during our fall break... last minute decision with lots of peer pressure from our friends and on Wednesday October 5th we booked a trip to Barcelona, leaving the next evening! With a little more than 24 hours until departure we had to attend our Thursday classes, fill out paperwork and pack for a what was sure to be a wild weekend in Barcelona!

Our bus departed Firenze at 7pm Thursday night and was to arrive in Barcelona at 8am Friday morning... which means a LOVELY 12 hour bus ride. The ride there was not as horrible as I thought, it was full of movies and sleeping. We arrived in Barcelona, the capital of the Cataluya region of Spain and the second largest city with 1.6 million people.

Barcelona is said to be one of Europe's cultural epicenters and most progressive cities with lively streets, tapas, beaches, and absurd nightlife.  Barcelona is known for the wild nightlife as well as sights such as the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Parc Guell, La Pedrera - all landmarks of famed architect Antoni Gaudi.  We dropped our luggage off at our hostel and then spent our first three hours in Barcelona touring the city. 

post 12 hour bus ride - some happy, some not so much

our hostel 

We embarked on a walking tour of the city to see some of the incredible sights. Our first was Las Ramblas- one of the most famous pedestrian boulevards in the world! Its crowed with tourist, people dressed up as statues, food stands, and even has stands where you can buy animals! Off of Las Ramblas was St Joseph's Market, known as la boqueria- people come from all over Europe to go to this food market and I understand why! There was fresh fruits and food EVERYWHERE - some of the most delicious fresh fruit juice too!  

Las Ramblas

person/ statue

market!

my pictures from inside the market are some of my favorite from the entire weekend! here's a few, I'm sure you'll understand why people travel from all over to go there...

freshly squeezed juice

so much candy!

From Las Ramblas we walked through Barcelona's Gothic Quarters is the center of the old city. Many of the building are from Medieval times and has a labyrinthine street plan where many small streets open into pedestrian friendly squares. We walked from the Gothic Quarters to the Mediterranean Sea, well the main port and marina of Barcelona for some lunch. Where I was able to have my two favorite Spanish foods gazpacho and sangria <3 Finally it was late enough for us to check into our hostel and take a much needed nap before venturing out into Barcelona's wild night life.. which started at IceBar Barcelona.

girls all dressed up & yes that's the beach!

  

Ice Bar 

thank goodness for the coats & gloves

Barcelona was also a mini Bentley reunion with about 25 of us spending the weekend together.  We started our Friday night at IceBar Barcelona where everything was ICE. no joke even our glasses were made out of ice. After the ice bar we had about an hour to kill before dancing at the club.  So me and three other girls decided to get some Sangria at a local restaurant, little did we know it was served in a tower! 

After we finished out sangria we went to Shoko ( http://www.shoko.biz/ )a giant crazy club on the beach.. where we stayed until the wee hours of the morning! Barcelona is known for many things one of them unfortunately is pick-pocketing.. that night alone two of the girls and one of the guys I was with got pick pocketed in the club... put a little damper on the night - even with that, everyone had so much fun.  Saturday we decided to see more of the sights Barcelona had to offer - right down the street from our hostel was some of Gaudi's most famous works, we ventured back to the market for some more juice..then we trekked it up to Parc Guell, created by Gaudi its an area that has some incredible views of the city

Gaudi house

the girls admiring the architecture

escalator up to Parc Guell

view of Barcelona

band playing in the park 

Saturday night half the group bought tickets to Sensation White - is an absurd "house" music dance party. All attendees are requited to wear white and the arena in which it is held is decorated to match.  It started at 10pm and did not end until 6am... no one I knew stayed at entire time, but they said it was one interesting crazy experience. Since I did not go, and haven't done it justice in explaining what its all about, here's the website if you're curious as to what its all about http://www.sensation.com/spain/en

For those who did not partake in sensation white we decided to take another shot at Barcelona's night life, this time staying away from the club.. since people had little luck there. We knew there was a bar called Dow Jones  in which the prices of drinks at the bar act like stocks! (where else would a bunch of Bentley Students end up?) The prices rise and fall depending on whats being purchased and every once in a while the market crashes, and all the drinks go to a minimum price - people literally run to the bar to take advantage of the crash! We stayed there most of the night, thoroughly entertained watching the "stocks" go up and down. After Dow Jones we walked over to a place called Chupitos - which translates to Shots.  They have over 300 different kinds of shots many there was lots that were set on fire.. It got pretty packed in there so we left, walked back to our hostel and waited for our friends attending Sensation White to get back. Thinking were were going to be up for a while and they walked in ten minutes after us- said it was a little too wild!

outside Dow Jones

Bentley Ladies

shots on fire

Our time in Barcelona ended with breakfast at the hostel, a short walk to kill time and then  a miserable 12 hour bus ride back to Florence.  Out bus drives did not understand the art of driving smoothly, I felt as though I was on a roller coaster the entire ride! Finally we reached Florence, walked home and got some much needed sleep. Barcelona was a world wind of fun and I would highly recommend visiting the city.