Barcelona

Well after a verrry busy and long week, I'm finally getting the chance to blog about last weekend! So last Wednesday I got a visitor! After many long and strenuous hours of traveling my ex-roommate, Audrey arrived at the Coruña airport!! Unfortunately I was able to make a sign for her, but hopefully she was still happy to see me and have someone meet her at the airport. From there we went to the hostel in Coruña that we were going to be staying at together. Given that we're poor college students studying abroad, we were in seventh heaven seeing our "Deluxe" room that had a giant window looking out to the street, a double bed, a little table with two chairs, one random mini-sitting chair, and a private bathroom with a toilet that made a noise similar to a foghorn when you flushed it. While I know that sounds like I'm being sarcastic, we actually REALLY happy with it!
After finally getting settled it was around 5:00 when we decided to go out and find food. Fun fact about Spain: there is NO food being served at 5:00. Lunch stops around 4:30, dinner starts back up around 8. Restaurants are closed in between. After walking around, and by around I mean all over the city, we finally ended up at La Bombilla, the famous 1 euro tapas joint in Coruña. Thankfully, as always, the food was delicious and Audrey loved it. After we refueled up we went to go do some shopping. Apparently the stores in Galway aren't really top-notch, she's only bought like 2 pieces of clothing there! Yeah...that's pretty much all I've bought too....(lies). We had a pretty low-key night given that I had an in class essay the next morning, and Audrey was pretty tired from all of her traveling. The next day I had a busy day of classes so Audrey was able to catch up on her sleep. We did manage to grab a delicious lunch at a restaurant called O'Galiñeiro right near my house. Although we had only planned on staying in Coruña for one night, and then heading to Santiago for Thursday night we decided that it would just be easier to stay in Coruña both nights. Thursday night I introduced Audrey to the Spanish night life, which I'm pretty sure she enjoyed, despite the challenge of staying up until the wee hours of the morning.
The next morning our travels to Barcelona began, and as always, there are stories! The plan was to take a train from Coruña to Santiago, and then find a way to get from the train station to the Santiago Airport where our flight was out of. So we had written down the times of the trains leaving from Coruña going to Barcelona. So we decided to take the 11:19 train, we woke up in time, get on the city bus to bring us to the train station. Audrey then whips out her Iphone where we had written down the time, and we see that neither of our train options were leaving at 11:19. How we BOTH got that time in our head, I do not know. Given that the train station and the bus station are close to each other, we decided to get off the city-bus at the bus station to get some information about the buses to Santiago. There was one that would get us to Santiago 30 minutes earlier than the train so we decided to take that one. We were waiting inside the station watching the board, waiting for the platform number to come up, and as soon as it did we went downstairs to find the bus. Well we found it as it was slowly backing out of it's spot. Audrey runs up and knocks on the door, and even though the bus driver didn't seem particularly happy with us, he opened up the luggage area, and let us on. After getting to the bus station in Santiago, we bought tickets for a bus that would bring us to the Santiago airport. After waiting for 15 minutes downstairs where all the buses park, we finally found the gate where that specific bus company parked. Unfortunately, the airport bus apparently parks somewhere else because 5 minutes later, we saw a completely full bus with a picture of an airplane on it turn the corner and leave the station. So 30 minutes and 20 euros later we arrived at airport in taxi. From there everything went smoothly and we arrived in Barcelona!

Audrey and I spent the afternoon walking around and anxiously waiting the arrival of Elizabeth, Claire, and other friends from various study abroad sites. Claire had her own travel issues and ended up coming in later, and then went straight to visit her friend from home who was studying in Barcelona. Audrey, Elizabeth and I went walking around in search of some food. We ended up at some little bar that had tapas and feasted on cockles, home fries with a spicy sauce (patatas bravas) and chicken wings. The food was cheap, simple, and pretty darn good too.

The next day was our super-tourists day. Elizabeth, Claire and I who were all in one hostel met up with two Holy Cross kids who are studying in Scotland with Elizabeth that morning. We met at The Cathedral (sorry I don't know it's real name!) and from there we started walking the city. We went to a gorgeous basilica, and then headed off to Park Güell. I was really excited to go to this Park since I didn't get a chance 3 years ago when I was in Barcelona with my parents. It was designed by the artist Gaudi, and is really modern, and funky, with bright colors, and crazy shapes all over the place. On our way to the park we had grabbed sandwiches, so we had an amazing picnic in the park, sitting on the longest bench in the world (according to our friend Michelle), listening to live music, and basking in the 75 degree weather. This is my life?

Wait, your ceiling doesn't look like this?

From there we went to La Sagrada Familia which is the huge cathedral also designed by Gaudi. This gigantic church broke ground in March of 1882 and they're expecting it to be done in 2026! You know what they say: measure twice, cut once! You have to make sure everything's perfect! In all seriousness though, if you ever get the chance to see this you'll understand the undertaking of it. It's also pretty inspiring that all costs of the construction come from donations to the church.

Putting on a brave face

Claire, Elizabeth and I decided to pay the little extra to climb up the towers. Somehow we managed to get lost and go in a big circle, despite there being pretty basic signs with a stick-man following an arrow down stairs. Whatever...we just enhanced our tour. The views from up there are pretty impressive of the city. Although you take an elevator up the tower,  you have to take stairs to go down and they're quite tight, dark, and long. Let's just say that none of us really enjoyed the stairs down, but Claire in particular was not having much fun with it.
After Sagrada Familia we were all pretty wiped out, and in a weird daze so we decide to split up in our 2 hostel groups and meet up later for dinner. The 4 of us stopped at a bakery on the way back, and got a little food and sugar to fuel us a little longer. We then headed back to the hostel and all took some naps before showering up and getting ready for dinner.  We ended up going to this place called Tapa Tapa for dinner. It had a really cool vibe, but was very clearly aimed at tourists. It was a little pricier than I'm used to for tapas, but it was a fun restaurant for our crowd. Our friend Kate and her friend from home who was studying in Barcelona for the semester also joined us. It was good to sit down in a relaxed setting and get to know everyone.
The next morning I headed out back to La Coruña. It was a quick weekend and I wish that I could have gotten to spend a little more time with everyone. For better or for worse though, summer is soon approaching and we've already made plans to all get together.
Love you all!