Barcelona!
Last weekend I went to Barcelona from Friday night through Monday night! It was one of the most fun trips in my life!
Friday our plane got into the Barcelona airport pretty late, and we took a bus called Aerobús from the airport to Plaza Catalunya, which was really close to our hostel. At first we were a little skeptical about paying five euro for a bus from the airport, but since we didn’t know where the hostel was, we really didn’t have a choice… But it was a good thing we did, since the hostel was about a half hour bus ride from the airport! The hostel that we stayed at was HipKarma, and it was so nice. Each bed was like a cocoon, with curtains surrounding it and the beds were so comfortable. Friday night all I wanted to do was sleep when I saw my bed!
Saturday we woke up at a decent time and two of the people with us had gotten up to buy and make breakfast! We had french toast with nutella, fruit, and juice! Yum! It was definitely nice to have a kitchen in our hostel. After breakfast, we walked back to Plaza Catalunya, and decided to buy a two-day pass for the tourist bus. It took us everywhere that we wanted to see, and…. It was a double decker bus! I had never ridden on a double decker bus before, so it was very exciting, and I even got a little color (not much!). It was in the high sixties when we were in Barcelona with the sun shining, which was amazing. Saturday we saw some really cool buildings that Gaudí designed when we were on the bus. We also saw the Olympic stadium from when the Olympics were in Barcelona. We were hoping to be able to take a cable car to see the entire city, but it was under maintenance for a month… so maybe it is a good thing that we weren’t on it! We went out for lunch at a smaller restaurant that had very good food! It was pretty impressive. Then, we saw the port at night, which was beautiful with lights and music all around it. We also got crepes! Yumm! After we saw the plaza, we rode our bus around a little more and then got back to our plaza.
Sunday was our sightseeing day. We saw Sagrada Familia and Parque Guell! Amazing work by Gaudí. Sagrada Familia is still not finished with the construction, but it is still absolutely beautiful. I am hoping to go back eventually once it is finished. Sunday night we got to watch the superbowl at an Irish bar in Barcelona and that was a very fun night! Who would’ve guessed it was possible to see American football in Spain?!
And then Monday, we walked Las Ramblas (a street full of a ton of street performers, vendors and touristy things..), saw a market with lots of interesting things… including goat heads!, saw the port again and lots of other stuff and then we eventually made it back to Valladolid!
Feb 14, 2011
BURGOS
I went to Burgos on Saturday January 29th! I know this blog post is very late, but things have just been crazy in Spain!
Overall, Burgos was a beautiful city, and quite an adventure! We took a train that took about an hour and a half to reach the city. Our train left at 7AM! So we had a full day in the city. As we got closer and closer, we realized that there was SNOW on the ground! (I know this doesn’t seem that weird for those of you in Wisconsin… but for Spain, it was shocking).
Once we got there, we started walking towards the main plazas and the things we wanted to see for the day… except we got a little lost, so we asked someone where we were and he said to get there, we needed to take a bus, which seemed weird since we were pretty close on the map. But we found a bus anyways, and then I decided to get off too early, so we walked about forty minutes to the main city (and figured that we must have walked the wrong way to have been that lost!)
Things that we saw in Burgos:
-Plaza de El Cid (A famous person that we learned about in literature class that died in Burgos…)
-Museo de Evolución Humana (Human Evolution Museum): We were going to get to go to caves that were nearby, but the weather was bad (or maybe we just couldn’t go because it was winter..?). But the museum was very cool overall. There was a lot of information about early excavation sites, the brain, ecosystems and other cool stuff.
-Castle: Any old city in Spain needs a castle. We hiked up lots and lots of stairs to get to the top of a huge mountain to see the castle… Only to realize that the castle was already closed a half hour earlier than it was supposed to! But the view from the top of the mountain was completely worth it, even not being able to walk inside the castle.
-Catedral: Like castles, any older city in Spain needs to have a cathedral. It is so hard to describe the beauty of the cathedral, because it is something that you just need to see for yourself! My pictures couldn’t even take in half of how amazing it was! It was huge though, and the tomb of El Cid was there too.
-Then we ate lunch, and I had the bocadilla (sandwich) that my host mom packed for me.
-Monastery de las Huelgas: We were going to take a tour in Spanish, but the lady selling the tickets said that if we were going to take the train, we had to leave right away to walk to the train station, which was kind of confusing since it was very close on the map to the train station. So, we decided to take a few pictures and then leave. We got to the train station on the map, which turned out to be the OLD train station! It turns out that the new train station (where we started and had to end up) wasn’t even on the map! It was about five miles away, and we did not have time (or want!) to walk there. So we ended up getting taxis, and that was my first taxi ride ever!
So there’s the Burgos adventure! A beautiful city that was definitely worth the trip!
Overall, Burgos was a beautiful city, and quite an adventure! We took a train that took about an hour and a half to reach the city. Our train left at 7AM! So we had a full day in the city. As we got closer and closer, we realized that there was SNOW on the ground! (I know this doesn’t seem that weird for those of you in Wisconsin… but for Spain, it was shocking).
Once we got there, we started walking towards the main plazas and the things we wanted to see for the day… except we got a little lost, so we asked someone where we were and he said to get there, we needed to take a bus, which seemed weird since we were pretty close on the map. But we found a bus anyways, and then I decided to get off too early, so we walked about forty minutes to the main city (and figured that we must have walked the wrong way to have been that lost!)
Things that we saw in Burgos:
-Plaza de El Cid (A famous person that we learned about in literature class that died in Burgos…)
-Museo de Evolución Humana (Human Evolution Museum): We were going to get to go to caves that were nearby, but the weather was bad (or maybe we just couldn’t go because it was winter..?). But the museum was very cool overall. There was a lot of information about early excavation sites, the brain, ecosystems and other cool stuff.
-Castle: Any old city in Spain needs a castle. We hiked up lots and lots of stairs to get to the top of a huge mountain to see the castle… Only to realize that the castle was already closed a half hour earlier than it was supposed to! But the view from the top of the mountain was completely worth it, even not being able to walk inside the castle.
-Catedral: Like castles, any older city in Spain needs to have a cathedral. It is so hard to describe the beauty of the cathedral, because it is something that you just need to see for yourself! My pictures couldn’t even take in half of how amazing it was! It was huge though, and the tomb of El Cid was there too.
-Then we ate lunch, and I had the bocadilla (sandwich) that my host mom packed for me.
-Monastery de las Huelgas: We were going to take a tour in Spanish, but the lady selling the tickets said that if we were going to take the train, we had to leave right away to walk to the train station, which was kind of confusing since it was very close on the map to the train station. So, we decided to take a few pictures and then leave. We got to the train station on the map, which turned out to be the OLD train station! It turns out that the new train station (where we started and had to end up) wasn’t even on the map! It was about five miles away, and we did not have time (or want!) to walk there. So we ended up getting taxis, and that was my first taxi ride ever!
So there’s the Burgos adventure! A beautiful city that was definitely worth the trip!
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