¡Bienvenidos a Barcelona!

So after breakfast at the hotel and another four-hour drive, we arrived in Barcelona!! But our bus did have major troubles when we got to the city. It stalled and we were making this turn into a large intersection and everyone was looking at us, but it pulled over and luckily we were really close to where our tour was supposed to start. Also, in Barcelona they speak Catalán, which looks like a mix of italian and spanish, so that was interesting to see.

This is the cathedral in Barcelona, unfortunately it was under construction so it's not as pretty.

Then we continued to walk around the city and the guide would tell us information as we went. This plaza had bombs hit it, so the buildings remain with these marks to remind them of the people that were killed from the bombs. Also, I'm pretty sure that she said that Gaudi would often come here to go to church.

Barcelona is really pretty and has really cool narrow alleyways that I enjoyed.

I wanted to eat everything I saw in this window. It all looks so good!! The tartaleta de music is one of the pastries of Barcelona.

Then we went to this awesome market that I LOVED! All the food looked so fresh and pretty.

Then some of us went to hit up a gelato place we had spotted earlier on the tour. It was very delicious. I tried to recreate the chocolate coconut gelato that I ate in Italy by mixing the coconut and super dark chocolate. It was't quite the same, but it's the closest I've gotten to recreating that deliciousness :)

Kiersten, Leigh, Me and Carolina:

Then we walked around and looked at all of the shops. Barcelona is home to many designer stores and there is a ton of shopping. There is a fun, busy, city feel, but there were a lot more people speaking English than I expected. I bought some awesome vintage Spanish stamps from a market that I'm way excited about! They were 10 stamps for 1 Euro.

Then we met up as a group that night to take the bus to our hotel because we were staying about an hour out of the city. When we walked into the lobby I thought the hotel seemed nice, then they took us to our rooms which were out back and they were some of the sketchiest rooms I've ever stayed in. (I think they were worse than the ones we stayed at in NYC dad)! But despite the gross rooms, the dinners that they served us that were included in our stay were way good. They were three-course meals! First they brought us our a huge plate of pasta and bread and I thought that that was the dinner, but then they brought us chicken and potatoes and dessert as well. I was stuffed! And this was all at about 10:00 PM! Sometimes the eating schedule is way hard to get used to here, but I'm grateful for good food :)