BARCAAAA

Oh, how I love Barcelona. The weather has been beautiful & sunny, sitting mostly in the 60s & 70s. There are tons of cute little shops around, cool old & modern architecture, lot of nice wide streets for pedestrians as well as tiny alleys going through artsy living buildings, and art is everywhere.

The city is also very lively! You see people hanging out in parks everywhere, and locals are always whizzing by on rollerblades & bikes. The city has a bike system, where you can pick up a bike from one of the many stations and just drop it off at another station when you're done with it.

On Wednesday, we took a free guided tour of the Gothic area (Barri Gotic). He showed us some cool buildings and the school where Picasso studied. It was interesting to hear about the Catalan history & how it became a part of Spain. We didn't realize that the Catalan language existed and is quite different from Spanish; it's supposedly a mix of Spanish, French, and Italian.

After the tour, we ate some deliciously fresh oysters and a seafood plate at the Mercat de la Boqueria, the biggest open-air market in the city. It's full of food vendors selling everything from fruit & sausage & cheese to cows' tongues and pigs' ears, and LOTS of fish and exotic sea creatures, half of which I'd never seen before. Apparently, you can buy ants and worms here too.

Later, we walked along the port, then grabbed some beers in Barceloneta near the beach and watched the huge soccer championship (Barcelona vs. Italy) that the city had been chanting about in the streets all day long. The next day, we walked on the beach, then ate some mussels at a locals restaurant that were not terribly keen of American tourists. Oh well, the mussels were delish!



Friday, we decided to be touristy and ride the double-decker bus that takes you to all the sites in the city, which are really spread out anyway.. First, we rode to Sagrada Familia, a HUGE & elaborate church designed by Antoni Gaudi. Construction started in 1882, so he only saw about 40 years of its progress (now at 140 years & counting) before dying. The church has been under constant construction and won't be complete anytime soon.



Next, we went to Park Guell, another awesome project by Gaudi. The park is massive and spans a hillside. It's filled with mosaic structures, trails, garden areas, and has an awesome view of the city from the "balcony" in the center of the picture.



That night, we had some wonderful seafood & wine at El 4 Gats, an old restaurant/bar that Picasso, Gaudi, and Miro used to hang out at & drink absinthe. An added plus was a pianist that serenaded us throughout dinner.

Most places were closed on Saturday since it was Labor Day, so we checked out some outdoor markets and hung out in George Orwell plaza, one of the local hangouts. We took the tourist bus to the northeast part of town with a nice shopping center, amusement parks, and neat city parks with art structures throughout them.

Yesterday, we took the gondola up to the hill Montjuic, where there were some great views of the city, port, beach, and Mediterranean.



Unfortunately, we also got a great view of an old dude's naked butt with tattooed underwear. We've also seen an old dude riding around the city on a bike completely nude as well as a naked sun bather on the beach. Not sure what's up with the old men & nudity here...

Last night, we met up with Jordi, a Catalan who Eric knew because he bought a From Exile record a few months ago.. Weird coincidence that he lives here! He turned out to be really nice & took us to a bar to hang out with his friends. He told us about his culture & people, who are all very proud to be Catalan; it was interesting to hear him talk about how they'd like to be separate from Spain.

Apparently, it never rains here, but decided to start last night, just for us! So we had a nice run in the pouring rain back to the hostel.

Well, we changed our itinerary. We're gonna take a boat to Civitavecchia, Italy, then a quick train to Rome for a couple of days!

Eurotrip ensues...

Yes, my titles get better with each entry. Sorry for the delay; this will be a mega-post of my last few days in Prague as well as a recap of the past week that I've spent in Berlin!

Friday, we moved to a hostel across the river to stay in a different area of town. It was closer to the city center, but far enough south to be away from the massive amounts of tourists. We decided we'd had enough Czech food (meat and potatoes) and found a delicious recommended Indian restaurant nearby.

Saturday, we met a couple from couchsurfers (Czech international relations student and French film graduate) who took us to a tiny little bar with 3 old dudes playing some blues-y chill rock and singing in Czech. The bar and band definitely had character, although we had no idea what they were saying the whole time..

Sunday, we found a market that was slightly disappointing, but we did snag some tasty strawberries. We climbed the Powder Tower and got a great 360 view of the city; we could see the Prague Castle off in the distance and the myriad other old towers and steeples and churches sprinkled throughout the city.



Monday, we took a day trip to Kutna Hora, a ~90 min train ride. We mainly went for the Sedlec Ossuary, which was insane. It's estimated that the bones of 40,000 people make up the interior. The chandelier I'm standing under supposedly contains every bone from the human body.



Additional bonuses included the Cathedral of St. Barbara, which was another gorgeous gothic building, and the Cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary (or something). Both had huge murals and framed paintings on the walls as well as weird religious artifacts and figurines. We got a late start that day (+ train delays), so unfortunately, we missed the medieval silver mine shaft tour.

Luckily, the Icelandic volcanic ash in the air hasn't ruined any of our plans; we got to Prague just before it happened and Tuesday, we hopped on a train to Berlin. The ride was about 5.5 hours and full of great scenery. We followed a river lined sporadically with colorful houses and rolling hills for a good bit of the way.

Berlin is a nice change from Prague. It doesn't have the gorgeous old architecture everywhere, but also doesn't have hundreds of tourists & souvenir shops crowding every street. Berlin is a very friendly, lively place, and I feel pretty safe here, even on the metros.

Wednesday, we walked around for awhile, then met another guy from couchsurfing, Julien, who showed us around his area of town and took us to a really cool, artsy bar. Thursday, we checked out the Altes Museum on the Museums Island, but got museumed out and didn't make it to the other ones.

Friday, we went down to the Reichstaggebaude (Parliament building), but the entry line was massive, so we snapped some pics and headed to the Brandenburg Gate, one of the gates separating the east and west after the Berlin Wall was built. Next we visited the Jewish Memorial, which was really cool and had a great museum under it; fairly small, but full of information and personal anecdotes. (Eric's head is hidden in the memorial somewhere..)



We saw one of the few remaining sections of the Berlin Wall next to where the Topography of Horror Museum was supposed to be, but alas, it was conveniently closed for the time we're in Berlin. Nearby, there were a ton of informational panels on walls lining the street about the history leading up to and following the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The US Checkpoint Charlie was pretty cool to see, although just a replica. On the way back to the hostel, we found a neat little area off of the road full of art, including huge metal structures.



That night, Julien took us to a metal show. The venue was close to another section of the Wall, but a much cooler one where artists had drawn murals. After the show, the venue turned into a club full of typical American pop/hip-hop hits, so we attempted to dance for awhile, then called it a night.

Saturday, we slept in, ate some Indian food, then checked out an AWESOME open-air market. Unfortunately, we were too full to enjoy the food stands, but we got some fresh juice and homemade sausage for later. Deciding we couldn't pass up the homemade pasta and fresh pesto, we asked Julien if we could cook for him (and use his kitchen!), since our hostel doesn't have one. We met up with him later for dinner, and him and Eric played guitar for each other for awhile (how cute). Julien plays classical though, so that was entertaining.

Yesterday, we took the train up to Oranienburg, where the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was. It was one of the smaller camps, and it was still massive.. Depressing, but it had really great displays throughout the camp; interactive and very informative. It even had a cinema where we watched a 30-min movie about the camp.

As a side note, it is too easy being an English speaker. Almost all the displays at the camp were in German and English, and the movie was offered in 4 languages. We thought we'd have a little trouble in Prague, since it was the farthest east of the places we went, but no. Almost every restaurant & sign had an English translation and many people spoke it at least functionally. Granted it is a touristy city, so they also had other languages like French & German, but if there were only 2 languages, the other was always English. It's been the same in Berlin, but more people here speak English fluently.

Today, we rented bikes for a few hours and rode in the huge park down by the Reichstag. We even got a peek at some animals inside the zoo while riding by. It's pretty amazing how many people ride bikes here. Nothing like Japan, but still a lot: kids, business people in suits, super old people. There are a few bike lanes, but they're not everywhere, so I was impressed with their bravery.

Tomorrow, we hop on a plane for Barcelona! I'm so excited. Looking forward to markets and good food!! Paella and tapas and sangria, which Randy has promised will not be beaten anywhere. Now, to brush up on my Spanish a bit and practice sounding like I have a lisp..