Get Buck In Barca

Spring Break was one of those trips we couldn't stop thinking about as soon as we booked it. For us Barcelona, Galway and Dublin was the perfect combo of going to beautiful historic places but still being able to chill and have fun without having to be crazy tourists. We even had a little playlist going for each place to get us pumped. Song #1:

We're from Barcelona by the Band I'm From Barcelona 

So begins part one of Spring Break Extravaganza, Barcelona. As some of you may have already noticed, I like lists and countdowns. So obviously I made a top ten list for Barca. Here we go!!

Top 10 Reasons Why I Loved Barcelona

10. Barcelona Magically Cures All of Your Sicknesses
After a week of not sleeping from midterms and raging with Toups, my immune system was not in the best shape for Spring Break. Saturday night I took a nap before we went out and woke up with a fever and chillz, ruh roh. However seeing as it was my only Saturday night in Barcelona for possibly the rest of my life, I decided to pop in some ibuprofen and push through. After returning home around 5:30am I went to bed and miraculously woke up the next day feeling great and was not sick at all during the rest of break. And they say Rome is the Holy City.

9. The Beach
Now that it is getting warm, I am making my travel plans solely based on where I can go sit on a beach (with the exception of Amsterdam this weekend). So naturally I was loving on the beaches in Barca. You see a lot of cool things on the beach, like all the swanky beach clubs, cool sandcastles and naked man. Naked man is a man who literally walks around the beach naked all day everyday. Like completely naked. Katie says she's even seen him out in 50 degree weather. Unfortunately for you guys neither I nor Corinne had the balls (pun intended) to get close enough to take a picture of naked man.

beachez

monkey sand sculpture!!!

8. Tapas
I know you were all wondering when I was gonna start talking about food so here you go! I was a little hesitant about the idea of tapas before I went to Spain mainly because I'm not good at sharing my food (which is the whole point of tapas). But I learned the great thing about sharing is that you get to eat even more food. My favorite tapa was patatas bravas which were these potatoey-french fry thing with like a mayo and hot sauce, sooooooo good. 

7. Sangria
It's like wine...but BETER. It even has fruit in it so it has to be good for me.

6. Mexican Food
But wait...I thought you were in Spain, where did you find Mexican food? Well, I would like to thank Alyssa Vorkapic who has been a resident of Barcelona for the past 8 months and took us to a little Mexican restaurant in her neighborhood. A margarita and guacamole have never tasted so good. Hopefully I can get another Mexican kick in the 'dam this weekend and then maybe I will survive till May when I stop at Chipotle on my way home from the airport.

5. Sweet Bars
So two of the coolest bars (aside from Kams of course) I've been to were in Barca. One was some fairy bar Katie took us to. Think Rainforest Cafe for adults and a bar and not a rainforest but like the woods with some magical elements.

After that, we went to Chipitos, the shot bar. They had a wall filled with hundreds of different shots all for only 2 euro. I decided to get the Harry Potter (naturally) as well as the Boy Scout. They really like setting stuff on fire. 

Prepping our Harry Potter shots

Then set it on fire

Ready for our Boy Scouts

Toasting our marshmallows which we then used as chasers

4. Crazy People
Of all the places I've been so far in Europe, Barcelona wins for meeting strange people. Where do I even start.

• Sunglasses Man- Sunglasses man was a sandcastle artist who was on at least 3 different types of drugs. He was also missing about half of his front teeth. He asked Corinne why she wasn't wearing sunglasses and offered to give her his, insisting they were real gold. When Corinne pointed out that I too was sunglass-less he creepily stared into my eyes, told me they were beautiful and I should never wear sunglasses (thanks for the compliment???). 
• Sleepy Asian Girl- Sleepy Asian girl was one of our roommates in our hostel. Every time we saw her she was sleeping, whether it was 10am, 5pm, or 3am she was always asleep. 
• Shirtless Staring Man- Another roommate of ours. We didn't know he existed however until we came into our room one night after dinner to find him sitting up in his bed in jeans and shirtless staring at the wall in front of him. Needless to say we never spoke.
• Portuguese Driving School Teacher-Met this one at happy hour in our hostel. He came and sat down with me and Katie and told me his life story. He told me about his amazing career as a driver's ed teacher and how apparently thats like a really important job in Portugal. Yet he wants to give that all up and move to the U.S. to pursue his acting career. 
• Stagg Party- Sunday night we made friends with some British dudes who were partying it up in Barca for their friend's bachelor party. They were all dressed in soccer costumes and one of them was a ref who blew his whistle and gave our yellow or red cards to anyone in the bar who said or did something he didn't like.
• Sketch British Dudes- Unlike our adorable stagg party friends these British dudes were a little sketch. They were more of our hostel roommates who came in super late Sunday night yelling something about hiring prostitutes and getting caught by the police...needless to say I pretended I was still sleeping for that one. 
• Canadian Man-probably the strangest of the ones I met this trip. Again, pretty sure he was on several different drugs. He sat with me and Katie at our hostel bar and we began conversing. He asked me about my necklace which I said was a gift from my aunt from being in her wedding when I was like 12. His response, "Oh everybody says that, everybody always says they haven't danced since they were 12." (not what I said but ok) Katie being Katie eggs him on by saying you're right, everyone does say that. He then imparted some "big wisdom" on us. He told us to just tell everyone to f*** off and dance. To show us the truth of his words he hopped up on to the table we were sitting at and began dancing like crazy, kicking beers off and rubbing me and Katie's heads. He then hopped off the table kicked a chair and hopped away. Like I said... several drugs. 

3. cLuBbIn
Now I don't consider myself a big clubbing person, I normally prefer bars. But if I lived in Barcelona I would probably club every night (until I died from exhaustion at least). The clubs don't get busy till at least 2am and don't even think about leaving before 6. Plus a bunch of the clubs are super sweet beach clubs. It felt like a mix between the hills and Catie Schwan's adventures in Singapore. Plus when you're on the beach you find cool things like bamboo sticks!

2. The Gaudi Shiz
Gaudi was a mad genius architect man who lived in Barca around the turn of the century and designed some really cool and different buildings. The most famous being the Sagrada Familia, a church that has been in construction for over one hundred years.

1. Seeing All Mah Friendzzz!
Obviously the favorite part of all my trips is seeing my friends from home. I got to stay with one of my best friends Katie for a night and she took us out and showed us how much fun Barcelona is! I ran into Cory again at a castle! And I got to go to dinner/go out with Alyssa, who I haven't seen in forever, and Jeri! Study abroad has been such an amazing experience so far and what makes it even better is that I get to share this experience with all of my friends.

So that wraps up part 1 of Spring Break. I don't think I'll be able to do Ireland before I leave for Amsterdam tomorrow morning, but we'll see. But get excited to hear all about my new Irish boyfriend...(cliff hanger!!)