Even though I can't be there, or Kristin, I hope your day is wonderful and filled with lots of joy and love from everyone! Soon you will be reunited with all of your daughters :)
Barcelona day 4.
We started the day by waking up and eating our napolitanas. We then all packed up all of our things and checked out of the hostel at around 10:30 am. We were allowed to put our stuff in a luggage room, free of charge, for the day so that we didn't have to carry our stuff around the city. We were all sticking together today, all 5 of us, for the most part.
First, we caught the Metro to Placa Espanya, where there is a bullfighting ring, or so we thought. I had learned about this place on the hop on hop off bus tour with my parents back in March and I couldn't exactly remember what it was now, but I knew that it was a bullring in the past. It was also quite obvious by the shape of it.
As you can see in the left of the picture, there is an overhang that you can go up to in a glass elevator, for a price of a euro, or you can go inside the bullring and use the elevator in there for free. We decided to go for the free route and we soon learned that the interior of the bullring was a shopping mall! How clever! We went to the top of the ring, the 5th floor, and walked outside onto the circular path. We were allowed to walk around the ring for free and snap all the pictures that we desired. We even could walk up to the glass elevator on the walkway overhanging off the building. Here are the sights from the top of the building!
The overhang that had the glass elevator.
After we viewed the top of the bullring, we came back down through the elevators inside the mall and were back on the busy streets of Barcelona. We walked back over the side of the roundabout that was by the Metro station and from there we wanted to go to the Olympic Stadium. We saw there were two huge towers in the road and a festival/car show going on in between it so our path to get uphill was blocked.
We had to walk a block or two over and then navigate with our map to find our way up to the Olympic stadium. Along the way, we came across a park that was beautiful and full of nature. We wandered through it as a shortcut to get to the road that we needed to be at.
We finally reached the end of the park, and then we were on the main road. We walked up the road for about 5 minutes and then we found the gem of Barcelona, the Olympic stadium from the 1992 Olympics! The X-Games are being held in there next weekend so they were getting everything set up for that. We got to go inside for free, but we were not able to explore the stadium itself.
We continued our walk to the art museum and along the way, Ruth separated from us to go to church at 1. We will be meeting up with her later in the day for lunch and everything else. We didn't actually go into the art museum because none of us had much interest, but we did sit there for about 30 minutes soaking up the rays and resting our feet and legs. It was a gorgeous building with a lot of intricate details and old-fashioned but modern feel to it.
Michael, Rachael, Liz and I headed back down to where the Metro stop was in Placa Espanya. We made it about half way before we had to change our course because of the car festival going on. We thought that we could walk on the outside and not pay to get in, but that was not the case, so we circled around in the neighboring blocks.
We then took the Metro back to the hostel and hung out for a little bit and used their computers and Wifi. From there, we were going to wait for Ruth to be done with church before going out to eat for lunch, but Rachael and I were hungry and we had a gut feeling that things were going to fall through, so we went to eat without them.
We ate at 100 Montaditos, and they have 1 euro tapa sized portions on Sundays and Wednesdays. They also had 1 euro jars of tinto de verano or beer. We each ordered a jar of tinto, and then we ordered a hotdog and a hamburger. I then ordered a chicken and "bacon" sandwich with barbecue sauce and Rachael got a calamari sandwich with ali-oli sauce. We each also ordered a dessert of chocolate bread with Oreos and whipped cream or chocolate.
All of this was only for 8 euros! The only disappointment was that the supposed bacon was more like ham. Only a few more days until I can have real bacon!
After lunch Rachael and I went down La Rambla, hoping to stop at Carrefour for some food for the plane, but they were closed, even though we checked yesterday and their sign said that they would be open. We then continued down to the pier and just sat and hung out in the same spot that we ate our fruit and chocolate the day before. It started to get breezy and chilly so we headed back up La Rambla, stopping at other supermarkets, but they were all overpriced because of the location. We then went and hung out at Placa Catalunya for a bit until heading back to the hostel.
On our way back, at one of the crosswalks, someone came up to us asking if we spoke English and if we knew where Placa Universitat was. I told her that it was where we were going and that she was welcome to come with us, so she tagged along. I learned that she was from Istanbul, Turkey and she was traveling and just wanted to see everything. We showed her where the plaza was and then we backtracked a little bit to go to a store that had a bakery attached to it. They had a piece of pizza for 1.50 and hot dogs that were wrapped up in bread for cheap as well. We knew that this was where we were going to return to get our dinner for tonight, instead of dishing out our life savings at the airport.
We went back to the hostel and about 2 minutes after we walked in, Michael, Liz, and Ruth walked in right after us. We were all together, and we didn't even plan it. We sat on the computers for a bit until it was 5pm, when we could get our things from the luggage room. Everything went smoothly and there were no problems with our luggage when we retrieved them.
We walked to Placa Catalunya to ensure that we got on the bus for the airport because there were strikes going on, of course. Placa Catalunya is the main stop so we knew that they had to stop there for sure. Before we got to the placa, we all stopped at the bakery and bought pizza or other goodies. Rachael and I then went to McDonalds because I wanted their deluxe fries again, figuring I wouldn't be able to get them anywhere in the USA.
We all met up at the bus stop, which was full of people trying to get to the airport. We all still had our tickets from our "there" trip and now we were going to use them for the "back" trip. Michael and I sat next to each other because there weren't many open seats, and lucky for us for getting a seat because the bus was packed packed packed full of people. Every aisle was full of people standing and luggages and there was no room for movement or to pick anyone else up, so we didn't stop at the other stops. It is a good thing that we went to Placa Catalunya to get on the bus to ensure that we made it to the airport on time.
When we got to the airport, we went through security and Ruth had to get patted down because something beeped when she walked through, but other than that, no issues. Our boarding gate wasn't posted yet so we just sat around and watched the movie that was playing on the TV. We ate our dinner and munchies that we had packed and soon enough it was time to board the plane.
The plane was pretty big and Rachael and I were sitting next to each other, with the aisle in between us, in the back. The flight was smooth and quick and soon enough we were in Granada.
The airport bus was there when we landed so we got on that and then we were headed to the city center! We were the last stop on the bus so we got off the bus at about 11:30.
When we got home I Skyped my mom for Mother's Day and hoping to talk to my grandmas, but they had already left our house. I then stayed on Skyped until a little after 12 so I could wish Karyn a happy 18th birthday! I went to bed soon there after.
Home sweet home in Granada.
Successful last trip :)
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