It's time to do me!: Day one in Spain..I'm in love!

February 18, 2011

Even though waking up at 4 in the morning isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world, I didn’t even care! It meant I was on my way to Barcelona baby! We had to get to the train station to take a 5:30 train to Pisa Centrale and were hoping we could catch the train from Pisa Centrale to Pisa Aeroporto which was leaving the station one minute after our train pulled into the station, but we remained hopeful that we could do it! One funny little thing that I thought I would share is that you see the silliest things at such an early time in the morning…while at one of the stops along the way to Pisa Centrale we saw two nuns helping two other nuns onto a train and as the train’s doors started to close they all waved and blew kisses…too cute and too funny! If we didn’t catch that train from Centrale to Aeroporto there were still plenty other trains that would get us to the airport on time, but that one would just be the most convenient. And you better believe that as soon as our train stopped all four of us FLEW off the train and started sprinting. Danielle quickly looked at one of the screens of departure and arrival times and shouted “PLATFORM 12!” So we were running along to platform 12, noticed the train was still there, and as we hopped on the train there was a conductor standing on the platform giving the conductor of the train the signal to leave the station…SO LUCKY! We all were highly impressed with our mad dash and we thought if we had this luck for the remainder of our trip we were in for a good time!

At the airport we went through security and had time to just sit and relax to wait for the number of our gate. Marissa and Danielle told me and Lauren that for Ryanair flights your seats aren’t assigned, so as soon as the gate is announced people run to the gate to claim their spot in line in order to get a good seat. Luckily we were sitting right by our gate and got a spot about 5 or so people back and ended up sitting about 5 or 6 rows from the front of the plane, right behind the priority seating. I didn’t end up sleeping much on the plane, but as we were about to land the woman (she told us she was Spanish/Italian) sitting beside me perked up and told Lauren and I that we were officially in Girona! We landed shortly after and once off the plane we walked to the bus that was going to take us from Girona to Barcelona. Once again, we got lucky and got the last four seats on the bus…SCORE! Once in Barcelona we asked the information desk where the metro was because we had to take two different metros in order to get our hostel. She pointed us in the right way and once in the metro we bought one ticket and I got on my very first subway ever. We easily got off at the right stop to switch subways, and once on our second subway a man with an accordion was in our car and started playing and walking around all four of us girls..we couldn’t keep from busting up laughing! Luckily it didn’t take long for our next stop, and in no time at all we were walking down Parallel…the street that our hostel was right off of. We walked past a KFC (how ironic/weird to have a KFC in Spain!), and when we saw the Domino Pizza sign we knew from our directions to turn left and about 10 buildings down was our hostel: Mambo Tango!

When we walked into Mambo Tango I instantly knew that we chose the perfect hostel! There was colors plastered over the entire place, good music was playing, people were just hanging out in the main area of the hostel, and everyone was quick to strike up a conversation with us…what a change from Italy! The receptionist’s name was Danny and he was this big, bald, smiley, funny, and relaxed man and he got all four of us settled and into our room. Our room had 9 beds in it and I was assigned bed #6 which was the bottom bunk right under Marissa. We got keys to our lockers which we all threw our stuff into and headed back out to the main area to ask Danny where we should eat…we were STARVING! He pointed us just right down the street to this cute little place that served a multi course meal for only 8.50 euro. We were kindly greated when we walked in by “Hola”…finally I could put my Spanish language to use! Once we sat down a younger guy came up to us and spoke to us in English to better describe and explain the choices that we had for our courses. Our meal included a drink which you could choose between water, pop, or beer, a first course, a second course, bread, and a dessert. I got a coke (which came in a cute old-school glass bottle), catalones for my first course, lamb for my second course, and creme brulee for dessert. The catalones were long pasta filled with meat and covered in a white creamy/cheesy sauce…so so so delicious! My piece of lamb was extremely juicy and came with french fries and a white glob which he told me was a sauce that they use instead of ketchup and had a hint of garlic and was good on your meat. I tried the sauce on the meat and on the french fries, but wasn’t very crazy about it, so when he asked Danielle and I if we wanted ketchup I wasn’t hesitant to say yes. For Marissa’s second course she got calamari and made Danielle and I try it…which I must say wasn’t extremely horrible, but I’m not sure if I would ever order it for myself. If all of the food that I had already eaten wasn’t enough, I still completely devoured my crème brulee which was extremely creamy and the perfect ending to one of the most perfect meals I have ever had!

Before we left we had basically planned out what we wanted to do for each day and so after lunch it was our plan to just spend the rest of our day at the beach, which ended up being the most perfect idea ever because the sun was out and warm and it was an extremely beautiful day! Danny gave us a map and showed us how to get to the beach. The walk to the beach was so delightful because we passed really cool buildings and sculptures and walked right along the water and boats practically the entire way. Although one thing that wasn’t so delightful is when a man along the water slurped at us and called us “milky milky white”….GROSS! But we finally arrived at Barcelonetta (the beach) and couldn’t wait to throw off our shoes and stick our toes in the sand! The water was calm for the most part, but was freezing! We of course still stuck our feet in and walked along the beach for a little while before we broke down and just laid on the beach in pure happiness..today couldn’t be any more perfect! As we were walking back to the hostel we passed a couple incredible sandcastles and saw the men making them, as well as a ton of musicians…Barcelona is definitely a musical city!

We got back to the hostel where we were reminded that there was an opportunity to go to a Tapas dinner for 10 euro as well as to a Flamenco show afterwards for 10 euro. All four of us weren’t quite hungry enough to eat 10 euro worth of food since we were still full from lunch, but we decided to go to the Flamenco show. We decided it might still be a good idea though to grab a little sandwich or something and the receptionist at the hostel (it changes like 3 times a day) told us about this little street nearby that is loaded with different food places. We ended up at a cool looking place that had different sandwiches and I got something called a Durum which was a wrap filled with beef and chicken and lettuce, cabbage, corn and a sauce. I loved it so much, especially with a little of the spicy sauce our waitress sat on the table…my sinuses were definitely clearing up now!

It started to round 9 o’clock and we made our way into the main part of the hostel where we met a lady who was taking us to the show and on our way we stopped at the Tapas bar and picked up a few other people from the hostel. There was a line formed all the way outside when we got there, but the lady who was taking us weaseled her way up there and started talking with a guy and got us all tickets and we got to cut in front of a good deal of the line. I was expecting to see a huge stage with quite a few seats, but it was a really intimate place with a small stage and limited seating, although we got a good seat along the side of the aisle. A few men started playing their instruments and a woman started singing so beautifully in Spanish and then out came two Flamenco dancers. The dance consisted a lot of swift movements and EXTREME footwork that makes noise along with the beat of the music. The women possess a great deal of strength and domination as they dance and I thought it was wonderful! Probably my favorite part of the show was when this little girl probably around the age of 10 came out and sang with her mom for one song, but even better is when she ended the show by dancing…wow! I was highly highly impressed…she danced just like the older women and acted like a mature, strong, woman. What a perfect way to end my first wonderful day in Barcelona! (along with much needed sleep)