April 7 – 9 Lagos, Lisbon; Portugal; Barcelona; Spain

Alright! I’ve got some time right now, well not exactly “right now,” I wrote this on the train from Zurich to Innsbruck, about 3.5hrs worth of train, and I’ve got Tess’ MacAir, so light! I wish my MacBook was soo light.

Anyways, I’ll try not to cover too much because I’m sure you wouldn’t read it if I did.

April 7, Lagos, Lisbon, Barcelona

So as I mentioned earlier, we had to get up early to catch an early train, in fact we were up early enough that we were checking out of the hotel before the sun came up. The train was leaving the station at 6am, which meant that with walking time considered we were set to leave the hotel around 5:30am. So early. It was quite funny because the receptionist (concierge?) at the hotel said it was crazy for us to walk so he decided it best if he drove us in his personal car, even though he wasn’t supposed to leave hotel grounds while at work. It was so nice.

So we caught the 6am train from Lagos to Tunes and caught a high speed train from Tunes to Lisbon. It was pretty neat, at one time the train was up to 220km/hr. I don’t really know if that classifies as a high speed train, but I thought it was pretty fast. The train wizzed through the winding hills of the southern end of Portugal until we arrived in Hot Lisbon around 10am. We were set to catch a hop on hop off tour bus in an attempt to see the most of Lisbon as we could in our short amount of time (we were flying to Barcelona at 6:20pm).

Unfortunately, with slow buses, not running on time, stopping for a long time, us unable to find the stations, etc. we didn’t really get to see that much of Lisbon. We ended up only being able to ride one bus line and seeing the city from there. We did stop for a nice lunch in downtown Lisbon under some shady umbrellas. It was too bad because the info on the website made it sound like we were able to stop at the airport to drop our bags off before doing the tour but we were misinformed and ended up carrying our heavy backpacks around all day. The only good thing, besides getting a taste of the city was being in the hot hot sun. It was almost too much, but it was nice to feel some summer weather. It must have been near 30C in the sun.

We ended up asking if the bus driver would drop us by the airport on the way by it and we were lucky enough that he agreed. So we rode the rest of the bus line we were on and when he got near to the airport he pulled over and let us get out getting us to check-in right on time! We were (or at least I was) so sweaty from sitting at the top of the double decker bus in the sun then trekking with my bag. I was glad to have it taken care of. Naturally we searched out beer as a reward for such a ridiculous day.

We flew from there to Barcelona, caught a cab to our hotel, and relaxed. We didn’t get in to Barcelona until after 10. The fight was delayed due to busy airspace over Barca. Fortunately for us, it was a very clear night so when we came into the city we were treated to a great night time view of the lights. Oddly enough, Mom booked our hotel knowing that the high school Europe trip (that I went on in grade 12) would be staying at the same place. As such we had a little visit with the teachers whom I came with on my first trip to Europe. Kinda cool.

April 8, Barcelona

We started the day off at a reasonable hour, ate a delicious hotel breakfast, and set out into the blue skied, warm weathered Barcelona. We found the start of our hop on hop off tour and started our long, busy (but good) day in Barcelona. We made the traditional stops at Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, Pl. Cataluyna, went for a stroll down La Rambla (the main shopping street totally 1km long), walked through the gothic quarter, saw the gothic Cathedral, and all this before we boarded the bus for the other line we got to see so many different things you could do in Barcelona.

By the time we were on the second bus we were quite exhausted and didn’t do any hopping off, but we got to see things like the statue of Christopher Columbus, the aquarium, the Olympic park, Barcelona FC stadium, and so, so, so much more. I really think that you could never get bored in Barcelona. Every single scene is wonderfully beautiful and a huge beach abuts all that, well 7 beaches to be exact. It is a city that you could spend a week in and never do the same thing, you could take in the beach, history, modern art, sports, and well I could just gush on but to summarize, everyone should go to Barcelona.

So we did a long day of that, riding busses, sitting in the sun. We switched buses once again to the line that takes us closer to our hotel, which conveniently is about 3 blocks from one of the beaches. The bus dropped us off on the beach so we decided to take a little gander. Because we’d been in the sun all day and it had mostly set we were freezing so we didn’t actually stay on the beach much but it was kind of dirty. Well not dirty like with garbage on it, but the sand seemed more like dirty and it left your feet all dusty. Gross.

We stopped at MacDime for some coffees – which to order you went up to a computer screen, put in your order, paid for it, then waited for it to be called at the till. Kinda crazy.

We went back to the hotel and I showered to warm up and to get the days dirt off of me. We went down to the hotel restaurant for Mom’s last supper in Europe as she’d be leaving the next afternoon. It was really nice because the restaurant was totally empty, but for us. We both had veal steaks and they were good. Not much else to do at that point but go to bed and get ready for the next day. Mom was set to fly out and I was moving to a hostel in the city centre.

April 9, Barcelona

Saturday morning came and it saw us get up, pack our bags, eat lunch, check out (leaving our bags in the luggage room), and head down to the beach. We had such lovely weather, although from what I gather, that is just a property of Barcelona. It is simply sunny and hot there. We spent a few hours walking up and down the already packed beaches, stopping to soak up the sun and enjoy the view of all the boats in the water and the people on the beaches. It was quite lovely. We walked back to the hotel and a cab came to take Mom to the airport at 1pm for a 3:30 flight.

After Mom left I had to find my hostel for the night. This involved a metro and me walking up and down the street a few times near La Rambla to find the actual location. It really was ideally located but kinda dirty and grungy. It was definitely not the best hostel I’ve ever been to, but the internet was free.

I went to book my overnight train for the next night – hoping to book a sleeper train. When I got to the station and found out a sleeper car in the train would be almost 80 euros and a chochette (recliner chair in a shared cabin was only only about 50 euros). Naturally I booked the chair. How bad can it be really? From there I was pretty tired of walking around and running around touring so I decided to try and find an internet café or something equally as chill. I also wanted to avoid going back to the hostel if I didn’t need to.

Instead of the internet I found a little pizza place serving pizza for 2.90 – exactly the kind of meal a budget traveller looks for. It seems like pizza has become a staple of my budget life. I sat and updated my journal for quite some time until I felt the need to move and feeling the need for a taste of home, I moved to Starbucks. Lovely. I spent and equally long amount of time sitting in Starbucks writing, then realizing they would have free internet I sat there for another 45 minutes (the allotted free time they give their customers). This involved updating facebook and a skype phone call to my Dad.

After deciding I’d been there long enough I headed out to walk around the shopping of the gothic area – also known as, amazing shops with cute, unique goods. I wish I’d had money and room in my bag for more purchases. Instead I settled for two new necklaces. Good options, I thought. I walked around for quite a while before I made my way back to the hostel to change into some warmer clothes and I headed out again to go to the light show at the Magic Fountain of Montjuic.

The light show was from 7-9 and I got there at 8 and enjoyed it for a solid hour. The scene on each side of the fountain is majestic and wonderful. So lovely and the fountain, dancing in colour to music was just perfect. It was one of those moments that you just take it all in, kind of in awe of it all. The steps leading up to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya were packed. I am so glad I had time to see it.

I went back to the hostel shortly after 9 and made a few phone calls to the parents before heading to bed. The next day would have me in Barcelona until 7:30ish at which time I would catch the overnight train to Bern. In an effort to not overwhelm (bore) you, I’ll leave that post for a little later. Hopefully tomorrow I can do a few more days worth of updates.

Sorry if there were any sentences that seemed to not make sense I’ve been distracted by the beautiful (somewhat familiar) landscape this train is taking me through.