McKenzie's Sandginas: Catalanin Around

so I'm finally writing things OKAYY... so I went to barcelona accompanied by my texan love dynamite Marie. It was a splurge because at this point in the trip we were both very poor but considering we are both the cheapest people I know, we thought it might work out.

so lets begin the journey.

ryanair, pretty pleasant experience this time. Love the laid back italian Pisa airport because they never check your things to make sure they are under the required weight... usually that doesn't work so well in the other small crappy ryanair airports so packer beware that you might run into some critical thinking on how you will get all your stuff home. anyway so no problems, didn't even look at my passport at security and even though we got there 10 minutes after the check in cut off we still managed to be able to check in.

of course ryanair attempted to take advantage of not messing up by walking down the aisles selling sexy women by planes calendars, scratch tickets, drinks, food, anything else they could randomly think up. Not to mention the great pop single they play during the flight that basically just mumbles a bunch of stuff and all you can make out is ryan air fly ryan air. It's a mover though, I'll give them that. I also enjoy how they also congratulate themselves at the end of the flight for having 90% of flights on time, which is more than any european airline! Of course when we went to Paris, they did not play this ha ha.

Pictures: me on the left, being a tourist... too bad my camera didn't make it into this shot. on the right; this is one of the two awesome phone "charms" that marie has. I have one too but its a squirrel with bloodshot eyes in a carrot. I'll show you in 2 days, so that you can be fully impressed.

on the plane overlooking some other place.. meh i don't remember exactly, and another view of marie's phone charm.. sorry not much to say yet or maybe I'm just too tired to remember everything funny that happened.

So we arrive in Barcelona, on time for once, but this time without a map. Marie had told me prior to leaving that her host family supplied her with this awesome barcelona tour guide book so I didn't think to go buy one at Edison (book store) before we left... HOWEVER first of all she forgot it and second of all supposedly it had one map with only the main roads on it. So of course Marie and I are both fluent in Catalan because for some reason knowing small amounts Spanish doesn't help you in Barcelona because they decided to have their own language and refuse to call themselves Spanish...even though they are from Spain. so anyway... we got a map from some random stand, which was quite possibly the worst map in the world, but we managed and finally found our hostel.

Here is Marie looking triumphant infront of Barcelona's Arc de triumph, not as impressive as the one in Paris and doesn't quite compare with the Campanile (but really what does?), but it still looks really nice I think.

So again, marie and I are cheap right? So we decide we are going to save on food all weekend by buying sandwich supplies at the nearest 3 foot grocery store. First we splurged on the 1 euro bread instead of the 77 euro cents bread, and then again on the 2 euro meat and once again on the 1 euro cheese. Oh and we even bought some mayonnaise, just because it was our last trip and we really wanted to treat ourselves.

So anyway, we open up the turkey..... and it smelled like cat food. not kidding, but don't worry we ate it anyway. not a good choice because even with tons of mayonnaise and 3 pieces of tasteless cheese, you could still smell the cat food aroma. So lesson learned, next time splurge for the 2.50 euro meat!

Ps. can you see the slime glow of the turkey?

So our hostel was actually pretty awesome. Good job Ian. oh by the way, Ian, Willy and Ryan's friend whom I met one other time, joined us on the trip.

So as you can see the walls were green and festive and there are tons of pictures of cartoon men with their shirts off and cartoon women with their shirts off. Still doesn't make sense to me why females are always exposed but men aren't.. especially since I really want to see naked cartoon men, and its just not fair ha ha ha :) Also there were nice used condom decorations hanging from the ceiling. Maybe you can see them kind of. Note to everyone: they are not actually used condoms.

So while waiting for Ian to arrive, Marie and I discovered their great collection of games, including pick up sticks. At first it appeared as if Marie would be easy to beat every time because her coordination is far off in the fine motor skills department, but eventually she got better.

On the right is a picture of our 14 person coed hostel. That black thing is not a garbage bag curtain, it is just a pole that inconveniently makes the picture confusing. So the beds were not bad, except for the fact that they only give you a fitted sheet and a pillow case. This would be fine in any other month than december because covering up with every sweater I brought did not really suffice.

So the second night we forced Ian to sleep with us. Here we are sleeping across the two beds, probably taking up 1/2 of the room all spooning for warmth. I wish I had a picture of this.

The first night we went out with a group of Australians (they are always traveling geeezzz) to some random bar. Supposedly there was supposed to be dancing, but there wasn't except for the D.J Oliver. Sorry latino friends, no merengueing for me on this trip, it will have to wait until I am back in Caracas

So the next morning we ate the free breakfast of toast, mini cakes, cereal, juice (somewhat decent) and then left to walk Barcelona at 10am. We walked around basically all of Barcelona, saw the Gaudi buildings, which were amazing, attempted to go to the zoo (it was closed) walked to the beach, and then ended at the magic fountain. Here is a map of our journey just so you can see exactly how much we walked. Granted we took the metro from the beach to the magic fountain and again from the hostel to the show.

View Larger Map

Ian was a delight to have on the trip because he basically went along with whatever dumb things marie and I thought up. For example posing in front of this honey stand.

Barcelona architecture: building on the right: Gaudi

Marie kicking a bird and a fountain.....

Another one of Marie and my hilarrriousss photo ops...

Another Pruuunneeee face, but this time I did not pull it off so well. I think I was uncomfortable because Ian didn't understand the full meaning behind it.

So out of the many Gaudi museums we decided to go in La Padrera because it was only 5 euro for students. It was definitely worth it because it was one of the most amazing buildings I have ever been in. Especially the roof, which you will see in pictures below...

Left: La Padrera- Casa Mila

Right: the "attic" of the building

Me on top of the roof, see what I was talking about?

Maries pose on top of the roof... typical pelvic thrusting picture.

More pictures from the top of the roof. Really though, have you ever seen something like this? The front of the building, although it is still cool, doesn't do it justice, and if you ever go to Barcelona you must see at least one of these buildings.

Also in the distance you can see one of the famous Gaudi buildings: Sagrada Familia, maybe you remember it from the Nightmare before christmas....... we saw it up close but there was a lot of construction on it so it really didn't look that cool... maybe I will put up a picture later of what it looks like but all of you (ha ha "all of you") know how good I am at getting back to this blog thing.

Aww cute weekend family photo... ps did you notice how marie and i part our hair the opposite way... interesting

So on the way to the beach we found this industrialesque playground. Perfect for some senior pictures.

Picture on the left: sweet and innocent

Picture on the right: sultry

have to have both angels right? These are my senior pictures and I want people to remember me as that girl who came to school with her hair wet and just did a sexy teeth gritting face... does anyone get my joke?

Also good for engagement pictures

Ian jumping. and Ian with a sombrero.

Ian and I selling drugs?

So we decided to get our feet wet. It was really cold, but somewhat worth it despite that now my feet were sandy inside of my shoes; therefore, now my shoes were sandy....

this backview picture would have been more complete if my long luxurious hair was still present..right marie?

Next time I am in barcelona it will definitely be in the Summer. Can you imagine me in my purple one piece jamming to Fabolous can't deny it and Nelly country grammar? sounds like a peaceful sunday afternoon to me.

Next we headed to the "Magic fountain" maybe it is unnecessary to use quotations considering that is what it is actually called.

This fountain was saweeeet. It played epic songs and had dancing water. Of course we danced, and Ian jumped?

These street performers are a lot more impressive in Barcelona. This person is a tree. He/She is clearly spiritual and deserves my 50 euro cents.

I forgot to mention that we bought 3 liters of Sangria...which Ian drank 3/4 of. So he was slightly drunk for about 30 minutes...off of Sangria. ha ha ha ha

So maybe that is why he thought drenching his tapas in this disgusting garlic sauce was a good idea.

Tapas aka slightly disappointing appetizers

The main reason for this trip: the Yelle show. We got there at 1am when it opened. Waited in line until 2:30 to get our tickets that we had already bought. and then spent about 30 to 45 minutes trying to check our coat. This club was huuugeeeeee, it had 3 dance floors and all were filled body to body with people. See picture below.

The Yelle show was amazing. the end. I could dance all night to her french pop tunes. A lot better live so if you listen to her online and are wondering why I liked her so much, then just remember that and let it distract away from that I might just have bad taste... but i dont ok?

The next day we woke up barely in time for our spectacular spectacular free dining and then Ian left. Marie and I attempted to get up and do things but ended up falling asleep in the "chill out" room of the hostel... on the floor and across two uneven chairs.

After our nap we went and got coffee for an hour and a half and then went to the Picasso museum for 45. Yes we spent more time drinking coffee than at a museum.

This museum was very small but supposedly it holds the most Picasso paintings and sketches. Here is one of his sketches. Too bad I didn't include the one of the girl having her period into a fishes mouth.. hummmm.... ps. i heard that i say hmmm to much so now I am saying hum. I think it is less threatening.