Barcelona!

Our plane from Florence was scheduled to leave Thursday at 1 and that morning we planned on leaving my apartment at 9:30. We ran a little late and didn't get out of my apartment until 10. We had heard that there was a shuttle from the train station to the airport that ran every half hour. We got to the train station, searched for where they sold these shuttle tickets, and searched for where the shuttle picked up. By the time we accomplished all of that it was 10:23. This was unfortunate because the shuttle left at 10:20. So we waited until 10:50 and took the shuttle then. We flew through security because the airport in Florence is so small. So we waited essentially for about an hour to board our plane. While waiting we met someone that we had met during our trip to Austria so we talked to her almost the entire time. Then we were on the plane to Paris. The plane ride had so much turbulence on the way up. It felt like we were falling and for a few seconds I actually thought the plane was going to go down. People were screaming and it was just not a good scene. Luckily, I did not scream and I made it look like I wasn't worried about anything, but really it was very scary. I was also got of worried that someone might throw up and that would've really ruined the flight. Luckily no one threw up and we did not crash. We made it to Paris with everyone still alive. It was awesome. 

Throughout the flight I sat next to an elderly woman that was born in French Canada (so she was fluent in French and English), lived in Costa Rica for a little bit (so she was fluent in Spanish), and married an Italian and moved to Italy (so she was fluent in Italian). She taught languages in Florence for most of her life, so she was very nice and very interesting to talk to. Her daughter lived with two children in Paris and this woman was going to get to see them and she was very excited.

After we got into Paris, we changed Terminals (that was an adventure where I got really close to a lot of strangers). We then got on a plane to Barcelona. 

I had a window seat and no one sat next to me or in the seat next to that. I was alright with it. As we reached Barcelona I got to look out my window and see the beautiful coastline beaches and sea. It was nice. We took the bus from the airport to the center of the city and from there walked all around the city searching for our hostel. We didn't find it until about 2 hours later and we dumped off our stuff and we were on the move to explore. We got some dinner at a local restaurant, and then walked around a little bit. We went down the famous street La Rambla where we watched street performers and saw shop after shop. We walked all the way down the street until we reached the harbor. We walked around a little bit before going back to the plaza and waiting for Darcy and Maria to get off the airport bus so that way we could show them the hostel and they wouldn't be lost like Vicky and I were. 

After we met up with them all of us headed to the hostel to check in Maria and Darcy. After check-in we went back down La Rambla to the harbor where we sat, watched the water for a little bit, and just talked. After it got late enough we went back to the hostel and went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and bought three breakfast passes and then got to the breakfast buffet. As usual with the breakfast buffets in Europe it wasn't good. But it was food:

Afterwards we went on a free-tour of Barcelona. Free-tours are usually very nice although their not really free and the tour guides almost always get tips at the end. But still, it's like a 5 euro tour. We started the tour in the old part of the city which was started by the Romans:

There were a bunch of small streets that cars weren't allowed to drive on in the city center. These were really nice shops filled with fashionable clothes and candy shops:

One of our first stops on the free tour was an old apartment building where a few years ago a man had moved in and noticed the pillars in his apartment looked very old. Upon careful examination these pillars turned out to Roman columns that went up through the apartment building:

We went to the cathedral of Barcelona which was amazing. It was very gothic: 

Then we headed down through the city to see more history and we happened upon this mailbox which was actually paid for by a group of lawyers a few years ago (like a hundred or so). The mailbox was especially designed for the lawyers and it helped describe that these were lawyers working here:

Our tour guide didn't describe this but it's a fountain that I saw and thought it was pretty enough for me to get a picture of it:

This used to mark the entrance to the city during the Roman times. Obviously the city was much smaller:

This next church was the church of the pine tree and it has one if the largest rose glass windows in the world. It was a very pretty church:

Then we all got together and took this giant selfie:

A lot of the Roman ruins are still used for structural support here:

This was a pretty church but the picture quality is not very good:

This fountain is in the middle of a plaza and in the plaza there is a church, a school, and a cafe. The cafe was where a scene from Vicky Christina Barcelona was shot. The school still has students that come to it and it is still in operation. The church had a bunch of people hiding in it during a bombing in Workd War 2. The bomb hit the church dead on and killed 40 people and apparently 30 of them were children. It's a quiet plaza where a lot of locals come for some peace:

A statue:

Some of the amazing architecture of Barcelona:

The streetlights were all like this:

This was the church of the sea and was built by the people for their own use:

There is an eternal flame burning on this for all the people that fought bravely for Barcelona in it's tries at independence and all the members of the city that have died in past wars:

The tour was essentially done but we went on a walk to the park:

The park was apparently larger than Central Park and had at one time been where a huge fortress had been. The people of Barcelona had been forced to build it over a century ago when revolting against the Spanish. One of the previous mayors tore it down a few years back and made it into this beautiful park. Also for the Olympics they decked out the park with a bunch of Palm trees they bought from Caribbean islands. They imported so many palm trees that they even recieved a new species of birds:

It was definitely a fun tour and we liked it so much that we decided to pay for the next two tours. One was on Modernisma architecture and the other was a tapas tour.