That was yesterday.
On the flip side, I was awoken today by a harsh rapping at my door. A quick look at my phone told me it was 9am. I let the light from the bathroom next-door and the sound of the shower rain down on me until 9:30, when I was ‘forced’ to get up out of my bed and face the rough day ahead of me.
We were all planning on going to Barcelona again, and god forbid we leave the house before 10am.
I got dressed quickly and was verbally berated to the door, only to have both of the girls go ‘potty’ before we actually ventured outside.
The metro is only about a 10 minute walk away, then Barcelona a 30 minute metro ride… so we arrived at Las Ramblas around 1045, plenty of time to catch our bike reservation of 11am.
Surprisingly (and I mean REALLY surprisingly, considering the girl’s navigation skills), we found the bike rental place (Mattia) without any trouble. The kind man behind the counter gave the girls a little ribbing for asking if he spoke English, saying, “no but I speak Italian? Spanish? Catalan? Arabic? Portuguese?” Tanner and I quickly caught on and just told the girls to get on with it.
We made our deposit painlessly and headed back to the market in Las Ramblas to get some lunch.
Before we could go inside and get some more of those delicious, yet extremely filling, nachos, we had to find a place to lock up our bikes.
You would think that a city as large as Barcelona would have bike racks at nearly every corner, but you would be mistaken.
The 4 of us had our bikes locked at 3 different stations, around a total of 100 yards away from each other.
Eventually we caught up with each other and made our way into the market to order our nachos. Today Tanner and I decided to share after our fiasco the other day. We ordered and ventured to find a place to sit. This is very difficult if you have ever been to a marketplace. There are around 100 little stands in every crevice that isn’t a walkway, but no place to sit. We made our way to a restaurant on the edge of this mass, however there was a sign next to us saying “no picnic”. We assumed this meant we can’t eat our food at their tables, so we each bought a drink and ate there anyway.
The nachos were fantastic (again) but as soon as we finished the girls decided it was a perfect time to hit the bathroom.
I know what you’re thinking, “you just left the house an hour ago how could they possibly have to pee?” We were thinking the same thing, and we have no idea.
They finally finished so we headed back to our bikes and actually began our adventure.
Las Ramblas is a very busy street, and extremely difficult to get around on bikes, so naturally we went the wrong direction to begin with. After turning around and disrupting traffic, we made our way to La Cathedral in the gothic neighborhood. This church was a part of our walking tour a few days ago but the girls felt it was necessary to go inside.
There were 0 bike racks outside in the main plaza so Tanner and I decided we could just stay outside with the bikes while the girls went inside to take pictures.
It was another small ride to the Arc De Triumph, near the center of the enormous city, but again, there were no bike racks. Pictures were taken and we moved on to La Sagrada Familia.
La Sagrada Familia is the main attraction here in Barcelona; it’s a large (unfinished) church that began construction in the 1800’s. We planned on going inside, however it was 14 euros so we decided that it was a little too steep.
Around the church we went, and eventually we decided it was time to dive back into the map to decide where our next destination would be. It was only around 130pm at this point, so we all decided ‘collectively’ to head to the farthest highlighted portion of the map, which was Park Güell.
Boy oh boy, did these people find the only other hill in this damned city.
We climbed with these bikes for about 7-8 blocks before we even reached a point where there was a sign for this park.
Our legs were on fire and all 4 of us were walking our bikes by the time we reached the summit.
Once at the entrance, we found out that it cost money to enter the main part of this place. We took a consolation prize, and walked the outskirts, which contained many plants and one large structure of stone that seemed to be thrown together willie-nillie.
It was now around 3pm and we made the choice to head back down the hill toward the other sites that we had planned for the day.
The downhill made the ride much smoother, and Tanner was thoroughly enjoying going as fast as possible while watching the girls and I try and keep up.
Every time he made a light and had to stop and wait for us, I just pulled up to him smiling.
COMPLETELY across the city we had to bike, and that is not an over exaggeration.
Small streets, big streets, red streets, blue streets…we did it all.
Our goal was to make it to La Fontana Magica (the magic fountain), and we did make it, buuuuut it wasn’t on. It was just a large pool of stagnant water with coins soaking in the bottom. Not so magic after all.
We turned our attention to Poble Espanyol, an old-school Spanish village ‘right next to’ the fountain.
Then we saw the hill…yeah, another one.
Everyone bailed on riding their bikes up this one so we walked, bikes in hand, right up to the gates of this little old town.
However, it cost money to get in.
Again.
Nobody was happy, especially Bronte who was quiet and hungry, getting angry at everything. The group ended up choosing to come back and visit the town on Thursday night, when the toll wasn’t so large.
It was around 4pm and we decided for Bronte’s sake to go and get some food. At first we were going to get food on the way (because she was STARVING) but we couldn’t find anything worth the price so we headed back to Las Ramblas to drop off our bikes.
Tanner has been our tour guide for the entire trip, navigating us through every city we have visited (except maybe Venice), but today he failed us.
On our way back to Las Ramblas, he missed the turn and we were forced to do some circles before we found our way back to the famous street.
Once back inside of the chaos, it was a cakewalk to find the bike vendor and hand over our vehicles-of-the-day.
We thanked the man, and our next mission was on…find Bronte food before she cracked.
Up and down Las Ramblas we walked to find the best deal possible (mainly for Payton’s sake). Finally, we made a decision, a restaurant (Colón) with 3 tapas, paella, and 1 ice cream for only 9.95. We ended up choosing 6 tapas and 2 paellas.
Being low on money, we went with one bottle of water for the table. This was the only thing that they got right.
Out of the 6 tapas that we ordered, 2 of them weren’t right.
The waitress that took our order, blatantly walked out of the restaurant as if her shift was over and didn’t care what happened to us.
Then, only one of the paellas was brought out to us, the girls scarfed it down while Tanner and I had to sit and watch in agony.
Eventually Pepe (the maître dee) saw our distain and forced the kitchen to bring out the second paella.
We ate quickly and waited for our ice cream.
Fifteen minutes went by and nothing came…we had to ask our good man Pepe to bring us our desserts. One of them showed up in the hands of our new server, and we asked him for a second one. He rolled his eyes and we looked at each other with confusion, for this is his job, which he is doing poorly.
The weak-ass ice cream that Tanner and I deserved finally came and we bit into it, with a bit of resentment.
However, the first bite of Tanner’s contained an inch long piece of the ice cream container. Nice, chewy cardstock.
At this point, all we could do was laugh, pay the bill, and make our way home.
Another 30 min metro ride (with Bronte snoozing) and we were back in Badalona.
On the way home we stopped at the grocery store and bought some meat, cheese, and crackers for a snack.
We made our way home and got the chance to sit down and stretch our legs.
After an hour or so of Bronte taking a test, we got the chance to watch the latest episode of The Walking Dead (so awesome by the way, if you haven’t seen it start watching).
The show was fantastic and we all chilled out afterwards in our own ways.
I started the blog, Tanner registered for classes, Payton uploaded pictures, and Bronte went to bed.
It was a long-ass day, and I’m glad it’s behind us.
Until next time, this is Joe Confalone writing on behalf of Bronte and Payton Gifford, and Tanner Johnston.