La Vie de Deux Mademoiselles a France

On Thursday night (Jan 27th) Megan and I went to the university to catch the bus to Barcelona…but of course, it was 2 and a half hours delayed, from 8:30-10:30. So we decided to eat at a café until then. We went to Café Different in Notre Dame and had the best meal ever! We got Magret du Canard (duck breast), with apples flambé in some local liqueur, some sautéed vegetables, and a cheesy potato thing, then we also got oeufs en coquette with mesclun, and “different dessert” (crème brulee, chocolat cake, espresso, and some jelly cream) and of course some Vino! Then we proceeded to lug our stuff back to campus to catch the 10:30 bus….the bus ride was long: 9 hours. We tried to sleep for most of it, but terrible French movies were blasting out the speakers (too loud for even earplugs or ipods to block out). We have learned that on French busses, movies are not optional sound wise…there are no jacks for headphones. We will not be taking another trip by bus again…but rather sticking to planes and trains. We had already learned lesson #1 at this point in the voyage.

We arrived in Barcelona at 7:30 am on Friday morning. Checked into the hostel (we were in a room of 14….this should have been our cue to get a private room), ate breakfast, then we went to a nearby café for cappuccino and to plan out our day on the map. Café is much cheaper in Spain than France…with many more options, but other things are more expensive such as the pastries and jam. We decided to go Las Ramblas first and check out a few museums, markets, etc.

Las Ramblas is a pedestrian only strip about 1 km long…at the end by the Mediterranean there is the Mirador de Colom before heading into Barcoloneta (waterfront).First we checked out the Gran Teatre del Liceu, which has burned down twice, and been rebuilt and restored (the latest burn in 1994). We got a tour and saw the original Hall of Mirrors (built in 1847) and the five level, 2292 seat theatre for watching operas, ballets. It was quite magnificent. Then we went to La Boqueria, a traditional Catalan market and the largest outdoor market in Spain. There were so many different types of vendors, and tons of fresh fruit juices….I would have loved to spend more time roaming the rows of vendors, but we wanted to see a lot in 2 days….so we moved on. We tried to go to the Museu de l’Erotica, but it was under construction, as was the Centre d’Art de Santa Monica (which I really wanted to see!). It seems in the off season for tourism, everything in Barcelona is under construction. Although it was so packed with people, it really didn’t feel like the down season.

Then we walked back through Barri Gotic (the quarter that our hostel is located) and passed the Esglesia Catedral de la Santa Creu before heading to le Museu Picasso. I have discovered, that whenever I go to an art museum or exhibit, I am looking more at the buildings architecture than the art itself…so on our next trip I don’t plan to spend as much time in art museums etc and rather go check out impressive facades, palaces etc (which we did on Day 2 in Barcelona). One thing I did notice in the art exhibits was that everything was in 3 languages (english, spanish, and catalan – which I originally thought to be Italian). A woman on the bus told us everyone who goes to school in Spain knows both Catalan and Spanish, although most young people only speak Spanish daily. After Picasso we went to the Museu de la Xocolata for which the ticket was a dark chocolate bar! Yum! We also walked through the Parc de la Ciutadella and Jardins Fontsere i Mestre.

Next we headed down to Barceloneta to check out the Mediterranean. The waves were massive, and there were people surfing. It was really great to see the ocean and feel the fresh wind on our faces. Towards the Olympic village we stopped and had lunch at this retro café, then took the bus back to Las Ramblas and walked back to the hostel. I was exhausted, as it was really hard to sleep on the bus…so I basically hadn’t slept the night before and needed to have a nap. We didn’t plan on going out the first night as we wanted to get in a another full day of sightseeing on Saturday…however this didn’t really work because we were in a room of 14.

All of the other people in the room partied in it until 2 am. Megan and I decided it was in our best interest (and to maintain our sanity) to upgrade to a private room….I only wish we did it sooner, as we didn’t switch until 1:30 am! But we did meet a really nice Italian guy who worked for the club crawl and gave us many good recommendations for places to go to in Spain and in Italy. He also told us he owns 39 pairs of shoes (typical!).We woke up on Saturday at 11am!! Shocking I know….as I never really sleep in, we thought the clock must be wrong, then stuck our heads out the window, saw clear blue skies and jetted out of that room pronto into a café for breaky and to plan our day on the map once again.

First we took the metro out to Montjuic (Hill of the Jews). Dozens of rulers have modified the Castell de Monjuic, a fortress built atop an ancient Jewish cemetery. Franco made it one of his interrogation headquarters, and today the area is home to Poble Espanyol, a recreation of famous buildings and sights from all regions of Spain. We hiked up many hills and stairs to get to Fundacio Miro (our last art gallery…finally!). The loveliest parts of Montjuic were the gardens and the National art museum. You will see many of the photos in the face book album with the subtitle Jardin de Joan Maragall and Palaquet Albeniz…these were beautiful. It also helped for it to be about 15 degrees and sunny! Then we walked to Placa Espanyol to get back on the metro to Las Ramblas to go see the statue of Colombus.

By chance, we found El Bosc de les Fades, which is a café/bar next to the wax museum and is really funky. We went in and had a café before walking back to the hostel for dinner. We grabbed our postcards and food and went into the mess hall to eat and write them. Then we walked to Le Correos (the post office) in attempt to mail them. Apparently no one in Spain knows where a post box is for mailing letters etc….so we spent quite some time looking for one. Then we strolled along Las Ramblas and some other streets back to the hostel to get ready to go out.

Now of course no one really heads to the clubs until 2 am in Europe, so we really worked hard to stay stoked! Megan and I ended up heading out to the club called Razzmatazz. It was massive!!! Must have been over 1500 people there, multiple bars, and levels. The music was questionable, but the night was still awesome. We didn’t get back to our room until 6 am. We slept for a lovely 2 hours before waking up to pack, eat breakfast, and get on the bus back to Grenoble. We had both been dreading this bus ride, but were optimistic that everyone would be sleeping on the bus and there would be no movies….we were wrong. Megan got no sleep on the bus and me only about 3 hours. By the time we got back to Grenoble (7:30 pm) we were once again exhausted. Got into our apartment and promptly took a shower, put on laundry and zonked out.

We will definitely be back to Spain! I loved the vibe, and people were very friendly. Probably not back to Barcelona, but one of the smaller towns that our Italian friend Daniele recommended. And we definitely won’t be taking a bus! Can’t wait!

Now I am excited to have some time in Grenoble…I really need to start practicing my French, although it might be a bit more difficult after pronouncing everything differently in Spain!

Adios!