Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Livin' the Life

hello again! Unfortunately I must once again apologize for my poor attention to our blog.  It’s proven a lot harder than I thought it would be to stay on top of it with how busy we’ve been and our lack of consistent internet connection
    When I last updated we were in Marrakech and we have been extremely busy since then.  The first stop after Morocco was Barcelona, Spain.  However, we first had to get to Barcelona in order to enjoy all the great things it has to offer.  Our return tickets put us in Madrid and then we were were planning on taking the bus because it was really cheap, but we realized it would take us 7 hours on the bus to arrive in Barcelona and we didn’t want to lose an entire day of exploring.  So we bit the bullet and decided to pay for the much more expensive train ride.  We got to the train station, which was a mad house and got our tickets.  When we finally got to the terminal to board the train we just sat back and watched for a little bit as to how it would work.  They announce your platform number twenty minutes before the train leaves and as soon as they announce it everyone who is on your same train rushes, sort of stampede like, to get to the train. We got on the train, but weren’t supposed to be sitting together so we had to split up, which turned out to be a good thing.  Josh sat next to a man named Manu who was from Madrid and spoke perfect english luckily.  He took Josh and I back to the “cafeteria” car, and treated us to a couple drinks because “we were guests to his country and he needed to show us just how great Spainards are”, even though we weren’t even close to doubting how nice the Spanish are.  We spent the 3 hours chatting up our new friend and he actually helped us get to our hostel once we were in Barcelona.
    Manu, and about a million other people, were in Barcelona for a huge music festival that was going on that weekend called Sonar. So from the second we stepped off the train the city was buzzing.  Our hostel was full of other young kids who were there for the festival and also for visitng.  Two girls who were in our room of 14 strangers were doing what were doing and traveling around for the summer.  Fionna and Julia, are cousins from California and they had also just arrived in Barcelona.  As soon as we got settled, all four of us went out for dinner and to explore a little.  The girls introduced us to the Spanish version of a gyro, and it has been our meal of choice pretty much ever since! We decided we were going to try and go to one of the many clubs that was along the water front so we made our way to the boardwalk.  When we got there though we were denied by several clubs because we weren’t dressed nice enough. After we decided it was hopeless to get into the clubs in what we were wearing we went back to the hostel for a little wardrobe change.  We hit the streets in a much more fashionable sort of way in search of what was supposedly Barcelona’s best club, Razzmatazz. It seemed pretty illusive as no one we asked could help us get there. When we finally found the gem of the city’s nightlife, we were not disappointed.  It was huge inside with four floors and it was extremely packed.  The first floor, with a huge dance floor was where we spent most the night.  We danced on top of the speakers for hours until we literally could not stand anymore and then we called it a night.
    The next day the girls left and Josh and I went to La Sagrada Familia, a church that construction first started on in the early 1900’s and is still being finished.  The outside of the church is unlike anything any church I’ve ever seen before.  Josh and I were both in awe and the sheer size of the building.  Every single part of the building has a specific meaning and no detail was spared in the stories of the bible that are depicted in the crevices of the walls.  If we thought the outside was amazing, then there is no way to put into words how incredible the inside was.  Antoni Gaudi, the architect of the church made the inside to feel like a forest with tree-like and natural shapes, and so much natural light.  Everything is done on a grand scale and made us both feel so small in comparison to the gigantic features of the place.  We just sat and took everything in for awhile because it was all so magnificent.  We rode the lift to the top of the building and were able to see the entire city which was another awesome view. To get down to the bottom we decided to take the stairs, which was really not a good idea with my fear of falling to my death.  The stairs are a tight spiral staircase which has no railing on the inside.  I was fine with walking down the stairs until the girl behind me said “wow, if you fell down there you would totally die.” Let me thank you girl in the staircase because you helped start a panic attack for me and we weren’t even half way down what seemed to be the 400 foot tall tower. Needless to say I was very happy to reach the bottom.
    After the church we visited another Gaudi site, Parc-Guell.  The park is huge and it has all sorts of interesting architectural monuments.  There were stair cases, hallways, benches, and all sorts of different things.  One of the coolest was at the very top of the park and you climbed to the top of this monument thing and could see the entire city, the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains behind you.  The view was incredible and we both sat there for a second saying “is this really our life right now?!”  That night we were exhausted so we sat in the main room of our hostel and uploaded all of our pictures to Facebook and sort of wound down.  As we were sitting there the tables started to fill in around us and we were joined by a couple girls from England and a group of guys from Belgium.  We have both said that one of the best parts of the trip is all of the cool people we’ve been able to meet along the way.  They have all traveled so much more than us and speak so many languages and even if the communication is difficult between groups, they are all so extremely kind.
    Our second day in Barcelona, we were ready for a relaxing day, so we headed to the beach for a day in the sun, which we took full advantage of.  We sat on the beach until the sun went down and we were basically forced to leave. It was nice to finally sit down and have “vacation” time from running around all these cities we’ve been in.  The day after our beach day, we left Barcelona and headed to a small town in the Costa Brava area of the country, called Lloret de Mar.  The town was definitely a vacation spot for many Europeans and we were able to enjoy another couple hours on the beach.  The town kind of reminded us of a sort of South Padre area for the European travelers.  The beaches were gorgeous and town itself had a lot of really cool shops.  While we were laying on the beach looking at all the amazing things around us we were definitely realizing how lucky we are to have this opportunity that not many people do.  We’re seeing things that up until now have just been in our dreams!  To add to how great spending the day on the beach was, it was also Josh’s birthday!! Shout out to my best friend and travel buddy, I wouldn’t want to be doing this with any other person and he has been great the entire time!
    We’re currently en route to Girona, Spain for the day and then in the morning it’s off to Paris!! We can’t wait to spend time in Paris and see everything that the city has to offer.  So for now, Adios!!

Ps. I promise I’ll be better about updating you guys on what we’re doing so that we don’t have these novels of post anymore!

5 comments:

  1. I love your posts Kinzer!!! And I think it's great that you're blogging at all. I'm not so sure I would be as good about it as you are being :) Your posts remind me of how much fun I had when I was in Europe in my 20s. Isn't La Sagrada Familia amazing? I actually climbed up and down those terrifying stairs and I'm not even afraid of heights but it made my heart flutter too! Well sweetie, have fun in Paris. What a fantastic city to celebrate your birthday in! Have fun and John and I will be thinking of you tomorrow! Hugs and kisses, Cilla

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  2. Sagrada Familia is amazing! I literally had a hard time even putting it into words for the blog haha I'm not so much afraid of the heights as I am afraid of falling to my death haha it's a weird twist on the heights fear, but it obviously is very legitimate. Josh said it made him freak out a little bit too though so I felt better that I wasn't the only one! I will enjoy a little french wine and bread for you :)Miss you and Love you!!

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  3. I so love your style! The fact that you are meeting new people and hanging out and exploring with them is fantastic!! :D Germany has its on version of a Gyro it is called Doner and it is so good and only 2 euros! Im living it up and enjoying all of the sun in Portugal! See you both on Saturday!! :D

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  4. Happy Birthday Josh! I am also so glad that you two are still good friends and loving this adventure together! That is a really great thing!! So happy for both of you!! :D

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  5. Mike, Josh just had a heart attack when I told him that. He is obsessed with the Doner! I have told him I can't eat anymore Doner's for awhile because they were all we ate in Barcelona and Lloret de Mar haha Hope you're loving Portugal, see you soon!!

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