Cheetah Girls 2: Barcelona
I lived that lifelong dream of going to Spain and speaking Spanish! Except they actually speak Catalan in Barcelona so...
It's just an extra reminder that you never know what to expect and also you forget a lot of things that you should know (like where Catalan is spoken).
We started off the trip with a city tour (thx Bus2Alps) where I spotted this fun sign before heading to the Arch de Triumph of Spain (above). That was clearly again like walking into a postcard, as my life has been lately. We saw some parks and some churches and tried to convince ourselves that we believed we were in Spain.
Madi, Hannah, and I broke off from the group and took a little walk accross town plus a few metro stops to La Sagrada Familia. It was beautiful.
It was really difficult for an inexperienced photographer like myself to take pictures in the low lighting in manual mode, but hopefully from this snap you can see and further imagine the beautiful intricacy of the church. It was crazy to know I spent so many years studying this building in Spanish courses and finally standing inside of it.
The three of us felt very blessed to be present in such a beautiful structure, especially one created to honor our God. We had the opportunity to sit and pray in a silent area and it felt unreal to speak with God in such a fantasic setting. Clearly it gave me all the feels.
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On a very different note, we also experienced some of the craziest nightlife in the world.
All of the clubs we went to were right one the beach. We tried to go one night, but got a little skeezed out by the men trying to sell us drugs (don't tell my mom). The next night we successfully made a little trip down to watch the waves rush in the dark. Not mad about it. The sea is still beautiful in the dark.
Every beach club was like a movie scene. The lasers and the strobe lights and the fog and the dancing just enveloped us and welcomed us into the crazy Barcelona club scene. We had no cover charge and we got VIP and bottle service. They were bringing tubs of champagne with sparklers attached to the top of the bottles, lighting up the dark section. It was honeslty quite amazing and in the moment it felt super normal, which I later reflected that it was nothing but.
The best part was that the 6 of us could not have cared less about being VIP or getting free drinks. We flew from place to place, section to section, and ran up and down the stairs just tearing up the dance floor. Not to be creepy or weird or conceited, but we were some of the few women in the club and were, quite honestly, constantly surrounded by men trying to dance with us. The good news is we fully ignored them all night, danced so hard, and had a blast. It was 4 am before we knew it and decided it best to go back to our hostel.
We barely slept in Barcelona. I think I'm just now recovering.
On the second night of our stay we went to Opium, which is apparently "the number 2 club in the world" according to one of my roommates. And it was pretty insane.
photo courtesy of Opium
This is the night we managed to make it to the beach safely before heading home. After this I was about done with going out for awhile. There are some (a lot of) things I'm still not good at, even in Spain. In particular, it's going out and staying up late. I love it, but also I hate it. If you have any question about those very confusing feelings, feel free to hit me up via email.
We also got to go to some pretty cool bars, like the Dow Jones Bar, where you buy drinks when they're at good prices, just like the stock market.
photo courtest of Dow Jones Bar
The whole of the trip was the stuff of dreams and movie scenes and I'm very glad I experienced crazy Barcelona. I wish the weather had been warmer, but I really cannot complain about the sunny days and new experiences.
We finished our trip with semi-rough bus ride (12 hours), with astonishing views, which made up for it. We went all along the French Riviera, so I've kind of been to Monte Carlo?? Okay, fine I know it doesn't count.
