Why the repetition you ask? Well as we arrived here and went on a quick bus tour they played the theme song from the 1992 Barcelona Games with Freddie Mercury and their most famous opera singer combining for a duet. Lovely song but it got stuck in my head as I wandered the streets and since I could only remember a tiny part all that played in my head was “Barcelona, Barcelona...” I should make a playlist of the songs that get stuck in my head – I’m sure that’s one way to keep them out... maybe. And the only way I can stop them is by replacing it with an even more annoying song. Like “It’s a small world after all...” Oh no, now that’s playing in my head – what have I done?!?
Quick Bus Tour
Went for a fast drive around the city – saw the Sagrada Familia – the unfinished cathedral of Gaudi. Pretty special and amazing story – been building it for ages and aimed to finish by 2026 or something.
Group Meal
Last night we had a group dinner of paella (but the double l make a j/g sound I’ve been told – so I’ve been pronouncing pollo wrong for so long...) which was pretty good. We had to walk a bit of a way but it was along La Rambla which is famous for its street performers. Was some fantastic ‘statue people’ but wasn’t feeling generous and didn’t want to pay for photos. Tons of people and with sun going down late we didn’t start eating till after 9pm. Still think Australia should have imported the siesta! What a fantastic idea.
Lost in Barcelona
So latish night and with no need to wake up and catch a bus to another country decided to have a sleep in. Our hostel is in a great location in the city and actually has comfortable mattresses. Quite a classy hostel (is that an oxymoron?)
After my relaxing wake up I decided I should do something with this magic weather. Couldn’t find a map which had the metro stops drawn on top of the city streets – so just headed off. Bit of a mistake – I don’t know if you can be considered lost if you don’t really care where you are going – but did want to get to see this!
I’ve found I’m a bit of a proud (don’t know if that’s the right word) traveller – I don’t really want to ask for directions... maybe it’s the male gene coming through. After a while I realised I could be walking in completely the wrong direction and not actually heading toward anything remotely exciting. Swallowing my pride a little I found a bike map thing and eventually worked out where I was. Hadn’t completely gone in the wrong direction but saw some semi-interesting parks. I was also looking for a bookstore so I could get some reading material for the bus rides. No luck – but for some reason I found 3 shops selling scaletrix slot car sets. Was a bit odd...
National Museum of Art of Catalunya
Typical art museum in a fantastic building - see photo above. Got an audio guide which made it better but I’m not that interested in art unfortunately. Was cool how it was set up to show how art in the region had progressed through time from the Roman period to Modern day. The modern photography exhibit was just weird. One of the photos I’m sure was a close up of dogs fur – and nothing else... Very strange those artist types...
Olympic Stadium and Museum
Left the Museum and kept going up the hill to the Olympic complex. This was better – massive buildings and something I was interested in. You were able to walk into the Stadium – see where the torch is – for free.
Had to pay to go into the museum part – was cheap though – and had a gander. Much more interesting stuff. Highlights included an interactive display that could pull up old footage – watch the lighting of the cauldron for Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney. Also saw classic replays of some of Australia’s success in Olympics like Cathy Freeman’s run, the 4x100 men’s relay, etc...
Another interesting part was their depiction of some of the world records. The long jump one is massive – I sort of knew how long the record was but to see it measured out and displayed – Woah.
The final thing of interest was this!
How many backseat drivers do you want! And you’d better hope they were all pretty good at balancing and you had wide turning circles... (For Bron – and I still think it would go faster than Mum cycling in Central Park... good times)
Metro Back
Since I knew my own stop back at the metro went and found the closest stop. Since I was up the hill it was this steep train back down. Bit of fun... And what had taken me a fair amount of time in the morning was covered in about 10 minutes of metro travel... For only 1 euro. At least I got some exercise.
Tonight we’re off to a Flamenco show which should be good. Supposedly a big night so I reckon there will be some struggling people on the bus tomorrow.
Thanks to all those who have responded and said they enjoy reading the blog – its great hearing from home and what everyone is up to.
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