Day 11...The Best Views of the City!

Day 11, June 25th:

Barcelona Day Dos! 

Danielle, Heather and I began the day by taking a taxi from Las Ramblas up to Montjuic.  Montjuic is the mountain that over looks the city of Barcelona, the beach, the port and it is where the Olympics was held a few years ago.  The taxi ride was like a crazy amusement park ride.  I have never felt like we were going to hit someone so many times in my life.  Spaniards drive very close to each other and the lanes are much smaller in width than in the US.   Motorbikes even pass stopped cars, even moving cars for that matter, and taxi drivers almost run them off the road.  If someone is crossing the road when they are not allowed, then they speed up (but it is to get them to move quicker…).  They also stop on a dime…pretty well too. It was a true experience for the first time I have ever ridden in a taxi!  It ended up costing us about 12 euro total for the three of us.  Not bad at all.  The view of Barcelona was phenomenal!  We could see the ship from one side of the small park, so the three of us were taking some creative pictures with the ship in the background including standing on a brick wall on the top of the mountain.  We then took a cable-car, called Teleferic de Montjuic, across the water and over to the boardwalk by the beach.  The view was stunning!  We could see the entire town from thousands of feet in the air!  What an awesome ride!  We then took the elevator down from the cable-car tower and met some other Americans that actually know one of the people on SAS (best part is they gave us a note to give her if we saw her and I remembered reading this girl’s name from the name cards on each door by Heather’s room…it was 4 doors down).  It was great to find someone who spoke full English and knew a lot about the city of Barcelona.  They answered many of our questions regarding public transit, where to go, etc.  We then headed down to the beach and walked along the boardwalk to find a place to eat.  Now, one of the things you need to know about the beaches in Barcelona is that many of the women go topless on the beach (even if they are 50+) and many of the guys wear speedos (even if they are so fat that more than half of their stomach hangs out underneath their tee-shirt…).  We ended up eating outside and people watching (that’s where we saw way too much while eating…).  We all ate our first cheeseburger and french fries since we left Los Estados Unidos.  I have been craving this all week!  We then took the underground metro along the beach to a mall to go shopping.  This was another neat cultural experience because we got to see the stores, the families, the various types of clothing, and see the locals in a totally different setting.  I really wanted an Espana soccer shirt and I found one in a sporting goods store for 10 euro.  I was so excited!  It was so cool that Danielle had to buy one too.  In Spain, jamon (ham) is cured naturally with salt and is sold almost everywhere including in kiosks in the middle of the mall.  I tried to take a picture, but apparently we were not allowed as a Mall Cop told me no (don’t worry…I already took the shot before he told me no).  They smell really bad too because they just have hams hanging from the top of the stand open to the world (aka no packaging).  We then stumbled into what we assume is a Spanish Walmart/Kmart that was all three stories of the mall called Alcampo.  It was so cool!  I bought all kinds of snacks and drinks for the ship including an assortment of miniature candy bars, Haribo gummy bears, more potato chips cooked in olive oil (two different types), lemon and orange Fanta soda, markers for children at the various service visits, and Spanish coffee (since it is supposedly some of the best in the world behind Columbia).  All of that was less than 15 euros.  Now that’s what I call business!  The trick was carrying all 24 sodas and three extremely large bags of food between us back to the ship via the metro.  We made it, but it wasn’t easy!  After writing my blog post about what we did yesterday, we headed out in search of a bar to watch Spain play in the World Cup; however, we ended up eating pizza at a place called Candela near Placa de Espana.  Placa de Espana is located near the base of Montjuic and there is a musical fountain with a light display at night, and the bull-fighting stadium was located across the square.  After dinner, we headed back to the ship for the night.   Tomorrow should be another fun-filled day.  I can’t believe how much stuff we have done in only two days!  Good night Barcelona!  Hasta luego! 

p.s. Each euro is equal to about $1.20.