We came to Barcelona on Sunday. Since then Mar has been spending a lot of time working on her thesis and her paper that was recently accepted for publication in ACS Nano (I am very proud of her for that). Actually, I wasn’t planning on doing a summer blog until I spend the day exploring Barcelona on Monday. Then I decided that some things from this trip just have to be immortalized.
Sunday night after arriving, we were quite hungry and tired. We didn’t feel like cooking or going very far to get dinner. Luckily there is a shoarma place just around the corner from Mar’s apartment (shoarma is an Arab sandwich, akin to a gyro, that usually contains lamb or chicken). Anna, Mar’s sister decided to come along as well. As we sat out side eating shoarma and drinking beer, the conversation seamlessly switched between Catalan and English. The scenery was nice, a quiet city street with tons of trees and a park just nearby. Under the streetlights, listening to Mar talk with her sister in Catalan, I had one of those all too rare moments in life where everything just feels right. I began to wonder how I ended up halfway across the world with the company of people who grew up in a different culture than my own, feeling so comfortable. I always dreamed of doing something like this and now I am realizing that dream. My trip to Puerto Rico opened more doors than I ever could have imagined (I met Mar in Puerto Rico, in case you didn’t know that already).
I woke up Monday morning feeling particularly lazy. Before heading out to explore the city I had to fix the internet on the computers so Mar could work on her thesis. I have never been very good at dealing with internet problems. There as a lot of frustration involved (and even a broken lamp), but by lunch time the internet was up and running. We had lunch at the apartment, and after I headed out to explore the city.
Having eaten more than my fair share since arriving and resolved to do some exercise, I decided to walk to the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter). I left the apartment showing some Philly pride in a Flyers shirt, and headed down Avinguda Diagonal (you should be able to guess what that one means on your own) toward the water authority building (which looks like a giant, blue penis). I crossed several neighborhoods along the way, passing schools, parks, and plenty of bars and restaurants. Eventually I made it to Parc de la Ciutadella, the main green space in Barcelona. Walking along the northern edge of the park, I stopped for a little while to enjoy the scenery before continuing on toward the Arc de Triomf.
Just before reaching the end of the park I got a call from an ecstatic Mar telling me that her paper was accepted to ACS Nano. I continued on with a smile on my face to the walkway leading up to the Arc. This open space allows the Arc to be seen in all its majesty from a distance. I proceeded down the walkway gazing with awe at the Arc when suddenly I saw some guys with blonde dreadlocks and full hippy attire walking toward me. I continued past them when I heard out of the corner of my ear, “Hey, Philly!” (remember I was wearing my Flyers shirt). One of the hippies told me (in a British accent) that he had spent some time living in Philadelphia a few years ago. We chatted for a minute about the city. Just before heading on our respective paths he remarked, “The best thing for Philly was Lindros, and the worst thing for Philly was Lindros.” I never expected to meet someone in Barcelona who knew who the Flyers were, let alone about some of their history!
Continuing on, after many struggles zig zagging through the city streets, I made it to the Born. The Born borders the Barri Gotic and is essentially the shopping district of Barcelona (but beautiful nonetheless). I walked through the Born, Barri Gotic, and Raval (the section bordering the Barri Gotic on the other side) for several hours, stopping only to buy a travel guide and drink some orange mango juice at the central market off Las Ramblas. During my walk I found myself going in circles several times. The streets of old city Barcelona are extremely confusing, narrow and windy. It is extremely easy to get lost here. At one point I walked past a bar with a nice patio, then walked for a few more minutes in what I thought was a totally different area only to find myself walking past the same bar and patio again.
After a while I resolved to leave old town Barcelona... but I had completely lost my sense of direction. I decided to choose a direction and walk straight. After a while I noticed the scenery changing and knew that I was getting out of the maze that is the old city. I walked until I saw a street sign an noticed that I was walking in the direction of Plaza Espanya (the opposite direction of Mar’s apartment). I reached the plaza and main road and turned toward the apartment. Having walked at least 8 miles already, I was beginning to lose my resolve to exercise, so I took the metro back. Public transportation in Barcelona is fantastic - fast and easy to use.
That night I cooked a dinner of tortellini, chicken sausage with onions and tomato sauce, and salad for some gracious Catalans. It was a good first day and night in Barcelona.
-Greg
Greg did all this walking by himself but the day after I went with him. We went to the Marine section and here are some pictures. I'll let him do the explanations since he's much better than me at writing.
This is a neighborhood called La Barceloneta. The building in a sail shape is a W hotel, that was built last year and that completely changed the Barceloneta shore. Some people like it and some other don't.
You can still see the W hotel. Right next to it there's a tower that holds the teleferic (cableway) to go up to the mountain of Montjuic. This is the old port from the terrace of the History of Catalonia Museum. 
Ciutadella Park was built in 1877 where the Ciutadella (Citadel) was. The park was built to host the Universal Exposition in 1888. 2,000,000 million people attended this exposition back then. That is a lot of people! The Citadel was built by Felip V, the Spanish king who invaded Catalonia. Once they won and they annex Catalonia to Spain (1714), they built this Citadele to protect themselves in case Catalans started a riot or another war.
In the same park is where the Catalan Parlament is. Catalonia is part of Spain now but it has it's own parlament because a lot of powers were transferred from the Spanish goverment to the Catalan goverment, such as education, healthcare, and pretty much everything BUT taxes. Catalans still pay taxes to Spain.
Close to the port, there's the France Station.This train station connected Barcelona with France. Barcelona was the first city in Spain to be industrialized during the Industrial Revolution.
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