Day 7, Spanish Spree: Are you in Ibiza? Cuz I'm in Ibiza!

Need to catch up? Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6

Today was our last day in Barcelona. Most of the tour group went on a bike tour of the city, which I would’ve done if I had any clue how to ride a bicycle, but I don’t and I didn’t think today was the day I needed to try learning.

On the way to the city center where the group would start the bike tour, we stopped at La Pedrera, an apartment building designed by Gaudi. Whoever wasn’t going on the bike tour could get off here if they wanted. I did because like I said yesterday, I didn’t feel like I had maximized my time in Barcelona.

I’m so happy I did. The building was gorgeous. My photos don’t do it justice. Gaudi really was a man ahead of his time. His sense of style and innovation in design are incredible. The view from the roof was amazing. The way he designed the rooms to take in all the natural light, his use of wrought iron, etc…

Below: A couple of interior shots of a replica apartment in La Pedrera. People do still live in the building. Part of it has been converted to a museum, but the rest is composed of residences.

After taking a bunch of photos, I headed to La Rambla to see if I could get some shopping in, but most stores were closed because it was Sunday, but that was all right. I got in some quality people-watching time. Maybe I should have figured out how to get to the beach or something, but I didn’t, so onward!

Next stop: Ibiza! We went to the airport and got through security with no problems, but they do things differently at the Barcelona airport or maybe it was the airline. I don’t know. What I do know is we weren’t assigned a gate to depart from until about 40 minutes before the flight took off. Umm, OK.

I was starving by this point. While roaming Barcelona, I couldn’t decide where to eat and I really didn’t want to go the McDonald’s route. That was a promise I’d made myself before leaving for the trip. Confession: I did use the McDonald’s bathrooms a few times over the two weeks I was in Spain. The place was always packed, so clearly other people were not at all concerned about falling into the American fast food trap.

Also, in case you were wondering, the fast food joints I saw the most in Spain were McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and Subway. One more aside: thanks to my tour mates, I now know that Aussies call McDonald’s Mackers (you have to say it with an Australian accent). This is the important cultural stuff you learn when traveling with people from all over the world.

BACK TO THE TRIP: I was starving. I ended up having some seriously unsatisfying pasta Bolognese. I ate it because I was starving, and I paid for it, but it was dry and flavorless. This was one of those times when I would have been better off going to McDonald’s.

By the time I finished eating and wandering through a few stores at the airport, a gate had been assigned for our flight. However, they don’t do boarding groups. They did have us line up in two lines based on seat numbers, but all that did was allow the gate attendants to scan two tickets at one time. And because there were no boarding groups, boarding took forever because of the bottlenecks created by the lack of boarding groups.

Anyway, we left 35-40 minutes after our scheduled departure time, but the flight was only 30 minutes long. Best flight ever!

We took a shuttle to the hotel. After checking in, Chrissy, one of my tour mates, and I went down the street and ate pizza at one of the restaurants by the pier. The food was good, and the waiter was nice. He talked about moving somewhere else, and we were like, “Dude! You live in Ibiza!”

We scarfed the pizza down because we had to get back to the hotel. Why? Because we had to get ready to go to Space!

Before the trip, a tour mate posted something on our group web page about how we would be in Ibiza for the Space Opening Party, which had gotten pushed back a week. My reaction was something along the lines of “Umm, OK?” I asked my BFF Mr. Google what the big deal was. Apparently, Space is the stuff of legend and the Opening Party is even crazier. According to Ms. Wikipedia, “It was awarded "Best Global Club" at the International Dance Music Awards in 2005, 2006, 2012, and again in 2013.”

From another Space website:

“Every year the Space Ibiza club put on a show of ridiculous proportions, completely transforming the already cavernous club into a festival of music.

The biggest difference to the club is the erection of a massive open-air arena which adds well over 7,000 extra capacity to the club making a total capacity of around 15,000 for the Space Opening Party 2015! This new arena is called the ‘flight arena.’

The flight arena often has the biggest DJs playing and is open from the afternoon until Midnight – when the party doesn’t stop but continues inside to the rest of the club. Every area is open and alive with different music. It’s like a maze inside Space and you can get lost in the music for hours!”

So yeah, that’s where we were going. We’d bought tickets to the party earlier in the day and headed to a bar down the street from Space because the drinks were cheaper than those sold in Space. I downed the strongest mojito I’ve ever tasted at the encouragement of my tour mates.

Space was insane. So many rooms. House music. Packed bodies gyrating and inhaling Lord only knows what. All was well until I went to the bathroom, and I came out and my group was no longer where I’d left them. Luckily, a few other tour mates had also gotten separated from the larger group, so I wasn’t totally alone. Eventually, somehow (remember there are at least 5 rooms packed with thousands of people) I found the larger group. We danced for a few hours to some trippy house music which really isn’t my thing, but I’m glad I went.

I mean how often do you get to say you went to the Space Opening Fiesta in Ibiza?!!

After we left, we went to a restaurant across the street. I was just going to have some fries and call it a night, but then I saw this chicken/ham club sandwich on the menu, and I had to have it. Oh. My. God. It was sooo good. Like sooo good. I want to fly to Ibiza just so I can eat that sandwich again. Seriously.

A taxi ride later, we were back at the hotel. I’d survived Space.

Photo of the Day:

That's Nicole, one of my tour mates, on the shoulders of someone in the tour group at Space

What's next? Day 8: Even more fun in Ibiza!

Day 6, Spanish Spree: Oh, the (mass of) Humanity, Part Dos!

Need to catch up? Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5

We started the day doing a walking tour of the Gothic quarters in Barcelona.

Catedral de Santa Eulalia

Yes, that’s a wall with bullet holes in it put there during the Spanish Civil War. Apparently, Spaniards don’t like talking much about this painful part of their history, but the walls with the bullet holes remain, so…

Here are the steps where the man who “discovered” America stood to show off his great find from the New World: the potato.

After the walking tour, we had the rest of the day to ourselves, which meant I could do whatever I wanted, but that requires plans and/or a familiarity with the city that I didn’t have.

So I probably should have bought a ticket to go inside Gaudi’s church, but I didn’t. I forgot or got lazy or something. I wandered around Barcelona with some of my tour mates, which was fun, but I still can’t help think I was missing something. We went into a few stores to shop, but I didn’t buy anything.

I will say that Barcelona is beautiful. Shocking, I know. There are an endless number of side streets you can wander through and never come to an end. There’s always another street.

Yeah, that's me trying to recreate the pose from the statue. The pose was a lot more awkward than I realized.

The coolest thing was seeing one side street completely filled with Bilbao soccer club fans. Athletic Bilbao was playing FC Barcelona in the Copa del Rey championship that night, and the Bilbao fans had come into the city to watch. It was insane. Bilbao is the only team that requires that all its players be from Bilbao.

Anyway, back to the fans. They were chanting and waving flags in their Bilbao jerseys as far as the eye could see. It was sooo cool.

Not cool? All the walking we did today. Walking, walking, walking. My feet started to KILL me. I did have a good time hanging out with my tour mates, but it was a long day after not getting much sleep the night before. At one point, we stumbled into a café. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but it had this cool courtyard in the back. We happily took our seats and ordered sangrias. I’ve never drunk so much sangria in my life, but it’s good stuff.

Almost forgot this story: we’re sitting on the steps of a church (I think) taking a rest. I think we’d stopped for gelato. Anyway, this guy came out of the church and basically just fell down the stairs. It was so hard not bursting into laughter. Poor dude.

Later that evening, we joined up with the rest of the tour group and did a walking tapas tour, where we tried tapas in a different restaurants. We started in the Mercat de la Boqueria where we were supposed to do this scavenger hunt thing. Meh. The whole tapas tour was kinda meh. Again, I was exhausted and the tour was in a different neighborhood than La Rambla, a long street/shopping district in Barcelona where we’d spent the day, so we walked and walked some more. Did I mention my feet were killing me?

After the tapas dinner, I returned to the hotel. Some of my tour mates stayed to watch the soccer match on huge TV screens set up in Catalunya, the city center, with all the Bilbao fans. I was too tired. I watched the game in my hotel bed. In case you were wondering, FC Barcelona won.

Photo of the Day:

The Bilbao fans! There was no other choice. I hope you can see how far back the mass of people extended. Blocks and blocks. I'm so glad I got to see it!

Tomorrow - Day 7: Are you in Ibiza? Cuz I'm in Ibiza!

Day 5, Spanish Spree: Oh, the (mass of) Humanity

Need to catch up? Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4

This morning we headed to Zaragova first.

The cathedral there is huge.

I didn’t take any pictures inside because we weren’t supposed to. Others did, but I didn’t want God’s smite to fall on me, so I just walked around. It was beautiful though. It’s hard to imagine people building something so intricate and timeless today.

We only spent an hour in the town because we had to get to Barcelona!

It was a long bus trip – about 6 hours. When we arrived, we did a driving tour around the city.

I’m pretty sure this is Olympic Stadium. We couldn't get the bus closer because they had the road closed for of construction or something. 1992 was the year I started watching/obsessing about the Olympics, so Barcelona, the host of the 1992 Summer Olympics, has always held a special place in my heart. I wish we could have gotten closer/done a tour, but oh well.

We also visited a church, La Sagrada Familia, which Gaudi designed. Work on the church started in 1882 (Gaudi took over in 1883) and it’s STILL not finished. It was Gaudi’s masterpiece. The architecture and design is incredible. It’s scheduled to be finished in 2040. I think that’s an optimistic estimate.

Before heading out to the clubs, we had a group tapas dinner on top of the world (or a building overlooking the city).

I believe today was the day it hit me that Spaniards LOVE pork. Since I’m a ham and bacon fan, that’s A-OK with me! We had bacon/ham, white asparagus, Spanish omelet (which I became obsessed with during the trip), a gazpacho dip/soup thing, and a cheesecake gelatinous thing. It was good. Portions in Spain tend to be smaller than what Americans are used to, but we’ll deal.

After dinner, we went to a bar, Jagerbomb, owned by a friend of our tour guide. Good times were had by all. Lowlight: one of my tour mates had a wee bit too much to drink and projectile vomited on another tour mate. I’m STILL upset I missed it!

Me and a couple of my tour mates, Zai and Chrissy. Aren't they supercute?

After all that excitement we went to another club, Shoko. It was insane! We got in without having to wait in line or pay because clearly we were VIPS or our tour guide knew the right person, but I know which explanation makes a better story.

We had so much fun, but there were a TON of people inside. We stayed for a few hours then went across the street to a restaurant and ate pizza to close out the night.

Photo of the Day:

A dancer/paid employee at Shoko. Isn't she cool?

Tomorrow- Day 6: Oh, the (Mass of) Humanity Part Dos