Barcelona, Ole!

Half recovered from the epic times on Topdeck and chewing through the pounds in London, Alex and I decided to high-tail it outta London town back to Europe - more specifically Spain. We didn't really have a plan - just get to Barcelona, meet up with Tessa, then down round the coast to Portugal, and then back to Madrid by the 15th of June to catch up with Sly and one of Asty's mates.

We got into Barcelona and figured out the bus to town, but once we got in town, had no idea how to find the hostel. Asty adopted his sun theory and that surprisingly helped us find out way to the hostel. The hostel was pretty average, but good enough for the location. By the time we checked in and all, it was round 8:30pm so we went for a wander round town to try find a feed. This eventually happened, but we discovered 1.5L bottles of Sangria for 3 euro first, so we started a bit of a drinking walking tour of barcelona by night. Once the bottles ran dry, we were pretty hungry - so the next task was to find a sweet joint that did a cheap-ish paella. We smashed a paella, but to be honest, i don't really remember how decent it was.




The next day, we hit up the free walking tour with a couple french canadians from the hostel. The tour was actually pretty decent value, and the guide new his stuff... or he sold it well enough. The walking tour only really covered the old gothic town, which was sweet, cos it was midday in the sun. After the tour, we got 2 euro pints at travel bar (where the tour finished up) and then checked out the awesome beach at Barcelona. A few of us from the tour decided to lock in a Flamenco dance and tapas night, which ended up being pretty sweet. The dancing was cool and the tapas were epic. The tapas actually made it worth it - pretty much unlimited sangria and all-you-can-eat tapas. Not much happened after tapas, as we were all pretty much near the point of food coma .

The same joint that ran the free walking tour also ran a free bike tour, which took you to places outside the old town. We hit this up on the next day. We had to rent a bike for 5 euro, but that was nothing. The bike tour lasted about 3 hours and took us round the beach, through the olympic village, up past the bullfighting ring to La Sagrada Familia, round a couple Gaudi buildings, down through the Arc de Triomf, and back to travel bar. Once again, we hit up the cheap pints for a bit. Tessa arrived while we were on the bike tour, so we arranged to meet her at the hostel at 6pm - after picking up a couple bottles of Don Simon sangria for 2.65 euro of course. Travel Bar also ran a cheap bar crawl for 13 euro. Pretty much got us a beer and a shot at each of the 4 bars and then free entry into the night club at the end. We couldn't turn down an offer like that, but thought we'd better grab a feed first. On our way outta the hostel, we met these two aussie chicks (Amy and Minnie) and convinced them to come get amongst. So after a few tapas, we were on our way on the pub crawl. This ended up being a massive night out - the free drinks were good value, so we didn't need really any extra drinks, but we bought them any way...

The next morning was rough. I mean really rough - we didn't surface til round 12:30pm. We took Tess on a shortened tour of the Old City and tried to recall as much of the free walking tour that we could. We did pretty well, given the shocking state we were in. We made it down into the port area, perched for a bit, but then decided it was time for a siesta. Epic siesta as well, was nearly 3 hours long. So far this day, we'd slept more that we'd been awake! We were pretty shattered, but hungry, so did a cheeky BK run before hunting out a decent paella. The night was fairly quiet, also we'd locked in kayaking trip up the coast the following day, so needed to be in peak physical condition for that!

can ya spot me?

The kayaking trip was awesome. We drove an hour or so up the coast to Costa Brava where we would be kayaking and snorkelling. The water was pretty nippy, so the snorkelling was fairly short lived. Kayaking was sweet tho - we ducked into a cave that was pitch black and rolled up next to a rock that we could jump off. Looked alright from the kayak, but once ur up top it's pretty damn high. Tuffy and I jumped, Tessa opted to stay in the kayak and take the pics. We kayaked for round 3 hours then headed back to Barcelona. we were pretty shattered, i wanna say from kayaking, but probably a two day hangover... drowned a couple ciders and called it a night as we needed a decent sleep before attempting our first driving experience in Europe!