Day 10 - The Adventure Continues in Barcelona....

Friday May 21st - Despite only getting about an hour of sleep I was up at 7am for breakfast and it was worth it. It was a full buffet of eggs, bacon, fresh fruit and yogurt, a far improvement from the French breakfast of pastry and jelly. Our first stop of the day was Sagrada Familia - a massive Cathedral that has been under construction since 1882! It's slated to be finished around 2020 or so, only a few years to go! Afterward the girls and I decided to do some shopping so we hit Las Ramblas, even though it was still quite early in the morning it was packed with people. After only a couple of stores and some really great purchases, I was exhausted - the week and lack of sleep was finally starting to catch up with me. I decided to split off from the group and catch the metro back to the hotel. I had a bit of trouble trying to find my way to the correct metro station - it didn't help that I don't speak one word of Spanish. On my way to the station guess who I see again? The naked man just strolling about! I apparently wasn't the only one to see him that day - he should be part of the tourist brochures for Barcelona.

I made it back to the hotel and ran into a bunch of the guys from the tour in the lobby and they told me that Jono had been pick-pocketed on the metro. Barcelona is known for being a trap for this but it's always a wake-up call when it happens to someone that you know. It definitely soured the day a bit. I headed up to my room for my own Spanish Siesta and I realized that this was the first time since I had left Canada that I was actually alone - the peace and quiet was quite nice. Still I was unable to sleep, I felt that I was missing out on the day and Barcelona itself. I decided that I would enjoy the day and then have an early night in that evening instead.

I decided to head out to find some lunch and ran into the girls who were just coming back from shopping. They were heading up to the rooftop pool but I opted to go grab some food instead and I wanted to go explore a bit more. The weather was absolutely amazing - sunny and hot, so much better than the humid hot we get in Ontario. I first walked down to the beach so I could take in the view and then try to find a place to eat. By now it was about 2 in the afternoon and Siesta was in full swing so not much was open. I finally found a place that was open but the cook had stepped out for a few minutes. The server offered me a glass of wine so I sipped on that and read my book while I waited for the cook to return, which he never did. Finally I gave up, went to pay for the wine but the the server wouldn't let me pay for it which I appreciated. Around 4 I headed back to the hotel and ran into Sandra and convinced her to come out and eat with me, even though we had a tour dinner in a couple hours - there was no way I could wait until then. We ended up finding a great place around the corner from the hotel where we had Sangria and tapas - it was delicious!

It was time to get ready for Spanish Flamenco dinner that was organized by Contiki. This was one of the worst tour dinners of the entire trip. The food was beyond gross with the exception of the Gazpacho and I'm pretty sure I was the only one who even enjoyed that. Even worse was the entertainment - over an hour of watching sweaty flamenco dancers stomping around on stage. The people sitting up close got a real treat - sweat flying off the dancers and onto them! Definitely not worth the 56 Euros. The dinner finally ended and we were back onto the coach to the hotel. Despite my earlier plan to have a quiet night in I decided against my better judgment to go out with the rest of the group - it was our last night in Barcelona, how could I miss that? We decided to hangout in the hallway as a group instead of someone's room as it had been really hot in Jake and Tom's room the night before. I'm sure the other hotel guests appreciated 20 people drinking and being loud in the hallway, I have a feeling that future Contiki groups will not be invited back to this hotel.

We decided to go to Catwalk which was in the club district right on the beach.Sukhey and I tried to organize taxis but being such a large group and Friday night it was impossible. We decided to walk down to the beach as it really wasn't that far. We got to the beach but had some trouble finding the club but eventually I found some guy who was handing out flyers for Catwalk who was able to point us in the right direction. He also gave me a bunch of free entry passes for the girls. The lineup was rather long and I went to talk to the doorman to see if our passes could bypass the line and to suss out the cover for the guys. The cover was 20 Euros which I felt was bit steep, although after traveling around the rest of Europe I know this is pretty much the norm. In the end the guys ended up getting a free drink or something with entry, not great but better than nothing. Catwalk overall was pretty decent, it had 2 floors - one for hip-hop and I think the other was dance/techno but I never ventured away from the hip-hop floor. The night was heaps of fun and I lasted until about 3:30am (I think it was 3:30ish - I don't wear a watch and didn't carry my phone around in Europe) but by then my feet were killing me and I was super exhausted. Ben was ready to leave as well so we grabbed a cab back to the hotel. Once we got back Ben and I ended up hanging out for a while even though I was quite tired. After losing my room key not once, but twice, in the span of about 10 minutes, I was finally able to get into my room to catch a bit of sleep. I quickly jumped in the shower as I knew there was no way I would take one when I got up. As I was heading to bed I went to set my alarm and saw it was already 5am. The coach was leaving at 5:45 - all I had time to do was dry my hair and pack my luggage! My plan for an quiet night in had some how turned into an all-nighter!

Sagrada Familia - Taking over 130 years to complete!

Ivan and I at Catwalk