Friday 31 August 2012

Barcelona

Happy Friday! Hope your week has been great so far.

As promised, here are some photos of the places the 4 ladies and I visited during my short trip. My friend (Mercy) and I left Vienna for a 2 hour flight to Barcelona on 18th August. We arrived about ten minutes to midnight, all excited, pulling our luggage behind us and no one - absolutely no one - checked to see if we had visas or not at the airport (which was quite strange). We hopped inside a Taxi and giggled all the way to the hotel.

Anyway, we arrived at the hotel. Over the internet, this hotel room looked like heaven. Yeah that's what advert photos can do to someone.
It was a shoe box. A very comfortable shoebox. For 100 euros. But just look how beautiful the hotel and its environ's facade is. After I saw this, everything else faded to silence. Nothing mattered.

Barcelona is beautiful. It is everything I'd pictured how an ancient city with such a rich history would loook like: a maze of narrow winding streets, renaissance style buildings, gothic, baroque - In other words, it was my dream and I was drooling all over the place. - my friend handed me a hanky to cover my mouth.





Here is a picture of the room.
I won't mention the breakfast the next morning. I'm just glad Starbucks was next door. Once I stepped through Starbucks doors, the smell of fresh coffee was enough to make me swoon. It was like falling inlove for the very first time. :)

So, aside from the room. The people are super friendly. - I'll ammend that. Some of them were. See, the hotel's location is in a very busy street. And with that it attracts other kinds of business. I noticed that as we climbed out of the taxi. About 5 girls wearing extremely skimpy clothes stood closeby. From their expressions, they didn't seem happy to see us. Anyway, 30 minutes after our arrival, we freshneded up, then decided to check out the Irish Pub across the street because with all that adrenaline pumping in our veins, sleep was a foreign thing.
The hotel receptionist warned us about being careful of pickpockets. They love crowds, possess experienced fingers and are very fast in what they do.


As soon as we stepped in, every body shifted on their stools to look at us. Silence descended. Eyes swept over us. Both of us are really tiny so the 'checking out' didn't take long. As I mentioned above, there were those 5 girls we encountered upon our arrival. Dark skinned girls. My friend and I were glued on the spot, inhaling beer, stake and whatnot scents. Finally we snapped out of our momentary shock. We began searching for the door to flee. In our panic, we forgot where the door was. Turns out it was just a breadth away from where were standing.
We went back to our hotel room, not even trusting ourselves to take a walk down the Carrer De Ferran - the street's name.

But the next day - after laughing off the previous night's events - we had a chance to visit some places - We didn't see alot. It was Sunday and most places were closed, plus we were on a  deadline to get to the port.

Here are some photos of some of those streets and buildings.
this is the street the hotel was in. 

Little old me. This place was a hotspot. For some reason it was a photographer's and a photographee's dream


puppet shop

Architecture

bridge/architecture

Some places we encountered groups like this playing beautiful music. Sounded so romantic though I couldn't understand the lyrics. There was a lot of swaying and dancing.
By 2.30pm we were exhausted. Having been smacked left, right and centre by the scorching sun (it was about 35 degrees if I remember correctly), we took a taxi to the port and joyously stepped into what my friends and I called - the floating city :)




Me with the red handbag with my friend Janet.
Janet, Mercy, Alice, and me..haha that red bag again



me and Bernice

From Barcelona, the next stop was in Naples, Italy. Man, that was fun! I'll post the photos next week.

Hope you have a great weekend. :)




18 comments:

  1. Love the pictures! Cecilia can I just say you are very pretty and photogenic? I'm a little jealous. I hate seeing myself in pictures.

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  2. Great pics! I went to Barcelona for a day-trip once during a holiday in Catalunya. It was beautiful and architecturally amazing, but knowing we had to be so careful of pickpockets took the shine off a little. I'm glad we were careful, though - a friend of mine's husband left his bag containing passports and cash 'with the kids' while he went to the bar and, needless to say, never saw it again. The kids, happily playing on their Gameboys, didn't even know they were supposed to be watching it, apparently...

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  3. Kelly,
    thank you for the kind words. :) Oh, you look pretty on the profile photo. I'd say you are photogenic. :)

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  4. ExcuseMeWhileINoteThatDown,
    thank you! Oh gosh, that was horrible about your friend's stuff being stolen. They had to go to the embassy? Hope everything worked out well in the end. Gah, I agree the pickpocketing reduces the fun. Yes, Barcelona is breathtaking. And we only managed to see a quarter ot the city.

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  5. Looks like you had a great time on your trip, Cece. Barcelona looks wonderful. Though I must admit, that first night sounds pretty crazy! Glad to hear the rest of the trip went without a hitch. Never been to Barcelona myself, so seeing those pictures is a joy. And I agree with Kelly you look stunning in those pictures. Very photogenic indeed. ;) Thanks for sharing some of your memories with us. Hope we get to see some more of your adventure!

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  6. Oh wow, love the pics..It makes me miss Europe and traveling...Thank you for sharing them.

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  7. What awesome pictures! I have always wanted to go to Barcelona. It looks like a wonderful place to visit. Look at all the cool things you got to see- even though the first night was pretty crazy. :)
    ~Jess

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  8. Nice post. Action packed and all that. :-)

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  9. Kevis,
    Thank you :)

    Barcelona was wonderful! I'll post a few more photos in the next days. The trip was so worth it :)

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  10. Savannah
    I'm glad you like them. :) Been a while since I've done so much travelling so this was really something else.

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  11. DMS,
    Thank you. :)
    LOL..yeah the first night was...interesting. part of the adventure, right? :) Now I look back and laugh about it.

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  12. Emaginette,
    Thanks, :)
    action packed...lol you are right about that, Em.

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  13. Nice pictures. I can only imagine how good it was to see some of those buildings up close. The streets look really narrow. I guess it's walking traffic only.

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  14. Oooh, you are making me miss Barcelona something fierce! I loved that city (though I definitely recommend against going out in the Cuitat Vela after 10pm--eep, it's scary!). Looks like you two had a blast!

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  15. JL Campbell
    thanks. :)Yes,most of those were walking traffics, and about one or two scooters. alovely city

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  16. Meradeth,
    We had a blast! I miss it already, didn't see much though. I'd love to go back again

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  17. Wow, what great pics! Barcelona must be such a beautiful place. It's another city on my "some day" list!

    Thanks for sharing your trip, glad you had such a wonderful time. :)

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  18. Julie, Thanks. :) Barcelona was an absolute treat! i really recommend it.

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