Barcelona - Day 1

Since I am now home, the rest of my posts will be in past tense. I apologize for those of you following my blog who were expecting daily updates. Being across the pond, I realized how fortunate we are to have 4G and instant internet here in the States. Also, I was trying to enjoy myself the best I could with little stress, and to be honest with you all, it was a very stressful trip and feeling obligated to post on this blog only made it worse, so I will be writing the rest of my posts here at home in my leisure time, while remembering as best I can. I apologize for this inconvenience.

Our first day in Barcelona began very early in Paris. We woke up to breakfast at 5:50 a.m. on Monday morning because we were leaving for Orly airport to fly to Barcelona. Breakfast was normal, they offered everything they normally would, except the fresh squeezed orange juice. I was thankful that they had the typical breakfast so early because I was worried they were only going to give us a few things without options, since it was so early.
We left for the airport at 6:30 a.m., checked our luggage, and went through security. You know, the typical airport routine. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:55, so we waited around until we were able to board. Thankfully, the flight to Barcelona wasn't too long, just a little over two hours.

Once we landed, we piled on a charter bus and headed to the hotel, this time with a tour guide. I didn't see as much graffiti as I saw in Paris, and it didn't seem as dirty, which was nice.NWhen we arrived at the hotel, the charter bus could not park next to the hotel for very long because he would get a ticket for blocking traffic. Our hotel was in a downtown-like area on a very busy street. Yet again, it was too early for all of us to check into the hotel because they were still cleaning the rooms. They did, however, give us keys to two of the rooms so we could put all of our things in those rooms and not have to leave them in the lobby like the other hotel. Since it was around 1:30 p.m., we were all hungry and decided to find lunch.

About a block from the hotel was an bull fighting arena that had a mall and restaurants on the 5th floor where you could eat and see the city. We ate at one of the restaurants up there, which is where I immediately learned a few things about Barcelona.
Water, even tap water (which they don't have) is not free. It is all bottled.
Fresh mashed tomatoes on cracker-like bread is an appetizer, which they charge you for, but don't ask if you want it; they just bring it.
They eat a lot of fish and see food since it is near the Mediterranean Sea.
I was going to starve in Barcelona.

I ordered a Caesar Salad, my go-to meal that you can't screw up. It wasn't too bad, but still not the same as home.

After lunch, we were free to explore until our rooms were clean, but several of us decided to head back to the hotel anyway in hopes that they were ready since it was 2:30 p.m. (The hotel staff said they would be ready between 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.) Thankfully, they were ready, so we got keys and headed to retrieve our things from the other rooms. 

The second toilet is a bidet toilet that uses water instead of wiping. I didn't try it. That was just going too far for me. 

Now, I can tell you my favorite part about Barcelona, so far.

Siesta (a nap) is really a thing. Now, the whole city doesn't shut down, but all the local small shops do from 2-5 p.m. for the daily Siesta. I was in love. I put my things in the room, and for the first time the entire trip, I was able to rest. Since we didn't have to meet back together as a group until 6 p.m., I decided I'd participate in this Barcelona tradition. I slept from about 3 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. and it was the greatest thing that happened on this trip. After non-stop walking in Paris, I was ready for a break. I slept pretty well and was ready for the evening by 6 p.m.

The whole group met downstairs for an evening at Las Romblas. This was a popular shopping street and district for tourists. We took the metro and split into smaller groups once we arrived. About 5 of us walked around for quite awhile and looked at all the different shops and restaurants. Las Romblas was known for large crowds and tourism, so it was also known for pick-pockets, so I had to be extra aware of my surroundings.
We saw a fresh food market and decided to check it out. The first things we saw were amazing! All kinds of fresh fruits and fresh desserts were everywhere. I wanted to try everything. We found some fresh fruit smoothie drinks at one of the stands for only 1 euro. We all got one and they were delicious. I bought a pineapple coconut one, and I loved it. I wish I would've tried more.

However, the desire to taste everything faded the closer we got to the back of the market. In the back was all kinds of fresh fish and sea creatures, and it smelled like it, too. We even saw a very large tuna fish being chopped up with a huge machete blade knife thing (I don't really know; it was just big). They were doing it right in front of everything, which did not seem very sanitary to me. Yuck! They had all kinds of fish back there for sale from calamari to salmon to sting ray. We left the back rather quickly.

We decided to find dinner after that since seeing all those desserts made us hungry. And you know you can't go to a foreign country without trying their McDonald's. So, that's exactly what we did. They had a lot of the same things as the States, but there were also several different things. Like for breakfast, they have donuts and croissants, not McGriddles and breakfast burritos. Also, to make ordering move more quickly, they have kiosks on one side to order and pay, then you just wait to pick up your food. A couple of us ordered from the kiosk, which was weird, but neat at the same time. I wondered several times why they didn't have that kind of technology in the restaurants in the States, but I think I figured out why. In Europe, there's no such thing as a drive-thru; you have to go in to order because they're so big on spending meal times together. Therefore, the lines inside are much longer than they are in the States, so the kiosks help reduce that wait and cluster.
I bought a single cheeseburger plain, and a McChicken sandwich. While placing my order at the kiosk, I realized that McDonald's is also a lot more expensive in Europe. I paid 7,50 euro (I used the comma in between the euros and cents because that's how they format money in Europe) for those two sandwiches. The cheeseburger essentially tasted the same as the States, but with a lot less grease, which was nice. The McChicken was breaded and seasoned a little differently, so it definitely wasn't what I expected, but it wasn't terrible.

After dinner, we walked around for a bit longer and found one of the ports to the Mediterranean Sea. The boats and birds were beautiful. We even fed some sea gulls popcorn, which we weren't supposed to do. Oops!

Then we decided to head back because it was starting to get dark. Overall, I had a decent first day in Barcelona.

Adios, friends.