Barely survived Barcelona

My last day at Parlement some of the girls and I took a 45 min coffee break at 11am.  Love it!

It's Monday afternoon and I have survived a weekend in Barcelona - barely.  I think I am getting sick though.  Not surprising considering I never went to bed before 4am any of the 3 nights.  I think I finally got the real Barcelona experience.  These people don't START partying until after 1am.  Most of the discotecas don't even open until 1:30am.  How do these people do it?

Anyway, I took the bus from Pamplona to Barcelona - about 5 1/2 hrs.  It wasn't too bad.  I got to the hostel about 10:30pm and Brad was there waiting for me.  Yay, I haven't seen him in about a year so it was great to be able to hang out with an old friend in such a fun city.  Brad was one of the first people I met when I moved to DC in 2002.  So it was fun hanging out with him and talking about old times.

Friday night I think I partied a little too much and ended up watching the sun come up.  So I didn't go to bed until about 7am.  

Brad and I at one of the bars friday night with a Kiwi (person from New Zealand) and an Aussie (Irish Pub)

Saturday was spent recovering at the beach.  It was packed!  The water was freezing but I got in.  Then we grabbed some spanish tapas/pizza at a cute restaurant near the water in Barcelonetta.  It's actually kind of fun ordering from the menu having absolutely no idea what you're ordering.  Turned out that the yummy bites were cod fritters...so yummy!

Lots of topless people; not many speedos.

At the beach that day we met 3 americans who teach english over here for a living (what a life!).  We ended up going over to their place saturday night and just played cards.  

The life of a dog in Barcelona - just enjoying the view.

Sunday Brad and I walked around the Sagrada Familia.  We ate lunch at a cafe right next to it and got to enjoy our food while marveling at the absolute insaneness of that building.  

View from our cafe table of the Sagrada Familia.

Then we walked to Park Guell.  Brad was gonna play some tunes to see if he could earn some euros but we just decided to walk around and enjoy the scenery intead.

Sunday night we headed down to the waterfront and enjoyed some Spanish cava (champagne) by the water.  It was gorgeous! And the cava was only 14 euro/bottle.   We felt way to poor to be in that lavish establishment.  The restaurant did get us with the old game of - playing amazing bread with tomato on our table, and then charging us for it when we ate some of it.  Oh well, well worth it though b/c it was super yummy!  Some of our new friends met us too.  Then we went to an Irish Pub that was playing great music.  So not sure how this happened, but again we didn't get back until about 4am.  Then I hopped on my 7:50am bus back to Pamplona.

View looking at the harbor from our table

Now I'm back in amazing Pamplona.  I missed it so much!  I love Barcelona, but I LOVE Pamplona! :)  This week I am spending my mornings at the Supreme Court and my afternoons at a law firm.

Where I go running - Citadella park