As I was making my way south from Amsterdam, I knew I need to make it to Madrid by a certain day in order to meet my friend Marc for a few days in Madrid before heading to Munich for Oktoberfest.  I wanted to see a little bit more of Spain, so decided to pop down to Barcelona first before making my way to Madrid.  The Blah Blah car dropped me off in the late afternoon and so I walked a few blocks across town to my hostel.  It turns out that Andrei (of Hong Kong and Amsterdam fame) was also in town and so after I dropped off my stuff, I met up with him for a beer.

We went to a place for some really cheap food and then headed to a place with a live band.  Somehow I ended up on the stage signing a duet with the singer.  I am not sure how she felt about it, but the crowd certainly enjoyed it and I had a blast.

Later that evening we met these two guys from Switzerland who were amazing and we ended up having such a good time!

Koni was hilarious so we decided we most defenititly needed to meet up the next night.  So far Barcelona was living up to Spain’s reputation of late night partying.  It wasn’t even planned, kind of just happened.

The next day, I decided to take a walk around the city and check out the sites before meeting Andrei for lunch.

The architecture was beautiful and varied and I really enjoyed getting lost in the streets.

Beer break.

We spent the afternoon wandering around some more, stopped at the beach and went for a swim in the sea.

After our stop at the beach, we stumbled across a local brewery, that felt a bit touristy to me, but still make better beer than I had been drinking in Spain so far.

We continued to explore and found ourselves at a market where we marveled at the Spanish obsession with Jamon Iberico which was hanging EVERYWHERE and was pretty expensive.  However, it was delicious and they would shave it off the leg for you fresh.

After our extensive exploration of the city, we headed back to the hostel and made dinner.  It was a solid team effort and the food was delicious.

After dinner I headed back to my hostel (I wasn’t staying at the same one as Andrei) and came across a whole bunch of cool statues and art pieces and I would be seeing again a few days later.

After a bit of rest time at my hostel it was time to meet back up with the hilarious swiss guys we had met the night before.  There was a craft beer bar I wanted to check out in the middle of all of our places and so we decided to meet there.  Andrei had met two other Russians at his Hostel and they decided to come too!

Koni and Simon were awesome and Renatta and (I feel really bad for forgetting her name but i doubt anyone is reading this anyways) were super awesome and we ended up staying up pretty late just hanging out and having a good time!  We ended up just chilling with beers in the lobby as none of us were really feeling like going out that night.

I had a bit of a later start to the next day, but eventually made my way a bit outside of the downtown area, to the famous La Sagrada Famillia which is the church that has famously been under construction for over 100 years.

The number of hidden special features and detail was amazing and it was easy to just look up and stare at all of the cool things included in the facade.

Each of the four sides had a completely different style and represented something else.  I don’t want to go into detail on what everything means, I am sure a quick internet search can tell you more about this amazing structure.

The inside was equally as impressive.  It was HUGE and equally as impressive.

After spending a pretty long time at the church, I jumped on the subway and made my way back to the hostel to get set for my longish run along the beach.  I went pretty far down the beach and had a great time people watching as there were a lot of people and a lot of various activities going on.  I love adventure runs like this!

After my run, I freshened up at the hostel and then set off to find Andrei and the girls for another night of hangouts.  I was supposed to meet them for dinner and on the way I found myself in the middle of a major protest that had totally shut down the streets and made it almost impossible to move.  I didn’t really know much about the Catalonia seperatist movement before coming to Barcelona, but there were some pretty intense protests and separatist demonstrations while I was there.  This one was intense and even though I did my best to get through the crowds as fast as possible, it was so packed it was hard to move.

Eventually I made it for dinner and we had a delicious Paella and wine on the patio of a small restaurant on an off street.

After dinner we again didn’t really feel like going out to a bar and a chill night was in the books.  So we bought a few bottles of wine from the corner store and just hung out on the streets enjoying each others company and the sites of Barcelona as they went by.  It turned into a really chill evening that I really enjoyed.  I heard all about the Istanbul marathon and how she lives there now with her husband (This will pop up again later).

Oh right, we had late night pizza too!

I didn’t really know what to do with my next day but i had gotten some recommendations from a friend and one of them to was go up to the top of a hill that overlooks the city.  It isn’t super touristy and provides a sweeping view of the city.  I decided that a little hike would be awesome and so set out to the hill.  It was called Turo de la Rovira and was exactly as advertised.  It was a pretty hot day so even a few steps up to the lookout got the sweat flowing but it was worth it.  I met an american guy on the top and we ended up hanging out the rest of the afternoon.

Obviously photos don’t do it justice.

It’s also interesting that some of the locals really don’t like tourists hanging out near their homes.

I had heard that there was a Gaudi garden nearby the lookout and so mark and I decided to go check it out.  There were some performers dancing and playing instruments under a really cool overhang.

After walking around the graden for a while, Mark suggested we jump on a bus and go see the church at the higher hill which overlooks even the hill we were on before.  I had a bunch of time and decided to tag along.

We had to take an old funicular up to the church.

There was a small amusment park up there as well.  The church was called the Temple of the sacred hear of Jesus and for a small fee you could go to the top and get a nice view.

I missed picking Jesus’ nose.

After a pretty great day of exploring, I headed back to the hostel and got ready for my evening run.  I was going to do a bit of a longer one that day and decided to explore a different part of the city.  I headed up to the elevated park called Mirador and went for a run around to check out the sites.  It was a pretty solid workout since there were lot’s of hills involved and I even ran around the castle that is up there although I didn’t go in.

Lot’s of cruise ships.

On my return to the hostel I cam across a parade that had people dressed up in costumes carrying the large puppets i had seen the day before through the street.

I didn’t know what was going on but eventually found out that I was in the city for the La Merce festival which is one of the biggest festivals of the year.  They parade I saw was either the devils parade or the gigante one as it seemed to be a combination of the two.  The festival is to welcome the Autumn and the colder months.

It was pretty cool and I 100% ended my run a bit early to watch the parade as it went by.

After showering up I headed to a brewery I wanted to make sure I checked out before leaving.  It was called Garage beer company and they had really great beers!  Very unique and delicious.

while enjoying beer there, a lady next to me from the czech republic was also a beer tourist and ended up joining me for another one.  In talking to the bartender we found out that there would be a hige fireworks show that night, so we decided to try and make it down to the beach to watch it.  We got a to go can and headed off to the beach for fireworks.

The fireworks were pretty great!

After the fireworks we met up with Andrei and the girls and enjoyed the carnival that had popped up nearby and then had a night cap at black lab!

We then hit the streets and realized that there were people EVERYWHERE and performances at stages all over the place.  The performances went all night long and we ended up staying out super late as was customary in Spain.

It ended up being a really fun night and I was sad to be leaving Barcelona the next day.  I had spent a lot of time in the city and wanted to check out a different part of Spain besides just the two big cities.  I arbitrarily picked Valencia because there was a bus that took me there and it was halfway between Madrid and Barcelona.  The next morning I walked the streets on the way to the bus station and experienced a bit more of the festival.  There were tons of free activities for the kids and stages with dancers as well as pop up markets selling tons of things.  It was a really happy atmosphere and it was awesome to get to experience it.

I eventually made it to the bus station and jumped on my bus to Valencia!