Travel Tales #1: Mallorca/Barcelona

Hola amigos! I have returned from my 15-day, 9-city excursion through western Europe and am dying to share with you all. My trip was so massive that I will have to divide my story-telling into a few different parts, so I hope I can get it all in before I leave again for London on Thursday! After that, I think my traveling will be over.

This will be the first two cities: Palma, Mallorca and Barcelona.

PALMA: April 5-7
It was so so good to see my sister and mom. Thanks so much for coming to visit me, and I hope you guys had as much fun as I did. After Friday night and Saturday in Alicante, we left for Palma, the capital of Mallorca, the biggest of Spain's Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean.

Truthfully, Palma itself was a little disappointing. The beach was a 20-minute bus-ride away, but we still managed to find ourselves drinking tall boys and looking out at the Mediterreanean. Also, we discovered God's gift to Spain: 3.50 euro sangria. We enjoyed it immensely...several times.

Palma had the biggest church I had ever seen (until I went to Barcelona and Paris), and Mom actually went in it while Bri and I decided we'd rather find an internet cafe. No regrets. I've seen so many churches in the past few weeks I feel like I never have to go to church again!

The coolest part of Mallorca for me was the day trip by train to Soller, a town in the northern part of the island famous for its oranges apparently. Everything was orange flavored, and we picked up a bottle of their orange liquer before we headed out. The train ticket was steep, by my standards, at least, but I'm glad the girls didn't let me wuss out.

In sum, Mallorca was definitely relaxing, and I really enjoyed spending time with the fam. But Barcelona was so much better...

BARCELONA: April 7-10
Barcelona is my favorite city. It is huge, and there is so much to do, so we opted for a two-day tour bus pass so we could hit everything. Good call, Bri! So that's what we did...saw everything! We ran around the city all day, every day, trying to take in the sites. Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Familia is absolutely stunning. I had learned about it in my Spanish class back home, so I'm glad I got to see it in person. Construction started, what, 100 years ago? No, seriously. They're still working on it, 80 years after Gaudí died, and it's supposed to be finished, well, between 2020 and 2050, depending on the source. My guess would be never.

Paying 9 euro to go inside and basically see a construction site wasn't that great, but I'm glad we went in. The detail is incredible, and you can't see everything from the street. This thing is gigantic, and I think it's supposed to seat 20,000. The pillars are like tree trunks in the rain forest. It really was incredible.

Gaudí basically owns Barcelona; it seemed like every other building was done by him, and there were lines of people out the door at all of them. Weird architecture. Crazy, intricate patterns. Kind of like if Dr. Seuss constructed buildings.

A site on the bus tour was Camp Nou. For all of you non-soccer (football, as I call it now) fans out there, it's the biggest stadium in Europe, second biggest in the world, and home of Barcelona F.C., my favorite team and arguably the best in the world right now. The second night we were there they were playing Bayern Munich in the Champions League, basically the World Cup of club teams in Europe. When we got to the stadium, I decided to just see if there were any tickets available...only singles scattered throughout. Well, I was approached by a scalper who had three tickets and after consulting with the girls, we decided to fork over the ridiculous amount of money (really ridiculous) and just do it. Once-in-a-lifetime, priceless. Just bite the bullet and give the man your money. So I found an ATM, withdrew my maximum amount, then proceeded to hand it directly to the scalper. Gulp. But the tickets were ours after half an hour of debate and conversation about the legitimacy of the tickets, rules for entering the stadium, etc.

That night we returned to the stadium and it was electric. The attendance was announced at 93,000. I saw some of the world's best soccer players right in front of me. Barcelona absolutely destroyed Bayern, 4-0, and all four goals were scored on the goal right in front of us. It was nuts. I'm so glad I got to go; not many people can say they've been to a European football match. I can!

There's more in Barcelona than I have time to explain, but the fruit market was sweet! It was ginormous and filled with fresh fruit, meat, cheese, and more fruit. We gathered up a breakfast there. Saw the Olympic Village from 1992, a statue of Chrstopher Columbus pointing to 'Merica, the Miró museum (which I actually enjoyed for the first 30 minutes!), etc. Ate Thai food and way-too-expensive paella, but it was so worth it. Best I've ever had.

Truly, I just really enjoyed being with my mom and sister and didn't realize how much I missed them until I actually got to see them again. And Bri and I aren't in the same place for more than a few days very often, so I was happy. I think we probably wore Mom out with our bombardment of jokes, but she's used to it. Plus, she always joins in after a few cups of sangria ;) Very sad to see them go, but we all knew it had to end and we had to go our separate ways. Bri back to Chicago, Mom back home...and for myself, on to Paris!