Barcelona Part Two

Barcelona Part Two (Friday)
We started off the day with the free breakfast from the hostel (they make you rent sheets but give you free food…go figure). Naturally, we all padded our bags with a little “extra” food just in case. We had a bike tour planned for that day and knew we would need a little extra energy.
After breakfast, we set out to meet up with our tour. The bike tour was honestly the BEST thing ever. It was such a good was to see the city! We covered so much ground in four hours! It was also nice because we would make stops along the way and the tour guide (who was a looker let me tell you) would give us the history of each spot. We went from old squares to castles and churches and music houses. We stopped in this park and explored by ourselves and then the tour guide took us to see “La Sagrada Familia”. This is the church in Barcelona that was designed by Gaudi but he died before it was finished. They found the blueprints for the church in his sarcophagus (which is actually in the church) and resumed building but they are only funded by private funds so it is taking a while. I have pictures. When you look at them you will see why.
We took a break for lunch on the beach and I literally though that I had died and gone to heaven. Picture this…gorgeous day (around 65-70 degrees in the sun), beautiful sea, warm sand, surfers, cute tour guide….and a baguette, tomatoes, avocado and cheese that I bought from a grocery store for lunch! After lunch we rode around a little but more and one of my friends, who had been having bad luck with her bike all day (she ran into a pole, another biker, and a person walking down the street), suddenly was on the ground again. Luckily, I got to watch the whole thing happen and it was hilarious (she didn’t get hurt don’t worry). There were a couple skateboarders skating on this half-pipe like bench. The last one, who knew he didn’t have enough time to complete his trick, went up the bench and turned around and on his way back, he ran RIGHT INTO MY FRIEND! I watched it happening and was like “oh no, oh no oh….no good”. Like I said, she was ok, just a little flustered and embarrassed that it all happened in front of our cute tour guide.
After the tour we headed back to the hostel and showered and got ready for tapas that night. Our tour guide gave us a few recommendations. He was actually from Texas and had only moved to Barcelona 10 months prior so he knew good places to go that were “American friendly”. We went to a tapas bar he recommended and were greeted in the street by the owner (a super cute little old Spanish man!). Apparently he could tell we were Americans looking for some good food. We brought us in, sat us down and gave us a menu. Actually, it was a couple of menus. They were all the same, except in different languages…can you say….tourism. Anyway, we ordered what we thought sounded like it wouldn’t still be alive when it came to our table and began sipping our sangrias. Our food came to our table quickly. We ordered something that resembled fried calamari, a potato omelet, some chicken things and other stuff that I honestly don’t know what it was. Shortly after we began to dig in, a group of Irish men were seated right next to us. They were from Dublin and were so much fun to talk to. We though that Norman had a bad accent….until we talked to these guys.
One of them owned a bar down the street and invited us there for a Guinness when we found out that none of us had tried one before. We accepted and met them there when we finished our tapas. This bar was pretty much as Irish as a bar can get in Barcelona. The bartender’s name was “Little Leprechaun”. Come on… We hung out there for a little while but we were all exhausted after our long day so we called it a night around 12:30 and walked back to our hostel.
This day was so much fun. Fun fact….I got sunburned on the bike tour! YAY!